On My Daughter Leaving Home: A Mindful Parenting Reflection

0:00You're listening to a special Mindful Mama bonus episode, which is about my daughter leaving home. And it's just gonna be me talking to you. So.

0:27hey welcome back to the mindful mama podcast i'm so glad you're here i am recording this just a few days before i take my daughter to college and this is episode is going to be about my daughter leaving home and it feels like a big bookmark to me because you know all the work that I did in the mindful parenting course raising good humans started with all the challenges I had with Maggie when she was little and now she's going to college and it's crazy she's leaving home so you're also going to hear about some challenges you know about this time of life and everything that's happening and I'll update you.

1:14I wrote something about this a few days, like a few weeks ago. I'm going to share that with you and then I'm going to update you on what's happening now. So I know that right now you may be in the thick of the parenting stress,

1:31Hunter Clarke-Fields:right? You may have toddlers or preschoolers. You may have elementary school age kids, teens that are taking up all your energy and driving you a little crazy on a daily basis, especially if you have those little kids. You may be striving to be grounded enough to meet the challenges of these intense times with some steadiness and with equanimity, right? You want to model healthy emotional regulation. and if you're not that rare unicorn of a naturally peaceful chilled person it takes for most of us it takes enormous amounts of dedication and focus to create these the habits of calm and steadiness and of course we don't always get it right so I just want to acknowledge that right now you might be in this place where your kids are little and the idea of your kids leaving home sounds like it's going to be decades away.

2:34Hunter Clarke-Fields:It sounds like it's never going to happen. It feels like you're in, you are now, maybe it's taken a few years for your matricence or patricence maybe to kind of like really get into that role of parent. But now it is, it takes up most of your life, right? It's huge. It is a huge, huge part of your life. and it's kind of impossible to imagine that it's gonna change right and so you might be in the thick of it you're working you know you listen to this podcast because you want to uh to to yell less to use those mindfulness tools to hear about other communication other things that are happening to help you be a better parent you're using this great research of your time to be that present parent right to model steadiness and to model calm and and you're really maybe trying to do that and when what happens when you do it if you can do it maybe you get to do it more of the time through using the tools from the podcast, right?

3:57Hunter Clarke-Fields:Maybe you would sometimes are achieving the goal of more groundedness, right? So what happens when that happens? And for me, it was the thing I have been most grateful for in my life. Most grateful for. I didn't mess up my kids. I do have a good relationship with both of them. I'm so proud of my own changes and how it affected my family for good. I mean, that's like the biggest thing in my life. It mattered so much that I wrote a course and a book about it. And it, it's like, you know, my heart kind of aches, like thinking about it. Like it's, it's the thing I'm most proud of. Like we have great relationships.

4:52And now, now my oldest daughter, Maggie is 18 and going to college. My youngest daughter is 15. She had her first day of school today. She's off at high school.

5:06Hunter Clarke-Fields:And this phase of my life, right, which was the phase of my life of motherhood, which is never going to end. Of course, I'll always be a mother but this intensive time of like rearing children which was all-encompassing and required such massive change for me this person who you know had a temper and is not that organized and things like that so now this massive phase of my life is shifting into something else. And it may be the biggest change I've experienced yet. And it's really hard to describe this. Because it does feel like a change, just like moving into parenthood or moving into motherhood was like a big change, such a big change, right?

6:04Hunter Clarke-Fields:That, you know, we had the episode of Jesse Harold, where we talked about using the name matrescence to describe the sort of years long change process. And it feels like that now on the other side. And you know, some days, there are some days, I'm thrilled that she's going to college. I'm so happy. I'm honestly so happy for her to start this new exciting phase of her life. And at the same time, I know I'll miss her so much and it's going to be really hard. And yeah, it's really an interesting time because while everyone is focused on her change, which is as it should be, right? This is, it's a huge change in her life, huge.

6:49Hunter Clarke-Fields:It's the beginning of so much. It's exciting. She's leaving home. It's such a huge, huge change. And it's also a big change in my life. You know, becoming a mother was so all-consuming. It was so transformative. And, and we've talked about that here, right? We've talked about that matrescence. Wise people want to acknowledge how transformative it is to become a mother. But this new change, I mean, for me, I guess, especially because I have Sora, who's 15, it feels like a years long process to, you know, Sora has my youngest daughter has three years left of high school. And this is how I felt when I wrote this out the other last week, that I felt like a bit like I'm molting, right?

7:49Hunter Clarke-Fields:Like I'm starting to shed layers of myself to make space for something new. That, you know, I was really thinking about the enduring truth of impermanence, meaning that nothing lasts and everything changes. Like that's the only truth we have is that nothing lasts and everything changes and how it's really, really on display, right? Like we worked so hard at rising to the demanding roles of parenthood and I'm not the same as I was before having kids. I'm not the same person. My husband isn't the same. Our thoughts and feelings are not the same. Our bodies are not the same. Our minds are not the same.

8:36Hunter Clarke-Fields:The world around us is so different, right? The world around us is definitely not the same. And I imagine it might be hard to imagine this if you have a toddler or elementary age kid, and all you want is some breathing space. But then that breathing space comes. And here you are, you're still alive, hopefully still vibrant, still with so much life to live. So what now? What will come of this time? and as of a week ago I was feeling really different I felt I wrote that I feel ready for something new and different and it's unsettling this unknown feeling leads my mind to keep trying to project into the future I'm trying while I'm trying and practicing to stay present, right?

9:36Hunter Clarke-Fields:My head is playing imaginary videos of what the future will be like again and again, all fictional thoughts of a brain that evolved to keep me safe. And sometimes I succumb to the insistent projection and I get lost in anxiety. Better times have me interrupting the future pacing and coming back to here and now. And I wrote mindfulness meditation as always anchors me through this time and that's absolutely true and that's how I was feeling last week and last week I wrote sometimes I go for a walk in the woods with the dog and I sit on a rock by the stream and I have a good cry and it's a pressure relief and sometimes when I'm walking and my mind is trying to figure out the future I interrupt it with a man with a mantra of loving kindness may this is what I say to myself I say may I be safe may I be peaceful may I be safe may I be peaceful and that can help.

10:35So it's been a really unsettled time. It's been a lot of uncertainty. It felt feels really different. It felt really different last week, particularly.

10:44Hunter Clarke-Fields:And I'm partway reassured and partway annoyed that this is kind of predictable. Emptiness, perimenopause, midlife changes are well documented, right? For so, so many others. Still, I'm living in a place of uncertainty and it doesn't even feel clear why, right? Is my daughter, is it my daughter going to school? Do I just want change, freedom, adventure, right? I used to make paintings about the wild animal inside of us you can see some of them at my website at mindfulmommamentor.com the paintings are about how this wild animal is inside of us she's there this predator actually that's unapologetic about her natural animal nature and all the work I've done in some ways is about and raising good humans in some ways is so about is that I worked so hard to tame some of my wildness and be the kind of mother that my children needed steady responsive and calm I worked really really hard to domesticate myself and now sometimes especially last week maybe another part of me sees its chance to come forth and live as fully as possible.

12:15Maybe that's happening. Maybe it was all hormonal because then it all changed and I felt so at home and just comfortable and not unsettled at all, completely just in the flow of my life again. So I don't know. There's a lot happening. And then Maggie's going away.

12:37Hunter Clarke-Fields:I mean, I wish I were giving you some reassuring listicle, with three easy steps for easing this transition. But I guess I'm telling you that, you know, the kind of hard that you might be experiencing right now when your kids are so intense and all you want is a break, it might give way to a different kind of hard. It's really not easy to be a human being on this earth, because the only thing we can be sure of is change in impermanence and that can be kind of scary. I know that's, that's a lot. I mean, I wrote this last week and I was feeling so unsettled and then it changed. Like I said, it then it changed and I felt very settled and comfortable again.

13:26And I've been practicing my mindfulness meditation through this and practicing to interrupt the, when my thoughts racing. And I also called and, you know asked about you know my my hormone levels all that stuff right like I'm doing what I can to do the only thing I can with this which is be present moment to moment day to day that there's not much else to do I guess you know when I release this special episode I will will be driving Maggie to college and and she'll be going to college and leaving the house and I'm doing the things I can I'm I even though it's summer I don't usually make like cookies in the summer because it feels like a more of a cozy fall and winter thing and but I was like oh my gosh, I'm gonna make you cookies because you need to have homemade cookies before you go.

14:40Hunter Clarke-Fields:And I made her popcorn because I'm like obsessed with popcorn and I love making homemade popcorn in the pot. So I made her popcorn before she went. And I'm excited, so excited for her. This is such a huge time of life. I feel like the school she's going to is so perfect for her. I think it'll be a really supportive place for her. And yeah, but then it'll be a big change for the rest of us. And I guess I'll weather it how I weather it. And yet, even in the midst of all this uncertainty, there's a kind of beauty. And when I'm present, I'm seeing it, right? I'm seeing it, looking at her beautiful face and knowing I don't have a lot of time to see it.

15:31Hunter Clarke-Fields:And I look back and I see that every phase has asked something new of me and every phase has given me something unexpected in return. And this season is no different. My daughter is stepping into her own independence and I'm kind of inching into mine again. I mean, and maybe this is the invitation, right? To trust that I can continue to grow and evolve and to trust that impermanence and to trust that change, just as she's gonna be growing and evolving. so if you're in the weeds of parenting right now or if you're looking at the horizon maybe you're like me you're looking at your own big transition i just want you to know that you're not alone it's not easy to be a human being on this earth and we're all navigating these shifts you know one moment at a time, sometimes skillfully, sometimes not.

16:40And, you know, all the, you know, if you're feeling unsettled, if you're,

16:46Hunter Clarke-Fields:you're having, you're going in the woods and having a cry, if you're having moments of doubt, they don't mean that you're feeling, I don't believe they mean that I'm feeling, it just means I'm human, right? And, and if you're having those two, they mean that you're, alive too. You're responding to that truth of impermanence that touches us all. And in the end, maybe that's it. That's the only thing we can do, right? That's the real practice is to stay present as best we can for it to not rush ahead, to not cling too tightly, but to step into the next hour of your life the next 10 minutes of your life whatever comes next and that's what I'm going to be practicing right now and maybe you can too so let's take a breath I put my hand to my heart and maybe we can find some steadiness find some compassion for ourselves and maybe even some joy in the midst of all this change well thank you for being with me here today it's meaningful for me to share this with you and I'll be back with some occasional solo episodes on Thursday so stay tuned for those and until then take care of yourself keep practicing to give yourself grace because it's not easy being a human here on earth and I will be here for you as always with all these podcast episodes to connect and to offer you things to help you on your journey.

18:47So thank you so much for listening.