Welcome back to Solo Mom's Talk. Today, we are beginning a new series: Navigating the Emptiness.

For those of us who have spent decades or more mothering solo, this transition hits with a force you never expected. I remember a moment after my children had grown when I was traveling to recalibrate my life. I was at Whole Foods, and as I picked up a juicy organic plum, I felt a literal stabbing in my heart. It was a wave of guilt so intense I had to stop and ask myself why. I realized that after years of pouring everything into my children, I didn’t believe I deserved my own happiness or even a simple piece of fruit.

This "guilt of the organic plum" is a signal that a massive life era is ending. Acknowledging these complex, messy emotions is a strategic necessity for your next chapter. This transition is far more than a "sad phase"; it is a critical psychological recalibration. For twenty years, your identity has been fused with your children’s survival. Now, as the silence of the house grows, you must move from looking outward at their needs to looking inward at your own. This pivot point is the difference between fading into the background and embarking on a powerful, purposeful next phase.

To help you navigate this transition, let’s explore the strategic milestones and takeaways for reclaiming your individual identity.

Key Takeaways & Timestamps

• 02:15 - Give Yourself Permission to Grieve (But Not Too Long): Grief isn't just for the loss of a person; it’s for the loss of a life-era. It is okay to be sad and recognize the reality that you are alone now. However, the strategy here is to grieve with intention. Start by asking yourself exactly which part of solo mothering you are having the most difficulty letting go. Face the end of the era, sit in the quiet for a minute, and then prepare to move forward.
• 05:30 - Shifting from Caregiver to Mentor: Your role as a mother isn’t ending; it is evolving from daily "carer" to lifelong mentor and coach. Embracing this change is the absolute secret to a successful relationship with your adult children. They may not need you to manage their laundry or carpools, but they will seek you out as a sounding board. For a deeper dive into this shift, I encourage you to listen to Episode 36, Season 8: Secrets to Communicating with Your Adult Children.
• 09:00 - The "Who Am I?" Audit: During the throes of single motherhood, we often tell ourselves we don't have the time or resources for our own desires. Now is the time for a deep internal audit. To jumpstart this, I used a practical tool: I bought a Red Notebook. This color was significant to me, and inside, I listed every woman I wanted to stay connected with. This simple act of writing helped me focus on building a community of women worldwide. Reclaiming yourself starts with these small, intentional connections outside of your children.
• 15:45 - Building a Living Legacy: Your independence is a blueprint for the next generation. Consider my mother, who in her 80s prioritized the gym and healthy eating to manage her high blood pressure. Her example stuck with me more than any words could. When I travel now, I’m showing my granddaughters that they don’t have to stay in one place. They can live anywhere and be anyone. Self-care and goal-setting aren't selfish; they widen your children’s perspectives on what is possible for their own lives.

Capturing these realizations in writing is the bridge between a vague feeling and a concrete future.

The Solo Mom’s Self-Discovery Checklist

Journaling is a strategic tool for "writing the vision and making it plain," as we are instructed in Habakkuk 2:2. In this season of life, your "lizard brain" will often attempt to sabotage your progress with whispers of guilt or fear. By documenting your answers to deep questions, you bypass these internal mental blocks. You transition from a reactive state, handling the emergencies of others, to a proactive state where you are the architect of your own happiness.

Self-Discovery Questions:

• [ ] What do I actually enjoy doing for myself when no one is watching?
• [ ] What specific goals or hobbies have I been putting off for the last 20 years?
• [ ] What parts of my personality disappeared while I was raising my children?
• [ ] What have I always wanted to learn, try, or experience (e.g., travel, school, business)?
• [ ] Who am I when I’m not organizing my life around my children's needs?
• [ ] What relationships with other women do I want to nurture now?
• [ ] What is it that I want for myself as an individual woman?

As you begin to fill your own "Red Notebook" with these answers, remember that you don't have to find all the answers at once.

Resource Spotlight & Call to Action

The path forward often feels unclear, which is why seeking external guidance, both spiritual and professional, is a strategic move. For years, you co-parented with God through the struggles of solo motherhood. This new season is an invitation to walk with God in a new way. Relying on faith provides the strength to move forward even when the entire path isn't visible. This continuity of faith ensures that the same spiritual tools that helped you survive will now help you thrive.

• The Book: Courage to Believe: 21-Day Christian Devotional for Single Moms. This devotional helps you connect your messy emotions with the everlasting story of grace. It is available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese.
• Special Offer: Every purchase of Courage to Believe includes a free companion workbook with proof of purchase to help you dig deeper into your recalibration.
• Connect: If you are navigating this transition and need a space to share your thoughts, or if you'd like to request a conversation, use the contact link: https://www.jrosemarie.com/contact

Your role as a mother is permanent, but your life as an individual is being reborn. It’s time to start doing the things you’ve been putting off.

This podcast is not sponsored. However, some links in this post are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using a link, I may earn a small commission with no extra cost to you.

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Hello solo moms. Are you facing an emptiness after mothering solo? It feels different, doesn't it? I've talked about this topic before, but today I want to start a new series, Navigating the Emptiness After Mothering Solo. This is J. Rosemarie. Welcome to Solo Mom's Talks.

Nobody prepares you for what it's like to have the kids gone out of the house when you are a single mom. It's one of those things that hit you with such force that you you it you reel. Even if you were thinking you were ready, thinking you prepared

I remember when I was when my kids were in their mid-twenties and it was time for everybody to go about their business and live their lives. And I took a trip so I could just recalibrate my life after mothering solo for 20 plus years. And I was at Whole Foods and I grabbed a nice juicy organic plum. And I felt a stab in my heart. It was like guilt. And

As I was on my way back to my Airbnb, I kept thinking to myself, why do I feel like that? Why do I feel guilty? I've I've shopped at Whole Food for years and I've always bought organic. So why this new weird feeling? And something came back to me and said, Because you don't think that you deserve happiness. So that's one of those things that happens when you you've spent most of your life, it seems.

caring for your young ones and now they don't need you in the same way. So your energy now needs to be on you on focusing on what it is you need to prepare for for this new season of your life. So I'm gonna run through a few considerations. They're not, you know, they're not hard fast things. It's just things to think about. And number one is it's okay to grieve.

But not for too long, okay? It's okay to think, my gosh, I'm alone now. What am I going to do? Because by getting to that point, you understand what is happening in reality. So grieve. Go ahead and be sad. Be sad for a minute. Whether it's it's crying or whatever that looks like for you. It's okay to grieve. You're facing the end of an era.

And there's nothing wrong with grieving, but there's something I want to ask you while you're grieving is to ask yourself what part of your former life, what part of mothering solo are you having difficulty letting go? I think I know the answer, but you go ahead and answer that question for yourself. Grief. It's one of those emotions that

We tend to relegate to when someone passes. But if we stop to think about it, we grieve when we have a loss, whether it's a loss of a relationship or a loss of life as we know it. There is grief. That's why I talk about it in Courage to Believe, 21 Day Devotional for Single Moms. It's where you can discover how to connect your emotions, even the messy ones.

With the everlasting story of grace available in French, English, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese on Amazon and free with Kindle Unlimited. Click the link below to get yours today. To continue, number two is to recognize what will change and and adjust your life for this new season. So maybe you need to downsize or upsize or

Whatever it is that works for you, maybe you need to change job, change city change, change country. Lots of things can happen in this time. So that's why you think about it. But one thing that will change drastically, and whether you like it or not, it will happen. You are now moving from being their carer to

caring for them to being their mentor and coach if you want to be, because you can be, and the opportunity will come when they will seek you out, to be their sounding board, to be their advisor, to be their mentor. And so that's gonna change. Your relationship with your children will change. Of course you may have special circumstances where your child may continue to need you as their caregiver. But if that's not the case, then

That's what we're talking about here. Having a successful relationship with them will depend on how you embrace that change. In episode 36, season eight, I invite you to check that out. it's called Secrets to Communicating with Your Adult Children. And that's an interesting one that I encourage you to check out. Okay, so the third consideration, the third thing that you that

I will encourage you to realize and recognize is that you're still mom, that doesn't change, only your role change. And it doesn't mean you become irrelevant, it just means that you are going to be a different person. And that's why it is so important taking the time to consider the next few points.

The first one is to look inward. Who are you now? And who do you want to become? What are your goals for your future right now? And what are what do you believe God is leading you into? So as you move from mom and carpool driver and all this other stuff.

And move into who I am as a woman now. Here are a couple of things to ask yourself in this moment, in this season, as you face this new season. What do I actually enjoy? And I would encourage you to journal these or write a note, write them in a notebook, write them down. In Habakkuk, it says, write the vision down and make it plain. Right? So write it down. What do I actually enjoy?

What have I been putting off? Hmm? What parts of myself disappeared while I was raising children? What have I always wanted to learn, try, or experience? Who am I when I'm not organizing my life around my children's needs? What relationships do I want to nurture now and going forward? So those are some things.

you could think about. And I would write those answers that those questions down and write the answers. Think about them. Doesn't have to be all at once. Those these are deep questions that require some thought and some soul searching, if you will. Because some of those things we told ourselves that while we were in the throes of motherhood, we told ourselves we didn't have time. We couldn't do it because

We didn't have the money, we didn't have the resource, we didn't have the time, or we felt guilty because we didn't want to do for ourselves when we should be paying attention to our children. And that I get. So next I want to talk about while you're doing all of that, while you're making your list and checking it twice, see God's direction and purpose for this season.

What does he want you to do right now? Where does he want you to go? How does he want your life to be going forward? Because the next season this new season coming up is gonna determine the rest of your life. But I want to give you a heads up. What I've learned from experience is that when you've made up your mind to depend on God, to have him lead, to have him

Show you the way. You seldom, if ever, get all the answers at once and see your path clear. That's why faith in God is so important. I just wanted to inject that. And I believe that we move forward in strength and power when we rely on God for direction. And

I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to try that. The same way I encourage you to co-parent with God. I'm now encouraging you to walk with Him in this new season. And as you develop your answers to the questions I I asked previously, start working on your goal. What is it you want? Whenever one of my child comes to me and

Is complaining about something, that's just the first thing I ask them. After I listen, I ask, what is it that you want? And that's something to ask yourself: what is it that I want as a single woman? What is it that I want for me? What is it that I want going forward? And I'm going to tell you: none of this is going to be easy. It's gonna sit with you a while and you're gonna think.

You're gonna keep going back and forth because one moment you may be excited to push forward to go ahead and get those goals started. And next moment you'll stop in your track because guilt will come. Your lizard brain will start messing with you. But remember those children are now adults. That's something that's that's the fundamental truth.

That you will need to keep reminding yourself there are no adults. Not that that they won't need you, but they don't need you in the same way. And so it's time for you to build that legacy, that continue to build that legacy as of where mom takes care of herself. I'm going to share a story with you that I've shared before about how this legacy thing works, even when the children are not under your care. My mom, I didn't grow up with my mom.

But I spent some time with her and not a lot of time. I spent maybe two years living with my own mother. But years ago, she gave up work and started taking care of herself. She was overweight, she had high blood pressure, stuff like that. And while I was in another country, but I communicated with her and learned about what she was doing to improve her health, going to the gym.

Even dur even while she was still in in her eighties. And that stuck with me because one of the things we struggle with as a family is high blood pressure. And I'm determined that high blood pressure is not gonna take me down. But I looked to my mom's example of how she takes care of herself and how she harnessed what she could doctors and and medicine and exercise and eating right and

Even though I was doing all those things, I looked at it in a different way. What you do, your children are watching, whether you were doing it for them or not. And that's a reminder to start taking care of yourself. You didn't have the time before, now you do. Take care of yourself. Go back to school if that's what you want to do the training, do the thing, make the content, whatever it is you were planning on doing. Because now

Again, you're not just doing it for yourself. You're doing it for them. When I travel, I tell myself that I want my grandchildren, I want my granddaughters especially to understand that you don't have to stay anywhere you don't want to. And you don't have to live in any one country or any one state or any one city. You can live wherever you want to live. And that's the legacy. That's one of the legacies I want to leave.

It's okay to get on a plane and go somewhere else.

So when you're doing your planning, when you're when you're talking about your goals, when you're sorting through what you want to do going forward, your career, your your social life, your volunteer work, your building or rebuilding a business, your your artwork and your hobbies, your reading and your writing, whatever it is that you

are planning on doing or what's going on in your mind. When you're making that list, remember that they're watching, they know, and they understand, and you help to widen their perspective. So go ahead and make set those goals. Make a list of the countries you want to travel to if that's your part of your goal. Do a vision board if you're planning on buying a house if you don't have one.

Or you want live somewhere else, make a vision board. Write those visions down. Whatever, even if it looks impossible, do it, mama. One another thing I did when I was leaving home was bought a and this is significant to me. I bought a book, a notebook. It was red. And the the color was significant to me. And I made a list of all the women I've known all my life.

I made a list and I decided that I was going to keep in touch with all those women in that book. I also put them on my prayer list. And that connection was for me. Nobody knew about this, but it helped me to focus, to connect, to build this purpose that and you know, one of the things that happened to me is

Whenever I travel, I always meet always meet a new woman, a new female who we connect and so we could do k things together, go for coffee, go for a walk. And that always happened to me because it it was one of my goals is to connect with women worldwide. And I've done that through this podcast, but I've also done it in person. And this is just an idea.

Of what you could do. So I encourage you to write stuff down. Get yourself a notebook, several notebooks, and just start writing down what you want. To wrap this up, your kids are now grown up. Are they growing up? What do you want to do with your life? Not what the kids want you to do, not what your friends want you to do. What you want to do. What does God want you to do?

As he invites you into this new season, ask him what he wants you to do. Being a mother isn't changing. You'll always be a mother. What's changing is who you are as a person, as an individual. Thank you for listening. Part of today's episode resonates with you. Use the link to my contact and let me know what you think. Also, if you need to talk, you can use that same form.

Link below to contact me. And don't forget, if you need to go deep with spiritual biblical encouragement for your life, courage to believe 21-day Christian devotional may just be the source you need. You can find it on Amazon. It's free on kit with your Kindle Unlimited and available in Spanish, French, English, Italian, German, and Portuguese. Grab your copy today and get a free companion workbook with proof of purchase. Thank you.