Please welcome my guest, Gravity Imprint author Lisa Douthit, who wrote Amazon’s #1 bestselling book, Wellness Warrior – Fighting for Life in Fabulous Shoes, is a cancer survivor and Integrative Health Consultant who is passionate about healing from all perspectives. She recently guess posted over on my business blog at BadRedhead Media — be sure to read that as well!
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what life will be like as an empty nester (probably because it is right around the corner). The last 20 years or so have been devoted to raising my family, with a side of working as an Integrative Health Coach. Not that my practice is small, it just wasn’t my highest priority. My main focus had always been raising my three children and keeping my husband sane in the process.
But now that I’ve giving the best years of my life to my kids, the little shits have decided that it’s better for them to grow up and go off to college. I only have one more year until my little one is gone too.
So here’s my question: Now what??
Are You Brave Enough To Move On?
How does one reinvent their life once all the juice is sucked out of them? Where do we turn to re-educate ourselves on what’s relevant these days? How do we tap into that internal, spiritual voice of knowledge to steer us towards our future self? Am I overthinking again? I’m really good at overthinking.
One of the best parts of being a little older is that you start to lose the care. By that I mean what others think of us isn’t as important as it was back in the day. This gives us a little more freedom to explore one of my favorite questions:
What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?
Would you go big and follow your dream, or would you make small changes in your life? Would you change the trajectory of your life or stay on course, making it a bigger version of what you already have? Would you still be afraid to make a move?
Some say that we are not afraid to fail. Instead, we are afraid of what would happen if we were to succeed. The bottom line here is that the main emotion that could be holding us back from our next chapter is fear.
Now, I’m not here to say you need to be fearless, frankly, I’m afraid all the time of some of the things I’ve been doing lately, but that never stops me from doing them anyway. Fear isn’t a bad thing, it is an ancient and powerful emotion that has allowed the human race to survive.
While we’ve evolved, this raw protective instinct of fight or flight did not. Like when we know we need to face your silent house and grieve the loss of life as we knew it so we could move on, but we instead bury ourselves in any other distracting activity to avoid the sadness. Unfortunately, this also blocks us from the ability to take our next steps.
Instead of fearing those feelings of being devastatingly sad that they are gone and running from those emotions, wouldn’t it be better to take a moment to embrace and release those feelings so we can begin creating the next phase of our life?
My guess (and hope) is that if we were to grieve, and get all those emotions out, we would be clearer in our focus as to what Part Two of our life will look like. It also would bring closure to an era that no longer exists, and make us available to embrace the future because we have let go of the past.
Moving on can suck. It can also be amazing. The important thing is to get out of our own way and be brave enough to process our situation and what we want to do with the rest of our life.
So I’ll ask again. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Because at this point in our lives, we’ve already succeeded in the most important part, and the rest is just icing on the cake.
Be bold and brave. You have already done an amazing job in life. You have the talent and desire, now all that is left is to pick your path and follow it with the same passion in which you raised your family.
The only way you can fail is if you never try.
About the Author
Lisa Douthit is the author of Amazon’s #1 bestselling book, Wellness Warrior – Fighting for Life in Fabulous Shoes and an Integrative Health Consultant who is passionate about healing from all perspectives.
After struggling with multiple bouts of cancer and autoimmune disease, no one understands the physical, spiritual, and emotional rollercoaster better than she does. As one of the 40 million American women currently suffering with an autoimmune disease, she made it her mission to have a voice for all those with an invisible illness, and prove you can be well without perfect health.
She has a private Facebook Group called Wellness Warrior Tribe for all those with chronic illness looking for support and encouragement. For more out of the box thinking that is guaranteed to bring you joy, Like her FaceBook Page Here or join the tribe Here.
Come hang out with me:
Website http://lisadouthit.com
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/wellnesswarrioronline/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisadouthitww/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lisadouthitww/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/lisadouthitww/
Book info: http://lisadouthit.com/warriorbook/
Pay it Forward info: http://lisadouthit.com/warriorbook/pay-it-forward/
Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14256495.Lisa_Douthit
Group Wellness Warrior tribe: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WWarriortribe/
Carol Hedges says
April 11, 2016 at 3:20 amGreat post! As someone well on the other side of the ’empty nest’ I say, you can and will move on. Though the first 6 months are like a death, and you have to go through a grieving process to get there. My BEST stuff has all happened since I turned 60..and that includes a new granddaughter!
One should never think: this is it…until it is! Life has so many unexpected corners to go round. Like you, I am a cancer survivor, and also a survivor of an emotionally abusive childhood. We keep her chins up and our eyes on the far horizon. And we walk FORWARD!