Create Your Best Empty Nest

It's Christmas morning. Recipe books I'd spent months putting together are open on everyone's lap. Matching pajamas everywhere. Presents scattered across the floor. Everyone's talking over each other, laughing, and it's exactly the morning I'd hoped for. I'm also completely exhausted, the kind of tired that comes from carrying every detail of a holiday for weeks without...

Wide awake at 2am asking "now what?" You're not alone, and you're not broken. If empty nest syndrome has you feeling stuck, lost, or like you don't recognize your own life anymore, this episode is for you. Everyone told you the empty nest would mean freedom. Free mornings, free time, finally free to do whatever you want. So why does it feel like the opposite? In this episode, certified life coach...

You've googled "is empty nest syndrome real" at 11pm, sitting outside her closed bedroom door, half hoping the answer was yes. Because if it's a diagnosis, at least there's a reason you feel this out of it. Here's the truth: empty nest syndrome isn't in any medical manual. It's not a malfunction, it's a normal, well-documented reaction to a massive life change...

You dropped your kids off, drove home, and sat in a driveway that suddenly felt too quiet. Nobody warned you it would feel this lonely. If you're in the empty nest season (sometimes called empty nest syndrome, though it's really just plain old grief nobody named for you), you've probably felt it: the quiet car, the empty calendar, the "who do I even call right now?" This epis...

You just said no to something and then spent the next four sentences apologizing for it. If that sounds familiar, you're not alone, and it's not a personality flaw. It's people pleasing, and it's one of the sneakiest habits keeping women in the empty nest and midlife stuck in a version of themselves they're ready to outgrow. In this episode of Create Your Best Empty Nest, Maria...

Your kid used to need you for everything. Now they need you for almost nothing, on their schedule, in ways you don't control. If that whiplash has you lying awake wondering how to stay close to your adult children without hovering, this episode is for you. Marianne Iverson, certified life coach and host of Create Your Best Empty Nest, breaks down four simple, doable strategies for building rea...

The car pulls out of the driveway and the silence hits different this time. If you're staring down the season where your kids leave for college, or you're already living in it, this episode is the real talk you actually need. Not the Pinterest list. Not "go find yourself." Just what to do with the grief, the guilt, the pride, and the quiet calendar that comes with empty nest synd...

Every time Hilary Weeks sat down to write music, the same thought showed up. "You're not good enough. Nobody wants to hear this." It happened so often she almost stopped noticing it. Then her husband said one sentence that changed how she heard that voice for good. This is part two of my conversation with singer-songwriter Hilary Weeks, and it might be the most important thing she sa...

You Don't Have to Disappear to Be a Good Mom: The 30 Minute Secret with Hilary Weeks She released fourteen albums. Raised four daughters. And never had to choose between the two. If you're in the empty nest season asking yourself "who am I now," or you're standing at the edge of it wondering how you're supposed to want anything for yourself again, this conversation is for...

There's a version of you standing at the edge of something right now - still deciding whether to jump. If you've been telling yourself you'll start that thing "when the kids are settled," "when life calms down," or "when you finally feel ready" - this episode is the honest conversation you need. Because here's the truth about the empty nest transition that no one says out loud: waiting doesn't fee...

My shoulders were up around my ears for I don't even know how long before I noticed. My neck was so stiff I could barely move. I'd been stuffing down my feelings about a challenging family issue and telling myself it was fine. And then it wasn't fine. It was an explosion. If you've ever gone numb without knowing why, snapped over something small, or wondered why you're so emoti...

You're not sad exactly. You're just on edge. Irritated at people who didn't do anything wrong. Worried about things that honestly aren't yours to worry about. If you've been wondering why you feel so anxious now that your kids are gone, or why your empty nest has you snapping at your husband over shoes on the floor, this episode is going to make so much sense of it. Your brain...

At 4:00 in the morning, she grabbed her bear spray, barricaded her bedroom door, and sat alone in the dark for two hours, convinced someone had broken into her house. It turned out to be a can of Pillsbury bread dough that had gotten warm and exploded off her counter. And that is the moment Holly Worthington knew something had to change. This is part two of my conversation with Holly, and we get i...

She used to sit in the bathtub every night listening to true crime, just to fill the silence in a house that had gone quiet way too fast. She'd moved to a brand new state while her daughter was still in high school, and about a year and a half later, that daughter graduated and left for good. Six months into feeling completely lost, something cracked open that she never saw coming. If you'...

Everyone says the empty nest is "your time." But when someone actually asks you what you want -- you go blank. Or something comes out that sounds right but feels hollow. Like you're reading off a list that belongs to someone else. That's not a you problem. That's a question problem. Because most of us have spent 20 years getting really good at answering "what do the kids...

Have you been walking around with an invisible weight on your shoulders... and you don't even know it has a name? It sounds like responsibility. It feels like self-improvement. But "should" might be the exact thing making your days feel heavy, your purpose feel out of reach, and your life feel like a to-do list you never actually agreed to. If you're in the empty nest season, the last few years be...

You've been taking care of everyone else for so long that somewhere along the way you forgot to take care of you. Today Joy Crawford is back to remind you that only YOU can make you smile - and that taking care of yourself is not selfish. It's the most important thing you can do for everyone you love. This is Part 2 of a two part conversation with Joy Crawford --76 years old, retired kinde...

You know that quiet voice that keeps asking "is this really all there is?" This episode is for her. If you're in the empty nest season and you've been feeling lost, stuck, or like you've somehow disappeared into everyone else's life - you are not alone. And today's guest is living proof that the best chapter of your life can start at any age. Joy Crawford is 76 years...

You've spent decades making sure everyone else had what they needed. And somewhere along the way, you stopped asking yourself what YOU wanted. Not because you forgot. Because you stopped giving yourself permission. If you're in the empty nest season, or getting close to it, and someone asks "so what do YOU want now?" and you go completely blank, this episode is for you. That blan...

You've been trying to fix the wrong thing. If you're in the empty nest season and you feel stuck, lost, disconnected from your adult kids, or like you don't even know who you are anymore, you've probably been looking for the answer out there somewhere. A new routine. A new circumstance. Waiting for something to change. But what if every single problem you have, every relationship s...

What if the thing standing between you and your next chapter isn't laziness or fear or even not knowing what you want? What if it's just that nobody ever gave you permission to want it? In Part 2 of this conversation with Maureen Mehr, we go deeper. Maureen is the president of the nonprofit Who I Really Am, a singer-songwriter, a grandmother of five, and a woman who spent years learning wh...

What happens when the kids leave and you realize you've been living everyone else's life but your own? If you're in the empty nest season and you've been sitting with that quiet, uncomfortable question of "who am I now?" -- you are not alone. And you are not too late. In this episode, I sit down with my neighbor and friend Maureen Mehr, president of the nonprofit Who I Re...

The last school lunch you packed. The last time you're the first number they call. The last time someone's practice schedule tells you what the week looks like. Those lasts are yours too, and they deserve to be felt. But here's what nobody talks about: after all that busy evaporates and the house goes quiet, a lot of women stand in the middle of it and think something is wrong with the...

The house is quiet… but no one talks about what happens inside of you. You thought you’d feel relief when the kids moved out. More time. More freedom. Maybe even a little excitement. Instead… you feel lost. Like something important disappeared...and you can’t quite name it. In this episode, we’re talking about the part of the empty nest that catches so many women off guard: the loss of purpose aft...

You spent years being everything for everyone. The one who remembered, planned, fixed, showed up, and held it all together. And now… the house is quieter. The calendar isn’t packed the same way. And when someone asks, “What do you want?” your mind goes blank. Not a pause. A blank. If you’re an empty nest mom wondering who you are now… this episode is for you. In today’s conversation, we’re talking...