Her Next Chapters

58. Revisiting Gratitude

• Christina Kohl

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Rediscover your career confidence and transform your perspective with our latest episode, where personal growth meets professional development. We'll equip you with essential strategies to tackle career gaps, unlock the mysteries of the Applicant Tracking System, and craft a resume that leaves a lasting impression. Join us as we prepare for the Comeback Resume Masterclass, a pivotal resource for anyone re-entering the workforce after taking a break. Alongside these career-boosting insights, we explore the emotional journey of watching our children grow up and leave for college, capturing the bittersweet mix of pride and nostalgia that comes with their newfound independence.

As Thanksgiving nears, we delve into the transformative power of gratitude and its potential to enrich our daily lives. Experience how a simple act of thanksgiving can redefine your relationships and open doors to new adventures, like spontaneous trips and cherished moments with loved ones. Through personal stories from a serendipitous car service to a memorable evening at the theater, we highlight the significance of appreciating everyday blessings. Let this episode inspire you to adopt a mindset of gratitude, embracing both the present joys and future possibilities with open arms.

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Send me an email ---> christina@hernextchapters.com
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Speaker 1:

Hi, friends, and welcome to this week's episode of our next chapters. So this week I am really excited because I'm hosting my Comeback Resume Masterclass. I know I've been talking about it on the podcast the last couple of weeks, but it is going to be on Thursday. So this episode goes live on Wednesday, november 20th and on Thursday I'll be hosting that masterclass. So if you are ready to return to work and the first thing we think about is updating our resume and what do we do about our career break, how do we even talk about it? So those are all the things I'm going to be talking about the ATS, the career break, the highlighting your great experience and accomplishments with a resume format. So if that's something that is on your agenda, one of your goals maybe for 2025, to be going back to work after a career break then you want to join this masterclass because there's going to be so many tips and great nuggets dropped during the class. You can sign up in the show notes. There's a link to the registration and it is on Thursday, november 21st. So if you're listening in real time, you'll be able to catch it live. If you're listening afterwards, there'll be a replay up. Still, go ahead and sign up for the registration and that way you can get the replay. And with that, because I'm so busy perfecting the presentation, getting everything ready, I am going to dig into the archives this week and replay for you. It's episode four, actually, and it's about gratitude, obviously, because it's from Thanksgiving a year ago until all the way back to episode four, because I know not everyone who's listening today was listening back then. So it's an interesting take on gratitude and I hope that you enjoy it and I will be back with you next time. And before we listen in to episode four, I just want to thank you today and I'm just really thankful for you. Thanks for taking time out of your day and letting me join you on whatever it is you're doing, if you're driving or taking the dog for a walk or cooking, or whatever you're doing. I just really appreciate you being a part of the community, so I am thankful for you. All right, well, let's listen to the show. Hi and welcome to Her Next Chapter's podcast. I'm your host, christina Cole. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place. Friend, let's get started. Hi, friends, and welcome to this week's episode of Her Next Chapter's podcast. So glad to have you joining, as always.

Speaker 1:

Well, if you're listening to this in real time, today is the day before Thanksgiving and I just wanted to take some time to talk about gratitude. I know gratitude is kind of feels like a lofty goal or ambition, but really there's so much to it and so many studies show how having mindset around gratitude can really positively impact our lives. And I want to acknowledge, first of all, I am just talking from the heart here. I have no script, no notes, just purely talking from the heart. So, with Thanksgiving upon us, it's really a good opportunity to be reflecting on gratitude as we gather with our families. And if you're in a season, like I am, where my kids are older and by older I mean 23, 21, and 18,.

Speaker 1:

The two older ones do live at home while they are going to college nearby, and my youngest is a high school senior and I just am really thankful for them and where we are in our lives and even as the kids grow up and out, I know I'm going to miss them terribly up and out. I know I'm going to miss them terribly and I do miss them. And my older two did go to college away to college but it was during COVID and just wasn't a really good environment, so that's why they wound up coming home. So I've been in that situation. Maybe you're in that situation now where your kids are away at school and you're so excited for them to come home and maybe they're home right now and you just can't help but hug them all the time and and you know, you catch yourself staring at them and seeing them when they were little in your mind's eye. Um, I know when they go away and again, two of mine did, did go off to school it's hard because you miss them and at the same time I hope for me.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I was very grateful that they were pursuing their own dreams and while I was left at home and seeing the empty chair, the empty bedroom missing, seeing them and even their dirty laundry on the floor and their shoes in a pile, I just really miss them. But I'm also, at the same time, have gratitude that they are living their lives and doing what they're supposed to do. If we raise them well, they do leave us and hopefully they come back not forever, right, but come back to visit and that they want to come and be with us and spend time with us. And it's just kind of a dual edge, right, we send them off into the world and we want them to do that and we miss them at the same time. But to recognize that it is missing them, not really grieving them. When our kids do leave us, they're not dead, right, they're moving on to what we hope and dream for them, onto their own lives, and we miss them and that's very natural. So I know this.

Speaker 1:

I started out about gratitude and now I'm talking about missing. But just really having that mindset of being grateful for all the new things that are coming their way as they, our kids way as they grow up and enter into their own lives and more separate from us, and also recognizing that's an opportunity for us to grow and develop in our own lives. I know for me and maybe you can relate as a mom I poured myself into that identity and, with three kids, they each had their own unique needs and personalities and interests and I loved that role of you know, cheering my youngest on at baseball and leading my oldest destination imagination team and watching my daughter do amazing things in gymnastics. You know, things that I can only imagine to do, like when I'm dreaming, like literally sleeping that things that she could do in real life. I just loved all of that and the community around it of all the parents that you get to meet, and it just kind of very quickly absorbs all of your free time, all of my free time. But it was so enjoyable to to be able to do all of that. So, just having that sense of gratitude that I had that time with my kids and that now it's time to explore things for myself in this season of change. And, like I said, my kids are all at home, so I do have a full nest, even though they're young adults. It is a different type of home environment than it used to be when they were little, because we treat them as adults for the most part, still have the little prodding every now and then. If I go clean your room and make sure you empty the dishes, like you said you would Things like that of course come up. But it is different having them in the house as young adults doing college on their own and working on their own, and I'm glad that we can give them a home base while they're doing those things. And of course, it saves a lot of money having to pay for the dorm and the food having them do college locally. But just really having that sense of gratitude that when we do the five of us sit around the table together. It only happens once a week or so, but it just fills my heart with joy.

Speaker 1:

One thing on a side note that I want to mention about gratitude if you happen to have a gratitude practice, maybe this is something to consider or you're already doing it, but I had heard I don't know, it was a few years ago and it was from Rachel Hollis. I don't know if it was a podcast or her book or what, but it really stuck with me because so many times, like, I would tell my kids, like you know, be grateful and write down like three things every day and the things that and I would do this too it would be like, well, I'm grateful for my house, I'm grateful for my family, my dog, because he, you know, he's really cool but when we think of big generalities like that and of course we're grateful for all those things, you know, for our spouse, for our parents, but it's so general that it doesn't really move the needle in our lives very much to be thinking of gratitude in those big terms. And what Rachel Hollis had said that really stuck with me was to be very, very specific in your gratitude practice. And at the end of the day or in the morning, whenever you choose to do it, I'm a night owl. So for me, if you can relate, that's when I do this. But I think of things that have happened in the last 24 hours, not the big, you know, sleeping things of like. Oh, I'm grateful for my house. Well, yeah, I've been in my house for the last 24 hours.

Speaker 1:

But something more specific, like for me, if I think of it, in the last 24 hours I was able to take my son's car to our local mechanic, which, okay, am I grateful for that? Well, yes, I am, because normally our mechanic takes two months to get in and he had an opening where he could get the car in sooner. So I'm grateful for that, and I was also grateful that my son and I were able to. Then, once we dropped his car off, we drove home together and we had a great conversation, and a lot of times we're kind of traveling in our own space, even though we live in the same house, but it was just really nice to have that one-on-one time with him and have a good conversation. So I'm grateful for that. So those are just some specific examples and you know, the night before I'll come up with a third thing, because that's my habit is to do three. We had gone out with good friends of ours to a play and dinner and just really enjoyed the company and the play was absolutely amazing. Totally encourage that for those at the local theater versus the big downtown and it was an absolutely amazing performance.

Speaker 1:

So in looking for things that are specific in the last 24 hours, it's going to open up your mind. Your brain is going to be seeking those things throughout the next day, knowing that at the end of the day you're going to be looking for, okay, what three things? Or maybe five things, however long you want your list to be. You're going to be looking for those things throughout the day because you're programming your mind to look for those, just like if you're having kind of a blah kind of day or season of life where just oh, everything's getting me down, your brain is going to be looking for things to reinforce that, the negative things. Oh, that guy just cut me off. Or, oh, this line is so long here at the post office. What's so frustrating versus having a mindset of looking for things that you're grateful for? Maybe, instead of that guy almost cut me off, it's like phew, so glad that I saw that and braked in time and that I didn't just have a big accident. That was kind of close. Good thing I'm still driving on the road and I'm safe and everyone's safe. We're good. So it's totally how you look at it, and it's nice to be able to have those moments throughout the day when you're reflecting in the moment, because you know, at the end of the day you're gonna be asking yourself that question what are three things that happened in the last 24 hours that are specific, that I can be grateful for? And again. It just changes your outlook throughout the day as you're looking for those positive interactions and, of course, you can still have your house and your husband and your wonderful kids and your dog on your gratitude list, but be looking for those very specific, minor things that happen on a regular basis and that will really help your mindset. So that's my advice. Again, I've stole that from Rachel Hollis. So thank you, rachel Hollis, if you happen to be listening, that would be amazing, but just wanted to share that insight and how it's been really helpful for me and, of course, with the kids.

Speaker 1:

The whole theme of this podcast is her next chapters, meaning that our kids are growing up and what's next for us as moms, as women, and really looking for and this is more future, thinking of gratitude. First of all, being grateful that our kids are becoming independent and don't need us as much, because really that's our goal as parents. Right, we want them to fly, we want them to have their own lives and not need us all the time, even if it means leaving us and maybe leaving a little hole in our heart because we miss them but also be looking at the new opportunities for ourselves. An example I have of that is, my husband and I went on an anniversary trip a couple of weeks ago. We just celebrated 26 years of marriage Love you, john and we went away to Sonoma County, california, which is a little bit north of San Francisco and it's wine country, and it had been 20 years since we had taken a trip like that, because it's not really something that you would take your kids to. So we planned a last minute trip and that's not something that we could do if we had young kids at home who are not able to drive and feed themselves and look after themselves.

Speaker 1:

So it's a different mindset of like oh, what's next for us? What's next for me as a person? Since my mom, duties have shifted right, shifted from day to day taking care of making sure they stay alive to making sure they're happy and fed and warm and clothed, to now being more of a guide and consultant. So there's really a lot of opportunity for us in this new season of our lives, whether it's, you know, volunteering and exploring new interest, going to meetup groups, meeting new friends exploring new interests. Going to meetup groups, meeting new friends, going on a trip with our partner on a romantic getaway that trip I just described for us at Sonoma that was planned a whole one week in advance. That's something that I'm looking forward to doing more of and I'm and looking forward to my kids, when they do leave and set up their own houses, coming back and visiting and doing things together in a different relationship, right, rather than the parent-child relationship. It kind of evolves and I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 1:

I kind of rambled a little bit. Like I said, I'm off script here. I don't have any notes or bullet points, just things that I wanted to share from my heart as we're approaching the Thanksgiving holiday and I hope that you, no matter the season of life that you're in as a parent and where your kids are, if they live with you now full time or if they're coming back you know from being away at college or if they're young adults out in the world and they're coming back from being away at college, or if they're young adults out in the world and they're coming hopefully you'll be able to be with your kids for Thanksgiving and just really to be able to sit and enjoy your time together and realize how special it is and it's okay if you see that big six foot man sitting in his chair, your son and you see the little six year old boy that he used to be sitting in that same chair. Maybe I'm the only one that does that, but we live in the same house that my kids have grown up in and sometimes I just I see, I play those videos in my mind of my little kids and it's just amazing and such a fun journey to see them grow up and it's just hard to imagine when they're little what they're going to be like as young adults. And here we are and it's hard now to imagine what they'll be like in another 10 years, but I'm so excited and looking forward to it.

Speaker 1:

So, with a season of gratitude, I just want to say I'm thankful for you for tuning in and listening and being part of my audience and my community. And I'm thankful for you for tuning in and listening and being part of my audience and my community and I just really appreciate you. If you're enjoying the show, it would mean so much to me if you could rate and review it and that's the best way to get the word out so that others can find the show as well and join our community. I would just so appreciate that and I appreciate you. Happy Thanksgiving. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and, if it didn't, well go easy on me I'm still figuring this all out and if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember, your story is uniquely your own, and your next chapters are ready to begin.