The First Few Days
I’m in the midst of it.
My only child, a 22 year old son, moved out a week ago. He’s in his own place now and we are each transitioning into our new roles with one other - roles where we live apart.
And turns out, it’s weirder than I anticipated.
I guess I thought I was more prepared - because I had prepared.
I had prepared by never denying that the chapter of my life called “The Motherhood Years” would eventually turn its final page and a new chapter chapter heading would begin. I accepted that never would my son, nor I, stay in any stage forever and that by the natural order of things, our lives would eventually take different directions.
My son prepared me in a two ways.
First, he wasn’t always easy to live with. Other parents with young adults living at home may relate. Kids don’t stay little and cute forever. They become big people with their own idea of how they want to live regardless of what you think you’ve taught them. They have their own way and this makes letting go a little easier - because each of us has our own way.
Second, he prepared me in a positive way by getting the training he needed for a good job, making himself financially capable of finally moving out. (It’s not an easy economy for these kids to start out in.)
Once he did finally do the move out – a strange kind of sadness hit me in the heart and solar plexus;
a strange-nostalgic-yet empty-feeling-sadness.
A sadness which served to trigger memories of motherhood's past….lifetimes before this one….and other children I had experienced losing in varieties of ways.
This caused me to feel something I’ve felt in regard to other developmental stages as well, and that is:
Redundancy.
Development/Reincarnation
I’ve done this before, so many times.
I’ve been the mother and I’ve been the child.
I’ve been the mother without a child and the child without a mother.
I’ve gone on the roller coaster ride of Earth life time and time again through the natural process we all live inside of called,
RE-INCARNATION.
So I wonder, why do I continue playing the game of inevitable loss and gain this world provides me over and over?
Am I still getting something out of it?
Can I get out of it?
Questions yoga confront us all with, if we are really practicing yoga, every step of the way.
When we are young, our developmental accomplishments feel really motivating, enlivening and inspiring. Like start school, first sleepovers, starting your period, first dates, college, marriage, having a baby. These stages bring us a zest for a future stretched out in front of us and produce an energy momentum toward destiny.
Part of that destiny is the empty nest and it is a pivotal stage of human development.
Rather than giving us the feeling that we are young and will live forever, empty nest can turn us in that strange feeling direction toward the wrapping up of our current life on Earth.
It might cause us to wonder if reproduction and child rearing was the whole point of this creation after all – and then to the question, what is my purpose now?
To just get old, die, be reborn and pro-create again?
And again?
And again?
Empty nest lets us know that one of the most consequential experiences available on Earth is the reproduction of ourselves and our ancestors and every tom dick and harry that needs a body on this planet.
We are programmed to gestate and rear bodies with the final result being the relinquishment of a functional young adult to set to sail toward basically a repeat of the same story.
If we are aware of reincarnation, we have a great opportunity.
Knowledge combined with motivation and a little where-with-all can give us the option to curb natures little program here, into our spiritual favor.
So the real measure of the understanding of developmental stages is beyond what we learn in western psychology. I, like many, study and really appreciate the work of great developmental psychologists like: Erikson, Piaget, Freud, Jung, Vygotsky and others contributed to our understanding of development – but only in terms of one lifetime – and this is greatly limiting.
Our study, as higher spiritual aspirants, has to be on the grander development. The development of the soul from one lifetime to the next, solving the issues within each lifetime, getting closer and closer to real self awareness and liberation.
The Fundamental Principles - The Gunas
This creation is fundamentally based on paradoxical energies of anxiety (rajas) and depression (tamas)– we pendulum between the two forces.
I find that the collective experience of motherhood is the ultimate expression and ultimate experience of the powers of dichotomy this creation is built on.
Studying our own natural anxieties, our vulnerabilities as well as our own passions help us to become objective to them and begin to wield them.
A lesser know element of this creation is equilibrium. In other words balance, detachment, peace of mind, contentment, in Sanskrit this element is called, sattva.
In a condition of sattva, nothing in this world can truly affect me. Taking control of the body and minds vital energy allows me the option of not reacting so intensely and with peace in my heart.
Our personal stories contribute to how we process empty nest syndrome.
Some moms are ready, some are not.
Each of us handles it differently and yet often, the same.
Personal Note
Our personal stories matter. They should not be discounted.
We are affected beings and studying our affected condition can lead us to greater insight, strength and to higher spiritual goals. (We find this wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita 15:16)
I grew up a full adoptee, closed adoption – Catholic-don’t-talk-about-it- style.
I had never laid eyes on a blood relative before my son was born and I saw him. He was the first real connection I had to a past I knew nothing about - but was dying inside for.
The presence of a child of my own motivated me to face up to some of the things I needed to do for myself in this world, and I did them. Parenthood helped me develop myself, not just the person I was parenting.
Where Are You In Your Parenting Chapter?
Parenthood can serve us well on our spiritual path as long as we understand that this whole thing is one big program and the more we are consciously enveloped by the program the less objectivity we have about ourselves, spiritually, within it.
And where we would like to be next.
So consider where you are in your parenting chapter. Look closely at yourself and your past. Can you sense having been down this road before? Is there anything you can do to help yourself navigate through the developmental processes of life?
Of lifetimes?
One thing I would suggest is to analyze your child's psyche. Try to pick up on cues that could lead you to knowledge about their past lives. Your child may not even be related to you in the way you think they are. They may not be a direct member of your spiritual lineage or even of your family continuum.
Through meditation I was able to discover where my son had spent his last life. I was also able to determine where in his father's family history of reincarnation who he was related to and where he fit into the family he had come from - from his last life.
This knowledge about how my son, and we providentially came together mother and son, having not been related in any recent past lives, gave me invaluable insight into who he is and why he is how he is.
Knowing even just a little about our children's past lives can give us great insight into who they are and how to guide them toward their best possible path in life. Same for ourselves.
In Closing
We really are spiritual beings having a human experience.
These human experiences are not who I am as a soul (atma), but are Earth’s happenings and pastimes. But I wonder, with all the nonsense yoga happening in the world, all the misconceptions and mis-translations, how long will it take each entity to have had enough and to start taking the yoga liberation process seriously. Applying it the way a prisoner in a prison would apply a plan of escape that God himself had handed him.
Mothering and the experience of empty nest are on one hand, sacred Earthly experiences, but on the other hand, possibly not something that we want to continue, relentlessly repeating, throughout all time?
I'll leave you with this. I especially love the part at the end where the parent is reminded of how much God loves them too.
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