So I don’t wanna be naive and believe that this is not a big deal, although I do have lots of coaching skills. Now, So I thought it would be really fantastic to share with you the process that the Lord has revealed to me that is helping me support him, my son, as well as myself through this significant life event.

But I want you to start thinking about what’s on the horizon for you that could be happening or is coming up or just bookmark this so that you can prepare and support yourself not only emotionally, but what do we do about our food in the same time, during these significant life events. 

And so I hope that as you listen to this, you’ll hear some hacks, some tips and tricks that maybe you haven’t heard before, and the questions that you want to take to the Lord. Okay? So I hope this blesses you. And maybe I’m making this so I just have an outlet as well, but here’s how it goes.

So whatever your significant life event is that is coming up, the first thing that we want to do is recognize it’s a significant life event. This has never happened to me before, and you guys, sometimes it might just be your kid is going to a new school. Anything that you’ve never done before, recognize that it may. Create some unexpected feelings. It may be helpful to plan for it. 

And in my life, I can really minimize the effect of things. And so again, just recognizing, hmm, let me just lean into this. Is there something I need to learn? Is there a way that if I think about this ahead of time, allow myself to have some quiet, think ahead, experience some feelings, perhaps I’ll be more equipped to support myself as well as the people around me through this situation.

So the first thing that I did is I went to chat GPT and I have a very self-sufficient son. I mean, he apparently has been reading online and maybe chat GPT and finding out from the university what are the essentials to bring because he has just been gathering things probably all summer. 

But it got to be about. Two weeks before he’s moving in and I thought, does he even have all the things that he needs to have? So I went to chat GPT and any question that’s on your brain that you’re not sure about, you can ask Chat GPT, and the specific questions that I asked chat GPT were what is essential for my son to have when he moves into college for the first two weeks?

I just thought that would really like narrow it down. Knowing that I can make a trip up to him at any time. If he forgets something that’s essential. What does he need to have for the first two weeks? What is essential on move-in day? And the third question I asked is, what should I expect emotionally for him and myself?

And I believe the prompt that I put into chat GPT, was something like, my oldest son is moving to college, 90 minutes away. What can I expect emotionally that he will be going through as well as me within the first week? And sometimes I like to just put that time bound thing when I put in chat GPT, because that’s what I’m going to be experiencing. I’m only focusing on the first week. 

Okay, so then what was revealed to me was the list of what is essential. So I printed that out knowing that I would talk to my son about that. But then I also read about what to expect emotionally and maybe any tips that chat GPT would suggest.

And so a couple things that they suggested was my son. Obviously for both of us, we are going to experience a variety of feelings. On his end, he will be experiencing excitement, anxiety, a whole bunch of feelings, and he’s going to be navigating those and that I should let him lead communication. 

And although I might be concerned about him to not bombard him with connections and that it would be normal for him to maybe not check in a lot or maybe check in a lot, but just to let him lead that level of communication. Chat GPT also told me that it would be fine for me to send a good morning. Hope you have a great day Text. 

So I thought that was interesting and that reminds me, okay, just he’s gonna have his experience and honestly I am okay letting him have that experience. I feel very surrendered about that, but it was good for me to also know. I know Chat GPT isn’t the end all be all, but just in general a touch point is fine and isn’t overbearing in Chat GPT’s opinion. Although, I’m his mom, so I can do whatever I want. 

But what was interesting on the other end was what can I expect? And of course I’m going to have a range of emotions. And it also offered me some helpful tips and the most helpful tip that I took away from what chat GPT offered. And I want you guys to use chat GPT. Just like that. 

Hey, what are some ideas, maybe things I haven’t thought of, what do I think might work for me? You don’t have to take everything that chat GPT says. Something will spark in you and something you will hear. The Lord speak to you through it. And the thing that I heard was stay busy with meaningful work or meaningful tasks. 

And what I heard in that was, Hey mama, your heart is gonna be up and down and right and left, and we can care for that because I truly believe I am a woman who knows myself and I know how to allow myself to experience feelings, and I also trust myself. It is fine to take a nap. It’s fine to sit and cry. It’s fine to do anything.

But I really love that it said stay busy with meaningful tasks and that on this end of it, ’cause my son’s not gone, help me say, oh, what would be fun? What would be meaningful? What would be light? What would bring me joy? What would be something I can look forward to? And honestly, you guys, I have been wanting to clean out my closet in my house for a while. 

I have been wanting to hang up some pictures in our guest bedroom for a while. I have been wanting to buy a bed skirt in that bedroom for a while now. I’m not gonna pressure myself to do anything, but I want. On this end to be aware of some things that actually do bring me joy because on the other end of it, I might forget when you’re in the middle of lots of emotions, I might forget that I want to do that.

I also lined up some fun work things like organizing things that always is fun for me. Stuff that’s not immediate, but. Would actually be exciting to do. I give myself permission to spend time on that, so I thought that was really great. So that’s my number one tip: Chat GPT. 

The second thing is that I looked at that essentials list and more for me than my son. I was like, Hey honey let’s look through this. And it helped me start to see where I can support him. So we went through the list. I was like, did you buy this? Did you not buy this? And then I got clear on the things that were still necessary. 

And then I wanted to buy those things for him. I wanted to do that mom thing where I’m like, no problem. Let me get the ibuprofen, the cough medicine, get you a thermometer. Let me load you up on your laundry detergent. All the, you know, all the mom things. 

And then you guys, I bought these bins so I can organize it again. All for me, totally all for me.  Do you like mechanical pencils? Do you want pens? Don’t forget you need scissors and tape. And I was like, I’m just gonna load ’em up on all these things.  Again, it makes me feel calm. Part of it connected is he capable a hundred percent, but I did this mostly for me. 

So I went through and I purchased all those items and I still have to organize them into bins, but it’s just like, I feel like I’m giving my mom touch and my mom love to him, and that’s just me. Again I think I want you to hear from this is not to use any of this against you. It is simply because it makes me feel good. That is it. 

It’s, I think it’s part of my nesting, it’s part of my putting. I like to call it nervous energy, but I don’t know if it’s nervous energy as just as a way for me to start transitioning myself. And I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to do it. I’m just telling you how I’m doing it. 

And then yesterday, oh, and then, by the way, I didn’t even start this process till like 10 days ago where I was like, oh, I should probably look up. So that we’re not missing anything on move-in day. And then yesterday, you guys, I went to adoration and I went to adoration, not to talk to the Lord about this, but apparently he said, Denise, we need to talk about this.

And I went there to adore him really, because there’s just so many blessings in my life right now. And I thought, Lord, you’re bringing me so much. Let me just bring you my attention. And he was like, and now it’s time to talk. And I was like, okay, Lord, you’ve got something to say. And then I said, yes. I’m reading you now from my notes in adoration.

I said, yes, Roman. That’s my son. Yes Lord. I know. What do you want me to know? And then I asked the Lord to send down his spirit of wisdom so that I have a supernatural view of this whole situation of him moving away, of him moving in of his next chapter, which by the way, friends, if you’re moving your kids into college, it’s your next chapter too.

And that’s what I really believe about this is that’s what the Lord has next for him, and he has something next for me and the rest of your family. So I asked for the spirit of wisdom and I also asked for the spirit of counsel and I said, Lord, please send down your spirit of counsel so that I know what you would have me do, what you would have me be.

And right after I asked him to send those things down, the Lord said to me, Denise, he’s ready. I’m with him. I, Jesus am with him. And then the Lord said, Denise, I’ve always been with him. He said, Denise, like you, I created him in my heart. He’s mine. He’s always been mine. You can trust me, he’s with me, he’s going to be okay and you are gonna be okay. That’s exactly what the Lord said to me. 

And then I wrote, gosh, Jesus, I’m just getting a sense that on move-in day, the flow, the details, nothing really makes sense. I know it’s just a snapshot in time and all will be as it will be. It will be as it should be. All will be necessary for our and my salvation. Gosh, it’s just crazy to think of that, that the event of one day. Will be exactly what’s necessary for everyone’s salvation. 

All the feelings, all the stress, all the responses, all the anxieties, all the uncertainties, all will be a training ground, lessons a classroom for us to learn what we need to learn. The opportunities for growth are available if I stay connected to you and open to receive what you’re revealing that day.

And so what became apparent to me was, hey, there were some uncertainty swimming around in my brain, some concerns, and so I made a list of my concerns, and that’s my next tip for you. The first tip is go to adoration, talk to the Lord, and if you can’t get to adoration, that’s not a problem either. But ask him to send down the spirit of counsel and the spirit of wisdom.

My next thing is for you to clean out your brain. What feels uncertain? What feels unclear? So I made a list of all the concerns that I had. And as I noticed helpful thoughts coming up, I wrote them down. So one of my concerns was my husband’s impatience, and I’m afraid that his impatience will come off as short and my son may not feel loved and supported.

And the thought that’s really helpful for that is, hey, we’re all trying our best here. We’ve never done this before. We’re all gonna be fine. So I listed out my list of concerns and then I categorize them into what I control, can’t control versus what I can’t control. That’s really helpful for me, for the things that I can’t control. What I can’t control though, is my response to them. 

The other things that I can control, then I can problem solve for them. I can plan ahead. I can decide either what needs to be solved for ahead of time or how do I wanna respond. So a couple of the things that came up for me and my list of concerns, and I’m just gonna go through this so you can see the process that I went through.

One of my list of concerns was, like I just said, my husband. Not being patient. Can I do anything about that? And not being patient, that’s just my thought. I can’t control that, but I can plan my response and my response that I wanna have. And what I wanna think is, Hey, I’m safe to watch his response. My son is safe to watch his response.

Then my next thought was, my son will feel unloved or criticized. That was interesting. Again, I can’t control my son’s feeling, but I can plan my response and my response that I’d like to plan is, this is just a thought, like he’s not feeling loved. That’s just a thought. And whatever is happening is absolutely necessary for his salvation. 

I just truly believe that over and over the Lord just tells me, Hey, whatever he’s experiencing is forming him. Just because it’s uncomfortable for me to watch has nothing to do with it. I love that. Another concern I had was my, oh, that I thought my husband might act out, meaning like he might be. Angry, but from a place of sadness and worry over my son. 

Again, I can’t control a darn thing about that, but I can plan my response. And one of my responses that’s helpful is I’m safe to watch his response. And also, we’ve never done this before. He’s never done this before. Just like me, he’s going to have his range of emotions and that’s just fine. That’s not a problem. 

Another fear I have is the fear of looking around at the other kids on his floor. He’s on a co-ed floor. You guys, are you kidding me right now? I don’t even get why that’s a thing. Why are we putting boys and girls on the same floor? That just feels like so much stress, so much extra, extra, extra that’s unnecessary. But you know, I’m thinking back to my college days where I was on a first year experience floor, which means it was only freshmen and it was only girls. 

Okay. So that just felt like really we are all in this together. And I could literally say we’re all in this together. And I know that my son’s floor is going to be boys and girls and they’re not all freshmen. ’cause some of his friends are on his floor and they’re transfer students, they’re juniors. Or sophomores. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. 

Anyway, I just know that I’m gonna look around and I’m gonna see other parents and other kids, and I’m gonna have lots of thoughts, and I’m gonna have lots of fears about who he’s gonna be surrounded by and the influences that are gonna be around him. And I just know it’s gonna come up. And my brain, my brain’s gonna offer me all this. All right. 

So I’m going to have all those first thoughts. And I always say we’re not responsible for our first thought, but we are responsible for our second thought. And how I wanna respond is I wanna coach myself and remind me that my college version of Denise didn’t even know God was a thing.

I didn’t have the Lord in my life at all. Zero, zilch, zip. I knew what the word was. I had no relationship with the Lord. I knew it was the thing, but that’s what other people did. That was for other people. That was for other families. 

So my college version of me didn’t even know the Lord. And I want to remember that as I look at all of these families, all of these kids, and I can just tell my judge, MCJ Stirs gonna come up and just be like, Hey, we’re all on our journey. But he is in every single one of those kids and every single one of those parents, and he’s inside my son. He told me that. 

All right. Now another concern I have is I’m afraid I’m gonna be sad, duh. And I’m afraid I’m gonna be tired, okay? And so I can’t control either one of those things, but I can control my response, and I want to say to myself, this is totally normal. This is totally expected. And guess what? It’s not a problem. This is just not a problem.

And I love the thoughts. I know I’m a woman who can care for herself, and I’m a woman who knows herself. This is just not a problem, so I just love that. I love that. I’m thinking ahead. And I want you guys to think of that whatever your significant life event is that’s happening, even if your kids are starting a new school, you are going to experience. A range of emotions.

And if we can get in front of that and realize it’s expected, it’s normal and it’s not a problem. And we’re women who know how to care for ourselves. We’re women who aren’t going to judge ourselves. 

We can allow feelings to come like waves, and they don’t knock us over, but we can move with them. We can experience them. They’re safe. Uncomfortable feelings. Doesn’t mean anything’s gone wrong. It means we’re alive, we’re breathing, we’re experiencing life.

And finally, I had two food related fears or uncertainties. One was, what am I gonna eat that day? And the other one was, where are we gonna go to lunch? Okay, so the Cliff Notes version is, first I tackled what am I gonna eat? Okay, well, yeah, we got a plan ahead. My son’s move-in time is 7:00 AM which means we need to leave our house by five 30, which means we’re really gonna leave at five just in case there’s any other hiccups. 

So I made a list. All right, so I decided that I would make my coffee in the morning. I would pack breakfast at 30 or six. I would have a snack at 10, and I laid out the exact foods that I will have. And at 12: 30 or one likely, we will either be on our way home, I am going to pack some food in case we just eat on the road. My husband and me, or I will, we might take my son out for lunch. I don’t know, but I’m packing for all of those scenarios. 

Now, a side note of this is that means that on the day before we leave, I have to prepare this stuff. Not a problem. I know exactly what I’m going to take. I’m gonna decide for breakfast. Am I gonna do this egg sandwich with yogurt thing that I like? Or am I gonna bring this oatmeal thing that I like? Okay. Maybe I’ll bring both. I don’t know. I’m gonna decide that tomorrow. The day before we leave and make that. 

Now I want to bring a granola bar, something that’s easy to pack, but you guys, I have been. Really wanting to experiment with a new granola bar recipe, and I don’t have one. I’ve been experiencing a gut flare-up. I have been doing this new bone building nutrition thing, and I just don’t have a granola bar or an easy snack that mixes with both of those things. 

So guess what I did? I went to chat GPT and asked, Hey, I would like a granola bar that I can make at home. A recipe that is low FODMAP that follows the low fermentation way of eating or whatever it’s called, and I would like it to have these macros.

I would like it to at least have 10 grams of protein. That’s really all I want. I wanna make sure that I had at least 10 grams of protein.  And 15 to 20 grams of carbohydrates. Anyway, the point is that it gave me a recipe and then I was like, oh, that looks really complicated. 

And then it was like, would you like a no bake version? And I was like, yes. And then it was like, would you like a rice crispy version or an oatmeal version one with one or the other, an oatmeal? I was like, yes. And then it was like, well, if your gut isn’t great, then you would go with the rice crispy version. If your gut can handle the oatmeal, then you would do the oatmeal version.

And then I was like, well, what if I just do half oatmeal, half Rice Krispies? And they were like, that’s a great idea. And then it rewrote it for me and. With very simple ingredients, and I just kept asking it for different versions and different versions to make it easier for me. I think one was like a baked version, which I could have.

But my point is that I looked ahead what would make this day, how could I support myself through this better? And then I allowed myself the time to look on chat GPT allowed myself the time to experiment with the bar, which it is actually fabulous. I’m so excited. I found a new granola bar recipe, which I’m so excited about, and it seems like it works. It’s a little crumbly, but I’ll adjust it.

But this is what it looks like to support ourselves. And guess what? Even if I didn’t make something, I just need to think ahead and pack something and have something for me, and that day if I choose not to eat it and it doesn’t seem like it’s going the right way, or something comes up, that’s fine, but my job is to make sure that Denise is supported through this.

Not only my son, but I am supported. And when I am supported, I am a hundred percent available to everyone else because I’m coming from a place of abundance. I’m not lacking, I’m not fearful. I know I have everything I need. I’m fully aligned with the Lord. 

And then for lunch, I said, I’m either gonna pack a half sandwich or I will pack some safe bread for my gut and make sure that we’ll probably just grab burgers out or somewhere. And then the final thing was my brain was like, well, where are we gonna have lunch? And then I just wrote like, it doesn’t matter. Like I don’t care. Doesn’t matter where we have lunch because I’m already taken care of. I’ve already decided how I’m going to handle that.

So I’m going to review the steps before I give you the last step in this that I did and that you can use for your significant life event. The first one is, well, this isn’t one of the steps, but hey, let’s still minimize that. Life is life. Let’s don’t minimize that. We do need to think ahead, that we can support ourselves, that things can be easier if we think ahead.

So let’s not minimize our experience and say, oh, I’ll deal with it when we get there. Well, you can if that’s the way you want it to go, but I have a feeling if we just pause and allow ourselves to think ahead and do this little activity, we can show up with so much clarity and so much more calmness.

Okay. The first thing is that anything. That I wasn’t sure, like, I don’t even know. I’ve never done this before. I just went to chat GPT to be like, I’ve never done this before. What should I expect? What are the essentials? Okay. The second thing was that I looked at that essentials list and I thought, well what do I need to do next here?

So for me, I asked my son. Honey, what did you purchase and what still needs to be purchased? And I also looked at what can I plan ahead for me to support myself planning meaningful tasks when he is gone. 

And then I just followed through with that. So I purchased the items and I planned the meaningful tasks, and then I’m putting things in bins and organizing him, helping me feel prepared and that I’m supporting him.

Then I talked to the Lord, I went to adoration. I didn’t know we were gonna talk to talk about this yesterday, but the Lord did. So I’m just gonna tell you that should be step five. Talk to the Lord. Talk to the Lord. Ask for the spirit of wisdom so that you have a supernatural view and see things the way that the Lord sees the situation.

And then ask for the spirit of counsel so that you are clear on what your job is. What are your tasks? Where should you put your time, your energy, and your focus on whatever he reveals? Then clean out your brain list all of the concerns that you have. Make a list and then categorize them. Hey, what can I control? What can I control? What can’t I control?

For the things that you cannot control, you get to decide how you wanna respond. How do I wanna respond to this for the things you can control? What do I need to plan ahead? How do I wanna problem solve for this? And then finally, guys, the final step is you just praise the Lord. Thank him for this. Thank him for this next chapter in your life. 

Thank him for revealing all that he has. He wants to support you and help you through whatever you’re going through in this next significant life event, but he can’t do it unless you talk to him about it, unless you allow that place for him to reveal what he needs you to do to support you and to support your family or whoever else you’re supporting through this situation.

So I hope to do a follow up on this. It’ll probably be like a month before I tell you how the whole day went and how I’m doing. But I’m a woman who knows how to take care of myself. I’m a woman who knows herself and so are you. 

And a woman who knows herself knows that she deserves support. That she knows how to support herself and that she’s worth taking the time to think ahead so that the Lord can reveal what he needs her to do. This is holy work. Taking care of yourself is holy work. 

All right, everybody. I hope this has been helpful for all of you mamas out there sending your kids off to college. I’m excited to join the ranks. I’m excited to be part of the club now. And let’s just all take care of our mom hearts, no matter where our kids are, no matter what they’re enduring.The friendship stuff, all the new adventures. Remember your mom heart needs tending too as well. 

All right, everybody. Have a blessed day.