EP13: What If Fun Is A Health Practice? Right-Sizing Joy In The Empty Nest

Your kids grow up and move out, the house gets quieter, and suddenly the question is not “What’s next for them?” It is “What fits me now?” I’m sharing a personal right-sized reflection sparked by a Motown costume party, an unexpectedly tender empty nest summer, and a big realisation: the space that opens up in midlife can either get filled with more obligations or it can become the place where you come back to yourself. 

We dig into the core right-sizing question I use for everything: does this still fit the season I’m actually in? I connect the dots between time management and energy management, including my simple daily energy audit: what energized me, what drained me, and what I did for my future self. We also talk about how midlife hormonal changes can shape sleep, stress, mood, and emotional load, and why that makes intentional self-care more important, not more selfish. 

You’ll leave with a practical right-sizing check-in and three concrete journal prompts for the week, plus a challenge to stop putting joy on layaway. Fun is not a treat you earn after you finish the list. Joy is part of wellness, part of healing, and part of building a life that actually fits. If this resonated, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more women can find this conversation.

Get a copy of Amy’s Best selling book: CANNONBALL! FEARLESSLY Facing Midlife and Beyond here

Make sure to share with friends and family and would love if you could leave a review. There are so many shows out there floating around and if you are finding value in the The Right Sized Life Podcast share it with the world – a review means so much.

And sign up for the Radiant Woman Reset here

And don’t forget to follow along on all the socials:

http://instagram.com/theamy.schmidt

https://www.facebook.com/fearlesslyfacingfifty/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-schmidt-a5684412/

Transcript

Motown Costumes And Empty Nest

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, I need to tell you something. Last weekend, my husband and I went to a motown party in full costume and we danced. Like we danced. I wore a wig. We had these great costumes in front of people we danced, people we know, friends, and some we don't know. And after careful discussion, my husband and I have concluded that now the kids are grown and flown, the nest is empty, and absolutely nothing about us has changed. Our kids are mortified and we're thriving. Welcome back to the right size life. I'm Amy Schmidt, author, speaker, podcast host, and apparently now a woman who attends theme parties in costume with zero, zero apology. I'm so glad you're here. Today I want to do something a little different. No guests this week, just you and me. A right-sized reflection. Because over the past few weeks, we've had some genuinely rich conversations on this podcast. Laura Vandercam came in and completely reframed the way I think about time. Linda Stevens sat down with me and had one of the most honest conversations I've had about what actually changes in our bodies in midlife and beyond and what we can do about it without losing our minds or our joy. And after both of those conversations, and after a summer that's, you know, included some things I didn't plan for, I found myself sitting with a question I couldn't shake. Are we actually making time for the things that make us feel alive? Not the things on the list, not the things we're supposed to do. The things that make us feel like, oh, right, this is what I'm here for. That's what today is about. Here's something I've been sitting with. And I'm gonna say it carefully because I know some of you right are right there in it too. This is the first year my husband and I have not had a kid moving into college in a dorm in the hottest month of the year. And I thought, I genuinely thought that empty nesting would feel mostly like loss, that I would spend July and August quietly grieving that version of life that used to include back-to-school shopping and dorm room checklists and long drives with too much stuff packed into the back of an SUV. And some of it does feel like that, I want to be honest. Some of it really genuinely does. But something else happened this year that I wasn't expecting. Space opened up, not just physical space. We do have some more of that now that nobody's in the house, and I'm not gonna pretend I haven't already right-sized a few closets, but emotional space, mental space, the particular kind of quiet that arrives when your primary daily role shifts, and you realize maybe for the first time in decades, that you get to decide what goes in that

Does Your Life Still Fit

SPEAKER_00 2:49

space now. And here's the right-sizing question I keep coming back to. The one that sits at the center of everything I write and everything I talk about on this podcast. Does this still fit? Not the life I had, not the life I'm planning for, the life I'm living right now. Does it fit the season I'm actually in? Because right sizing, and I want to be very clear about this, is not downsizing. It's not about getting smaller or doing less or letting go of everything that used to matter. It's about honest alignment. It's about looking at your life and your energy and your time and your relationships and asking, does this match where I actually am right now? And if the answer is no, what needs to shift? Laura Vandercam said something in our conversation that I kept thinking about. She said, most of us don't actually know where our time goes. We think we do, but when we actually track it, which she does, really look at it. The gap between where we think our time goes and where it actually goes is where so much of our overwhelm and exhaustion lives. I think the same is true for our energy.

The Daily Energy Audit

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Every day I ask myself three questions. I call it my daily energy audit. And it's one of the frameworks I write about in my upcoming book, Creating the Right Size Life. The questions are simple. What energized me today? What drained me today? And what did I do today for my future self? Simple. But here's what I have discovered. Most of us are spending the majority of our energy on the things in column two, the drains, the obligations, the things we do because we've always done them, because someone needs us to, because saying no feels harder than saying yes. And we're leaving almost nothing in the column that matters most. The things that energize us. So I want to ask you right now, wherever you are listening to this, when was the last time you did something purely because it filled you up? Not because it was productive, not because it helped someone else, not because it made you look like you had it all together. Just because it made you feel alive. For me last weekend, yeah, that Motown party, a costume my husband was slightly too enthusiastic about. And I cannot tell you the last time I laughed that hard or felt that light. It's not a luxury. That's not a reward for finishing everything on the list. That is energy management. That is right-sizing your joy.

Midlife Changes And Emotional Weight

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Here is something Linda Stevens said that stayed with me since we recorded our episode. She talked about how hormonal changes in, you know, midlife and beyond affect not just our bodies, our energy, our sleep, our muscle, but our emotional landscape, the way we process things, the way we respond to stress, the way we carry things that in a different season of life might have rolled right off of us. And I think we underestimate that. I think we walk around carrying an enormous amount of mental and emotional weight, the worry, the planning, the anticipating, the managing. And we rarely stop to ask: does all of this still fit? Mental and emotional right sizing is, in my experience, the hardest kind. Because unlike a closet, you can't just open the door and see what's in there. It requires something more intentional than that. It requires what I call a right sizing check-in. And it goes like this. You sit ideally somewhere quiet, ideally with something warm in your hands, or maybe a glass of wine, ideally not while also answering emails. And you ask yourself three things. First, what am I carrying right now that isn't mine to carry? Because so many of us, especially at this season of life, especially as moms and daughters and partners and friends, are holding things that were never ours to hold in the first place. Whose worry is this? Whose problem am I trying to solve? What can I gently, lovingly put down? Second, what is taking up space in my mind that no longer

Three Questions For A Check-In

SPEAKER_00 6:48

serves me? Old stories, old guilt, old versions of who I was supposed to be? The comparison, the second guessing. The I should have done that differently. That we replay at 2 a.m. when we really should be sleeping. Does that still fit? Does carrying it make me better, or does it just make me heavier? And third, and this one, it always gets me. What am I not letting myself want because I think I don't deserve it yet? We do this. We put our own joy on layaway. We say, when the kids are settled, when work slows down, when we have more money, money, when we have more time, when I've earned it, when everything is handled, then I'll let myself have the thing I actually want. But the season is now. The kids are settled, the nest is empty, and the question is, what are you gonna do with this space? I want to make a space for the F-word fun, a real one. Not fun as a treat, not fun as something you squeeze in after everything else is done, fun as a non-negotiable pillar of a right size life. Because here's what I know from 18 months of right sizing my health physically, mentally, emotionally, the days I move, sleep well, eat intentionally, and then also do something that genuinely delights me. Those are my best days. The days I feel most like myself, the days my energy is highest and my patience is longest, and my creativity is sharpest. Joy is not separate from wellness. It's a part of it. Laura Vandercam would tell you that you have the time. You just need to decide what you're gonna fill it with. Linda Stevens would tell you that your body in midlife is not failing you. It's changing, and it needs you to change with it, to support it, to show up for it. And I'm telling you today, from a woman who spent uh some time in a hospital bed this summer with a crazy kidney stone, I have a whole new appreciation for what it means to feel good. That fun is part of how you heal and joy is part of how you come back. And laughter, the deep costume wearing, motown dancing, completely undignified kind is medicine. Our children are mortified, and we could not care less.

Fun As Wellness And Healing

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Before I let you go today, I want to leave you with something concrete. Three right size right-sized reflection prompts for this week. Grab a journal or your phone notes, grab a napkin, I don't care. Just write these down and actually sit with them. Here's your tangible takeaways. Prompt one. What season am I actually in right now? And am I living like it? Not the season I just left, not the one I'm planning for, this one. What does this season actually ask of me? And am I showing up for it? Prompt two. What is one thing I've been putting off that would genuinely bring me joy? And what is the real reason I haven't done it yet? Not the stated reason, the real one. Sit with that for a minute. And prompt three. What would I do this week if I believed, truly believed, that my joy and fun mattered as much as everyone else's? Write it down. And then, and this is the really important part, do one of those things this week. Before the week's over, not when you've earned it, not when everything is handled. Now, thanks for spending time with me. These right-size reflections are some of my favorite conversations to have because they remind me why I started all of this in the first place. Not to have a perfectly curated life, not to right size my way into some idealized version of what I'm supposed to look like right now, but to live my actual life, this one, right here, in this season, as fully and joyfully and intentionally as I possibly can. If today's episode resonated with you, I would love it if you shared it with a friend who needs to hear it. Leave a review if

Weekly Prompts And Closing Calls

SPEAKER_00 10:37

you haven't already. It genuinely helps more women find this conversation. And come find me on Instagram at theAmy.schmidt or on Facebook at fearlessly facing50. Let me know what season you're in and what you're right sizing right now. Next week on the Right Size Life, we have another incredible guest conversation coming your way. And trust me, you're not gonna want to miss it. Until then, move your body. Make one choice for your future self. Have fun and go forth and live yours. See you soon.