Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. I don't remember where I heard this saying before, but it has a lot of truth in it.

The one thing you can count on in life is change.

Sometimes our lives are just humming along. We really like the way they're going and then wham something happens, something changes and we have to make new adjustments and sometimes these adjustments can be quite hard.

So in today's podcast we're going to look at how do we deal with change well and find happiness throughout our lives, even with all the changes.

The other day I received an email from one of the listeners to the happiness podcast that I think

really addresses this issue of change.

Dear Dr. Puff, I listen to your podcast almost every day and it's very helpful.

I'm hoping you can do an episode on the empty nest transition for parents.

I'm in the middle of dealing with this with one child in college and another approaching his senior year of high school. I'm so deeply sad about my children leaving home.

Somehow I never envisioned my life after raising kids.

I realize I have become too attached to them and I don't want to let

them go. I don't know how to move on. I want to be happy for them as they launch themselves

into adulthood, but I'm too busy feeling sorry for

myself. I don't really have any purpose anymore. I do have a career, but it doesn't

fulfill me anymore. So I don't know what't fulfill me anymore.

So I don't know what to do with myself.

If you ever make a podcast about this,

I would be so grateful.

Thank you so very much.

Rebecca.

Though we may not be like Rebecca, where we're dealing with our children moving out and growing up,

change is part of life, and sometimes when change happens we lose purpose.

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