Retirement and Empty-Nest Adjustment Resources

Find helpful resources for adjusting to retirement and the empty-nest stage, including books, blog posts, peer support groups, podcasts, and TED or TEDx Talks.

Table of Contents

These resources focus on the emotional side of retirement and the empty-nest transition, including anxiety about the future, loss of identity, loneliness, changes in routine, relationship changes, feeling less needed, finding purpose, and building a meaningful new chapter.

Books

Finding Joy in the Empty Nest

Healing the Empty Nester’s Grieving Heart

Surviving and Thriving the Empty Nest

Blog Posts

Retirement & Empty-Nest Peer Support and Groups

Meetup Empty Nester Groups
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A large collection of local and online groups for parents adjusting to children leaving home. Groups may focus on friendship, activities, travel, social events, rediscovering interests, and connecting with other people going through the same transition.
Meetup Retirement Groups
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Helps retirees find other people in a similar stage of life. Groups vary by location and may include social gatherings, hobbies, outdoor activities, discussion groups, and opportunities to form new friendships.
Meetup Retirement Planning Groups
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Useful for people who are approaching retirement and feel uncertain about what comes next. Although some groups focus on finances, others discuss the practical transition into retired life and provide opportunities to meet people preparing for the same change.
Senior Planet Community
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An online community where older adults can join discussions and groups around travel, books, creativity, health, technology, hobbies, finances, and other interests. It provides a way to develop new interests and social connections after work or parenting responsibilities decrease.

Retirement and Empty-Nest Podcasts

Empty Nest Era — Jamie Chin, LMFT
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Hosted by a licensed marriage and family therapist and focused specifically on the emotional transition into an empty nest. Topics include identity loss, marriage changes, adult children, purpose, mental health, and rediscovering who you are outside active parenting.
This Empty Nest Life — Jay Ramsden
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Focuses on rebuilding identity and creating a meaningful next chapter after children become independent. Episodes explore purpose, relationships, career changes, loneliness, personal interests, and figuring out what you want life to look like now.
Empty Nest Full Pockets Podcast
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Covers both the emotional and practical sides of the second half of life. Topics include empty nesting, retirement, identity, purpose, relationships, adult children, caring for aging parents, and preparing psychologically as well as financially for retirement.

Specific Retirement & Empty-Nest Podcast Episodes

Empty Nest Syndrome: How to Cope When Your Child Leaves Home — Parenting Teenagers Untangled
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Discusses grief, anxiety, loneliness, disrupted routines, and identity changes when a child moves away. It also looks at rebuilding routines, reconnecting with your partner, and developing a fuller life outside day-to-day parenting.
Empty Nest Identity: “I Miss Who I Was” — Life After Launch
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Explores what can happen when years of parenting, caregiving, or family responsibilities begin to change. It focuses on midlife anxiety, grief, identity, and finding new sources of purpose.
Retirement by Design: How to Quiet Your Inner Critic and Create Your Next Chapter — Thin Thinking Podcast
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Looks at retirement as a psychological transition rather than simply the day employment ends. It discusses identity, purpose, daily structure, social connection, and the pressure to feel as though you should already know exactly what you want to do.

TED & TEDx Talks About Retirement and Life After the Empty Nest

How to Squeeze All the Juice Out of Retirement — Riley Moynes
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One of the strongest talks on the psychological side of retirement. Moynes describes four phases people may move through after leaving work, including the period when endless free time stops feeling exciting and questions about purpose and identity begin appearing.
Rethink Retirement: Well-Being Beyond Your Bank Account — Clare Davenport
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Challenges the idea that preparing financially is enough to guarantee a satisfying retirement. It encourages people to deliberately plan for emotional well-being, relationships, purpose, health, and meaningful daily life.
Retirement: From Foreboding to Fulfillment — Brendan Murray
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Focuses specifically on the identity loss that can occur when someone who defined themselves through work retires. Murray discusses rebuilding a sense of achievement and finding new ways to feel useful and productive.
Find Meaning, Live With Purpose, and Leave a Legacy — Tony Hixon
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Examines why retirement planning should include psychological and emotional preparation as well as money. It highlights connection, purpose, identity, and having meaningful reasons to get up each day.
The 6 Reasons to Pursue Your Passion in Retirement — Connie Inukai
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Encourages retirees to identify interests and ambitions that may have been postponed during work and family life. It presents retirement as an opportunity to pursue projects, learn, contribute, and create something meaningful.
Redefining Retirement — Dean Waggenpack
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Challenges the idea that retirement should automatically mean withdrawing from meaningful activity. It encourages people to reconsider what this stage can look like and build a version of retirement that fits their own interests and circumstances.