We all know what it’s like to move to a new country and not know anyone: what doctor should you go to? At what stores can you get the things you’re looking for? Who to have a cup of coffee with, let alone talk about your feelings?
Establishing friendships and a network abroad is not just of personal, but also of professional importance! After all, lacking connections can often hold us back from entering the job market or starting our own business.
I’ve personally started over many, many times and would say that I’ve been pretty successful in creating meaningful connections.
In this episode I’ll:
highlight some cultural differences when it comes to befriending others
talk about the pros and cons of expat vs local friendships
and most importantly:
share my top 7 tips to meeting people and making friends abroad, all tested and proven, so that you too can increase your ‘inner circle’ abroad!
In this episode we’ll take a deep dive into understanding and overcoming loneliness. It’s a feeling we all experience at one point or another throughout our international lives and relocations.
First of all because moving abroad is life-changing and -interrupting. You say goodbye to everything and everyone you knew, in order to start over somewhere else. You may not yet know anyone abroad, or not well enough. Everything is different and can seem alien to you.
Secondly, your husband is probably integrated in his work environment so his need for interaction and connection is somewhat meet. Meanwhile, you’re left to manage day-to-day life in a new country, probably with little support and without a hand to hold.
Let me send you a big, virtual hug at this point – you’re doing such a great job and I’m so, so proud of you!
In this episode you’ll learn:
What loneliness is made up of exactly … so that, instead of looking away, you can really get to know this feeling. Remember that what we know and understand well loses its power and grip over us!
The 5 antidotes to loneliness … and how you can integrate them into your expat life today.
Free Gift
Download my free Feel-Better-Toolkit, a 10-page fillable workbook full of proven and effective exercises from the fields of Coaching, Positive Psychology, Mindful Self-Compassion and Energy Healing.
Today, published author and thought leader Rachael Lynn and I are having an inspiring conversation about finding your inner happy place, your home within and strengthening the relationship to yourself.
This is especially important for women who moved abroad, married into a different culture and feel a bit lost and disconnected from themselves.
You’ll find out:
* How to get in touch with your ‘inner happy place’ or ‘home within’
Rachael defines this as an inner knowing that you’ve got yourself.
I’ve previously likened it to the feeling of an internal embrace.
When you’re so connected to yourself and nurture the relationship with yourself (which is essentially the only one you’ll have for a lifetime!), you’ll be able to establish trust in yourself that – no matter what happens – you’ll be fine. You’ve gone through hardships before, remember? So now, too, you can find the resources within yourself that it takes to overcome this challenge.
* How re-thinking ‘happiness’ can help you experience it, even in challenging time
In her book. At Home Anywhere, Rachael writes:
Happiness is not a person, a place or a thing. All of those can give you a feeling of happiness – hence the term “it makes me happy”. But they’re not happiness itself. It’s your observation of the person (place or thing) you love or what they do that creates the happiness you feel.
“At Home Anywhere” by Rachael Lynn
What this means is that your happiness actually has its origin inside of you. The outside can provide a stimulus, sure, but if it doesn’t move something within you, it won’t result in you feeling happy.
Again, this showcases the importance of nurturing and strengthening our ‘inner happy place’, above all. When you feel unhappy, for instance upon moving to a different country or marrying into a different culture that overwhelms you, remember that YOU are the constant. YOU can be the safe haven for yourself. YOU can be ‘home’.
So make the relationship to yourself a priority. This doesn’t make you selfish but rather prepares you to show up as your own best version: for yourself, for others and for life in general.
* How the question of ‘identity’ plays into our wellbeing abroad
Our identity is nothing more than the image we have of ourselves: because of where we grew up, what we did, who we hung out with, what we worked as or the way we lived life. This image can be shattered when our surroundings and circumstances change. A move abroad. A marriage abroad. A new chapter of life.
Rachael reminds us that when we are confronted with the need to re-define who we are, it can feel like a re-birth. And the birthing process involves some pain that we’ll inevitably experience.
However, this is also a great opportunity to think about who you want to be (and maybe couldn’t be before). What you’ve always wanted to do (and possibly did not dare to).
After all, our identity is simply a label. Labels may help us to feel like we belong to a community; but they can also limit us to expand and evolve. The bottomline is that we’re all so much more than any label could possibly describe – it’s time for us to tap into everything else that’s possible and available for us!
Watch this video about the Expat Identity Crisis (and why it might be a good thing):
* How journaling can bring you closer to your ‘inner happy place’
As an author, it comes as no surprise that Rachael is big on writing. What she’s found is that journaling can open the gateways to your inner truth and thus helps you to create more understanding, compassion and connection to yourself. She’s provided journal prompts for you (see below) and offers a journaling course “Journaling Within” for those who want to dive deeper into this healthy practice.
Moving abroad can feel so overwhelming. It means starting over from scratch in many ways, stepping outside your comfort zone, redefining yourself and experiencing a shift in the relationship dynamic with your spouse… You want the best for yourself and your family but:
Where should you start?
In this episode you’ll learn about some of my signature frameworks and concepts I use with my clients, so that you can create your very own roadmap to living a fulfilled life abroad.
1. The Inner Happy Place Concept
This is a term I coined to describe a state of feeling at home within, of connectedness to ourselves, of wholeness, inner peace and alignment.
I still remember the exact moment I realized that: while I couldn’t have a physical happy place, I could have an internal one. My inner happy place. And that felt so empowering, liberating and comforting like nothing ever before.
To this day, I know that when I’m connected with mine things sort of fall into place. It’s when I lose this connectedness to myself (like at moments during the Covid19 Crisis and the complete lockdown we experienced here in Spain) that they don’t.
So, the bottomline is: feeling good, aligned and connected with yourself is your most important task and the basis for everything else, even for all of your relationships… and this is what finding your inner happy place is all about.
You can read more about finding and cultivating your ‘Inner Happy Place’ in this blog post and definitely stay tuned for next week’s episode where I’ll welcome a very special guest to take this topic further.
2. The 4 Pillars Of A Fulfilled Life Abroad
These are the 4 areas in your cross-border life that will need to be built and strengthened.
And in order for you to get started right away and to take inspired action, I’ve created a free, downloadable workbook for you, “5 Self-Coaching Tools for a fulfilled life abroad”:
Being an expat wife is a journey of mixed emotions and unique challenges that others often can’t relate to. It also puts many women in a position of more dependency than they’d like and many of my clients feel like they can’t find their own place and “don’t see eye to eye” with their partners anymore.
Enter: The Empowered Expat Wife Podcast.
This is a project very close to my heart because so often am I confronted with the fact that expat and diplomatic spouses fall through the cracks and have a harder time creating
an independent and self-sufficient life for themselves
a strong relationship and happy, stable home for their families
financial security and retirement arrangements
a professional track record and income generation
long-lasting support networks to fall back on
Meanwhile, statistics underline that the divorce rate among expat and diplomatic couples is elevated, which leaves these women in a vulnerable position.
Of course, there’s a lot we can gain from our international lifestyle and relationships, and I believe we’ll achieve that by becoming EMPOWERED.
My mission for this Podcast is to help foreign born spouses
? get on top of the game ? live secure and self-sufficient lives in the midst of relocations ? find meaning and purpose across borders ? create a harmonious home for their multicultural families ? and learn how to turn their challenges into opportunities.
*** New episodes coming to you every Thursday on your favorite Podcast Platform! ***
Please share this Podcast with your expat besties and subscribe, share and show me some love in the reviews!
@ Copyright Camilla Quintana – The Empowered Expat Woman 2024. All rights reserved.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
