Learning how to stay

1. Learn NOT to choose:  Did being abroad make you feel alive, adventurous, and empowered? Did you discover new aspects of ourselves that you really liked?  Once back home, however, do you feel like you have to choose between being the person you became while living abroad or go back to being the person you were before you left?  You probably don’t want to choose. So don't! 2. Learn to accept:  You may never feel satisfied at home again. On the flip-side, you're likely  to feel at home anywhere in the world.  Watch this TEDtalk by Pico Iyer  Realize that the concept of home is a work in progress.

Being a returning expat, an ex-expat, a returnee or how you want to call it, has many challenges.   It is like a big wave. You can overcome a lot of difficulties by understanding what is happening. Compared to the literature on moving abroad, the literature on returning home is quite confined.  Here’s a brief description of reverse culture shock and some tips. 

At first you might be quite excited about the whole experience of being back.  

TIP 1: Go out there and  experience your own culture as if it was a foreign culture, get excited, get 
funny, get adventures, be free to explore and learn. Just be aware that this might change. 

Many people experience the next stage as feeling misunderstood.  Once back in your home
country you realise that living abroad has changed you a lot and the country you are returning to has changed as well. The experience you had by living abroad has literally broadened your perspective in so many ways.

 TIP 2: Bear with the fact that all your  experiences  you had abroad  can’t disappear any more, they have become an engrained part of you.  

Returning after living abroad for a considerable amount of time is a bitter sweet experience.  

TIP 3: Talking through this bitter sweet experience with other people who are going through the same transition helps a lot.

TIP 4: it is important to take your time to mourn over your lost expat life and also most important, to cherish all the beautiful moments you are experiencing  now and be aware that you are now making
new memories and stories for a later time. 

You gradually adopt to life at home again although you realise it’s not the same.

TIP 5: When comparing with the different destinations where you lived make sure you don’t judge. It is just a different experience not better or worse.

Finally, we arrive at the stage where we incorporate what we learned from abroad into your new life at ‘home’. 
 
TIP 6: Realize that you can create your own life, you are free to fill in, shape your life at your own liking, even in your own culture. 

It is all pretty normal to go through these different stages. However professional help can make the
process more bearable. If you have the feeling of being stuck in one of the stages or you feel it is too overwhelming to bear,  I advise to get professional help from a coach specialized in the field.  
 

The weather is nice, at last the summer has started  in Europe.  It is like people come alive again. Holiday has started, my house is a busy buzz with the kids around. Being used to nice weather all
year around I now have  a sudden need  to seize every moment of the  sun and outdoor social life, while work is piling up, I am nearly experiencing stress.  Finding a new balance as we gradually get used to our new life in Europe is challenging. 

I have noticed that balancing family time, work time and respecting my own as well as individual needs in my family helps  our transition to re-adopted in Belgium in many ways. Realizing and respecting that each family member copes with this transition at their own pace and sometimes need some space and time alone too. 
 
Taking different perceptive or perceptual position on a situation can help you understand and so cope better with any transition in life.  

The strength of the perceptual position lies in experiencing  a situation from different angles or  positions outside of the view you may normally hold. This new perspective can shade new insides on how you are living your life.

First position: self-awareness: how do I experience the situation? Are my needs met? Is my life in balance? 
 
Second position: empathy: how do the others experience the situation? Are their needs met? Are their lives in balance?  Stepping  into the other person shoes  as if you were using their eyes and ears. 

Third position: objectivity:  third position is a good position from which to study yourself and your relationships. Think of it like being a bird in the corner of the room watching those down there. 
 
It is good to take some time to stand in the third position and overlook your own actions, disassociation yourself for a moment to observe yourself gently and with kindness, without judging yourself nor the others. 
 
Being aware of the strengths and the pitfalls of each perceptual position can help you deal and
explore  the most appropriated action aligned with a given situation. 
 
What position do you usually take?  Can taking a second or third position shade a new perspective on your situation? How flexible are you switching between different positions? What happens when you
get stuck in one position?

There are many different reasons why people experience returning  to their home country as difficult. Apart from every person his/her own personal issues there are lots of similarities as well. 
 
I have conducted a small survey which is a first step to further investigate the topic.  
 
I would be very grateful if you filled in the questionnaire.

Anyone who lived in more than 1 country for a period longer than 3 months is very welcome to participate. 

Kindly follow the link  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DFZZW9W

Resettling in your home country is not an easy task. What made me come back is not always so clear. 
Especially the weather is becoming an issue. We are not yet used to the fact that most people keep track of the weather forecast on a daily basis and organize or plan activities accordingly. 
 
Summer has begun after a very cold winter and a wet spring. But to our big surprise until now we had 1 week of wonderful weather, and now it is back to cold and grey skies. We are looking at strategies to cope with this new weather issue, more specifically, the cold winter AND summer. This weather
‘issue’ I didn’t really take into account when heading back to my home country. 
 
For me sun = fun and cold = awful. A new experience has elevated this contradiction. Recently I was at a party of a friend. As it is summer the party was planned outside. But as Belgium weather can be quite tricky the weather was awful on that day. Still, we did not let it spoil our fun. We stubbornly stayed outside and we had our barbeque between drizzle and cold wind guts. At the end when people were ready to go home, I overheard someone say: “I didn’t know I could have so much fun when I am feeling cold”. 
 
Intuitively we believe that the weather influences our mood but is this really so? Most of us think that the weather has quite a strong effect on our mood with cold and gloomy winter’s days making us feel low and warm and sunny days making us feel happy. However, recent research shows it really depends on your personality in which way your mood will be effected by the weather. Klimstra et al. (2011) noticed this and looked for different types of personality and how each one is affected by the weather. From his study he found 4 distinct groups:

•Unaffected – roughly 50% of the participant’s moods are not affected by the weather.
•Summer lovers – mood improves with less rain, more sun and higher temperatures (this also coincides with Seasonal Affected Disorder - SAD).
•Summer haters – people who are happier when there’s more rain, less sun and lower temperatures(they often get overlooked).
•Rain haters – mood is not affected by a change in temperature or sunshine, but the participants just felt less positive when it was raining.

 How is your mood affected by the weather? If you could choose where to live, would you choose for a warm climate or cold climate?

Since we moved back to Belgium I have a strong feeling of not fitting in any more. 

Lately I have decided to stop even trying to fit in. Why? I realise that one of the reasons I left in the
first place was because I was more interested in discovering new horizons, new cultures and other perspectives on life. Crossing boarders, and seeing new things was my motto. 

What do you value? 
 
Looking back at this feeling and again experiencing this feeling of not fitting in, I decided to break the
habit and stop trying to fit in! What it comes down to is, that I value freedom more than fitting in.  
 
I believe  that I can have a sense of belonging without having to fit in and by doing so I
honour the value of freedom. 

Looking at your own unique value and belief system can help you make transitions more easy to bare.  Honouring your values related to your life, work, relationships at this moment in time can initiate personal development and growth. 

Values can change as we go through life,  new values or old values may take their place in your unique values hierarchy. 
 
So, what are your values?  Are you honouring the values which are now important for you at this moment in time?


 

Resettling in Belgium was a conscious  decision. We decided that, the kids, my partner and myself,  should  return back to Belgium after living abroad for 12 years.

Now I doubt whether this was the right decision. 

Suddenly, I notice that I am referring back to the good times when we where still living that expat life. I notice that I selectively  forget the  challenges expats have to deal with.  The grass is always greener on the other side or in the last country you lived in. Looking more closely at this feeling, I realise that I will need to make an effort to continue to stand behind my decision by making our lives in our home country more comfortable. How can I make my ‘home’ country feel like home again?  

1/3 Of my life I lived outside my home country; my  children lived 11 years abroad and only
lived here for one year.  

We will need to rediscover our home country but not only that, we will need to rediscover parts of ourselves we forgot about.