So I’ve been back visiting family and friends in the US for a little bit over 2 weeks now.
And I’ve lived abroad for nine years now.
And I’m just going to jump on here and tell you about my experience and just update you all on on a lot of things that have been going on in my world.
Because again, I feel like talking about them and normalizing them is just part of the expat experience, especially even for me.
And now that I like coach expats, I’ve kind of that’s like my full circle moment of being accept myself and living abroad and just have lived abroad for nearly a decade.
I mean, this year’s almost halfway over, like soon I’ll be 10 years.
It’s kind of wild.
I think it’s important just to be honest about all of these things that I still experience to normalize them.
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Reverse Culture Shock: Feeling Like a Foreigner in Your Own Country
So the first one is reverse culture shock.
So I know that this is something that all expats get, especially repat some that move abroad and then move back home.
And I have never felt as much reverse culture shock then I am feeling this trip.
And it is this wild and lonely and isolating experience where you kind of feel like a foreigner in your own country with being a foreigner abroad.
So it’s really invited me to again, kind of like take this closer look into culture in general.
Like what kind of parts of the US culture do I want to hang on to and what parts to be honest, a lot of the parts for me, I, they just do not resonate with me anymore.
And I think this is a very normal experience, especially as time goes by and maybe you develop a very strong community and sense of self and just that is influenced by another culture.
And then being back in an environment which once felt so familiar.
And now I’m just like, it’s just not home to me.
Like it’s my home country, but my home is in Chile, my home is in Santiago.
And that’s OK.
That doesn’t mean that this is a rejection of family and friends, a rejection.
If anything, it’s just doesn’t fit.
And so this was just an insight that I had that I think makes the reverse cultural shock feel even harder because it’s like, quote UN quote, we’re supposed to just feel more at home in our home country.
And I would invite expats to open up and dissect that thought and invite that like, you feel at home wherever you make the home.
It’s not necessarily going to be your home country.
And that’s OK.
And that reverse culture shock is weird.
It’s uncomfortable.
But like in all of that discomfort, kind of like my episode last week, which I’ll link in the show notes, like when there is that stuckness, when there is that discomfort, when there is something that you just would rather not feel, sit with it because it’s probably going to provide a better result if you move through it instead of just trying to shove it down.
The Long-Distance Daughter: Aging, Shifting Roles, and Emotional Weight
Also, it’s like kind of like being the long distance daughter slash sister and the identity shifts that come with just growing older and living abroad.
You know, I’m married.
I have nieces from my husband’s side of the family, not any of my side of the family yet, but just knowing that in the future, like, like each time I come back home, like everyone is living their lives like we’re not kids anymore.
My siblings and I have friends and I, you know, parents are aging, getting older and like just I, I don’t really have any inspiring pieces say here.
I just know that a lot of the women that I work with also go through this, that they’re also the long distance daughter.
They’re also the long distance sister, maybe aunt, friend.
And I see that weight that you carry and I carry it too.
And I feel that it’s important to just make space to just notice that, to say, like I see that because that’s also something that I experienced both living abroad and visiting home.
And it’s it’s a part of the dynamic.
It’s a part of this beautiful life of living abroad is being the long distance daughter, sister, aunt person that is its own podcast.
And maybe I should go into a different topic, a different day.
But just being in a place that I grew up now, you know, and being around people that I who helped raise me and now I’m the adult now.
It just hits different knowing that, you know, going to have to leave soon.
Identity Shifts: Growing Up Abroad
And then the other one is like, because I moved to abroad when I was 24, like I’ve had all my professional experience in Chile.
I have had all of my like formative big adult years, you know, abroad.
And now I’m like a fully formed adult 33.
I’m going to be 34 in June 11th.
So I’m literally like 3 or 4 weeks late for my birthday.
And there’s so many identity shifts that go on in general.
And I think the whole topic of like expat identity and identity crisis, like who am I with culture and belonging and just finding your people and finding your way, that gets so much attention and it really needs to.
But then at the same time, there’s there’s other identity shifts that are also happening in your life as we’re all growing older, like woman in your 30s or later 30s.
And that happens in addition to other things that happened because you are living abroad, because you are like diverging to different cultures because you are like what what I was talking about with that reverse culture chef, you are separating yourself a little bit from the environment you grew up in, but you’re not exactly in the environment that, you know, a native to the environment they are now.
And so like there’s so many identity shifts and just just identity shift of like getting older abroad too, I feel like brings about your thinking about different things.
And that’s definitely been like heavy on my mind too, about what certain phases of your life look like that you might not have thought that they would look like.
So yeah, that’s another thing that I’m dropping here.
A New Chapter: Realizing You Don’t Want to Move Back
And the other thing is just like this trip has really solidified for me that like, I don’t ever want to move back to this country.
I love my family and friends.
I wish that I could see them more and be closer to them.
But I know that this country isn’t a good fit for me personally and for my husband and for our future family.
So that I think for expats who realize that they, you know, eventually my husband, like serial expats move on to another country.
It’s not just like, oh, I’m when you finally internally, like, I’m not just going to live here for a certain amount of time and then move back home, like I’m going to stay in this country and then move to another one.
That in itself takes processing, takes opening up to takes probably some grieving of like what you thought your life was going to be like when you when you realize like, wow, like I’m not going to come back here.
So for me, that has been something that I think I have been processing and contemplating for a long time, but now it’s like really almost kind of set in stone, like this is not something that I’m going to pursue.
And just a few years ago, it was something that we were pursuing.
So it’s interesting how things change.
But I’m just throwing that out there too.
Like if this is something that people are feeling they have when they go back and they visit friends and family and they’re like, it can be this complex feeling of like, I know I never want to go back here, but there can be some guilt about that.
About what does that mean?
What does that mean as they’re growing older for aging parents, for missing out on family milestones?
What does that mean for you and the type of life that you’re living and your family and your relationships and emotionally to like an identity wise like you are that nationality living abroad and emotionally like what steps need to be taken?
What questions needs to be asked?
What do you need to process and let go of and grieve?
And so you can welcome like, hope and love and excitement and joy for this new chapter.
So that so these, you know, are some of the real identity shifts, the real inner world of an expat that don’t always get talked about enough openly, honestly.
Processing In Real Time
And just like last week’s episode, raw in the moment.
I don’t have a script.
I literally am just processing things with you here right now.
These are the ones, these are the things that come up when we visit our home or home country and when we realize, yeah, we’ve changed.
We’re not the same person that left.
And if any of this resonates with you and you’re navigating your own version of any of this, my DMS are always open like this is my coaching practice, this is my coaching business, this is what I’m here for.
You can always book a call with me as well to explore what deeper support could look like.
I would be honored to do so.
That’s it for this week.
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