And the danger is
that in this move
toward new horizons
and far directions,
that I may lose what I have now,
and not find anything
except loneliness.
Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
So you decided to move abroad. The great affair of transition lies ahead of you. You’ll get plenty of useful recommendations from locals and other expats, as well as handy tips on how to survive administrative conundrums. You’ll try to be responsible and plan ahead while getting ready for the great departure. But how about – preparing for the fact that the stress of transition might affect your well-being?
Sometimes the adjustment comes naturally and people continue to thrive within the new life. However, research data reports that challenges of transition and adjustment may affect expats’ well-being and trigger alterations in mental health domain. Moving abroad might tackle our most vulnerable spots – feelings of loneliness, helplessness, apathy, confusion, anxiety, frustration, even depression. Various relational issues add to this – misunderstandings with locals due to cultural and language barrier, difficulties with forming friendships, social isolation.
My last blog post (that announced this mini-series) introduced a notion of our inner maps of reality – pathways in our mind that guide how we anticipate, interpret and make sense of events in our life. Since our maps are created to navigate us through the familiar context, once the context changes they might not be as useful. When moving abroad our maps will need an update to help reconcile the differences between two worlds.
Can we find out what are our vulnerable spots and the required updates? Is it possible to know anything about it before the experience itself?
Exploring our capacity for change and possible challenges that go with it is a good starting point. Insights we gain can be protective of our welfare and help us form better coping mechanisms. In this and the following post, I will list some important topics to bare in mind and preferably examine before moving. You might want to delve into them by yourselves, with significant others or with a therapist.
Any expectations from expating?
As a therapist, I see the ways we anticipate future events as a mirror of our current processes. Furthermore, anticipations pave way to what becomes our future reality. By getting to know them we can be better equipped to relate to the experiences ahead of us.
We can start by asking ourselves – what would we put on our to anticipate list? If, for example, we assume that we’ll feel anxious after reaching our new destination, we can try putting “inevitable shock” on our list. We could also explore what this shock means to us and what role do we take in the face of it. The drawing technique (presented in my previous post) helps my clients to get a clearer vision of what they expect for themselves.
We can ask ourselves – why did these particular anticipations come to mind? Would this new version of us need some additional resources? Is there anything we’d like to do about that? Or would we perhaps just like to acknowledge and accept what we predict – that can be a big step on its own.
Oh and… the New is not what the Old was?
As for the new place, it looks on us with alien eyes, it has nothing to say to us, it is cold. ― Jan Neruda, Prague Tales
The excitement of the novelty might eventually go down. Sometimes, what follows is a phase of unpleasant feelings marked by focusing merely on the differences between Old and New. Within my work with expat clients, it occured to me that in order to accept the new one must first acknowledge that it is not what the old was. We might feel disoriented or upset about this insight. We feel overwhelmed by novelty on a daily basis and sad because we lost parts of the old world. These reactions are normal.
John Bowlby, founder of the attachment theory, once wrote that “life is best organized as a series of daring ventures from a secure base”. While we try to build our secure base around us we might get the urge to withdraw from the rolling sea back into our safe harbor. At one moment our eyes and mind are craving for the sense of something well-known – a reminder of home, of a world predictable and a life we had. These feelings can lead us to go back to the resources from the old world: spending time on Skype with friends and family, going through the old photos, listening to music in our mother tongue, or planning a trip back home.
It’s a tricky motion that happens on every day basis as we go against gravity of the “predictable” into exploration of the “uncharted” territory. We hold on to activities and people that are reliable in providing us with comfort. This type of reaction is an expected part of transition. It can even be seen as an important step in the integration process. Nevertheless, continuously choosing “safer and known” old over “challenging and unknown” new prevents us from relating to our current context. Therefore, this coping strategy might become an ongoing issue. If that happens, it might be a good moment to seek professional support in order to solve this problem.
Take a curious stance
I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses. – Bill Bryson
While struggling with accepting differences between Old and New, we try to stretch our inner map so that the current territory fits in. It resembles adapting the territory to the map instead of the other way around. We go searching for parts of the Old in New and expect to find them looking almost the same, evoking similar feelings and being relatable from the start. The truth is – that’s not how we found the old ones either. The experience of familiarity requires time to grow.
First step into getting familiar with something is – exploring it. Surrounding ourselves with locals or people who already formed a bond with the context can help us start creating our own. They might offer their stories, introduce us to various sites and a fresh perspective on our new habitat.
We can also try out temporarily being a curious tourist that will one day grow into feeling like a local. People come with an expectation to start an integration process as soon as possible, not to stroll around and sightsee as they would on a vacation. It sounds quite reasonable. Nevertheless, taking the role of a curious tourist every now and then can actually pave a path to better integration. Imagine deciding to be a curious visitor for a day at your new home town. You’ll probably feel free to ask for information instead of being shy or insecure about not having it already. Furthermore, with the “tourist” glasses on, your approach to the surroundings will change and the novelty might appear more exciting to explore. When the experiment’s over – you might feel like your perceptions became richer and you felt less pressure to fit in.
Read more about the ways to cope and protect your well-being as a foreigner in my next post.