When you experience emotional OVERWHELM, it can feel all-consuming. OVERWHELM means to be completely submerged by your thoughts and emotions about current problems, to the point where you lack efficacy and feel frozen or paralyzed. When OVERWHELMED, it can be difficult to think and act rationally, and even function in a normal way. Needless to […]

I think most Moms succumb to Mom GUILT from time to time, and that is normal. I think it only becomes a problem when we use it as a weapon against ourselves. GUILT is an emotion that occurs when a person believes, accurately or not, that they have compromised moral standards and bear responsibility for

For Mother’s Day, I would like to celebrate the expat Moms. Wouldn’t it be great if all the Moms out there made a pledge to make time for themselves this year! We tend to put everybody and everything ahead of ourselves, but the reality is that when we show up as the best version of

Today I would like to share a story from a book by Duane Elmer, “Cross-Cultural Connections: Stepping Out and Fitting In Around the World,” called The Monkey and the Fish. Duane Elmer retold this story that was credited originally to Ann Templeton Brownlee. A typhoon had temporarily stranded a monkey on an island. In a

Last month was my birthday and the one year anniversary of the pandemic. These two events really had me feeling down and out for more than two weeks. I know people expect life coaches to have it all together, but we are human and struggle too.  My slump gave me the opportunity to remember what

An expat’s level of CULTURAL adaptation usually falls somewhere on a sliding scale. On one end of the scale is a state of nearly complete isolation from the host CULTURE, perhaps within a foreigners’ compound. On the other end is what expats often call going native; living as the local people do, speaking their language

The stresses of the transition to a new country tend to be greater for accompanying SPOUSES than for their employed partners. In some ways you may find your life severely restricted. In other ways, however, you may find you have more freedom than you did at home.  A feeling of control over your own life

Once you have lived or traveled to a developing country it becomes obvious that human happiness does not come from material luxury, especially once the basic needs of survival have been met. Instead happiness comes from more intangible factors such as an overall feeling of self-confidence, the comfort of a familiar environment, good relationships with

As you are trying to adjust to a new country, one often sinks at some point into a transition SLUMP.  Humans make sense of the world and their lives by following routines and taking familiar things for granted. Research claims that 95% of our lives are unconscious, or basically ruled by routine. Moving overseas changes

CULTURES include assumptions, values, expectations, and attitudes that have developed among groups of people over time. No matter where in the world you are, and no matter how open-minded you are as a person, there will inevitably be times when your own values, expectations, and habits clash with those of the local people.  As a

Exactly a year ago today, all the schools, restaurants, and non-essential stores and businesses in the country I am living in closed and we were all asked to work from home and shelter in place. We had never experienced anything like it before, and we had no idea how long it would last, or what

There are many advantages that expats enjoy, such as experiencing new cultures, travelling to interesting places, meeting people from all over the world and having experiences you wouldn’t have in your home country. The flip side is that expats also face very trying situations that can lead to FRUSTRATION at the very least. Moving into