The biggest challenge facing expats is the loss of your personal support networks. The first few weeks in an unfamiliar location are usually the most challenging. It was difficult to leave my family, friends and colleagues behind when I moved overseas. It was especially hard as the only person I knew in Berlin was my husband.
At first, I found the days while my husband was at work particularly LONELY. Sometimes I felt like a puppy dog when he would walk in the door at night; so excited to see another human and have someone to talk to. I had no idea of the stress I was putting on him to be my everything. In fact sometimes I was so focused on what I believed I had given up for him, that I felt like I deserved to be entertained by him.
Feeling LONELY led to self-pity. The definition of self-pity is “excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one’s troubles.” We start pitying ourselves when we aren’t happy. We start feeling bad about feeling bad.
Self-pity comes from identifying and thinking of ourselves as victims of our circumstances. We feel as if something should be different. We give in and feel sorry for ourselves instead of changing what is changeable.
Self-pity thrives on claimed helplessness. If you’re feeling sorry for yourself, you must change your thinking and the way you view yourself. Pay attention. Notice when you’re complaining, when you’re whining, when you think your life should be different, when you think you deserve better. Find the thinking that’s causing your self-pity and write it down. Recognize that it’s not serving you. Decide what you want to feel instead. You can feel motivated. You can feel excited. You can feel ready for living abroad.
As soon as I focused my brain on my goal of experiencing and learning new things while exploring my new city, the self-pity practically melted away. Instead of feeling resentful for everything I gave up, I started feeling energized by all the new opportunities on my doorstep. When you stop feeling self-pity, you are a lot easier for other people to like and want to be around, which makes you an interesting person who attracts new people.
Even though I met new people through my German classes, and through my husband, there were still times that I felt LONELY. I didn’t have history with them. They didn’t feel like my people – people that I would have chosen to be around before I went overseas.
It was important for me to realize that relationships are simply our thoughts about another person. That becomes more clear when you think about how you may really like someone that another person despises. Your thoughts about that person are positive ones, while the other person has a different experience because they are thinking different thoughts. Our relationship with a person depends on our thoughts about that person, rather than on the person themself.
To combat being LONELY, I had to think about how I wanted to show up when I met someone new, and what I was thinking. When I rush to judgment, or look for annoying traits, that is what I will find. When I feel desperate to have someone new like me, I come off as needy, which is a real turnoff. When I look forward to sharing experiences and getting to know new people in a caring way, I show up as the kind of person I would want to get to know. And it works.
Your thoughts about other people will depend on your expectations of them and how well they meet those expectations. But people are going to act however they want, which won’t always match your expectations, especially when you haven’t even shared your expectations with them. I found that people in another culture will definitely not live up to your expectations. How can they? They don’t even understand your expectations. So the key is to just work on your own thoughts and create your own happiness.
I also found that my thoughts about myself were often the root of my LONELINESS. I really struggled at first with an identity crisis. I had always worked before. I didn’t know who I was as an unemployed person. Having negative thoughts about myself made me really feel LONELY and sorry for myself.
So I chose to think of this as one of the most exciting times in my life, and not one of the LONELIEST. I chose to focus my brain on experiencing and learning new things in my new home, and not on unemployment. I chose to try to talk with people from my German class, and to get to know my husband’s university friends better. And not to be a judge and jury. I chose to show up as a friendly, curious person interested in meeting new and different people. And not try to find clones of my old friends. I chose to look for common interests, and not flaws.
I liked my choices, and this version of me. It made it a lot easier to meet new people. It made it a lot easier to face feeling LONELY. In a short period of time I realized how much richer my life became moving overseas – new friendships, new experiences, new challenges.
When you are feeling LONELY, use it as time to reflect on your thoughts about yourself, about others, and about your new home. Leave the self-pity behind, and focus on the amazing version of yourself that you want to become overseas.
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