The Expat Life Challenges Your Beliefs

I find as an expat that my BELIEFS come into question quite often. Suddenly I was aware that I believed stores and banks should be open when I find it convenient, freezers should be bigger than a shoe box, laws should be just, and all people should be treated equally. These were BELIEFS that I had never questioned before moving abroad.

A BELIEF is just a thought. You’ve thought it so many times you typically don’t even question it. It’s important that you realize your BELIEFS are 100% optional and you get to choose what you believe. 

Your thoughts cause everything. 95% of our thinking is unconscious. Notice what you are thinking. Notice how that thinking creates your feelings, actions and results. Once you truly understand that it’s your thinking causing all the rest, you can decide to change. Decide what you want your new result to be. What will you need to do, feel and think to create that result?

It’s not the events in our lives that shape us but rather our BELIEFS about what those events mean.  When nothing is open on Sundays,  you could choose to make it mean that you are being inconvenienced or that this is the perfect time for you to spend time with family and friends, instead of running errands. Most of us don’t decide consciously what we’re going to believe. BELIEFS and reality tend to be reflective of each other. When reality starts to contradict a BELIEF, tension is created in our lives, and this tension makes us uncomfortable, and we just think we are stressed. We have two choices to reduce tension: change our BELIEF system or change reality. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had much luck changing reality. Many of the BELIEFS that drive us are completely illogical. For instance, when has worrying about things, ever actually helped? Yet, still we do it.

When I married my husband, I was really surprised by the number of family/friends who said, because they heard I was moving to Berlin right after the honeymoon, “I hope he is worth it.” I’d never thought that way until they said it. Their flippant comments planted a seed of doubt. Instead of seeing my marriage as adding something to my life – a partner, a new adventure, an opportunity to explore the world – they framed my move in a way that suggested I was giving something up. Sadly, I carried this idea with me to Berlin and whenever I encountered a challenge or a difficulty, their comments would echo in my mind. In my first few months in Berlin the seed sadly started to grow a bit and I did start to question whether he really was worth it. 

Thankfully, one of my friends came to visit and it was so wonderful to see someone with such a different BELIEF. She looked at Berlin and my life as exciting; she thought it was such a fascinating place. Her enthusiasm and her fresh perspective rubbed off on me, and I’m so glad that it did.

When negative feelings arise and we feel them instead of denying them, they can be a doorway into our BELIEFS. First, acknowledge and feel the feeling. Second, follow where it leads. When you get to the BELIEF, pay attention to it, no matter how illogical it might seem. See how it has manifested in your life. Then, get busy changing it to something true, something useful for you.

It is important to ask yourself: what do you want to believe about your life as an expat?

What are the results you most want in your life?

What are the BELIEFS that have kept you from getting these results so far?

What do you need to believe to achieve the results you want?

Why don’t you believe this yet? What thoughts get in the way?

For me, I sometimes forget that I chose love and a life of adventure, and I chose it on purpose. And I’m so glad that I did.

So please make sure you take the time to answer these questions for yourself and consciously choose what you want to believe.