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Happy Valentine’s Day – to YOU!!!
Our cultural experiences massively filter our feelings about this holiday – and every other one for that matter too. I’ve celebrated Valentine’s in one form or another every year of my teen/adult life – whether or not I was in a “couple” at the time. My first exposure to Valentine’s was via my high school community abroad – international school “American” culture (“American” because we were multicultural with a dominant American strand). So it was teachers giving out heart themed candy to all the class, female friends leaving origami love notes in lockers expressing appreciation for our friendship, and parents throwing co-ed Valentine’s parties with heart-shaped jello, pink Koolaid and cutsie cakes.
And then England. And it’s not that.
Third Culture Kids: Counsel for their Counselors
So, today I had the immense privilege of presenting my Third Culture research to a group of soon-to-be counsellors. Having met their tutor last week, I had been asked to speak to the group about both my doctoral work and my therapeutic work with Life Story, and I’d jumped at the opportunity! For any researcher, the chance to share connections between theory and practice is a real thrill, and I wasn’t about to turn it down. But more than this, I was delighted to be able to introduce counselling practitioners to the Third Culture Kid concept, and to add another arrow in their quiverful of therapeutic resources.
When Life Goes On… and On… and On…
When Change is Home, what can we do to cope with Staying in Place? How can we keep calm and carry on?
You Cannot Fail at Your Identity.
“If all you take away from this consultation is this, please remember: You cannot fail at your identity” My client’s face relaxed into profound relief as I spoke these words. TCK-ness could be seen as the last option standing for people who so often defy categorisation, and in doing so, confound belonging. For TCKs, therefore, feeling excluded from their TCK-ness is deeply damaging. For there is often nowhere else to go.
Families in Global Transition – the Adventure #4 – The Finale!!
Those of you brave souls that have been following my write ups for Families in Global Transition… thank you for making it to this one! It’s been a useful exercise in processing all of the amazing material gleaned during this conference, but I wanted it to be an opportunity also to signpost readers to some of the variety of the expat blogosphere and other resources too. I hope it’s useful…
Families in Global Transition – the Adventure #3
I really want to just share some thoughts from the last few days of the conference. It was such an amazing experience, with such knowledge shared, that I need to record it somehow. And who knows, it might persuade some of you lovely readers to attend next year! 😉
Families in Global Transition – the Adventure #2
So, I started chronicling my adventures at the recent Families in Global Transition conference here. Today, I find myself driven to my bed by a throat infection and aching joints… and in a reflective mood. So here is the next installment! After taking part in the Early Bird Research Forum, and all revved up by the exciting amount of expat and Third Culture Kid research going on out there, we joined the rest of the delegates for our first keynote presenter, Christopher O’Shaughnessy.
Families in Global Transition – the Adventure #1
I’ve been putting off this post. Mainly because the idea of trying distill all of the amazing experiences at FIGT, in the Netherlands, is just incredibly daunting. I heard so many fantastic talks, spoke to some fascinating people, and felt so many different emotions during the intense 3 day conference. So where to start?
A week of belonging…
Next week, I’ll be spending whole days and evenings with scores, and then hundreds of Third Culture Kids, Expatriate parents and their supporting professionals. I’ll be surrounded by ‘my people’… and, unaccostumed as I am to being a member of a majority group, the thought is mildly overwhelming! And exciting. And overwhelming again.
Use the nice spoon…
What are your little pleasures? And how can you incorporate more of these throughout your day? Sometimes it’s a whole day ‘out’ that’s needed, to just rebalance things. And at other times, it’s using the nice spoon to make your tea…