Blog
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… so I shouldn’t feel so stressed!
Again and again over the last few weeks I have heard this refrain, “It’s Christmas, the holidays… and I’m so stressed! But I shouldn’t be!” I have come to believe, over the years and with increasing intensity, that if we are feeling a feeling – any feeling – we aren’t just doing it for kicks. If we feel ourselves to be happy, we have reason for this. If sad, reason can be found for this too. And so it goes for stress. It follows that if you are feeling stressed, it’s because the situation that you find yourself in is stressful. The trouble is that we have a tendency to believe some situations qualify as stressful, while others don’t. We preemptively determine where we expect to find our feelings. When they turn up unexpectedly, we decided them to be out of place.
Returning Home…
I return to my university campus in the new year, to attend my last ever graduation and wear a silly hat (!) I’m looking forward to wandering the woods on campus, poking my nose into various buildings and going for lunch at an old haunt. Haunt is a word that conjures up exactly that strange echo that fills my head whenever I return to that part of my history… It’s as though I walk alongside memories of my past selves… and it’s always bittersweet.
Migration…
The flocks we observe migrating for the winter may echo our own thoughts as they reach across the miles to return “home”.
What treasures would you save?
It’s the old ‘imagine your home is burning’ routine… Assume your family is safe, your important documents secure in that fire-proof box you keep meaning to put in place (!), and the pets safely outside. Ok, given those essentials of life are taken care of, now imagine some kind of magical time suspension has granted you 15 minutes to walk through your home and save five items from the flames… “You first”, I hear you intone… Fair enough, I started this 😉
Families in Global Transition Conference 2016
I got the news this weekend that my proposal was accepted for the up and coming FIGT conference in Amsterdam! I’m sharing my proposal here, and would love to hear your thoughts!
Lonely Memories… Lonely Stories
We all hold private memories… secret tears or secret joys held captive in the secret places of our minds… Sometimes these private memories are treasured precisely because they are ours, and ours alone… and we would desire that they remain so. At other times, these memories are rendered private, because shared histories and experiences are not part of our immediate social world.
Constructing Self
Our histories play a huge part in the constructing of our selves, and my work with Third Culture Kids has found that three particular constructs often weave through these histories… narratives that orient around nationality, career, and a sense of uniqueness.
What makes “Home” for you?
“Where is home?”, the question so many of us dread… For those who perhaps left home for university and settled elsewhere again, then moved for work, this question can be tricky… For those whose time at ‘home’ in childhood was punctuated by frequent mobility, this question gets even harder. I propose we change the question.
TCK Conference Planning…
No Christmas decorating for me this weekend (*cough, cough* already done that 😳 ) Nope, I’m off to spend the weekend with the oh-so-talented committee for the next EuroTCK conference…
Locating our Selves
I came across this quotation recently and the truth of it resonates strongly with both my personal experience of frequent mobility, but also with the experiences of many other travellers I have spoken to during my research.
Identities are elusive things. They are constructed from birth, delicately built upon the foundations our families set down for us… letting us know ‘who’ we are through reciprocal ‘mirroring’. …