Blog
Moving Furniture, Telling Your Story
I’m really excited to be sitting here at my desk, writing to you. I had a ‘TCK moment’ yesterday when I realised I needed to move all the furniture around in my office to get my writing mojo back – and a few hours of mess, one dismantled desk and a big bag of rubbish later – I’m in a much better place. Literally.
Third Culture Kid Identity & Me. The Chicken or the Egg?
I remember when I first encountered the term 'Third Culture Kid'. I was reading Pollock and van Reken's book, and the tears just fell as I felt the relief many of us feel when we realise that we finally make sense! My sense of who I was and how I experienced the...
Making Time for the Goodbyes
I was reminded this week about the many transitions I have faced, without saying goodbyes. I was reminded because of a simple game I play with my daughter when we visit a playground.
When Overwhelm silences your Voice
Sensory overload. Physical discomfort. Mental gymnastics. Emotions running high.
Hello Overwhelm.
I’ve spent hours this week trying to grapple SEO optimisation and various plugins and the overwhelm has been building. I’m not naturally gifted in the area of website technology, and though I have very generous, patient and gifted friends, I’m also stubborn.
Why We Need to Tell Our Story
Many of us have painful experiences of feeling misunderstood. This may be because of cross-cultural expectations or assumptions we have been caught up in (in the case of Third Culture Kids or expatriate workers) or because of our own society’s misunderstanding of our situation or experiences (in the case of many of us with chronic illness and pain). Either way, we can feel burnt by misunderstanding and hesitant to risk another attempt to tell our story. And yet, the need to tell it remains. We need to tell our story to make it real, restore our authorship and invite connection.
Why your Story Matters…
Some people tell stories easier than others. Some of us rehearse those stories that are better understood, resonate easiest with our audience. Some of us tell stories to confuse and challenge our listeners. Some of us stand mute, holding our stories close; we are reluctant to let our stories be misheard, misunderstood. So many of us have felt misunderstood.
Third Culture Kids: When the winds of change blow
Change. For those of us who have lived highly mobile lives (Third Culture Kids) change is an old and familiar wind that has accompanied us on our journey. It has coaxed us, nudged us on, and occasionally beaten us. The winds of change have brought the new and novel, opportunities, hope… and confusion, chaos and fear.
When Growth Hurts…
“It’s been a summer of growing pains”, I explained to my friend. As a child I had suffered a lot with what doctors referred to as growing pains. Essentially, at times of rapid growth it felt as though my bones had lengthened before my muscles… and they were painfully stretched taught, being pulled by the growth of the bones. My summer had felt similar – I could recognise areas of rapid personal development and growth and this was exciting, but I felt exhausted and drained by how surprisingly painful that growth was.
If Growth was a Money Box: investing in ourselves
I talk to people all the time who are overwhelmed. They are overwhelmed by all the things that are changing in their life, in their thinking, in their relationships. I tend toward this too; carrying a strong sense of what needs to change, what is changing… but always feeling about two weeks (or years!) behind where I want to be.
Windows of Tolerance
We’ve all heard of the “comfort zone”. This is the space in which we operate most, erm, comfortably. Here we feel no distress or anxiety and we function well. The notion of the “window of tolerance” extends on this concept and applies itself especially to optimal mental health functioning. Always a fan of a new concept, and especially one with such metaphorical promise, I thought I’d explore it further.