Personally, I’ve little more to add to the concerns about what foreigners call themselves in foreign countries, but the matter of either manning up when moving or coaxing catharsis when changing countries is something that fascinates me.
It was seeing the headline “Living the expat dream can come with a hidden emotional toll” that prompted my pondering on this, and an immediate, somewhat brusque-sounding response in the comments to it, that got me thinking more.
The author was making a stout defence of relocation’s ‘psychological impact’ and suggesting support to manage it; whilst the commenter seemed keener on a ‘get-over-it-love’ approach, alluding to (I think) the sense of privilege a voluntary mover has compared to a displaced or life-threatened refugee.
It is, of course, a fair point, as there is always someone worse off than you (as your well-meaning grandmother might have said when you were down in the dumps as a kid), but on the other hand, suffering is real and painful at whatever scale, and rarely healed by shaming or comparison.
This is the stuff of an “in my day” Boomer versus an “‘it’s not fair” Millennial, who each have a point from their perspective and experience, yet often struggle to come to any mutual understanding.
I know “just get on with it” people, and often unconvinced by their overall sense of functionality and contentedness. I also know ‘feelings first’ types, whose immediate response is to take everything personally; both types, at their worst, quick to be triggered and slow to forgive or yield.
These temperaments and resulting predicaments begging the question: what is the appropriate balance of heart and mind, of emotion and logic, of pragmatism and pondering?
Knowing when to “suck it up” with a stiff upper lip or otherwise cry “it sucks” through vulnerable tears, for the sake of optimum wellbeing, is vital training for life. Finding the rational/emotional sweet spot is useful, not only when migrating but in all areas of our daily affairs, where inappropriate over-reactions or callous indifference can damage the day-to-day of our lives, as we see in reactionary politics and polarisation of friendship and families.
In addressing this, I am aware of how this very thought process might add to the righteousness and division, so rife in these times, where one might imagine that there are ‘sides’ to this, like everything else right now, with one better than the other, AKA the chronic social disease of doubling-down and othering, which can have us dehumanise and devalue one another.
But to me, these – what apparently appear to be ‘sides’ – are nothing of the sort. I do not mean to empower one side over another, with the “I don’t care about your feelings” camp feeling a superiority over team in touch with my feelings, or vice-versa. Neither will I offer an over-simplified, click-baity answer to what is the ‘best’ way to manage your mind when moving abroad.
Have we not learned through the murderous clash of ideologies that there is no ultimate or final way to do anything? It is, like we humans ourselves, a work in progress that can only find the ‘best’ way according to the needs of the moment, subject simultaneously to bigger-picture principles.
It is not the ‘what’ that is most important, as I have come to understand it, seeing the most successful movers who seem to remain sane and fulfilled, but the ‘why’, as in the spirit or ethics of their move, over and above their general and habitual emotional reaction to life – whether that’s a curling lip or a constantly soggy Kleenex. And by this, I mean it’s the quality and clarity of intention and outcome that makes a positive difference, when migrating, and with it an ability to consider and contemplate deeply the motives of mission and self.
I know this for myself, in my own experience. Having a clear picture of how I’d like my life to be in the future, for myself, for family and for the society that has welcomed me is far more sustainable and supportive than hot buy shallow revenge on my old life and country. When the onerous shadow of bureaucracy falls across my lot here, I am far more functional when I cling rationally and logically to my hopes and vision than I am collapsing in a wretched heap of victimisation.
There are times when frogs have to be swallowed, whether I want to or not. And other moments, of more prolonged introspection, that can uncover dysfunctional patterns. Wisdom, as I have come to know it in older age, is knowing the difference, while recalling my highest perspective.
To the gung-ho, go-getter, with no time for ‘therapy’, their hammer-like approach sees every situation as a nail. For them, however, a ‘touchy-feely’ intervention might work wonders, helping them understand an unhelpful pattern, formed as a survival structure, earlier in life, that no longer serves them as an adult.
To the navel-gazing navigators of life, who need to mull and mither endlessly over every detail of any decision, whilst nursing old wounds, ‘manning up’ and taking action might be the medicine.
Whilst there’s no right way, we will know for certain, if we are honest, when the way we choose feels absolutely right.
