What nobody is warning you about when you move abroad
When we decide to move abroad, we initially encounter many feelings: excitement and joy, fear about the unknown, and discomfort and frustration. They are all natural in the process. Yet there is a feeling which sneaks upon us, yet we rarely know how to name it: grief, or perhaps some of us may recognize it…
Cultural differences in love partnershipS
One of the most significant categories of people traveling from one country to another is marriage. The reason behind this movement move is LOVE. In some cases is love. In other cases is duty or the wish to form an alliance, because of material needs, or because of pregnancy, and there are many reasons two…
How do we include others and how are we included?
I often hear stories of immigrants in different countries in this globalized world. How they travel there, how they find a place to live, how they adjust, and how they get friends or not. How they manage to learn the language or not, and how they feel at home or not. At the same time,…
One hour in our lives
Many people have seen by now that I offer the first session for free. And knowing that a process of healing or change can take more than one hour, I have received the following question: “What can you do with one hour? How much can we solve, and what can we find out?” One hour…
I HATE BEING ALONE
I sometimes hear this at the end of a first or second session. Usually, after many other issues have been lined up as being the problem, which can determin someone to want to speak with a therapist. It comes from young people who had an unstable childhood due to their parents’ moving history, yet not…
“ENVY” AS immigrants/expats
In this article, I choose to speak about ENVY in the context of immigration and multiculturalism. I know it may not be fashionable to speak about less positive feelings, yet I choose to speak about them because we cannot have positive feelings without feeling the less happy ones. Life is not only sugar and honey.…
how to deal with war?
I know it is a strange question. How do we deal with it when we don’t have any personal experience? I grew up with war stories. My father was born in December ’39, in trenches, and he never knew his father, who went to WWII while my grandmother was pregnant. It is not easy to…
9 needs you may want to be aware of
Have you ever thought of what is it that you really need so your life can be beautiful and worth living? When we are born, we are very much in touch with our bodies and emotions. We know when we are hungry and look for mum’s breast or bottle. We know when we want to…
To influence and be influenced
When you throw a stone into the water, it makes rings. Smaller and bigger. If you take the time to watch them, you notice that those rings are spreading their waves further and further from the place the stone felt. They can get very far, and it can take a while by the time they…
Christmas and New year holiday Story
I hope you are enjoying your holidays, and you will make some time to read a Christmas and New year story. It is the second Christmas holiday we have spent together with our new friend Corona. At the beginning of 2020, I have decided to do an experiment. Every Sunday, I was supposed to write on…
sending money home – “COSETTE SYNDROME”
It is December, and the question of gifts for loved ones is more present everywhere around us. Consumerism has turned the Birth of Christ into a money carrousel, and many of us can feel guilty if we do not manage to buy something for people around us. In the collective memory, it has been implemented…
Where is HOME for immigrants/EXPATS?
Home is a word that means a lot for many people. The dictionary says that home is “the house or flat you live in, especially with your family.” In other words, we live in a shelter with or without a family. When we are immigrants, I see this word associated with the country of origin,…
What is “Culture Crush”?
When I hear a word or an expression, I like to go to the ground meaning. I often use dictionaries. When there is an expression, it is usually formed by two or more words, which on their own have their meaning, and combined, they mean something else, something more than if they stand alone. Even if…
What is bullying?
What does it mean to be bullied? Cambridge dictionary defines this word as follows: “the behavior of a person who hurts or frightens someone smaller or less powerful, often forcing that person to do something they do not want to do”. We often hear children and teenagers saying that they are being bullied at school.…
Setting boundaries VS burning bridges
In the world of therapy, we have many discussions about setting boundaries. Usually, it applies to people who answer YES to everything. Unfortunately, these people find themselves in situations where they take too much responsibility on their shoulders because they cannot say NO. If they would take responsibility for themselves, that would be another story, yet…
5 ways to deal with Impatience as an immigrant/expat
Be patient! It takes time… Wait a moment! Let me think about it! The dictionary says that patience is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious”. How do we accept and tolerate delays and problems and suffering without becoming anxious? How do we do that when we…
Expat VS Immigrant: a matter of language aesthetics
I have noticed a confusion of terms regarding people who choose to live in other countries than where they have been born and raised. I find it interesting to see how each person identifies him/herself. Therefore, dictionaries are helpful. I am using here the English Cambridge dictionary, which has straightforward definitions for both terms: An…
How “work” can become a drug
I don’t know if it is new, yet it is the most accepted behavior to “fall into” in the world. It doesn’t matter if it ruins families just as much as chemicals. It is considered a much safer place to hide the real emotions or to channel negative feelings than any other legal or illegal…
How Eating meets your needs and follow you around the World
Cambridge dictionary definition says that eating disorders are mental illnesses. I, though, don’t see it this way. I mostly see them as emotional distress. First of all, we eat so we can survive. Lack of proper food leads to diseases and malnutrition. Yet, food meets more than this particular need in many people. One of…
Hunger as a drive away from home
Among the feelings that drive people away from their countries, we also find the feeling of hunger. Looking for a definition of this word, I found the Cambridge dictionary, which says the following: “a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat”, “the feeling you have when…
Shades of Shame while being an Expat/Immigrant
There are many reasons people may choose to live in other countries than their own. I like to believe that our feelings drive us away, and at the same time, they also keep us in touch with our roots. There are positive feelings that determine us to move away. I link here the article, where…
What is “burn-out”
“Burn-out” is that state when you are so tired that you feel angry all the time. No matter what people would try to tell you, you answer with anger, and you wish people didn’t see you, so you won’t be forced to talk to them.Is that state when you don’t feel like getting out of…
How to deal with other people fears / feelings
It is important to take into account the feelings of the people who surround us. We do not live alone in the world, and we usually tend to develop ourselves in meetings and relationships with other people. We are born in a social “system” with parents and eventually siblings, and perhaps extended family. The importance…
Fear of what we know
FEAR is one of the four primary feelings we have. It is instinctive, and it is planted in our subconscious because we need it to keep us safe. If we think of the old times, when people lived in cages and hunting in forests, fear was necessary. If they met a giant predator, of course,…
Rejected
There are many types of fear. And fear has to do with danger and with things that may happen in the future. It’s meant to keep us alive. Yet, some fears can do us more harm than good. One of these fears is the fear of being rejected. Fear of being rejected is a kind…
Knowledge VS Wisdom
There is a lot of information around us when it comes to mental and emotional health. We are swamped with books, articles, TV and internet shows, opinions, and advice. Everything we want to know, we ask our best friend in need: Google. Or, we ask friends and family and strangers on FB or Instagram. We…
What would people say!
As you may have already understood, I bring up in this articles questions and issues that pop up in my therapy room. This time is about “Feedback”. How do we hear and take feedback? Good or bad. How well are people prepared to hear what is told around them, in the environments they walkabout? “What would…
Coaching VS Therapy
In my practice I have received this question quite often: what is the difference between therapy and coaching. Therapy sounds like someone is bad mentally and needs extreme treatment and pills and it is almost crazy. Not quite true. That is something psychiatrist are dealing with. Therapy helps you heal past emotions and people need…
Freedom, rights, and flowers
March 8th. A big day in the world, yet what is it, exactly that we are celebrating? It may seem like a simple question with a simple answer. It’s International Women’s Day. We celebrate women all over the world. But in which way? What is it that we celebrate about women? What I have noticed…
There is nothing you MUST
How many times have you heard people around you telling you that “you MUST” do this, or you MUST do that, or you should, or you ought to do whatever? Or even speaking about themselves and saying: “I must do this or that”. In the end, after hearing these words so many times in our…
9 ways to deal with Anxiety on the spot
Anxiety is Fear of the unknown: that we do not have control over our surroundings which is followed by not knowing how we are going to react in certain circumstances. What to say, what to do. Ok, we wanted to be/or not in this particular situation (doesn’t matter which). Now what. I have no idea…
Maintenance
I wonder if you ever used this word, and in what context? What does it mean, “maintenance”? Maintenance means when you take your car to the garage, check that is running well, and you are not risking any accidents on the road. Maintenance is when you are cleaning the house to breathe clean air and…
Needs and communication in relationships
Couple’s therapy. I always admire people who decide to go into couple’s therapy. That is a sign that they want to work on their relationship and understand each other. I suppose you may already have noticed that all relationships require work. It does not matter if we are talking about friendships or love relationships or…
ANGER
Anger is one of the primary feelings we have, and it is meant to protect us. Anger is the emotion we feel in the present moment, and it has to do with the trespassing of personal boundaries or territories. When our values or something essential for us is threatened, we get angry and irritated. We are willing to…
How therapy works
When I say that I have therapy praxis, I notice different reactions from people. Some stop for some seconds and try to digest what they’ve heard. Others answer with long: “Ooooookeeeeyyy!” or “Interesting”. And the conversation stops there. With time I realized that people around me have a different understanding of what “therapy” means than…
Migration of Emotion
Behind the decision of moving, working and living in another country always lies a feeling; one that gives us the necessary energy to proceed with the action. I like to call it Migration of Emotion because we take with us our feelings about how it is going to be in the new place to which…
The Invisible Luggage
People move a lot, generally. Move from a house to another, from a city to another, from one country to another. But why do they do that? What is it that makes them choose “the moving” move? In my experience, people move because they believe that somewhere else they will feel better. They will have…
Nothing is lost, but changed
Recently, I’ve been asked how living in Norway has changed me? Well, it changed me in many ways. I have learned a lot about myself and about others. I have learned what it means to be a human being and what it means to be tolerant. The concept of “tolerance” doesn’t really exist…
Speak the words, but not the culture
This is the excerpt for your very first post.