The life of a Third Culture Kid therapist

After some creative scribbling, I feel like I've cracked something I want to now share with you - how I've seen myself privilege one version of my identity over others! This is something I hear us especially prone to doing if managing fluctuating energy levels, sometimes due to chronic conditions or illnesses. As TCKs, the pressure is often on to demonstrate our 'added value' and I share here the...

What do our TCK stories tell us about aging? And how does this impact our identities? This episode throws open this question and explores how we can use our stories as a resource to help us understand where our own (perhaps multiple) constructs of aging come from, and how we can navigate this with mindfulness and gentleness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This last week I hit a familiar feeling - low motivation, a sense of 'what's the point anyway?' and general resistance to the elements and rhythms of my daily life. As with all of my confusing feelings, I tried to look at the context around it - and realised I was coming up to my three year mark: It's nearly three years I've been in this new house and my TCK clock was getting ready to lose it. Hos...

So birthdays can bring up a lot for people, and for TCKs, these were often affected by mobility: Who do you invite to a party when you are the new kid? How do people celebrate here? And mine tends to make me pensive around identity also - who have I been this year, and where am I at now? And so in this podcast, I invite you to ponder with me those identities we inhabit but especially those we migh...

I've just read Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist" and now I know the secret of happiness... and it's reminiscent of what I see Third Culture Kids doing every day in the tension they work to hold - between the "here" in my hand and the "there" out in the world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Am I bad at communicating my needs, or did I just learn how to communicate in an indirect, obligation-based culture? Am I over-bearing, or did I just learn that high-volume enthusiasm is how one communicates love? The places of our stories have so much to offer in helping us understand why our way of being may not fit easily in the here and now, but is utterly functional - somewhere else! Hosted o...

As with so many mainstream concepts, I find that Third Culture Kids often have a complicated and nuanced experience of "self-esteem", so it's definitely worth talking about! Some of us absolutely struggle with feelings of worthlessness, a grim and exhausting experience. Others of us, find that we have a strong sense of our own worth, and yet find ourselves feeling just as insecure of others' regar...

So many Third Culture Kids tell me how they can feel suddenly triggered or 'tugged' back into a previous chapter by the "smallest thing". This can be an amazing moment of nostalgic joy but often it's a moment of pain - a flooding feeling that dislocates us from the present moment. If we are to avoid self-shaming for "over-reacting" or being "too sensitive", it's important to understand these emoti...

I've been wrestling with rest this week, and contemplating how my TCK story complicates my relationship with rest. Also explored, how hard and awful it can feel to change our narratives! Even when that change itself feels good... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether via health trauma or everyday cultural stories around body and wellness, health is a huge chapter in the Third Culture Kid story. Growing up with the classic, "Where There is no Doctor" book as a staple in my home in Niger, I explore here the role of health experiences on my own story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When staying in place, seasonal change becomes a helpful access point to change and novelty for Third Culture Kids. Join me in this episode as I contemplate how we can review and renew our multifaceted selves at the the season's change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are so many elements to our selves as Third Culture Kids it can feel stifling to feel stuck in one iteration of self for long. Moving to places that invite a different self forward is one solution, but today I'm reflecting on how setting internal boundaries can spin the dial and allow different selves to take space alongside one another. In all this, the Japanese idea, "yutori" is one I'm fi...

Boundaries... we can have a very heavy relationship with this word. Fear of crossing them, of faux pas, and fear of setting them - this is the story for many Third Culture Kids. In this episode I'm exploring what it is about our experiences of mobility that can complicate boundaries for us, and how we can rebuild relationship with them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So many of us are struggling to learn how to overcome challenges, change thought patterns and achieve our goals. So why, just as we start to see ourselves make these hard won changes, do we sometimes hit a whole new level of discomfort - that of feeling good!? Many Third Culture Kids find that the struggle and change is more familiar to us than the work of maintaining 'arrival' in those good place...

TCKs often grow up accustomed to the need to learn new skills quickly (with varying degrees of felt success!) and this can complicate our relationship to our identities as 'learners'. In some ways we receive feedback we are ahead of our passport peers, and in other ways we can feel very behind. In this episode I explore something that has recently got me contemplating my own belief about myself as...

I hear this a lot, "but I don't want to need to take care of me". It's often in recognition of how much you've been through, how much taking care of yourself has already cost you... and the pain of realising how much time and energy your body, mind and heart are still asking of you... and today I'm sitting with you here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How does being a TCK impact how we approach reciprocity in relationships? In my experience, it often leads us to want to heavily weight the experience towards us being givers, rather than takers... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the new year, and how are those resolutions coming along? Are you feeling motivated? Accomplished? Or, like me, are you wondering why your goals are now making you feel so judged? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today Rachel started recording the audiobook for her book, "Incredible Lives and the Courage to Live Them" (print copies currently available at https://amzn.eu/d/hd88atF), and shares her experience, as well as her gratitude. Audiobooks played a huge part in her TCK childhood, and she reflects on the significance of auditory communication. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information...

129 clients in, and nearly 8000 downloads in the last year of this podcast, and it's time to reflect before the year turns to 2024! In this episode I invite you to review your year too - with gratitude for the you that travelled with you these last 12 months. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At a season where so many of us are wrapped up (see what I did there?!) in finding the perfect gifts, I want to take a moment to explore how the idea of being a gift to the world may have touched our story as Third Culture Kids, and how I'd like to offer a reframe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The familiar (and repetitive) scripts of Christmas Hallmark movies remind me of how we can find safety in the predictable stories we hold this season. However, it's worth exploring if these familiar stories are ones we are choosing, or if we even feel good about the characters we are playing! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How comfortable are we when other people's stories of us don't align with how we want to be perceived? In my experience, it's a common human experience to feel the need to have some control over the story of who we are. For many TCKs, it's aligned to our very social survival... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, I'm exploring the expectations that form around leadership for Third Culture Kids... what are your experiences? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ok, this is a fun one... What do we feel about breaking social rules? For me there is a shiver of dread around this, a reaction that remembers the cost of cultural faux pas. But what about if we are breaking rules intentionally? What rule would you break? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.