Navigating change & uncertainty as a parent
My eldest son turned 15 yesterday, this picture was taken by Natalie Robinson shortly after his 10th birthday before we left Dubai. Boy has it conjured up a lot and reminds me of the absolute rock solid bond we had at the time living a very conscious day at a time life. As a family we'd been through a crazy 8 months together (a story to be shared at another time) and we were on the precipice of a whole lot of change!
It was ok though I had it all under control! I had enlisted the support of my amazing can’t live without life coach Laura Carr and continued my work with Sharita Singh who is like a dose of calm and tranquillity that I need to have 24/7 access to. I was very intentional with some very specific goals building a coaching practice for small businesses around customer engagement and experience and wanting something quite different from life as we experienced NZ 2.0. I had all the tools, and I was ready for what I perceived to be the challenges that would be coming our way. We were all very sad to be leaving a place that had been home for 11 years but were feeling positive and excited about our next adventure. Everything was going to be absolutely perfect!
After 6 months of travel and the initial honeymoon of everything being fabulous, the cracks started to appear. The biggest one was the absolute emotional rollercoaster that I found myself on as a parent. My son and I went through such deep levels of grief for our old life and really struggled embracing the new. Absolutely everything in our lives changed and I mean everything, then we couldn’t leave New Zealand for 3 years! Despite having so many healthy habits myself (thank goodness, as I clicked up some serious miles on insight timer) and my global support crew I never for one moment anticipated the impact of change on my eldest and the guilt I felt for putting him through so much change.
5 years on as I look at how settled and content Samuel is, I can reflect and see that he's has been my greatest teacher. He’s shown me where I needed to do the work in particular letting go of the absurd notion of being a perfect A+ parent. I often found myself in overwhelming moments of anxiety and grief which I felt at such a visceral level. Slowly and surely the more I focused on my own self-care (it was a double down time on everything) I was able to hold the space for him and help him navigate through a whole load of emotions that he and I had never felt before, as well as a real shift in our relationship. He’s now on the other side and it was primarily due to shifting my mindset I went very very deep, as I did the work to trust that everything would be ok so did he, as I learnt to trust my intuition so did he and as I embraced the fact to live life fully is to experience the full range of emotions head on so did he. He is 15 and still a complete teenager and if you were to ask him about this I’d say you’d get a grunt and a groan so again this isn’t me saying oh look at this amazing kid whose got a fabulous mindset or look at her she’s got it all together, I just know that my job as a parent is to role model the skills that are needed to navigate life and when I get it wrong to own it and apologise! That learning is something that enabled me to offer another line of coaching that I hadn’t anticipated i.e., working with expats and those living a transient life.
Having invested in myself through my own coaches and mentors and embracing so many different modalities I feel so good about where I am right now. I have a passion for continuous learning including a coaching, mindfulness, and reiki qualification I am well equipped to support those as they navigate the uncertainty of a transient life. Taking care of your own emotional regulation is key. It doesn’t need to be complicated, it’s all about baby steps and finding out what works for you. It’s not a linear journey and it may take a few attempts to get there but I promise you once you do the emotional freedom and peace of mind that comes with it is priceless.
I’ve walked this path as my beautiful friend Stephanie recently said it would be a shame if I didn’t help others with all my knowledge and experience as a coach to those that live transient lives.
What I know is wherever you are on your expat journey is that you can’t control the future, nor can you live in the past. Learning the art of presence can be wonderful but equally painful and as you lean into those uncomfortable feelings it’s the start of a journey of awareness to what makes you tick and can be such a game changer in how you live your life. For me it’s an absolute privilege to work in partnership with my clients.
If you’d like to book for a free discovery call please do go in the link in my bio or dm me.
Also if you are wondering about my husband and younger son and how they experienced the change, my husband is like a zen master, had two coaching sessions, read the Art of Happiness and boom he’s annoyingly got it and is an advert for ’Trust in the Process' My youngest son is a complete free spirit and just knows life is going to be good. It’s funny how we all compliment each other! The woo woo part of me says that the universe brought us together to learn from each other!
