The Place We Call Home: Dr. Saliha Afridi On The Ups and Downs of Living The Expat Life
The clinical psychologist and managing director of The LightHouse Arabia discusses why it’s not always that easy to settle seamlessly into expat life
For some people, home is related to a physical place, a soil, a land. For other people, home is a place they have made inside of them – a soul, a belonging. Globalisation has resulted in more opportunities, and because of this, many people may choose to move and leave the place they grew up in search of something new. This could be new opportunities, new experiences, new challenges, new people – whatever the reasons may be, these people get a ‘call for adventure’ and they answer and start their journeys to new lands. But what many don’t realise is that even though moving to a new country, and the expat life that comes with it, has its gifts, it is not without its own issues.
Challenges of living an expat life
You can have heightened anxiety due to so much change in your environment. Those who have never left their native country to live anywhere else cannot imagine the safety containment a familiar place can provide. Even if the country is politically unstable or not necessarily safe in the traditional sense of the word, its familiarity provides a sense of containment. Many expats will feel an inexplicable sense of vulnerability and insecurity even if the move was for all the right reasons and came with financial security. That is because the familiar things in their context that anchored them – the streets, the grocery stores, the hospitals, the way things work on a day to day basis – are no longer there.
You can develop a need for constant change and a fear of commitment. Those who move often can become psychologically addicted to the change and feel anxious when they have to stay in one place for too long. Familiarity, sameness and routine can start to feel boring and they develop an insatiable need to chase the ‘next’ thing. This starts to play out in different ways in their personal and professional life too. You can find it difficult to feel present – for people who decide to move for a ‘few years’ to a new country, you may have a hard time feeling present in that new country. You may avoid investing in meaningful attachments and friendships, and not set up a ‘home’ because you are only ‘here for a little while.’ This can make you feel like you are in a state of transition, rather than settled into the present moment.
The upsides of an expat life
You can find your inner home. When everything around you is different – the people, places and procedures – you are forced to cultivate a sense of identity and inner stability. Often when we move to a new place we are forced to ask questions like: ‘Who am I if I am not what my family or my culture expects of me?’ This can bring us closer to our own values versus what our family or culture anticipates – and often requires – from us. And when all else around you is different, you are forced to find stability and grounding on the inside.
You learn and grow. When you move to a new place with curiosity and wonder rather than trying to find the familiar, or insist on being ‘the same you’ you will be transformed as a result of that experience. Instead of insisting on your way of doing things and judging your new home and its people for doing things differently (which can often happen when you move countries), stay energetically open, curious, and learn to adopt a new way of being. Your inner and outer world gets bigger and you develop a broader sense of perspective – every place, every person and every experience has the power to expand your world.
Yes, travelling can also broaden your horizons, but moving to a new country really asks more of you in terms of understanding, flexibility, adaptability, and curiosity. These traits, when cultivated through a relocation, can broaden and transform your perspective and you bring that understanding, acceptance, and tolerance you have adopted to enrich all areas of your life.
From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s June 2022 issue