Do you have cultural intelligence?

How well do you communicate with other cultures? Do you make blunders? Have a look at the Newsletter 13 to find out more and see great examples of some of the mistakes you might be making.

Season confusion? Why? Suggestions in the Newsletter 13

Getting through unsettling times

Are you feeling unsettled? It may be that you are unsettled as an immigrant or are going through an unsettled stage of life. This blog will look at ways to help with those feelings of being unsettled, whether they are because you are a migrant or because you are unsettled in life.

As a migrant feeling unsettled, you could consider:

1. What motivated you to emigrate in the first place? Are those reasons still valid? If they are, then by reminding yourself you are in the right place, you can allow yourself to feel more settled.
2. Perhaps your reason for migrating has been fulfilled, for example, you wanted better opportunities for your children and it is the next challenge you are facing that is making you feel unsettled as an immigrant. This could be that as you see your children pick up the host countries’ mannerisms, language, accents, and attitudes, you wonder how you can introduce some of your culture to them. Perhaps through your homeland’s food, festivals, and visits to your homeland.
3. Try to identify, what it is exactly that is unsettling you?

Ten tips for making a great impression.

First impressions of people and places are given and received. What was your first impression of the place you have chosen to live? Learn of others' frist impressions and how you can increase your chances as an immigrant of having the best first impressions.
Read more in the Newsletter 12.
Let us know your experiences by commenting below.

Ten solutions for repatriate blues

  Are you returning to your homeland, thinking of returning or have returned? This will help you. There are many reasons for returning to your homeland. An immigrant may have been disappointed in their life in their adopted country. They or their partner may be so unhappy, homesick or isolated that they feel they need to return. An expat or spouse may feel the need to return or have to return. Whichever the reasons for returning to your homeland, the return is not always the way you think it will be.

Experiences

  In Debra Bruno's  Wall Street Journal article, Repatriation Blues: Expats Struggle With the Dark Side of Coming Home, she delightfully summarises experiences of people and children coming home. My favourite is the following: "Expats need to know that the toughest assignment of all might be coming home. “Send me home?” asks Ms. Pascoe. “It’s easier to go to Bangkok than to repatriate in Vancouver.” You can also listen to Debra's podcast interview with The Bittersweet Life. 

  The Repatriation Process blog from Internations explains more on the danger over-telling your anecdotes from your time overseas.

Immigrants are like trees, and this is not a knicker fetish!

How are immigrants like trees? What do you need to prune when you migrate? What is our underwear drawer telling us? How to get help and increase your support networks, and more on goodbyes. All this and more in the Newsletter 11.

Help for migrants and those who know them

Ten ways to make goodbyes easier

I have written three blogs on saying goodbye. In these blogs I divided up the ten tips with more information, (links below) but here they are in pure point form for those of you who enjoy summaries.

1. Decide on what is best for you and the people you are leaving. Long goodbyes aren't necessarily
   
   easier. Overseas Emigration blog says,"A friend gave me great advice about leaving and going to the airport. They suggested I say goodbye to my family at home and then ask a best friend to take me to the airport; to say your goodbyes to close family members at the security gate is just too emotionally charged."  
2. Having been through many airport goodbyes, I now tend to limit the time at the airport to a cup of coffee, I have not been in the frame of mind to shop or browse with the people I am about to leave. 
3. If the goodbye has felt rushed and chaotic, if you are the one leaving, you have the privacy of a long plane journey to feel sad.
   
4. Be honest with your goodbyes. Say what you feel and when it comes to the final parting, don't draw it out. You have to part sometime. In Wikihow method two, long term goodbyes suggest being brief and sincere. 
5. Offer a memento, a photo, a card, a souvenir of your time together. It may be worth giving the gift before the airport. A metre tall cuddly toy may not be welcome at the last moment. Great for cuddling but it may not fit in the baggage plans of the person leaving. Smaller items need thought through too. I once had to turn down a goodbye gift because it didn't meet airline safety specifications.
6. If you are visiting your homeland or your loved ones are visiting you, toast the goodbye in a place that you enjoy being in, one that you can have good memories of. A last meal, a pleasant walk. Talk over some of the good times you have had.
   
7. Realise that in the build up to saying goodbye, there maybe anxieties or unusual behaviour. Either party is upset at the prospect of loss and this may be shown in being easily irritated or angry. Be aware that the anger is not directed at you but at the situation. Perhaps suggest that it is a tense time for you both. Be gentle with each other. Read more from Swedish Psychologist Dr Julie S. Lungdren and the first half of the  article "How to keep the 'good' in goodbye in the Wall Street Journal. 
8. Make a tentative arrangement for when you will see each other or contact each other again, even if it is not certain, it gives you a connection to hold onto.
9. Be aware of PLT - Pre leaving tension. Not just the behaviour as in tip 7 but the tensions and tears beforehand. Read more here, part of Chapter 7 of The Emotional Challenges of Immigration
10. Goodbyes are part of life's progression. You have to say goodbye to stages of your life to make space for new experiences, new people. Embrace the change.
    

More information in these blogs Goodbyes, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3