guess what i'm moving country again i don't know maybe a year maybe more where's
the phone comes everywhere i'm an expat hi it's pauline from ut expats and today i meet with tracy who is a relocation coach and somatic
practitioner here to help you make your own home,
both in your body and abroad.
So she is currently based in New York and has relocated six times across the globe.
So we're going to be discussing the emotional side of living abroad,
but also all the identity shifts that come with it.
Hi,
Tracy,
how are you?
Hi,
Pauline,
I'm doing well.
Thank you for inviting me.
Well,
great to have you.
I'm excited to learn more about that.
building your own home or feeling at home within your body but also abroad definitely a topic for all the expats of course um before we start on all those topics i'll let you introduce yourself and we'll kick off with uh abroad in the first place yeah
of course um so my name is tracy i'm currently living in new york city and i'm originally from a small town in northeast china called fushun
And I left there when I was 16 years old.
And since then,
I lived in six cities around the world.
And some of those moves were planned,
but most of them were actually sparked by an unexpected opportunity.
So opportunity to show up.
And then I said,
let me try it for three months and see what happens.
And now after 22 years,
I've made myself homes in places all over the world.
So today I help other people to do the same too.
build a sense of home in their body no matter where life is taking them.
Nice.
Well,
talk us through that very first opportunity that came up and how you decided to seize it.
What triggered that once?
Because 16,
that's super young to leave.
One,
leave home,
leave your parents and to go abroad.
Yeah,
so that opportunity just show up at that time.
I was about to finish my middle school and then my dad just saw this news online.
So one of the top high school in Shanghai,
they were opening enrollment for students from other states.
But at that time,
they were only selecting like 90 students out of 5000 applicants.
So we didn't have much hope.
We never thought we would get in.
But I think I just got really lucky at that time.
Eventually,
I got that opportunity.
But people around me,
they were so worried.
They were like,
you're only 16 and you have to take a
29-hour train to a completely different city where you don't know anyone.
How are you going to do that?
And especially a lot of people say,
oh,
you're an introvert.
Maybe it's hard to meet friends.
And I know that.
So deep down,
I know even though I'm an introvert,
but as an introvert,
we also have our own strengths.
I think my strength is my resilience.
So it's the ability to cope with.
new environment and also courage,
I'm willing to take risks.
I think the resilience and courage are the qualities anyone can develop no matter whether you are an introvert or extrovert.
So those are the things that really helped me get through those difficult times.
Okay,
so you made that move to Shanghai.
Was it a boarding school then?
Yes,
so the school did provide dormitory,
but I have to share one room with
five other girls so the living environment was not great there were a lot of things I had to put through and uh yeah and so basically I had to manage everything by myself okay that's intense all right well definitely
I'm sure you build really resilience there sleeping with six five hundred people in the same room uh and being abroad so young and so
I guess all the different moves were in different environments,
of course,
different type of opportunities and different stages of life.
Do you see a little bit of a common thread?
And if yes,
which one?
Yeah,
absolutely.
I feel each time I move to a new city,
it just always teaches me to release,
to let go,
to discover new layers of myself.
I think one of the
biggest transition I was going through was when I was 29 years old.
So at first I went to Shanghai for high school and then I moved to Hong Kong for university work.
When I arrived in Hong Kong,
I really loved the city.
I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life there.
And I thought I would move.
Until I was 29 years old,
that year I was going through like major life transitions.
Basically everything in my life was falling apart.
At first I was going through financial losses and then I'm divorced and that's of my grandma.
So at that time,
I just wanted to escape.
I thought moving abroad could give me a new start.
And I just want to run away from all those pain I was experiencing.
And so one of the conversations I had with a friend,
and he said,
maybe you could check Canada because it was very easy to get their permanent residency.
Because other countries,
you may need a visa.
You may have to study or work there versus Canada.
all you need is just three years working experience.
You got your master's degree,
you speak English.
So I thought maybe I should give it a try.
So I just applied for the
PR and I got it pretty smoothly.
And then I said,
maybe I should just try three months and see what happens.
If I like it,
I will stay.
If not,
then I can always go back to Hong Kong.
So that's how that journey started.
But what I didn't expect is that three months would turn into a four-year spiritual journey.
Wow.
Spiritual journey.
Okay.
Let's dive into that.
Yeah,
that is when I experienced the biggest identity shift.
So when I got in Canada,
at first it was May.
It was really beautiful summer.
Okay,
nice weather.
Yeah.
And then now looking back,
I realized that that was when I was in the honeymoon phase.
And I didn't know the honeymoon phase will end.
And then when winter came,
it became brutal.
And what was worse was all of those emotions I hadn't processed in Hong Kong came flooding the surface.
So that's when I realized that relocation cannot fix an internal problem.
It only magnifies it.
Without the old distractions,
I had no choice but to face them.
But it's also through facing those unpleasant emotions,
I began to shed,
to release,
to let go of everything that doesn't belong to me and began to discover new layers of myself.
Because when I was living in Asia,
I always thought to be worthy,
I had to prove myself by getting a good college degree,
landing a high-paying corporate job,
getting married with two kids before 30 years old.
So I wanted to hit all of the life milestones to prove that I'm worthy to meet other people's expectations.
And then when all of those were falling apart,
I moved to Canada and I was living in this new environment,
feeling exposed to new ideas and new ways of being.
That's when I began to question who I truly am beyond all of the labels,
conditionings.
What do I truly want regardless of other people's opinions,
society's expectations?
And it took me four years to really get some clarity.
So I was in that in-between space for four years until I found it.
I think at the same time,
it's hard to face that,
to be alone and to try to discover your own self.
In a way,
it's easy when other people make the decision for you.
It can be a bit frustrating because you're not aligned.
But at the same time,
it just takes that responsibility off of you.
And I enjoy that sometimes.
and I get scared when it's a meeting.
I have to make the choice for myself.
Yeah,
absolutely.
So there were lots of thoughts and feelings that came up as I was going through the identity shifts,
like feeling scared,
not sure about what the future holds.
There was this fear of uncertainty.
And at the same time,
I was feeling stuck.
Like I feel like I was living in this in-between space where I'm no longer connected to Hong Kong.
I know I don't want to go back.
anymore but I also feel like I didn't fit into Canada and I always like wonder where should I go next like what the future holds but I just no matter how hard I try I just couldn't find the answers but now in retrospect I realize like the feeling stuck is part of the journey you really that is a sign from the universe it's life's way of reminding us to really slow down be patient with ourself maybe you're not supposed to know what the future holds maybe this is just a time for us to change inward.
to do those inner work,
to really nourish ourselves,
to live in the present moment.
And once we allow ourselves to fully process those feelings,
we can come back to a place of regulation and clarity before the external reality catches up.
So this is the work I help my clients to do,
really help them process those emotions,
shift the energy in their body so that they can become a vibrational match for whatever they want to attract in their life.
So that is also what somatic healing is all about.
Okay,
and so how can someone actually...
start processing feelings?
Like for someone who's repressed,
spent most of their life maybe repressing feelings,
how do you actually stop and start listening,
understanding,
processing?
How would you guide someone through that process?
Yeah,
I love that question.
So because relocation can stir up many emotions,
like
I always say,
like when you're moving to a new city,
you're not just moving physically,
we're also moving through layers of pain.
loneliness,
identity shifts,
culture disorientation.
So it can feel really overwhelming when we just arrive in a new city.
And what I'm hearing from most of my clients is that most of them are waiting for their external circumstances to change in order to feel better on the inside.
I need to get my visa figured out,
then I can finally relax,
have a good night's sleep,
or I need to...
build a relationship or community first,
then I can feel loved or connected on the inside.
But if that's the case,
we're always at the mercy of our environments because you know,
it's constant.
When things are going well,
we feel this fleeting happiness and connection.
But then when things are going downhill,
we experience the same feeling of anxiety or restless or emptiness.
So the work we want to do here is how can we maintain a level of inner peace and inner stability even when
the external world is chaotic.
And so often we say,
just feel your feelings.
What does that exactly mean?
Very few people break it down step by step.
So in my work,
I developed this framework.
It's called the FEEL framework,
F-E-E-L.
That's when you follow these steps,
you can actually process those feelings in a healthy embodied way.
So the first step F is find the feeling,
find the sensation in your body.
So maybe right now you're really stressed about a visa issue or a job issue.
Like just instead of rushing to find the external solutions,
allowing yourself to take a pause.
Like where do you feel that anxiety in your body?
Maybe it looks like this tightness in your chest,
or maybe it looks like the heaviness in your heart.
We want to find that sensation,
find that feeling.
And the second is E,
which means express,
allowing yourself to name that emotion.
what is it that you're truly feeling?
Because I often hear people say,
I feel good or I feel bad.
Sometimes I don't even know how I'm feeling.
I'm feeling all the words.
And so this is where we can begin to increase our emotional vocabulary.
Because when I just moved abroad,
I also didn't know what I was feeling.
I thought it may be homesickness,
maybe it's sadness.
Until at some point,
I came across this word that's called ambiguous grief.
This means like the invisible losses we experience after relocation.
Interesting.
I didn't know there was a name for that.
Same.
So when I put a name on that,
it just makes so much sense.
This is the invisible loss.
It's like the loss of belonging,
the loss of identity.
And when I began to name that emotion,
I acknowledged them.
That's when the emotion began to soften.
And then we have the third E,
which means embrace.
This means allowing yourself to feel.
This can be very counterintuitive.
Because like you said,
when we experience those emotions,
our first response is to resist it,
to surprise it.
I don't want to feel it.
I just want to avoid it.
Let me just move through it.
Yeah,
and that's a very human thing to do.
It's our nature to avoid pain at all costs.
We don't want to judge ourselves.
We just want to notice,
okay,
there is a part of me that's trying to resist,
but I'm not reacting to that.
So really,
we want to just take a pause,
allowing yourself to feel like,
embrace the sensation.
allowing it to move however it wants to move through the body because that's how the physical body heals that's all the physical body wants to do is always wants to heal always want to evolve we just need to allow it like the work we're doing here can we meet life right here like meet it with presence meet it with love if i cannot love it can i at least accept it because when you all right you're free of it and then the next last step is my favorite it's It's called
L. That means let it...
release,
let it go,
let it move.
Energy leaves our body in three ways,
through breath,
through sound,
through movement.
So do whatever you need to do somatically,
whether it's through breathing,
sounding,
movement,
shaking,
dancing,
just let the energy get out of your system.
And then we can come back to a place of clarity and peace where we can have a clear mind,
open heart,
turn on intuition,
and then our behaviors is going to be so much more productive.
you will feel more grounded,
more...
energized to tackle those external challenges,
whether it's a visa issue or job issue or relationship problems.
Okay,
interesting.
Great to have that framework.
I'll definitely try it out.
All right,
let's go back a little bit to those identity shifts.
I think someone who hasn't made that step abroad.
An expat already knows about those identity shifts.
But if we're talking to someone who is thinking about moving,
what can be sort of expected?
Like,
what are we looking at in terms of personality changes or just,
I don't know,
ways of being habits that you see with clients?
Yeah,
so in my work,
I have this ebook that's called
The Five Emotional Phase of Relocation.
So this is where...
What can help people prepare before they move abroad?
So there are five phases.
We have the honeymoon phase where we covered a little bit.
And then the second is the culture shock,
which this is where you begin to notice the differences.
It could be a language barrier or it could be there are different traditions,
like culture norms,
social rules,
where people can feel a little bit frustrated or awkward.
That's where a lot of people experience that loneliness as well.
And then some of them will enter this third phase.
phase,
which is the low point.
This is where you may begin to miss home.
You want to go back.
You feel regret about your decisions.
And those are very common feelings we experience.
So if anyone is feeling that way,
just knowing that you're not alone and use that tool to process those emotions.
And then we'll have the fourth phase.
This is the identity shift phase.
We also call the adaptation.
This means you're learning to adapt to this new environment,
whether it's learning new language or learning something
to collaborate with local people.
And this is where you get to choose what to let go of from your old culture and what to embrace the new.
Because this is the time you may get confused where usually we have two types of people.
The first type,
they will try to erase themselves to fit into a group.
They want to let go of everything they had in the past and just trying to find that belonging in this new space.
Oftentimes,
if we try to erase ourselves to trade for belonging,
will.
lose our authenticity.
And even when we're in a group,
we still feel like emotionally exhausted or disconnected.
And the other type of people,
they may feel frustrated.
They're resisting change.
They don't want to embrace anything from the new.
They just want to hold on to the past.
And this is also what creates suffering.
So what true belonging is,
is to really allow yourself to find yourself,
allowing yourself to feel safe,
to open up,
feel safe,
to express your truth.
and to feel confident in who you truly are.
And then because when we talk about identity shifts,
there is a concept,
we have the conditioned self and we also have the true self.
So this journey is all about moving from the conditioned self to the true self.
The conditioned self is who you should be.
It's the job you should pursue,
the life milestone you should keep.
It's the social pressure.
Yeah,
it's the life other people think you should live.
And oftentimes this is who,
what those
burden we have been carrying when we live in our country if we have never moved because we have those influence from our culture from our family beliefs right but moving abroad really give you a chance to start over give you this mental space and emotional space without the influence from your family who you truly are what truly matters to you so this is our opportunity to create a life on your terms and this is how we slowly move from the conditioned self to true self the true self is a part of it that's naturally
intuitive,
free,
grounded before you learn who you should be.
And like I said,
this is a process,
a lot of this is called the in-between space where you may feel like I don't belong anywhere.
Like no matter where I go,
it doesn't feel like home.
This is like what I hear a lot from my clients.
Also something I personally want.
So for me personally,
this lasts for four years.
And for some people,
it lasts for three months.
For others,
it lasts for years.
And I also know people who are struggling with this for decades after moving abroad.
They just never find a place that they feel like there's true sense of belonging.
And I always talk to my clients that if you don't feel at home anywhere,
this is just life's way of reminding you to create a sense of home within.
Because once we build a home within,
we find truth.
No place might actually solve the issue.
It's more of dealing with yourself.
and your beliefs and your needs before you actually so potentially you could almost i want to say almost live anywhere as long as you're aligned with yourself yeah absolutely so this doesn't mean you should never move this when
you move to a place you're gonna make the decision based on your truth like i always say people like flowers some need more sunshine some need more shades we need to find the environment that nourishes you and oftentimes this
place is right for you at this stage of your life but after a few years you may outgrow it so just like flowers that need to be replanted in a bigger pot so we need to find a place
That's right for us at the right timing.
But when we are making those decisions,
it's coming from a place of alignment.
We're not just running to escape.
Like that's when relocation becomes really powerful.
You're not running,
you're not relocating to escape.
You're relocating to expand.
Yeah,
it's thought through and there's a purpose behind it.
Yeah,
absolutely.
Yeah,
it's something we talked with
Nancy in a previous episode around knowing when it's...
the time to leave and accepting that it's okay it doesn't mean that it's a failure sometimes it's just that time of this place doesn't serve you without growing it exactly i love that metaphor about the plants leaving a
bigger pot or a different soil or something but something new yeah it's so the letting go is the hardest part of this journey because there could be things You should be built.
you've rebuilt everything so it's hard to say oh I'm gonna leave everything that I've built but it it's not it's never a complete goodbye I feel absolutely because people always say that you just need to let go you just need to let go it sounds very easy and I understand logically but until at some point I realized my body has a different timeline in
those four years I always had those um same dream in that dream I was
at the airport and I was carrying my two luggage.
I was trying to check in my flight to go for the next destination,
but suddenly I realized my luggage were missing and I couldn't find them.
I find so much anxiety,
stress,
and I kept having the same dream as I was going through that identity shift period.
Wow,
that's crazy.
Yeah.
So and then when I wake up,
I talk to my friends and she said,
that's a really good sign.
That means you're letting go of those emotional baggage you've been carrying.
And
I understand that logically,
but I realized like my body wasn't just ready to release,
to let go.
So how often do we have this logical idea that this is where I want to be in five years,
10 years,
this is who I want to be.
But if our body is stuck in a historical timeline,
it will still pull us back.
That's why.
I think this is a body-based work,
really allowing ourselves to feel,
to release those emotions so that we can liberate ourselves from the inside out.
Interesting.
Okay.
I mean,
we've touched on the identity shifts and I think how you continue to grow with each move is pretty clear.
But is there anything you want to add on that?
Yeah,
so I think what changed most for me is my definition of home.
As I was relocating to each different city,
of course,
when I was younger,
I thought home was the place my parents and my grandparents lived.
They gave me a sense of comfort.
And then when I left home at 16,
I thought now I had to build my own home.
And at that time,
I thought that means buying my own house,
like having a stable job,
getting married,
have my own family.
And until all of that was falling apart and I moved to Vancouver,
that kind of forced me to redefine home again.
And at that time,
I actually met some of my best friends in my life at a spiritual meetup group.
And we find that we have this shared passion for spirituality,
psychology.
That was the first time I experienced that emotional connection with someone.
It just felt so incredible.
It's hard to explain,
but it just feels like this person can see my heart,
see my soul.
that's when I
realized maybe home means being around like-minded people and being in a community where we share similar interests and passions.
And then
I left Vancouver,
my journey continued.
So I moved to Toronto and New York.
And this time I wasn't moving to escape.
I just simply feel like
Vancouver has fulfilled its purpose.
It's time to continue to grow.
And I know like there is something I need to learn in another different city.
That's how I made the move.
And now looking back,
I feel I learned a lot more lessons in this new city,
which again,
just pushed me to redefine home again.
So nowadays I feel like my sense of home is no longer tied to an external place or a relationship or even a community.
I feel it's the inner state of peace and connection.
It is this energy you embody.
Like maybe you had that feeling too when you first met someone before that person even say a word,
you already feel their vibe,
feel their energy.
And we just feel drawn to those people who are radiating the energy of love,
of connection,
of peace.
And it doesn't matter what they say.
Sometimes there could be language barriers,
but we still want to be friends with that person.
And that is when I realized home is the energy we embody in our body.
That's the energy of safety,
the energy of love.
Okay.
And so how did you know that these new cities like New York,
for example,
that's where you had to be to learn?
whatever you were trying to learn or explore.
You mentioned,
I need a new city where I was going to learn something new.
I love that question.
So the answer is,
I didn't know.
So I didn't know I was going to learn this license here.
I was simply just following my intuition.
Again,
that is the beauty of intuition,
right?
So you just have this gut feeling like this is the place you want to be.
be,
but you don't know the reason yet until you truly get there.
So that is how the intuition works.
You are not never going to get the answers until you truly get there.
But you just feel this felt sense in your body.
It feels like you're answering this inner calling.
At that time,
like I said earlier,
I just planned to be in New York for three months.
And one day I just found,
I was looking for different sub-list on social media.
I wanted to find a city that I can live for three months.
So I was searching for apartments in New York,
in Los Angeles,
in Chicago,
go.
just all over the US.
And then I thought I probably would move to Europe afterwards.
And then I just suddenly find this apartment on social media,
which is perfectly just three months,
it's perfect location meets my budget,
then I feel like that is a sign from the universe.
So I just want to say yes to that,
even though I don't know what the future will hold.
The moment I arrived here,
I just feel the energy is right.
This is exactly where I'm supposed to be.
It's funny because you weren't necessarily set on New York,
as you were saying.
You were looking at different cities.
Within the three,
had something attracted you to say,
oh,
I want to move to the US and
I want it to be a big city?
Yeah,
it could be.
Big city is definitely one of my...
land because I think when you're moving to a big city it's easier to navigate the culture shock piece because in big cities I feel like there are diversity there is variety of people from different backgrounds right especially as an aspect in New York you meet people who are similar to you all the time like everyone is coming from different places yeah
so that's definitely one piece but I think it's more about openness like I was never attached to one idea say
I must move there.
If this doesn't work,
then I'm going to be frustrated.
It's never like that.
I'm always open to different options and depends on what opportunity I have.
I'm always open to say yes to see whether that would work or not.
And I think that's what really helped me to navigate through so many cities since I was 16.
I had this openness and I was okay with whatever comes my way.
So what I learned throughout this journey is really surrendering because when you move for about...
you have a lot of things in your head you try to plan it out try to figure out the answer it never goes a plan right no i i love how you say each time it's like i plan to try it for three months and then see and so it really is that mindset of i'm
gonna try it out and if it doesn't work it doesn't work like not necessarily you're gonna force it um which is nice because i think sometimes you just put so much pressure that even you end up not seeing all the red flags if
there are red flags of the thing and maybe not seeing what's actually going well also so it's nice to have that approach of yeah let's try just let it go and yeah absolutely so there is this duality here right we wouldn't we don't want to give up or give in we want to still do whatever that's within our control we want to yeah yes to the opportunities and do whatever we can but we cannot get attached to the outcome because i also have clients who are really stressed out about a visa issue.
I must live in the US if I don't stay here.
Everything is going to change.
I cannot accept other outcomes.
And then that just put a lot of pressure on our shoulders.
So it's really important to know what's in your control and what's not.
How can we accept the things that's not in our control and have the wisdom to discern what's in your control and what's not?
Yeah,
I think each situation also is different.
Like in some cases,
if you're moving for work,
there might be a bit of a different pressure,
of course,
than if you're moving on your own versus with a full family.
emptying so yeah sometimes you're you have that opportunity to just try for three months in other cases like if it means relocating five people it's a little bit different of course yeah so I love that you mentioned that this is also also the essence of my work in my work I share the five types of relocation people usually go through right so the first step is what you just said people are moving for better education career opportunities these people are very driven and ambitious they're looking to.
prove themselves in a new arena.
And the second type is they're moving for a family relationship.
They may be reuniting with their loved ones,
or maybe their partner find a new job in another city.
And the third one is for lifestyle,
lifestyle move.
They're moving for better climate or slow pace or work-life balance.
And the fourth one is what I call the crisis move.
This means this is not in your control.
Maybe you're going through financial losses,
a divorce or natural disasters.
You have no choice but to move.
And the last one is the soul-led journey.
This is what's very interesting.
You're just answering this inner calling.
It feels like this is the right place to be.
So these are the five types of relocations people usually go through.
But no matter how you started the journey,
what's the reason behind that?
you can always turn it into
a journey of self-discovery and growth.
That's what I love about relocation.
It's a really great catalyst for emotional healing.
Absolutely.
Okay,
well,
thank you for sharing all that,
like putting words on what we actually feel,
I think,
as an expert.
It definitely helps to understand the different stages and how to actually process all those emotions.
Let's move on to your recommendations.
in New York then you've been there three years now so what would be a bar or cafe restaurant and you have a carte blanche so whatever you want to also yeah I have two favorites so my first one is uh lost tacos number one this is my favorite place for tacos and I think everyone lives in New York would know that place there is always a long line waiting in front of the restaurants they have the one of the best tacos on the whole planet
And the second one is
Lady M.
So they have the best crepe cakes in the whole world,
in my opinion.
And my favorite flavor is their matcha crepe cake.
And the other reason I chose these two places is not just about the food.
Because in New York,
it's so hard for you to recommend a restaurant.
There are so many different places.
It's hard to find someone you don't like,
I guess.
But the other reason I chose them is because they were recommended to me by one of my local friends when I first visited.
New York so that reminds me of the hospitality of the local people here.
Okay and so what about your expat song?
My favorite expat song is the
Streets of London by
Ralph McTowell.
It's an old song that also I have two reasons why I love this.
The first one is
I just love London even know i never lived there for a long time i visited twice
That's a good point.
Yeah,
maybe.
You never know.
So each time I was visiting
London, when I was walking around the streets,
I just was deeply moved by the beautiful architecture and the culture.
It just felt like maybe I lived there in my past life.
And the second reason I love it is because of the story this song is telling.
It's reminding you of the people who are usually forgotten by the society,
like the old man sitting in a cafe by himself and the old lady.
carrying her two carry bags,
walking home alone.
So this just always reminds me of this shared humanity we all have.
Like no matter where you are in the world,
sometimes we can be so focused on our own struggles.
We forgot about the people around us.
We all share the same struggles and same dreams.
So you're never truly lonely.
So that's what I love about the song.
It just reminds us to extend those empathy,
compassion to the people around us.
Lovely.
Great.
Well,
thank you so much for sharing,
for sharing part of your journey and also your work and how you work with clients,
how to find and build your own home,
both externally,
but mainly internally,
which is the big point and the most important,
I guess,
as an expat.
I'll link all your profiles in the comments,
recommendations also.
And guys,
if you enjoyed the episode,
you can put a rating on.
Apple Podcasts or Spotify and stay tuned on all the socials now,
both YouTube,
Instagram.
Thank you,
Pauline.