Reflections on International School Transitions: From Culture Shock to Bittersweet and Beyond
By Kathy Manu, Elementary School Counselor, International School of Bangkok Taskforce Team Leader
We are a strange breed, we international school educators. Like others who choose an expatriate lifestyle, we continuously thrust ourselves into that which is novel and different, we exist in a space of transience, and we experience loss in acute and constant ways. This lifestyle brings most of us tremendous joy, it offers global perspectives and opportunities, it results in friendships and privileged experiences. And yet, it also brings with it deep pain and longing: from the important life events that we don’t get to participate in with family and friends, to the hum of all that which is left behind each time we move to a different place.
For many of us, this specific moment in time, around the holidays/break, can be challenging. Perhaps we were not able to travel and be with loved ones for any number of reasons, perhaps we are new to our current locations and feel lonely as our tribe, our people in this new place, are yet to be defined. Perhaps the holidays were just hard regardless because we were remembering those who are not with us anymore to take part in those festive moments or because they tend to bring more generalized feelings of overwhelm.
And while we may want to cover up these uncomfortable emotions, what would it look like if we leaned into them, and what more, if we shifted our thinking and accepted them as beautiful, even necessary? In his book, Permission to Feel, Dr. Marc Brackett suggests that what we perceive as negative feelings can actually be informative, purposeful, and constructive. He goes on to argue that being fully human is to experience the full range of emotions. This all seems easy for us to do – we are counselors – we talk about emotional regulation, we are teaching feelings vocabulary! And yet, so many international school counselors tend to mask that which is unsavory for the easier veneer of positive thinking and positive forward momentum.
The two need not be mutually exclusive. In Mindful Schools: Mindfulness Foundations Course so much of the learning is centered around the practice of noticing, of being present without judgment. With this in mind, how can we create space in our schools, in our homes, in our relationships to practice leaning into these more difficult emotions, especially when we are in transition, but also when we are not? Some thoughts come to mind:
- How are you cultivating space in your lessons and conversations about emotional experiences like missing people and places and an old home
- How are you modeling what it means to notice and sit with seemingly unpleasant emotions? Are you journaling, using these feelings to propel connection, finding healthy outlets for self-regulation, etc
- What can we do with thoughtful intentionality for our new students/families/colleagues knowing that this time of year can be particularly challenging?
In her exceptional new book, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole,Susan Cain plunges into this idea of living with a sense of loss as being something transcendent as well as something that allows us to access and tune into deeply profound emotions and life chapters.
“I’ve concluded that bittersweetness is not, as we tend to think, just a momentary feeling or event. It’s also a quiet force, a way of being, a storied tradition—as dramatically overlooked as it is brimming with human potential. It’s an authentic and elevating response to the problem of being alive in a deeply flawed yet stubbornly beautiful world. Most of all, bittersweetness shows us how to respond to pain: by acknowledging it, and attempting to turn it into art, the way the musicians do, or healing, or innovation, or anything else that nourishes the soul. If we don’t transform our sorrows and longings, we can end up inflicting them on others via abuse, domination, neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward each other.[*2]”
―Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
What if, instead of only focusing on the present and that which makes us feel desirable and comfortable emotions, we invited and celebrated the longing that “nourishes our soul”? What if on the precipice of this new year, we created space for our colleagues, for our families, and for ourselves to actively be missing and longing – be it for a person, a specific place, a moment in time that will never exist again, a memory, an age and stage? As Victor Frankl purports in his seminal Man’s Search for Meaning, happiness need not exist because of the absence of suffering, but rather in partnership with suffering and loss.
Let us transcend emotional expectations and be everything we need to be, even if it’s uncomfortable, for the sake of ourselves, our children, our friends, our partners, our colleagues, and our students. For this, thisis where true connection lies, and this, thisis where the gamble we take with each transition becomes a place of personal growth and understanding.
References
Frankl, Victor (1992). Man’s Search for Meaning. (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Brackett, Marc A. (2019). Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. New York: Celadon Books
Cain, Susan. (2022). Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole.