Why Reverse Culture Shock is Worth It {5 Gifts from the Re-entry Season}

What are some of the benefits to living through reverse culture shock?

Sometimes during re-entry, life just feels hard!  Our days are filled with longing to be in a different place {whether physically or emotionally}.  We wonder if we will be stuck in this place forever.  Hope feels a bit elusive.

For those in the early days of re-entry {wondering: what is the point of this season?}, I want to say:  You will not be in this place forever, and there are GOOD things that can come out of this season! 

Eight years down the road of re-entry, I can honestly say that there are some priceless gifts I gained out of living through reverse culture shock that I could not have gained any other way.  So…let these give you hope today!  Perhaps eight years from now you will have your own lists of ways re-entry has changed you for the better!  {It is important to say:  Everyone’s re-entry experience is different.  Your gifts will be different than mine.}

In the early days of my move back to the US, someone read me these words from the Message “Isn’t it wonderful all the ways in which this distress has goaded you closer to God? You’re more alive, more concerned, more sensitive, more reverent, more human, more passionate, more responsible (2 Cor 7).”  And they asked me this question, which of these things would you like to gain out of this hard season of your life?

I sat there that day and asked the Father {who I wasn’t very happy with at the time} to please make something good out of this mess!  And now looking back…I can see that He has.

Here’s my list of gifts re-entry gave me:

The gift of learning to live in ambiguity.

Re-entry is a season of unknown.  Everywhere you go there is the underlying feeling that you can’t operate on autopilot because you don’t know how life works in this new place {even though you feel like it shouldn’t be that hard…you’ve done a lot of this before.}

Re-entry could be called the season of living in ambiguity.  Ambiguity about the past {feels like a long time ago in far away place} and the future {if one more person ask me…what am I going to do next?…}.  There is ambiguity even about the little things:  how do I tip someone at a restaurant, what is the polite way in this culture to tell them you are ready for the check?

In the midst of all this ambiguity, I’ve realized learning to live well in the midst of uncertainty is a gift.  It makes us more resilient people.  It makes us people who are comfortable with situations where there aren’t easy answers.  We become people who are OK with living in the midst of the messiness and complications of life.  Re-entry has given me the gift of being more comfortable living with friends in the midst of life’s ambiguity instead of feeling compelled to offer solutions or rush them to a new place.  I find myself looking for God in the middle of the mess instead of waiting for Him to show up after the happy ending.

The gift of empathy.

When you’ve walked through a season where your world falls apart, you are more aware of those around you whose world might be falling apart too.  Maybe I’m just looking for kindred spirits or affirmation that I’m not the only one, but I’ve also found myself surprised by empathy I didn’t have before.  I have more grace for those who feel like their life is out of their control…because I’ve been there.  I have more tears for those who are grieving…because I have my own tears to cry.  I am more sensitive to those who are doubting their faith…because there are days I wrestled with doubt.  I am more accepting of the failings of others…because I learning to embrace my humanity.  I recognize that sometimes stress or circumstances can influence how we act…because I’ve seen days where I’ve not been the person I wanted to be.

Don’t get me wrong…I am not a superstar at empathy.  I still have much to learn, but re-entry has given me the gift of a little more empathy.

The gift of being propelled into change.

Let’s face it…I don’t like change.  At least I don’t like the hard work that’s required to make changes in my life.  It takes work to make new habits, and address the parts of my character I’m not in love with.  Sometimes I don’t have the internal courage to pursue change.  Or I try for a few weeks…and then well…

Re-entry propelled me into a place where everything in my life changed, and my identity felt like I’d left it on a layover at some airport on the flight back.  As I pieced together who I wanted to be in this new place, I found myself embracing a season of change.  Not just in the external things {job, house, etc}, but in the internal parts of who I am.  Re-entry gave myself permission to wrestle with some of the deeper issues…the hard questions…the unhealthy ways I’d been handling stress…the parts of my growing up that I’d taken to the field.  Questions I probably would never have had the courage to pursue if I wasn’t propelled into that place.

I am thankful for this part of the re-entry season…for being launched into a season where I could focus on healing and personal growth.  Where my world had been jarred in ways that helped me see into the deepest parts of myself…and allow God to meet me there…and bring His healing touch.  I am not thankful for the difficulty and the pain that it brought, but I am thankful for the growth in my character this season provided.

The gift of being real.

Somewhere along the road of re-entry, I decided I just didn’t care as much about some things any more.  Like having a clean house before friends came over or always wearing matching socks.

Perhaps when you are in survival mode…the little things seem less important.  You can only handle so much…and the rest you say…it will be OK even if I don’t have everything in my life figured out.  I’ve given up trying to be someone who has it all together.  I’ve given up trying to show the perfect or pretty side of me to the world.  I wish I could say that I don’t care about what other people think of me {that would be a lie}, but I don’t care as much as I used to.

An unexpected result of all this is that I’ve grown into someone who is more real than I ever was before.  I was pretty good at being the polite, confident person before I went to the field.  And it was an isolating place to live…I longed to be more real, but didn’t really know how.  Re-entry has given me the gift of learning how to be more authentic.  Recently a friend of mine said she liked how real I was, and I marveled at how God would meet my desire to be a more authentic person by giving me the season of re-entry to grow in that area.

The gift of failure.

Transitioning off the field is NOT failure!  Sometimes it is the wisest thing we can do.  But there are moments of it for me where I felt like I had failed in some areas {again…that was my feeling..not reality.}  In the movie “Eat, Pray, Love” there is a line “Failure is a gift.  Failure is the road to transformation.”  I love that quote because it has reminded me on the hard days that even when I feel like I’ve failed, failure can be a gift.  We can learn so many things from failure that we will never learn any other way.

The gift of friendships that are built out of hard experiences.

Friends who have walked with you through challenging seasons {who’ve seen you have a melt down over choosing paint colors for your walls…or had to teach you how to wash dishes because evidently you’ve forgotten how} are friends you know love you deeply.  They are not the fair weather friends, but the ones who will cry with you and celebrate with you even when your world falls apart.

On the flight back to the US, I remember very clearly asking God for one good friend {I was pretty ticked with God at the time so it might be more correct to say…telling God He better give me a friend}.  I figured if I had one friend…I could make it.  And He came through over the years…with a whole lot more than just one friend!  Even as I buried one of those friends from cancer a few years later…He continued to provide by connecting me to her community as we grieved together.

One of the greatest gifts from this re-entry season are the friendships I’ve been given.  I don’t want to give you an unrealistic picture.  There HAVE been lonely and hard moments.  There have been times when I didn’t feel like anyone really understood what I was experiencing.  But looking back, I can see how even when I felt alone…those small steps I was taking towards vulnerability and meeting new people and trying to build a new community…they have paid off!  God has honored my need for connection by providing {ever so slowly} friends who I feel like are true gift I do not deserve and am incredibly thankful for!

These are some of the gifts that have made the re-entry season worth it for me!

These gifts have not come without tears and hard days, but they are redeeming the season of reverse culture shock for me.  I do not say all of this to say…look how I’ve grown, but rather to say…look what can happen in your life even in the midst of a hard season!

I don’t know what will come out of your re-entry season.  I know it will be different then my experience.  But, I am hoping that in a few years when you are able to look back, you find that you have received some gifts from re-entry as well!