Rebuilding Your Identity in Re-entry {Part B}: Things that Helped

How do we rebuild our identity after living overseas? Sometimes in re-entry our days are full of one decision-making challenge after another.

{This is part B of this post…if you haven’t read part A…you may want to start here.}

We can find a new job, a new house, new friends, but somehow we are still left wondering: who am I and where do I fit in this new place?

There is no magic answer or quick fix, but these are things that helped me:

1)  Learn to laugh.  It’s OK to joke about not knowing what radio station you like {or whatever today’s mini identity crisis might be}.  It will help you and others recognize that even the small decisions require energy.  People may not relate 100%, but they will appreciate your willingness to be real.  A little self-focused humor can also help those around you realize there is something deeper going on then what they see.

2) Self-compassion.  I heard this phrase yesterday, and I LOVE it.  The idea of being gentle with yourself and reverencing what’s happening inside of you…that’s a great posture for re-entry.  I had to learn to give myself a break.  It’s not realistic to believe you’ll have your whole life rebuilt in a few short weeks.  Honor the deep important process that’s going on inside of you, and be gentle with your soul.  Self-condemnation stifles growth.  Part of re-entry for some of us is learning to like ourselves again.

It takes a lot of energy to make all these decisions, and sometimes in re-entry we are just really tired.  I needed to embrace a season of rest…and doing things the nurtured me.  Do what’s necessary, but give yourself some time to tackle the deeper questions.  I had to remind myself that successful re-entry was not dependent on how fast I could make major life decisions.

3)  Trust that time will help.  I keep saying this, but it’s true.  I heard somewhere that the average person only gets two things done a day.  There are a lot of components to figure out as you build a new life {everything from what gym to join to where you want to shop for groceries to what preschool to send your toddler to} so recognize that it’s not realistic to tackle more than one or two things a day.  Celebrate the little victories.  Sometimes what seems like a small decision to others is a BIG deal.

4) Recognize other people go through periods where their identity changes too.  Maybe you have friends who are transitioning to being moms or making a career change or are newlyweds or widowed.  These are also identity altering transitions, and you may have things in common to talk about.  These friends helped me feel like I wasn’t the only one walking this journey.

5)  Embrace the adventure.  Small Planet Studio says re-entry is an opportunity to relaunch your life.  It’s true!  Bring your sense of cultural adventure to this new place and use the transition as an excuse to explore new things.  Don’t try to recreate your life before you lived overseas {or your overseas life here}. As time and energy allow, have fun!  Explore.  Drive around town to see new places.  Go to museums.  Google what’s happening.  Join a class or a meet up group.  Volunteer in a new capacity.  Join a MOPS group or a career networking group.  Don’t be paralyzed by thinking if I get involved in something I am committing to it for the long-term.  It’s OK to join a group or take a class for a short season while you are transitioning.  If it’s not a good fit, try something else.

As you’re trying new things, it helped me to ask the questions:  what makes me come alive?  what is draining to me?  Ultimately, you aren’t looking for an external thing to be involved in to give you identity, but rather sensing what is it about this or that I connect with, and how can I make that a part of my new life.

6)  Focus just as much energy on processing what’s going on inside you as you do on getting the exterior things of life in place.  I found myself looking for anything and everything to tell me what I should do with my life.  It’s easy to believe that if you just find a cool neighborhood, or a job, or friends, or a church, or take a class, that you will suddenly feel like your old self.  Sorry, it won’t work that way {which is really a good thing if you think about it}.  Making these decisions is good as it may help you feel more settled in the short term, but they are not a long term solution to having a settled heart. Identity is about who you will BE not what you will DO.

Embrace the ambiguity of the season long enough to delve into the deeper questions.

Ultimately, rebuilding your identity is a process of sorting through the pieces of your journey up to this point and weaving them into a complex YOU that you accept and love and are convinced your heavenly Father loves too.

This can sometimes require digging in deep and asking hard questions.  Sometimes our quest to make sense of the present sends us back to experiences from before or on the field.  Sorting through these things wasn’t always fun, but I’m so glad I made re-entry a catalyst for growth.  Realize you may feel worse on the road to feeling better.  In the long run, it’s much better to sift through the complicated questions slowly and do the deep work then to recreate a nice life on the outside that still leaves you feeling empty inside.

7)  Don’t be crippled by ideas of what your life “should” be.  I spent a fair amount of time and stress worried about what people would think of me if I lived here or volunteer doing this or joined that group, etc.  Don’t let “shoulds” and “what will people think” stifle your rebuilding process.  After living overseas, I found myself wanting to be an “example” of what it looks like to to live intentionally in hard places or to not be too materialistic.  I felt the pressure to not live in a too nice neighborhood {even though it was cheaper and closer to my job} because I didn’t want to be an American suburbanite.  I felt pressured to go to a church that was internationally minded {even though it really wasn’t a good fit for me}.  Don’t be crippled by what you think you should do.  Do what makes sense in this season.  Do what you want {not what you think you should want.}  I had been working in an environment for so long where I made decisions based on what was best for others and “the ministry” that I forgot that it’s really OK to just do what I wanted and what made sense.

8)  Seek out people who will encourage you to be yourself {and explore what that looks like}…and not tell you who to be.  I was tempted to want people in my life who would just tell me what to do.  It seemed like the easier road.  But, I found that people who encouraged me to dig deeper and reflected back to me what they saw in me were the most help!  In other words:  “Find a support system.”  We need people in our life to help us walk through this season.  Depression is a real reality for some people in re-entry.  This is not a road to walk alone.  If you don’t have an immediate support system, sometimes a professional counselor can help give some support in the short-term until you are able to connect with friends to be your support system in this new place.

9)  You won’t fully know who you are until after you’ve processed a good part of your reentry story {and what happened overseas}.  Hard seasons of life shape us more than many other season of our life.  Recognize that even now your identity is being formed by your experience of re-entry.  Looking back I can see that I have changed a lot over these last eight years since I moved back to the US.  So…again…you can’t rush this process.  Instead, don’t focus so much on where you will end up but on embracing the process of discovery.

10)  Embracing your new identity may require letting God love you on a level deeper then you ever have.  Ultimately, we are most at peace when we can accept and like who we are, and we can accept that God loves us just as we are.  My re-entry journey involved re-framing my image of God and how He views me.  It involved accepting that He loved all of me {the good, the bad, the unique, and the confused}.  The more we can let ourselves rest in being the Beloved the more at peace we will be with who we are.