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Repatriation: An Ugly Word or a Beautiful Process?

“Everything works out in the end. if it hasn't worked out yet, then it's not the end.” ― Tracy McMillan   On a cold winter’s day last February, I found myself roaming around the grassy cemetery of an ancient English church.  The tiny village with thatched roofs kept careful watch.  White snowdrops thrown like magic carpets by a ghost gave me a profound sense of hope and joy in this green grassy corner of the world. Ancient burial stones tumbled, lopsided and barely appearing from moss covered mounds were everywhere.   A jumble of death. In the midst of this a tall stone monument stood on a plinth, newer, built in 1922 and erected in memory of those who died in WWI. The sign read “as there was no repatriation of bodies during the war, it was important for the villagers to have somewhere to come and remember the fallen”. Heavens to Betsy!    I was struck by the word “ repatriation” and the sense of loss.   I imagined the village looking for their loved
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I WISH I KNEW THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW

Orly airport, outside of Paris, France.   A lonely, scared 22-year-old sat on a bench feeling like she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. Distraught, she barely heard the last and final call for her flight to Yaounde, Cameroon, West Africa.  She bolted into action and ran like the wind towards a future unknown and unraveled. On that journey to my first overseas assignment in Cameroon, I felt like I had signed away my life to the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, trading breath itself in exchange for adventure.   Growing up in and around Glasgow, Scotland I had up until that point lived a delightfully provincial, charming, yet small life. Burning in my bones was this idea that there must be “more."  But more what? more travel, more freedom, more choices?   I just knew something was impelling me forward.                   I wish that I knew what I know now,                   When I was younger,                   I wish that I knew wha

5 Secrets to Calming Re-entry Conflict

After Returning Home from Overseas I felt I was choking – the oxygen I needed was draining out of my body.   And yet my body seemed to be alive and well in one country whilst my mind took a detour into what felt like outer space. No worries – except that space felt more familiar, more normal and more real in so many ways.    I had arrived “back home” and was sitting amid what I had assumed would be my new tribe, my soft landing – a group I had visited and identified with prior to my arrival. They had courted me, right?    They knew me, right?      They had shared the secret bathroom code, right?     I was in the arrival stage of Re-entry after almost 20 years’ continuous years of living overseas. A seismic shift felt like it hit me like a bear raiding a campsite of fully stocked cars brimming with food.   My feeling of tribe changed from a calm, soft landing to feeling like I had slid through a black hole and was once more adrift as an alien with a very tenuou
Anatomy for a Successful Return Home!     Anatomy for a Successful Return Home! I got to thinking about what a great metaphor our skeletal system is for returning home or moving in general. There are lots of moving parts in bodies.    Bodies do better when they are  flexible, strong and healthy.  Our bodies house our spirits and require regular daily maintenance.    They constantly need movement, feeding and watering just like our re-entry does.   If we are flexible and take loving care of our re-entry we get wonderful healthy results. How is our anatomy a metaphor for a successful Return Home?   Head How are you using your head?   What are you thinking?    Which thoughts are filling your mind?   How organized or chaotic are your thoughts?    Are you paying attention to your headspace?  Taking the time to write down your reflections upon your relocation journey, daily if possible,  will help you become more present to what’s going on i