A new Beginning

When we first left Argentina in August 2019, we both thought that we would come back after my husband finished his master's program. However, even with the challenges that we had faced, we decided to continue our journey abroad. I do want to underline this because, even though I talk a lot about the difficulties that appear along this process, living abroad has opened my mind in more ways than I had ever imagined and this has resulted in profound personal growth.

In July 2021, my husband and I left Chicago and moved to Somerville, MA, to follow an exciting job offer he received. Leaving Chicago was very hard. In a way, we were finally feeling it was home and the community we had was stronger than ever. Boston is a gorgeous city but, at the beginning, we found ourselves comparing everything to Chicago. Kind of like when you compare a new relationship with an old one!

A transition starts with an ending... and there is no way around that! We were feeling sad and all the phases started happening once again. I started to overthink and all the feelings of inferiority came back. The difference with this "second round" was that I had already been through this. So I felt the frustration but it wasn't completely new to me. It's as if my body already knew how to navigate the phases... I eventually got the inner strength to make myself a general routine and start to prioritize doing things that I fully enjoy doing: yoga, dance classes, discovering new places by going to coffee shops. 

I also started studying a coaching program that was really interesting to me, something that I had been wanting to do for many years. Being able to focus my time and energy on something I liked was a game changer. Anyway, this program taught coaching through a Gestalt approach, which felt like a natural extension of the yoga philosophy I had been studying for several years.

The word Gestalt is used in modern German to explain how something has been “placed” or “put together”; it is a school of thought that looks at the human mind and behavior as a whole. One of the main objective coming from this perspective is to focus on what the client IS doing, what comes naturally to the person. Gestalt therapy rejects the role of ‘changer’ that some psychiatric and psychological establishments present because it encourages and even insists that the patient be where and what they are. Ok so... how does this relate at all with what I was saying? This was such an epiphany moment for me because during all of these months/years there was a part of me that felt I needed to change, to be different, that I was doing something wrong. My inner critic would tell me that I should be doing a master's as well but deep down inside I knew it didn't interest me at all that that wasn't my direction. 

So here I was, listening to one of my teachers say: "The more one attempts to be who one is not, the more one remains the same. By fully being what one is, one can become something else." Which, once again, perfectly aligned with one of the most meaningful learnings that stay with me from my yoga teacher training: "Pain + resistance = Suffering". In other words, when we add resistance to something we are feeling, we experience it as suffering and make it worse than it already is because of not wanting to stay with how uncomfortable it is.

The more I stopped trying to become a different version of myself, the more I started to feel at home within myself. And that changed everything. My circumstances hadn't magically improved overnight, but my relationship with them had. Instead of measuring myself against who I thought I should be, I slowly began to trust my own path. I realized that growth doesn't always come from fixing ourselves or constantly striving to become someone else. Sometimes it comes from accepting where we are, listening to what feels true, and allowing life to unfold from there.

Looking back, I can see that moving abroad wasn't only about adapting to new countries or building a new life. It was also about unlearning many of the expectations I had placed on myself and discovering that my worth was never tied to achieving the "right" milestones. It was tied to my ability to stay present, to remain curious, and to keep choosing a life that felt authentic to me.

That lesson has stayed with me ever since. No matter where I live or what uncertainty lies ahead, I know that home is not just a place...it's the relationship I have with myself.