Vibrant Ikigai Coaching

🌍✨ When Life Feels Uncertain ✨🌍
Life as an expat is full of adventure—but sometimes, it brings challenges we don’t expect. Recently, a dear friend faced one of those moments when her home was robbed. Her family wasn’t harmed, but they lost treasured items like jewelry, family heirlooms, and her husband’s engagement watch.
These weren’t just “things”—they held memories, love, and connection. The loss felt deeply personal. 💔 This event reminded me of how deeply we attach memories and emotions to objects, especially as we build lives in new places. These items represent love, connection, and history.
But here’s the thing: resilience isn’t about ignoring the pain. It’s about feeling it, processing it, and then finding the strength to move forward. My friend is now focusing on what truly matters—her family’s safety and the love they share.
💡 Life Lesson: When challenges strike, here’s how to regain your footing:
👉 Acknowledge the Loss: Feel your emotions fully—it’s okay to grieve.
👉 Reframe the Experience: Shift your focus to what remains and where gratitude lives.
👉 Strengthen What Matters: Invest in relationships, habits, and practices that bring peace and joy.
As expats, life can feel unpredictable. But these moments also teach us how strong we truly are. 💪
Have you faced an unexpected challenge? Drop a ❤️ or share your story below—I’d love to hear from you!

For two decades, I’ve been on the move—living in different countries, embracing new cultures, and redefining “home” again and again. The expat life has been an incredible adventure, but it’s always felt… temporary.

This past Saturday, everything shifted. I moved into my very own home! 🎉 A place I’ve been renovating and dreaming about, where for the first time in as long as I can remember, my feet are a little stiller.

Does this mean I’ll never move again? Maybe not. But right now, this pause feels powerful.

As expats, we’re always balancing the thrill of exploring with the desire for stability. Wherever you are on your journey, remember:
🌟 Home is what you make it, even in the in-between.
🌟 It’s okay to crave stillness after so much movement.
🌟 Roots and wings can coexist.

For me, this home is a reminder that it’s not just about where we live—but how we live.

How do you create a sense of belonging in your life? Share your thoughts below 👇

Gratitude grounds us—it’s what gets us through the hard times and helps us embrace the beauty in our lives. This Thanksgiving, I’m celebrating resilience, love, and the courage it takes to craft a life aligned with my values.

✨ What are YOU grateful for this year?

💬 Share your gratitude in the comments, or if you’re ready to start creating a life you love, take the first step:
✨ Book a FREE clarity call with me! Let’s explore how you can live boldly and intentionally, no matter where you are in the world. 💻🌍

✨ Life flows through seasons, just like nature. For expats, this season of transition can be both exciting and challenging. 🌍 Embrace where you are now—it’s an opportunity for growth and self-discovery. 🌱

If you’re ready to thrive in your expat journey and create clarity and balance, let’s connect! DM me to book a free call or link in the bio and start embracing your next season with purpose. 💬

🌍✨ New Blog Alert! ✨🌍

Being far from home as an expat can be an amazing adventure, but it also comes with unique challenges—especially when facing the loss of a loved one. 💔 In my latest blog, I share practical tips and personal insights on how to navigate grief from afar, find connection, and create healing rituals while living abroad.

If you’re going through a tough time or know someone who is, this one’s for you. 💙

Link in bio to read more! 📝

The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy with my house renovations and just, well, life. 🤯 Most days I feel grounded and present 🧘‍♀️, even with all the normal ups and downs of running my home and business. ☝️Usually, I prioritize and pride myself on self-care. But not recently. Lately, it felt like everything was turned upside down. Calm is not how I would describe my state of being. 😅 ➡️our water was somehow disconnected in our new house and we needed it urgently to start the plumbing work. ➡️The renovation budget keeps going up. ➡️Things keep breaking in our rental (our 5th move in the last 3 months – and where is my winter coat by the way?) 🙄 ➡️The neighbors complained (twice) that we are too loud, and now we walk on eggshells in our apartment. 😔 ➡️An old friend and I had a breakup, making it my third big loss this year after losing both of my parents. 😰➡️My kids got sick and my husband slammed his finger in a manhole. 🫣

There’s more. Need I continue? I won’t. 😅. Let’s just say things weren’t going as I had planned and everything got flipped on its head. And in turn, my brain flipped, too. 😶‍🌫️I felt busy. I felt rushed. I felt sad. I felt a little nuts. ☝️I didn’t feel these emotions because of my circumstances. I felt them because of what I was thinking. 💭 My brain couldn’t keep up with all the unexpected changes.And then I reminded myself of one simple thing. “It is all ok.” When life sometimes doesn’t go as planned and big emotions come up, we can help ourselves along by telling ourselves... “and it’s ok”. ✨I’m feeling sad, and it’s okay. ✨Everything is going wrong, and it’s okay. ✨I am feeling overwhelmed, and it’s okay. ✨This is not how I planned it, and it’s okay. 👉I understand if you are thinking, but it’s really not always ok. And you would be right. It can be really, really, really hard.

BUT – this subtle shift in your mindset gets you out of that stuck energy cycle and back into feeling more grounded. 😌Because even if you don’t feel it right now, it all really will be okay. Promise. 🙏

🧘‍♀️🪷A mindful morning routine can kickstart your day with positivity and a greater feeling of ikigai.
✨Creating space for rituals in the morning is like setting the stage for positivity, helping you stay focused, easing stress, and finding your inner calm before the day’s hustle begins. It helps to ground us and give us a feeling of intention and purpose. 👉 I know it is sometimes hard to find time in our busy lives, so grab two or three of these morning routine ideas or try all 10 when you can fit it all in, making sure to do a little each day. 🙌

👉 Imagine you have filled your kettle with water to fix yourself a tea.

🔥 The flame gets turned up high and as the water heats and boils, normally the steam generated by the heat releases through the spout, allowing that energy to pour out as it builds up.

🤔 Now imagine that same kettle filled with water with a high flame burning below and a cork stuffed into the spout.

A few days ago a friend commented on the “strength” of another friend going through a difficult pregnancy.

That strength was viewed through the lens of not showing too much emotion, of not crying, of “keeping it together” and staying “strong”.

In many of our societies, we are taught not to talk about sadness, pain, or negative emotions. We are taught not to cry. 😭 🙅‍♀️

We are raised, especially as women, to not be “too emotional” as this undermines our credibility, putting us in the “emotional” camp rather than the “rational” one.

Showing emotion is seen as a sign of weakness.

But what happens to all those feelings and emotions that are being stirred up, lit up, ignited?

If we don’t talk about what we are feeling and the emotions we have, if we don’t cry, we are creating a pressure cooker. 💥

When we cry, we healthily activate the body. We jumpstart our parasympathetic nervous system which helps us to release pressure and to relax.

Meanwhile, talking about our problems, and labeling our feelings and emotions reduces activation in the amygdala, our brain’s alarm system that triggers the fight-or-flight reaction.

When we give words to our emotions, we become less reactive and more mindfully aware.

We start to pull the cork out of the kettle spout.

I am telling you this today because maybe you are struggling with a problem. Perhaps you find yourself bottling up your emotions because you are “strong”. Or maybe you even think they aren’t valid.

Or maybe it is just hard to talk to your friends and family because they just don’t quite understand what is happening in your expat life, and so you find yourself alone in your emotions.

If this is you, I am here to listen to you. I am here to hear you. ☎️ book your free call and let’s chat. Link in the bio

🌎The first months of expat life are exciting as we start to create our new worlds.

We are distracted by all the busyness. There is so much to set up, organize, think about. The admin and to-do lists seem endless and we are constantly running. 😅

With everything new and different, we are excited and hopeful. What used to be mundane activities in our home country now are great adventures. 🏔️

👉Going to the grocery store, riding the bus, finding products we need. We are immersed heavily in all this change and newness.

When we start to get on top of all the to-do’s and things begin to settle, our brain finally has time to recognize what the hell is going on and what this all means. 🤯

Loneliness sets in, wantonness for our comforts, family and friends. We question our choice. Feeling uncomfortable becomes the new norm and we feel isolated.🥺

☝️This is the culture shock part of the expat life cycle and it is completely normal.

We all experience a bit of culture shock during our expatriation whether we are a first-time expats or a seasoned ones.

👉 Sometimes making the jump from culture shock to adaptation can take a very long time. Sometimes it never happens. This is why companies have a 30% failure rate in the expatriation of employees. This is why the accompanying spouse finally throws in the towel and says that’s it, I want to go home.

💫This piece of the expat life cycle is my specialty. It is where, as an expat of over 15 years, I can help other expats find their way; take charge of their expat life; be causal rather than reactionary.

By taking your expat by the reigns, you adapt. You integrate. You succeed.

I love working with expats who feel stuck in their expat life but want to thrive. They want to get there but they can’t figure out how. ☎️ If this sounds like you, I would love to hear from you.

🌎Many challenges come with living abroad. Many things are hard, uncertain and uncomfortable. When we are abroad “we hold our life in our hands all alone”. 🫶🏽. 👉This can be scary and forces us to take a deep look in the mirror. Without our cultural bearings, our family and friends, and our daily routines and activities that bring joy, rootedness, and feelings of connection, we are forced to see who we are. We cannot hide behind things we have always done, relationships that provide us motivation and focus, and the daily joys that give us our sense of life satisfaction. We are forced, perhaps for the first time, to confront who we are, to actively build our existence from the ground up, and to redefine ourselves.

This can make us feel uncomfortable, insecure, and even sad. Being disconnected from those we love and not having the comforts offered by habitual tasks and routines can leave us feeling empty and alone.

If you feel this way, it is normal. You are grieving; your home, your language, your food, your culture, your old life.

Feel all those emotions. Sit with them, be curious and explore them. Think about what it was that brought you joy in your activities. Consider what is available to you in your new home that could bring similar feelings. Contemplate what it is you loved from your old life, what you didn’t like, and the aspects of your lifestyle that didn’t serve you.

💫After feeling all the feelings, exploring them, and building your self-awareness, you are ready to start building an expat life that will help you not just survive but thrive. 👉You are more a master of yourself than you are at home.

This is an opportunity. 🙌
An amazing opportunity that few of us are given in life.
Use this opportunity to transform your life into not just one that is fun and interesting but one that aligns with who you are, what you want, and who you want to become.

💥The power is yours. Take it!

*I have been in this position. I have questioned my identity and my place in the world. I know how it feels. If this is you, get in touch, and let’s talk about what steps you can take right now to start feeling happier in your expat life💙

I have been living this wild expat life for more than 15 years with 7 international moves during this time.

And you know what? I wasn’t always good at it. In fact, one could say I was downright bad at it. Expatriation can be one of the greatest gifts we are ever given. But it can also chip away at our core.

This happened to me. My second expatriation to France in 2012 already started to take a toll. And just as I thought I might have started to turn a corner and find my groove, we moved again. New country, new language, new work visa process…

By the time I arrived in Paris in 2015 (my 5th expat), I had my gorgeous six-month-old girl, on my hip and shortly became pregnant with my 2nd child. Any version of myself that I clung to back in 2012 fully disappeared with the birth of my son in 2016.

A lot had changed in my life. I lived in different countries, I became a mother, I became a wife. I went from having a career to constantly recreating my work situation as an accompanying spouse. I went from being a country kid to living in big cities.

And all the while I hadn’t stopped to see how I was changing, what made me the person I used to be, or how I could become the person I wanted to be.

I was going through the motions & I found myself often waiting for the next season of life - when things would be easier. But that season never came.

In my world, everything was fine, but fine wasn’t good enough anymore.

I needed to understand myself but also needed to think about who I wanted to be & face the reality that I was not the same person who left the US back in 2007. I had changed.

I began to find myself once again.
And you know what? This version of me, the one I uncovered with intention and purpose, was even better than before.

This is the blessing, the silver lining, the icing on the cake of expat life. We are given this opportunity to see ourselves clearly, perhaps for the first time. It isn’t always easy. It can be messy & emotional, and it often is. But it is worth it.

Now I know how to do this. In fact, one could say I am downright good at it.

And I want you to be, too.