The life of a Third Culture Kid therapist

How many of us learnt that we could 'make ourselves safe' by offering certain behaviours - compliance, being a good listener, being 'interesting'? In this episode I'm exploring what we may have learnt we could expect back, if we could just find the offering to provide - the contracts we have entered into with our behaviours. "If I'm this, then you will be that" the rule goes. Except when the other party can't see and didn't agree to the contract we have signed up for...

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What about the characters in our story that we struggle to find a place for? The people whose languages we've maybe lost but who cared for us as children, worked in our homes or with our parents; these are pivotal points of attachment safety for us. In this episode I explore the limits of attachment theory for TCKs, where it is getting delightfully expanded, and how we can honour attachment figures in our stories.

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Money! What's it got to do with the Third Culture Experience? Between complex juxtapositions between wealth experiences between countries, modelled standards and shapes of living, expectations around meaningful employment - quite a lot! I wanted to spend some time here on this because it does come up in my work with TCKs, and my own life too, and feels an important element to understand in our stories. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

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In this meandering episode, I'm observing how the practice of imagining feasible alternate realities can benefit us. Sometimes called re-scripting, working with feasible alternative realities is about recognising when we are so busy accommodating (or trying to manage the outcome of) others' decisions, that we shoulder the emotional work to excess. When we imagine feasible alternative realities to difficult situations, we recognise the agency of others' and the ways in which we are not solely responsible for stories that are in fact co-collaborated.

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"Who am I?" is a question that Third Culture Kids agonise over, and I've observed some patterns here - that we often focus on the 'big identities', the ones that give meaning and purpose on a global scale, as we've been taught to. And there is nothing wrong with that. But I ponder here about the degree to which this identities are often socially framed - who am I... to others, the world? And I invite some time spent with what I'd call 'micro identities' - what happens when we pay attention to the who we are on a day to day, desires and needs way?

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"If I make life work here, then I'm committing to being here forever". Versions of this statement is something I hear so often in my work with Third Culture Kids, and so this episode spends some time looking at how hard it is for us to invest in the here and now... when this implies so much letting go of other options and opportunities.

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Guilt - that horrible twisting feeling in our gut that so often shows up, unbidden and unwelcome. As awkward as it is, today I'm digging into what can trigger this in TCK stories especially, and how we can bring understanding and context to this sensation - and recognise it as something beyond a simple indicator we've done something 'wrong'.

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Are you confused by how you think about your own worth? Maybe one part of you feel like you have things to offer, that you have value to add, but another feels like you can't quite believe the idea you matter to other people... Third Culture Kids often experience this paradox - "I am someone, but I'm not someone to others". I explore this experience here as tension between experiences of intrinsic and extrinsic value and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

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I'm noticing how many of us TCKs are struggling to set boundaries without feeling the need to build a case of moral justification - our own feelings and needs don't seem to be 'enough' to allow us to say, "No". Here I'm exploring what might be going on, the potential impact of this, and how important it is to listen out for this in our narratives.

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I'm in a season of decluttering... and my TCK self is happily familiar with how soothing it feels to streamline. So many of us get anxious at the accumulation of stuff (however will it all fit in my suitcase?!) but I'm a lover of things. What I'm seeing through is how important it is for my material surroundings to remind me of WHO I am. This episode looks at how this can get complicated with complex TCK identities!

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