The returner support

I’m back behind the microphone after a few months away, and I want to tell you what happened when I returned to France for the summer.

I had been questioning whether leaving the place I’d called home for almost two years meant I was repeating an old pattern. Then time with my family brought up feelings I thought I’d left behind: anger, guilt, and the familiar fear of being a burden. I began to see how those feelings had followed me into other relationships, too.

In this episode, I talk about the train journey where I cried because I had no idea what came next, the retreat that helped me feel open to life again, and the unexpected cat sitting opportunity that brought me to a quiet place in the Swiss mountains.

We’ll explore the difference between wanting to escape and knowing something no longer fits, how the beliefs we hold about stability can silence our desires, and why changing your mind doesn’t mean you’ve failed.

If you’ve returned home and feel caught between the person you used to be and the life you’re trying to build, come sit with me in the in-between. You don’t need to have the whole plan today.

A question to take with you: What do I want right now, before I start explaining why I can’t have it?

Find me on substack : https://substack.com/@thereturnersupport

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

You came back home after time abroad… and suddenly everything feels wrong.

Your city.
Your friendships.
Your routines.
Even yourself.

You start thinking:
“I’ve outgrown this place.”

But what if the place isn’t the real problem?

In this episode, I share a very personal reflection about friendship, emotional patterns, overgiving, identity shifts after traveling, and the uncomfortable realization that sometimes what we’ve actually outgrown… is the version of ourselves we keep repeating.

I talk about:

• Why returning home can trigger deep emotional patterns

• The difference between truly outgrowing a place vs avoiding discomfort

• How overfunctioning and people-pleasing showed up in my friendships

• Why changing countries doesn’t automatically change your life

• The danger of losing connection to your vision

• How traveling abroad reveals the ways you’ve been showing up unconsciously

• Why clarity comes from self-honesty, not escaping

This episode is for you if:

• You feel disconnected after returning home

• You keep fantasizing about leaving again

• You feel frustrated, stuck, lonely, or emotionally exhausted

• You’re questioning your friendships, your lifestyle, or your direction

• You know something needs to change… but you don’t know what

• 
  

Sometimes the next chapter doesn’t start with moving somewhere new.
Sometimes it starts with finally seeing yourself clearly.

Want personalized support for your return journey? Book a free 30-minute clarity call here: Here

🔗 Join the 20 days challenge Rise Up : Here

🔗Grab the Ebook Deep Dive : Here

Follow me on Instagram for daily insights and support: @The returner support

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Welcome to Season 2 of The Returner Support Podcast.

If you’ve ever come back home after time abroad and thought:
“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” this episode is for you.

In this raw and unfiltered episode, I share what really happens when you return… not the romantic version, but the messy one.

After 5 weeks in Indonesia, I came back expecting everything to feel “normal.”
It didn’t.

Instead, I found myself:

• Questioning my life

• Overthinking every possible life decision

• Wanting to escape…

• And sitting in a mental chaos

In this episode, we talk about:

• How all your emotions, thoughts can coexist at the same time

• How your mind starts scanning everything that feels wrong

• How to just stay in the chaos of your thoughts

• And why you don’t need to make any decision right now

This is your reminder that:
You are not supposed to have it all figured out when you come back.

Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do…
is to do nothing, slow down, and let the chaos exist.

If you’re in the in-between, this episode will feel like someone finally gets it.

Want personalized support for your return journey?

Book a free 30-minute clarity call here: Here

🔗Grab the Ebook Deep Dive : Here

Join me on substack : @The returner support

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

We love saying “I wasn’t escaping, I was finding myself.”

But what if both are true?

In this episode, I challenge the false opposition we keep living in:
travel vs home, freedom vs stability, escaping vs finding yourself.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: everyone is escaping something.
Scrolling, traveling, working nonstop, relationships, movement, same pattern, different tools.

This episode is for you if:

• You’ve lived abroad or moved countries and still feel restless

• Going back home feels heavy, small, or triggering

• You don’t know what you’re chasing anymore, just that something feels “off”

• You’re tired of choosing between extremes

We talk about:

• Why travel and escape can coexist

• What “home” actually means (and why places won’t fix it)

• Why your home country is often your shadow

• The urge to leave as a trauma response, not intuition

• How staying with inner conflict creates real clarity

• Why belonging requires being seen, not disappearing

This is not about convincing you to stay or leave.
It’s about stopping the escape long enough to hear what you actually want.

Want personalized support for your return journey?

🔗Book a free 30-minute clarity call: Here

🔗 Join the 20 days challenge Rise Up : Here

🔗Grab the Ebook Deep Dive : Here

Follow me on Instagram for daily insights and support: @The returner support

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Returning home isn’t just about familiarity, it’s about a strange duality: comfort and anxiety. On one hand, home feels safe, known, and grounding. On the other, it can trigger old patterns, uncomfortable memories, and questions about who you’ve become.

In this episode, I explore the invisible tension of going back after living abroad: the nostalgia for family and friends, the reality of relationships that haven’t evolved, and the ways we unconsciously cling to the comfort of home while fearing stagnation. I share personal stories about friendships, family dynamics, and how our identity abroad changes what, and who, we value when we return.

You’ll hear why returning is a powerful mirror for self-awareness, how to decide which connections to keep, and how to use your homecoming as information to live a life more aligned with who you are now.

If you’ve ever felt torn between two worlds, missing home but wanting more than your old life, this episode will give you clarity, perspective, and a new way to approach your return.

Want personalized support for your return journey?

🔗 Book a free 30-minute clarity call here: Here

🔗 Join the 20 days challenge Rise Up : Here

🔗Grab the Ebook Deep Dive : Here

Follow me on Instagram for daily insights and support: @The returner support

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Welcome to The Returner Support Podcast, the podcast for people who came back to their home country after a long time abroad and realized that nothing is simple anymore.

I’m your host, Anaïs Ruel, life transition expert, and yes, probably the friend who says the things no one else dares to say during this phase of your life.

In today’s episode, we talk about something most people avoid at all costs:

How to never waste your return back home.

This episode was inspired by a sentence I heard at a business event:
“Never waste a good heartbreak.” And immediately, I knew,  the same applies to returning home.

Because returning to your country is a heartbreak.
And like any heartbreak, it comes with grief, shame, anger, loneliness, and the urge to escape.

In this episode, I share:

• A very personal story about a relationship that ended, and how I avoided feeling the pain

• How distraction, busyness, and “fixing yourself” is often just emotional avoidance

• Why December was one of the heaviest months for me, and what it revealed

• How grief shows up as anger toward friends, places, men, and even your own country

• Why running to another country too fast is often emotional bypassing

• The dangerous belief that “I shouldn’t feel this way”

• Why returning home brings up old wounds you thought were healed

• How places hold emotional memory, and why your reaction is data, not a problem

• Why your country is not the issue, your filter is

• How grief softens your lens and changes how you see people, places, and yourself

I share reflections inspired by the book Belonging, including this powerful idea:
Grief is the current that carries us into our next becoming.

This episode is not about fixing your life.
It’s about feeling what you’ve been running from, so you don’t repeat it everywhere you go.

Before you move again.
Before you blame your country.
Before you blame yourself.

Want personalized support for your return journey?

🔗Book a free 30-minute clarity call here: Here

🔗Grab the Ebook Deep Dive : Here

Follow me on Instagram for daily insights and support: @The returner support

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

This end-of-year episode of The Returner Support Podcast is an invitation to slow down, reflect honestly, and stop shaming yourself for not being “where you should be.”

If you’re back in your home country after time abroad, or even just visiting, and you feel heavy, lost, misunderstood, or disconnected from yourself, this episode is for you.

We explore why December and January are not meant for big decisions or radical life plans, but for gentleness, truth, and deep reflection. We reframe winter as a necessary season, a pause that prepares the next chapter, rather than a sign that something is wrong.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• How emotions like frustration, anger, and sadness point directly to unfulfilled desires

• How fear silently blocks action

• How to stop letting your past shape your present

• The power of acting from your future self instead of reacting from old wounds

• Real-life examples around friendships, values, family relationships...

• A concrete reflection practice using your photos and memories from the past year

This episode is about reconnecting to what you truly desire, naming the fears that keep you stuck, and choosing, little by little, to move toward alignment instead of familiarity.

A powerful listen to close the year with clarity, honesty, and self-compassion.

Want personalized support for your return journey? Book a free 30-minute clarity call here: Here

🔗Grab the Ebook Deep Dive : Here

Follow me on Instagram for daily insights and support: @The returner support

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

You did everything “right”.

You settled.
You have friends.
A job.
A life you once dreamed of.

And yet… something feels off.

In this episode of The Returner Support Podcast, I speak directly to those quiet months after the move, whether you’re back in your home country or you decided to stay longer somewhere else. Not the honeymoon phase. Not the one-year milestone. But that in-between moment where the excitement fades and heavy emotions show up.

I share my own experience of feeling deeply unfulfilled despite having “everything to be happy”, and the pattern many returners and long-term travelers repeat:
when it gets uncomfortable, we leave.

Again.

We talk about:

• Why sadness often appears after things stabilize

• The urge to escape instead of staying with what we feel

• How travel can become an emotional avoidance pattern

• Why it’s dangerous to make big life decisions when you’re emotionally low

• The difference between living “fully” and constantly chasing novelty

• How to stop trying to fix yourself and start listening instead

• A simple journaling practice to create safety with your emotions

This episode is an invitation to pause.
To stop questioning your entire life just because you’re having a hard season.
To sit with sadness instead of running from it.

If you know someone who’s back home after years abroad, or stuck in the “should I stay or should I go” loop, share this episode with them.

And if you want deeper support, I currently have limited 1:1 coaching spots.
DM me on Instagram and let’s talk.

Follow me on Instagram for daily insights and support: @The returner support

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

In this episode, we’re going straight into a topic almost every returner feels but barely anyone names out loud: disappointment.

The disappointment you feel when you come back to your home country and nothing looks like you imagined. The people don’t ask the questions you hoped for. The connections feel different. The life you thought you were coming back to… isn’t there.

I share a personal story from my own dating life, not because it’s dramatic, but because it shows exactly how disappointment shows up in different areas of our lives. The return. The relationships. The expectations. The desire to protect yourself. The urge to skip the process and run straight to the “good part.”

We explore why disappointment hits so hard when you return home, what it reveals about what you truly want, and how to actually hold yourself through it without numbing, rushing, or blaming.

If you’ve been back home and you’re feeling let down, by people, by circumstances, or even by yourself, this episode will make you feel less alone and help you see your disappointment for what it really is: information, not a failure.

Want personalized support for your return journey? Book a free 30-minute clarity call here: Here

🔗Grab the Ebook Deep Dive : Here

Follow me on Instagram for daily insights and support: @The returner support

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

In this episode, I share one of the most surprising lessons I’ve learned from the book The Easiest Way to Stop Smoking , and how it applies directly to returning to your home country after living abroad.

What the author says about quitting smoking is exactly what we need to understand about going back home: it’s all about changing your associations, breaking the old brainwash, and deciding who you are now.

For the first 8 minutes, I talk about the core lessons of the book:

• Why quitting is not about willpower

• Why you don’t need to “avoid thinking about smoking”

• Why the withdrawal phase is just old reflexes

• Why you should celebrate your life getting better instead of feeling deprived

• How identity (“I’m not a smoker anymore”) is the real switch

Then I show how we do the exact same thing when we return home.

I explain:

• The stories we tell ourselves about our country (“I can’t do that here…”)

• How we associate “abroad” with freedom and aliveness

• Why feeling free abroad wasn’t about the place, it was about being present

• How I felt trapped even in Canada, proving it wasn’t the country but the situation

• How last year I decided to return home with a different identity: open-minded, less judgmental, fully myself

• How being grateful for both your time abroad and your time at home changes everything

• How being back home is like withdrawal: triggering because of old conditioning, not because something is wrong

• And why reacting differently creates a completely different reality

I share how “introducing the new me” at home changed my entire life: I set boundaries, chose myself more, said no without guilt, and even spoke on stage, because I stopped pretending.

I break down the poker analogy from the book: you already have the winning cards.

People around you may try to pull you back into who you were, but your skills, growth, and transformation from living abroad are still there.

And finally: when you miss your time abroad, celebrate what’s good in your life right now.
Use it as proof of how much you’ve evolved, not as a sign to run away.

This episode will help you return home without losing yourself… and maybe even help you fall in love with your life again.

Follow me on Instagram for daily insights and support: @The returner support

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.