The life of a Third Culture Kid therapist

What do our TCK stories tell us about aging? And how does this impact our identities? This episode throws open this question and explores how we can use our stories as a resource to help us understand where our own (perhaps multiple) constructs of aging come from, and how we can navigate this with mindfulness and gentleness.

This last week I hit a familiar feeling - low motivation, a sense of 'what's the point anyway?' and general resistance to the elements and rhythms of my daily life. As with all of my confusing feelings, I tried to look at the context around it - and realised I was coming up to my three year mark: It's nearly three years I've been in this new house and my TCK clock was getting ready to lose it.

So birthdays can bring up a lot for people, and for TCKs, these were often affected by mobility: Who do you invite to a party when you are the new kid? How do people celebrate here? And mine tends to make me pensive around identity also - who have I been this year, and where am I at now? And so in this podcast, I invite you to ponder with me those identities we inhabit but especially those we might stop short of claiming, because we "can't do them properly" or may feel we don't have time to establish.

I've just read Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist" and now I know the secret of happiness... and it's reminiscent of what I see Third Culture Kids doing every day in the tension they work to hold - between the "here" in my hand and the "there" out in the world.

As with so many mainstream concepts, I find that Third Culture Kids often have a complicated and nuanced experience of "self-esteem", so it's definitely worth talking about! Some of us absolutely struggle with feelings of worthlessness, a grim and exhausting experience. Others of us, find that we have a strong sense of our own worth, and yet find ourselves feeling just as insecure of others' regard. What is going on? This podcast explores what I'm seeing in many TCKs - that we can know our worth AND have a really hard time believing or accepting the regard of others.

So many Third Culture Kids tell me how they can feel suddenly triggered or 'tugged' back into a previous chapter by the "smallest thing". This can be an amazing moment of nostalgic joy but often it's a moment of pain - a flooding feeling that dislocates us from the present moment. If we are to avoid self-shaming for "over-reacting" or being "too sensitive", it's important to understand these emotional flashbacks as bruise points from our story. My most recent moment happened on holiday, in London. The smallest thing, and the biggest opportunity to practise my own self-compassion.

I've been wrestling with rest this week, and contemplating how my TCK story complicates my relationship with rest. Also explored, how hard and awful it can feel to change our narratives! Even when that change itself feels good...

Whether via health trauma or everyday cultural stories around body and wellness, health is a huge chapter in the Third Culture Kid story. Growing up with the classic, "Where There is no Doctor" book as a staple in my home in Niger, I explore here the role of health experiences on my own story.