Feeding Your Soul in a New Country: Yolanda Reshemah on the Inner Work of Moving Abroad
Yolandareshema@outlo (00:00)
understanding what you need to feed your soul, understanding that it's far more than sorting out the passports, and those things are very important. The whole legal immigration process, that's so very important. But so is the psychological stuff that lays behind Understanding what is it?
that you need to feed your soul in terms of the sounds you need to hear around you, the music, the chatter, the voices, Can you be happy in a remote location? Can you be happy in a location where you don't see maybe people who look like you or people who are very different? Can you be happy in an environment where it's mainly just...
mountains or do you need the vibrancy of the city and the laughter and the clutter and the noises that comes with that? that thrill you?
House Of Peregrine (01:25)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the House of Peregrine podcast. Today we're sitting down with Yolanda Rashima, the voice behind The Places We Call Home, a show I genuinely wish existed for so many of us in those early, what am I doing here years abroad. Yolanda is a storyteller in the truest sense, a a visionary and creative catalyst who's devoted to elevating people's lived experience, especially the migrant story through the lens of women who've moved cross-culturally and are building a life in the US.
Her work circles the questions we don't always say out loud. Who am I now that I've moved abroad? Where do I belong? And how do I make a home that actually feels like mine? What I love about Yolanda is that she doesn't romanticize the move. She honors the full thing, the loneliness, the isolation, the cultural whiplash, the reinvention, and also the quiet triumphs that come from resilience, adaptability, and starting over when no one's watching. She brings such an interesting blend of words to this conversation, and I love that she thinks in pictures.
She carries deep wisdom from the legal profession and she's held senior consulting roles at T-Mobile, which means she knows what it looks like to lead, to translate between cultures and to hold complexity without losing the human thread. And
just to set the tone, when the CEO of T-Mobile told her she had big shoes to fill, Yolanda's response was, that's okay, I have big feet. Welcome, Yolanda.
Yolandareshema@outlo (02:40)
Good morning.
House Of Peregrine (02:42)
I'm so happy to finally have you on. Thanks for all the rescheduling and we finally made it. I'm so happy.
Yolandareshema@outlo (02:47)
We finally made it indeed. My thanks to you for having me on your show. I'm excited to be on the House of Peregrine, most definitely. And it's a lovely day for a recording. Thank you.
House Of Peregrine (02:59)
Yes, you're calling from my continent and I'm calling from yours.
Yolandareshema@outlo (03:04)
Yes, yes, we've been here now in the USA for, gosh, about 13 years.
House Of Peregrine (03:10)
Nice. And tell, just give me a quick, I rushed in, but just tell me who you are and what you've been up to.
Yolandareshema@outlo (03:17)
So as you beautifully put in my intro, thank you so much for that. It's lovely. My name is Yolanda Ishima. I come from a background of law and then strategic communication. I am somebody who loves to bring people together. I love conversations. And so when I met my husband, we had many conversations about what do we want to do with our lives? Where do we want to be? What do we like and enjoy about life?
thing that kept coming up was more sunshine because at that point we were living in England and so we decided to explore where could we possibly go where we can have a life similar to what we have now in England or maybe better but more sunshine and after exploring so many possibilities including Australia, Singapore, Dubai and various other locations in the USA we settled on here.
California. We are in Northern California. We have been here now, as I said, for about 13, 14 years. And basically we came because we were chasing the sunshine and we have settled here. Meaning that to my surprise, I now can call this part of the USA home. And I say to my surprise, because I was brought up in England.
and I was born in the Caribbean. And so around all of that, I'm also somebody who has on purpose relocated about six times at very significant points in my life. That is the big apple of my story and we can jump into that a bite at a time.
House Of Peregrine (05:07)
Sounds perfect. So what I want people to know about you is you have your show and
you have obviously years of experience with this. What prompted you to start your show or what were your early experiences of moving to the US or other countries you want to share that started
Yolandareshema@outlo (05:25)
Mmm.
House Of Peregrine (05:26)
shaping this awareness?
Yolandareshema@outlo (05:28)
So I do have a show, yes, thank you for mentioning that. It's called The Places We Call Home. And as you can probably infer by what I've said, I have lived in many different countries, well, at least a few. First in the Caribbean, we were born there, we were raised there so that we could know our history, our tribe of people and the significance of who we are, the strength in it and the courage and...
everything
about ourselves, our ancestors. And my parents loved moving. And so my mom moved to England. She used to live in Canada. And anyway, she ended up in England and we followed her when I was 10 years old. So my first relocation was at the age of 10, moving from, as you can try and imagine, a location that is sunny and vibrant and full of colour.
and full of sounds and tastes and just vibrancy in every possible way. Life was felt and touched and heard and tasted. And at the age of 10, moving to England, where my first shop was at the airport, just Heathrow, seeing this huge escalator, this mechanical, great thing that just looked as though it consumed you.
at the very top. couldn't see the end of it and I didn't know where that would end up. That represented to me something a little bit unknown and grey and mechanical, not friendly like a little walk on the beach. But we made a life there. But for three years, I mourned leave in my country of origin because I ended up
in an environment that was grey and cloudy and the people around me, it was a punk era at that time, the people around me were very friendly but very curious but so many of them were dressed in black with piercings and so that took a little while to get used to. I couldn't name the feelings that I felt in my little chest.
but I was buoyant and confident by having my community, my family around me. And then later on I moved to France.
Yolandareshema@outlo (07:56)
I moved back again as an older student at university, as a young woman as well, professional, and then meeting my husband. So all of those moves and changes happened at specific times as a child, as a youth, as a young woman discovering who I am as a young professional, then as a married woman. And so at each of those changes, those junctures.
there were emotions and requirements and feelings that I had to start learning to name and dealing with. ending up here now, whether married with a child and just exploring life and looking back at all of that, it's understanding that I'm not the only one. And that is really what has birthed the podcast, understanding that there are consequences, there are joys and
excitements about moving and there's so much to be gained but there are also consequences and those can be quite muted and unseen and not often talked about. How do you make friends? How do you find this new iteration of yourself? How do you deal with being seen or not seen? How do you live? How do you function? How do you thrive? And that is what the
podcast, the places we call home is really about those sort of conversations.
House Of Peregrine (09:24)
Yeah. And what would you say are some of the things that people don't think of? Like that you've had to discover on your own that you like to tell people if they were to ask you advice. Like, what am I not thinking about?
Yolandareshema@outlo (09:38)
The main thing is, the first thing I would say, I think there are about three or four main things, is understanding what you need to feed your soul, understanding that it's far more than sorting out the passports, and those things are very important. The whole legal immigration process, that's so very important. But so is the psychological stuff that lays behind it. Understanding what is it?
that you need to feed your soul in terms of the sounds you need to hear around you, the music, the chatter, the voices, what do you enjoy looking at? Can you be happy in a remote location? Can you be happy in a location where you don't see maybe people who look like you or people who are very different? Can you be happy in an environment where it's mainly just...
mountains or do you need the vibrancy of the city and the laughter and the clutter and the noises that comes with that? that thrill you? You need to also understand what feeds you at a more intimate, on a more intimate basis. What sort of friends am I looking for? What sort of community do I want to build? And that brings me on to the other thing. Proximity doesn't guarantee
that you are going to be happy, that you are going to be sustained and fed. Proximity with people who may have come from your country of origin, who speak the same language, because us as expats, we tend to gravitate to people who are quite like us. But that doesn't guarantee that you're going to be fed in the way that is good for you. And so that is the thing. You need to do some inner work to find out.
What sort of people do I want in my life? Because you've got to build your community. You need to be conscious of building your friendships. You can't assume that you're going to fall into an existing community of people. That's very technical and difficult. And even if you do, there's no guarantee that they are going to be right for you. So those are the first things that I really learned the hard way. Being among people who...
initially sounded and looked right, we had shared interests, but then realised that there's something different. I'm not being fair. There's no authenticity. I need people who will be vulnerable towards me and with whom I can be vulnerable with, who would allow me and people who will come and search for me if they don't see me for four or five days because they care about me. Right.
House Of Peregrine (12:21)
Yep. Yep.
Yolandareshema@outlo (12:23)
Those are the sort of things that we need to think about.
House Of Peregrine (12:26)
had this moment when I moved, I first moved, I moved here, I moved abroad with three very small children, toddlers. And I had this moment
Yolandareshema@outlo (12:32)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (12:33)
when I was filling out the school form and it said emergency contact. And I was like, have, I've got no one, I've got no one to put in. So I had to turn to the woman next to me and be like, hi, I'm Mickelle Can I put you as my emergency contact? And so that, that is,
That is the reality. these are the little things that people don't think of. And they're important. They're important. The first arriving part, making community, that's a huge life skill. Networking. But it's networking for your soul or networking for your life. And that's
Yolandareshema@outlo (13:09)
That's right.
House Of Peregrine (13:11)
a certain skill set that if you don't have it, you do have to learn. yeah, there's no one around to teach you.
Yolandareshema@outlo (13:15)
And there's nobody around to teach you. Certainly when I was looking for it, there was no one around
to teach you. I'm sorry to cut you off, I'm really interested in the response of that person that you turned to. What did he, say?
House Of Peregrine (13:30)
She said, yeah, you can. said, I'm sorry, I've just moved
Yolandareshema@outlo (13:33)
lovely.
House Of Peregrine (13:33)
here and I need I didn't I mean, I didn't want to leave it blank. But
Yolandareshema@outlo (13:37)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (13:38)
and then it ended up that I called the relocation company and said, I'm to put you guys because this poor person.
Yolandareshema@outlo (13:45)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (13:47)
But if that's just that stuff I did not plan for. so the emergency contact is always that and not knowing where to buy things in the supermarket in another language. That was the other.
Yolandareshema@outlo (13:59)
yes,
yes. So that's what
House Of Peregrine (14:01)
Like, I don't know.
Yolandareshema@outlo (14:02)
the places we call home is about. It's these sort of realizations.
House Of Peregrine (14:04)
Yeah, nice.
Yolandareshema@outlo (14:06)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (14:07)
Yep. And what would you say, like, I always say, we talked about this a little bit earlier, is what I found is that people who've lived abroad or have moved abroad even once to a new country, you actually usually have more in common with those people than you do from the people you grew up with, because you have
Yolandareshema@outlo (14:25)
Hmm.
House Of Peregrine (14:25)
this shared life experience. I always think of it as like a, almost like going to the same university if you've been in a city together for any amount of time.
and it's like, yeah, I spent time in Amsterdam and then China or,
Yolandareshema@outlo (14:39)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (14:41)
you're both from maybe one of these from the U S and one of us from Berlin. And, you have so much in common suddenly. And I find that very warming. find that very comforting and very beautiful. but I'm curious what you, what the, the ins and outs of that are that you see the intricacies of that in the stories that you bring to your work.
Yolandareshema@outlo (15:03)
Gosh, that's a really good question. think for me personally, it depends on where you've landed. It depends on where you are. Certainly, for example, when I lived in France, that was the first time. I think I was about 19 years old. That was the first time I experienced having a family outside of my blood relatives. I found that there were people who gravitated towards me. I found that there were people...
that I can trust who cared for me and who tended me like a delicate child who needed to be cared for. And that was beautiful. And they helped raise me for those few years. They taught me about all things Parisian. You can, you're in Paris now. You can live like a Parisian. You don't wear your trainers to work.
You can wear your ballet pumps, you know, they weren't trying to change me because they saw flaws. It wasn't like that. It was just about teaching me about the environment. And they were people who are also well-travelled. And so they understood the importance of not fitting in, but acculturation of finding the good things around you, finding what's positive and lovely and sweet and enjoyable about being in Paris.
We do lunch here for two hours and we leave our offices. We don't eat a sandwich at our desks. That is not what we do, Yolanda. You can take a break and we go to lunch. You can go home and have a nap if you live close enough. Or we can go to lunch together, sit and we talk about life and drink wine. And so I saw that as people who made an effort to...
welcome and to understand somebody who's very different and away from home because they themselves had experienced that. I think also it very much depends on where you are because for example now here in the USA, this is probably one of the hot spots in the USA where I'm going to meet so many other foreigners and those are quite few and far between compared to other places that I've been.
So there are not necessarily many people here who are going to understand that unless I go to the South Bay. And so I think it just depends on where you are. There are definitely people who love to hear about your travels and want to hear about your achievements and want to...
hear and understand and be part of what you've seen and what you've encountered and the food you've tasted. There are people who want to hear, I know England. I was in Manchester 20 years ago and who want to tell you about their experience. So there are always opportunities to strike up conversations with random people and to create possible future bonds. So that I love. Those are some of the things I've encountered. And I
House Of Peregrine (18:17)
Yeah.
Yolandareshema@outlo (18:18)
think
For the women that I've spoken to and some of the men as well, it's that experience of who am I now in the USA, particularly with people with English as a second language. It's understanding that I'm somebody different. I have to find my way now. I don't speak the language as well as I thought I did. I can't function professionally as I had hoped.
So I have to pivot, I have to find something new, I have to create something new for my life. I have to rebuild and restructure myself. Who am I going to be? I can't take my identity. I didn't bring my identity with me. I didn't bring my successes and my reputation and all my achievements with me because they do not translate. So who am I going to be here? That's happening quite a lot. It's also a place of pain and
opportunity and excitement and wonder but also it's very scary.
House Of Peregrine (19:24)
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it's an incredibly bold thing to do. And I had someone on the show a few weeks ago that said something like some startling statistic of like less than like one percent of the world's population has this experience of moving countries. that it
Yolandareshema@outlo (19:39)
Yes, that's right.
House Of Peregrine (19:40)
was it was like you have to remember how rare it is to do this, how brave even though we have airplanes and we don't have
Yolandareshema@outlo (19:44)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (19:47)
to go across the ocean or walk across, it's still
a huge undertaking to go from one place to another.
Yolandareshema@outlo (19:58)
Yes.
House Of Peregrine (20:00)
the work you've described, I see it still very much as work women generally do, the tending,
Yolandareshema@outlo (20:07)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (20:08)
befriending. And that skill is, of course, gendered, mean, culturally gendered depending on the culture. But
Yolandareshema@outlo (20:17)
I guess the other question.
House Of Peregrine (20:20)
I wonder if that's one of the reasons that you mostly interview women or is there another reason or is it I want to know about that? Because the majority of our guests are women just out of chance, but I want to know about
Yolandareshema@outlo (20:30)
BOOM!
House Of Peregrine (20:32)
your choice of having mostly women or all women.
Yolandareshema@outlo (20:36)
I don't know if it's, I do speak specifically to women. When there are men with a story and it resonates and there are opportunities for growth and learning, I never say no. I would say yes to those men. But I wanted to focus on women because for the reasons you've just highlighted, we tend to be the carers quite often in these situations, certainly in mine. When I moved abroad, when I moved here to the USA specifically,
I saw that it was going to be my role to create the life outside of what's absolutely necessary, to create the things that will sustain us, that will cause us to be able to remain to live here. That means the community, friends, finding all of those links, being able to design what would be good for us, what could feed us. And my husband is so busy at work. He's a doctor.
And his job, his life was consumed, his mind, I should say, was consumed by learning the ropes, learning how to function within American society in that specific environment, learning how he brings value. So that was all about necessity. And mine was the other end of that necessary spectrum.
How do we survive? And often I find us women are in that role. Often because we come with children and we just by nature of how we function and that's a reality, we nurture, we are so very much concerned about the emotions of our kids. How are they going to be at school? What are they feeling at school? What are they experiencing? And we're so very tuned in, not that the men are not.
But I feel to a greater percentage, we women, we truly are. And so I feel we carry certain burdens and responsibilities or maybe even expectations that we place on ourselves to take care of the emotional side of our family, making sure everybody is mentally healthy. And so it's through that lens, it's understanding from my experience.
what that looks, feels, tastes and sounds like. And I wanted to connect with other women to hear about that experience because it affects the whole family. It affects the husbands, affects the boyfriends, it affects everybody, everything in every way. So that's why I really wanted to focus on the women and hear what they say, because so many of us are also doing all of that and building a business.
Because we don't want to be stuck at home while the kids are at work, while the husband is off doing whatever they're doing. We want to have a life, we want to matter, we want to count, we want to thrive as well. So how are we doing that?
House Of Peregrine (23:43)
Yeah, and I think women need to talk to other women about this and also the realities. it's for me at least, I love talking to women. I love comparing stories. I love getting wisdom because it's not always talked about. And I don't know if you know this about me. I did a TEDx talk about how
women's work runs the economy and how blockchain can actually be involved in that. And so it's something I'm really passionate about. And it's also literally, I always say this, like, especially if it's a corporate relocation, that spouse, usually a woman becomes part of the workforce of that company because they're supporting that person
Yolandareshema@outlo (24:27)
What's that? What's that?
House Of Peregrine (24:30)
even more than is normal because they become the infrastructure for that worker and for that person who's relocating if it's for a job.
I didn't come with a job, my family didn't come with a job, we came by choice. But I can see
Yolandareshema@outlo (24:43)
you
House Of Peregrine (24:44)
that the spouses are the unsung heroes of the journey. Even if they're men, I actually have my first few years were surrounded by a lot of trail, I hate the word trailing spouse, but like men who came along for women's jobs. And they really struggled because they didn't have this skill set
Yolandareshema@outlo (25:03)
No.
House Of Peregrine (25:05)
being building, building a community, building a network, building, and of course, professionally, people build a network, but this is building a life network. And like you said, your passions, what you wanna do, really making it beautiful, that doing it with intention, like we always say, a house of Peregrine. And so that skillset, if you don't have it, it's actually can be learned, but it's something.
that I think you're highlighting in your podcast, like that really, really silent work that's going on that we actually need to talk about in the international community and have tricks of the trade. like, you know, like we have, we have all these like ceremonies and books about like, well, if you have a baby, this is what to expect and this is
what you can do. And,
Yolandareshema@outlo (25:47)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (25:49)
but we don't have a, when you move abroad, you'll have to do this and this and this and this because
Yolandareshema@outlo (25:54)
Thank you.
House Of Peregrine (25:55)
women just do it.
But I think making it, making the load lighter by comparing stories and I think
Yolandareshema@outlo (26:01)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (26:01)
it's just a really beautiful thing you're doing. So that's what I love about this, what
you're up to.
Yolandareshema@outlo (26:06)
that's beautiful for you to say that. I really appreciate that. I received that. And you are so very correct. It's something that I'm trying to build. I really want us to have a platform where we create solutions as well for some of those tricky areas that I didn't really think about. It just wasn't part of my...
vision, understanding at all. It's understanding that some of the women who travel and men for love, pursue in love, end up in situations that are
Regrettable, very bad. My guest, a woman from Brazil on episode two, met an American on the beach in Brazil. He wooed her for years. He kept coming back for years. He met her family, her friends. Everything was wonderful. And he proposed to her, invited her over to the US. And when she eventually came, he and his mother took her passport and held her captive.
trap, labor trafficking for seven
House Of Peregrine (27:14)
Ugh.
Yolandareshema@outlo (27:15)
years, seven years. I mean, he really
House Of Peregrine (27:16)
my God. Yeah.
Yolandareshema@outlo (27:18)
groomed her and invested all his time. And so I learned from her that that is actually quite common more often for women and more often than I realize. And so that's an environment and a story that I'm now exploring as well. The intersection between
relocating abroad and trafficking, all forms of trafficking, labor, sex, as well as organ trafficking. And so I want this community to have a conversation, to share wisdom, to share tips, to share strategies of how we can create the life that we dreamed of that caused us to move abroad, how to be mentally well, how to be effective.
how to tell our stories in our own words and share who we are and the value we bring rather than to rely on the rhetoric of somebody else and to be counted among faceless numbers. We are more than that. But I also want us to be, I also want us to create, I want this to be a platform for getting people together with excellent understanding and experience and abilities to
create solutions because if we don't do it, it's not going to happen because this thing has existed for many, many years. So how do we do that? What do we do? That's what I'm working on as well. I've got a lot on my
House Of Peregrine (28:53)
Yeah.
Yolandareshema@outlo (28:54)
plate.
House Of Peregrine (28:55)
Yeah, yeah, it's great. No, and I have a similar, we should talk after, I, that's, we're building a place for people to build places like that. So that's,
Yolandareshema@outlo (29:05)
Yes.
House Of Peregrine (29:07)
I think it's super important. I always say we're like the network layer of life abroad, and then people can build what they need on top of that specific to the experience. And so that's, that's kind of, that's
Yolandareshema@outlo (29:16)
Hmm, I like that.
House Of Peregrine (29:19)
kind of what we're up to and have been.
Yeah, I agree. couldn't agree more. But this angle of this woman you talk to is such a, in episode two, which we'll link below, resonates as exploitation of the most gruesome kind. But I think there's a thread through it that isn't as physical with women or
people who are coming to a country that is still violent, but not as physically violent, which is like
Yolandareshema@outlo (29:55)
You
House Of Peregrine (29:56)
not being able to leave the country because of your kids. you know, I just had a guest that, her husband, they had a flood in their house and they moved back to their home country, or his home country just for a few months to remodel the house. And then he decided to stay there.
and then wouldn't move back and put their kids in school. And these are like happily married people. these things, these were just
Yolandareshema@outlo (30:22)
out.
House Of Peregrine (30:22)
so vulnerable, I think, is when you're in a new country, you are more vulnerable. And that's what I would want people to know. And that's, have guides about how to get divorced and what to think about before, the agreements to have in your relationship for that reason, because I am very privileged and I have a very safe-ish.
But when I moved abroad, I felt that extra layer of vulnerability because, and I didn't want other women to do that blindly. Or people.
Yolandareshema@outlo (30:50)
That's a really important
discussion to have. That is something that I have not yet touched on that I really want to. I want to explore that. So I would love to have more conversations with you on that and understand what that
House Of Peregrine (31:03)
Yeah, let's do it.
Yolandareshema@outlo (31:04)
looks and feels like. It's yeah. Yeah. Because I definitely.
House Of Peregrine (31:08)
fun. But I think, I
think that's sorry for our audience. That's what I, that's what I always tell people is have really solid agreements before you commit because it is, it can lead to exploitation. And again, this woman's story on your podcast, I'm not trying to compare it, but the possibilities for exploitation are, are not what you expect when you leave and you're in a new country, whether it's moving to your partner's country, or even if you're moving together.
and you're the one that doesn't have the visa. Those are levels
Yolandareshema@outlo (31:41)
yes.
House Of Peregrine (31:42)
and levels and levels, but you
Yolandareshema@outlo (31:43)
Yes.
House Of Peregrine (31:44)
are more vulnerable. And that's important to know and protect. And yeah, I think
Yolandareshema@outlo (31:46)
Yes.
House Of Peregrine (31:50)
it's just something people don't think about. It's one of those things people don't think about because it is an adventure and it's fun, like you say, but it's just like anything. Put your seatbelt
on.
Yolandareshema@outlo (31:58)
Yeah, and it's
understanding what exploitation really means because I think we automatically think of sexual exploitation. We are in a good marriage, but as you said, if you are the one without the visa, you are so dependent. And then the weight of the relationship shifts and sometimes I can imagine that
If you are the woman without the visa, you can end up in discussions and arguments where there are expectations and you are made to feel like you should be more grateful, you should be more this, you should. There are so many shoulds because somebody else has all the power and it just shifts that relationship. It just shifts the mood and the tone.
House Of Peregrine (32:50)
Yeah,
and whether you want it to or not, the person who has the more
Yolandareshema@outlo (32:55)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (32:55)
power maybe doesn't even want it. But what I always
Yolandareshema@outlo (32:58)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (32:58)
try and tell people is the power dynamic shifts whether you want it to or not. So it's better to
Yolandareshema@outlo (33:02)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (33:02)
go in eyes wide open. And that is really important, I think, for people to know. And
Yolandareshema@outlo (33:08)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (33:08)
again, like even if you move, your relationship is going to change, you
Yolandareshema@outlo (33:13)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (33:14)
are going to change. There's no way around it.
Yolandareshema@outlo (33:17)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (33:17)
Luckily,
and hopefully that's what you're up for. There's no staying the same once you move abroad.
Yolandareshema@outlo (33:22)
Yeah,
yeah, that is so very true. Yeah, whether you want it or not. That's the lesson.
House Of Peregrine (33:27)
Yeah, And hopefully,
yeah, that's the lesson. But I love, mean, I love what you said at the beginning, which is like, do that inner work to get to know yourself if you can a little bit.
Yolandareshema@outlo (33:37)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (33:39)
But it's like a big old like, you're gonna be having inner work whether you want to or not. It just depends on how you wanna go.
And so how are there things that you recommend like types of work or things that you've done yourself that you would have loved to do before you change countries with a spouse or even the first time?
Yolandareshema@outlo (33:59)
my gosh. Yes, I think it's really important to observe. Observe the culture. Observe how the culture functions. How do people interact with each other? Observe groups of friends. If you go to a networking event, spend some time observing. Spend some time understanding how you want to introduce yourself. How do you want to be known?
Observe your behaviour over maybe like the first few months, the first six months. Try and see whether or not you are beginning to mute your voice, whether you're beginning
to mute yourself in any way. It all links together. Understand, yes, so understand who, how you want to be known. Understand the people you want to have in your life.
understand how and be in control of how that shift of identity takes place. You can be in control of that instead of letting external factors define and mold you. Decide
for yourself who you want to be because there is this silent creep that happens if your language, if the local language is not your language of origin.
Being here in the USA, for example, just a quick example, I got to know some mums because I had my baby and I realized I needed to get out the house because I could see from a distance, you know, this blooming cloud of grayness that if I didn't tend to it before it caught up with me, would turn into sadness, would turn into, if left unchecked.
depression
and so on and I didn't want that for me. didn't want that for the baby. I didn't want that for my whole house. So I decided to get involved with parent groups, mom groups. But then I didn't have these lessons. I didn't know that I first ought to observe how they interacted with each other. I didn't know what I needed to feed my soul. So I popped myself among these people and
Three months later, I realized something's really wrong and I couldn't define what it was. And I kept saying to my husband, this is really weird. There's something really weird about these people. And it took me another two months to figure out that they are very surface in their, there's no depth to how they interact. They were not concerned about feeding each other's souls. It was literally about proximity, physical proximity. And that doesn't work for me.
I need
to be with people that I can talk about, what are we going to do with our future? What do I want for my daughter? What do I want for my life? What's my purpose? How can I rebuild it? I wanted to have really deep, meaningful conversations, but these people would just look at me like,
maybe I'll have another baby. Well, my husband's just been promoted and all this sort of stuff. I'm just like, I'm talking about you. Let's hear about you. So you've
House Of Peregrine (37:20)
I
had that.
Yolandareshema@outlo (37:20)
got to understand.
House Of Peregrine (37:22)
I had that too. When we first arrived, it was always, oh, you introduced yourself by what your husband did. And we actually
Yolandareshema@outlo (37:30)
Yes.
House Of Peregrine (37:31)
didn't we didn't move with the company. So we didn't have that corporate. We did. But it was my husband co-founded the company. And so it was
Yolandareshema@outlo (37:37)
Right, right.
House Of Peregrine (37:39)
like we didn't have that corporate like
or that identity, but everyone would ask me all the time and I was like, wait a minute, I count, I'm here, he's not here, you will never meet him.
Yolandareshema@outlo (37:47)
Yes. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (37:49)
But it was almost like the women had identified with their, I understand why, because they're working for them basically, right?
Yolandareshema@outlo (37:56)
Thank
House Of Peregrine (37:57)
They are part of the company because they are moving here, they're doing, their entire life revolves around this job. So in essence, they are part of the company, but at the first it was really striking to me that their identity was so.
And they expected my identity to be so tied to what their husband was doing.
Yolandareshema@outlo (38:14)
Mm-hmm. And that doesn't work for me and for so many other women as well. yes, practice introducing yourself. Do it, mess it up, but know that you don't have to be flawless. You don't have to be flawless to be worthy, I say. And speak from a lived experience. And that's all about who you are and what you've done and what you've achieved.
House Of Peregrine (38:40)
Yeah, you literally,
if I could interrupt you, you literally are rewriting your life story however you want. And that
Yolandareshema@outlo (38:46)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (38:47)
with authenticity, if you do it with authenticity, you're now here to become someone, bring that experience with you and become someone else. And that's the opportunity and the potential promise, but it also, know, you're the upsides and the downsides of that are, are both there. Yeah, often.
Yolandareshema@outlo (39:06)
Yeah, authenticity is so very important in everything.
In how you speak, if you mispronounce something because of your accent.
Don't necessarily apologize and certainly don't shrink away and hide yourself away because that is the other thing that I have seen happen when I was in France, when I was in England, as well as here with people who are foreign or expats and you've got a thick accent.
instead of speaking there is this fear that creeps in. People are going to laugh at me. I don't know how to speak the language so well. Just keep trying because if
you don't you shrink away and then you become muted and you lose your confidence. You start questioning yourself. You start questioning everything about you and that is so very undermining. Especially if you have kids as well. It affects them.
So you've really got it as simple as it sounds. I have learned that very small increment things help you so
much like learning how to introduce yourself and what you want to say and asking yourself questions about how you pronounce certain words, understanding about understanding.
what do want to do? Do you have the language of your profession? And I think of a woman I met in England who came from Ukraine. She was a very successful businesswoman. She had many salons. She did the injectables and the Botox and all this stuff. But having to leave Ukraine suddenly, arriving in England, learning the language.
she found herself working as an assistant to a hairdresser, which meant right now she's sweeping floors, picking up hairs because she doesn't have the language to function in her profession. She cannot be the person she was and maintain that reputation and that stature. So these are some of the things, there many things there. Keep rewinding.
House Of Peregrine (41:17)
Yeah. But I think recommending
Knowing who you are deeply, as deeply as you can, knowing what you
Yolandareshema@outlo (41:23)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (41:23)
like and don't like. And I think your advice at the beginning of like, know what feeds your soul is a new one that I
Yolandareshema@outlo (41:28)
Yes.
House Of Peregrine (41:28)
think is very well put, that just know what feeds your soul and make sure you have access to that because at some moments you're gonna need it. So as glamorous as living abroad is, and we all think it
Yolandareshema@outlo (41:40)
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (41:40)
is, it's also the ups and the downs can be equal. So that's really good advice.
Yolandareshema@outlo (41:47)
Yeah, do you know, can I just...
House Of Peregrine (41:49)
Yeah, yeah.
Yolandareshema@outlo (41:50)
I would love to add just one last thing. And this is something that one of my guests, think her name is Dasha, she's from Russia, episode 11, I think. She said something that I will always remember that I want to share with all of your listeners. If you feel like a fish out of water, you have two choices.
Change your scales. Change who you are.
I don't recommend that. Or find a new pond.
Literally, that's it.
House Of Peregrine (42:26)
That's it. That's it. I think that's a really, I can't think of a better way to end our conversation today. I've enjoyed it so much and I want to be mindful of your time, but I would love for you to tell everyone where they can reach you to find out more and listen to your show. You can find the...
Yolandareshema@outlo (42:43)
You can find The Places We Call
Home on Spotify. You can find us on Apple. You can go to the website, theplaceswecallhome.com.
please, wherever you find us, it would be great for you to share the links, share your comments and thoughts on the characters you are meeting, how their stories reflect you and your experiences, and connect.
leave a lovely comment because it really helps me to understand that I'm sharing useful and valuable insights and tips and tools and let me know what you'd like to hear more of. Share your story, connect with me.
So those are just some of the ways I'm on Instagram as well. Places we call HomePod. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (43:31)
Perfect.
We'll link that below. And also, I want to let everyone know that you are also on the House of Peregrine network. People can find you there as well. So
Yolandareshema@outlo (43:41)
Thank you.
House Of Peregrine (43:42)
thank you for joining me today. I cannot wait to share all of your work with the world. And yeah, everyone listening in, please feel free to like, share, and leave suggestions.
And we would love to see you back next week.