How to Treat Transplant Shock When You Move Abroad

How to Treat Transplant Shock When You Move Abroad

by | Feb 21, 2019 | Career, Travel, Uncategorized

Yep, you read that right. Transplant shock isn’t just for plants!

If you aren’t a gardener, transplant shock is when you uproot a plant and move it somewhere else, where it fails to thrive. In some cases, the plant will even die.

Like plants, we humans are rooted into our environments. Our roots may be less literal, like our social networks, family, and habits, but it doesn’t mean we are any less deeply rooted. Just like plants, our bodies have also acclimated to the environment around you and the food you are eating. A move can have physical and emotional impacts on your wellness.

When you uproot yourself and move to a new country, the shock can be just as traumatic as it is for plants. For me, it was almost tortuous to go from the Sunshine state to Eastern European winters. Wow, talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder!

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t move. That’s not what I’m saying at all.

What I am saying is the a move takes foresight and strategy. If you want to thrive in your new home, you need to make the effort to do so.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to help people like me avoid the mistakes that I made when I moved abroad. So if you want to really commit to your wellness and making your move successful on all levels, I seriously recommend follow these tips.

1. No Trips Abroad for 3 Months

So I know you moved abroad because you want to see the world, but when you first move to a new country, you need to focus on settling down first to avoid transplant shock. In other words, you need to let your roots ground in so you can thrive in your new home long term. Taking trips to other countries right away will not only be disorienting, but will also get in the way of forming an intimate relationship with your new city. Depending on your visa situation, you may not even be able to leave the country for the first few months anyway. Focus on really getting to know your new city and don’t leave until it has started to really feel like home.

2. Time in Nature

One of the most important things you can do to diminish transplant shock is to get out in nature. I believe every country and every city has its own energy. When you’re moving out of one energy and into another, it may be a shock to your system. Going exploring in nature will not just help you fall in love with your new home, but I believe the subtle energy of plants has profoundly healing effects. Get out into nature anytime you’re feeling homesick or disconnected and you will acclimate much more quickly.

3. Move in Summer

If you’re moving more than a few time zones away, your circadian rhythm is going to be totally fucked. This impacts people to different degrees, but for me, it’s an absolute nightmare and it can take weeks before I feel like a normal human again.

One of the best ways (maybe the only way!) to align your circadian rhythm and get your sleep schedule back on track is sunlight. If you are moving to a place that experiences winter, you should really move in the summer. Otherwise, you will not have access to the kind of sunlight that will align your sleep cycles. This can cause insomnia, fatigue, depression, and MAJOR transplant shock.

When I was in graduate school, I spent 6 weeks in the US for winter break and traveled around the US while I was there. This was such a big mistake. It disrupted my process of settling into life abroad and totally fucked up my circadian rhythm. When I got back to Hungary it was the dead of winter and there was almost no sunlight. I got sick, depressed, homesick, and exhausted. And I don’t mean a little sad or a little sluggish. I mean full blown depression and an inability to get out of bed and go to class.

I totally understand the desire to want to go home and see your family over the holidays, but it can set back your process of acclimation back in a lot of ways. It may be worth it to skip your first year or to have them visit you instead.

4. Study the Language

Not only is this a practical tool that will make your life easier, but I believe that each language has its own vibration. Practicing the language will help you acclimate more to the energy of the country and help you form that intimacy you want with your new home.

5. Limit Contact with Friends Back Home

I know this makes me sound like a hardass, but it is totally necessary. I don’t mean you should ghost all of your friends, but you should be mindful in your contact when you first move.

When you have those difficult moments, you’re going to want to reach out to something familiar. But the more you rely on your network back home, the more you are going to want to go back.

Right now, you are trying to make a new home for yourself, so it is vitally important that you push yourself to develop a local support network as soon as you can. This is where having an expat coach can really help you. It is someone familiar you can turn to when you need support, but not someone you had a pre-existing relationship with that is going to distract you or tempt you to give up.

6. Connect with People Before You Move

Friendship might be the biggest tool towards helping you feel more rooted in your new home. Connecting with people and organizations before you get there will help you a lot. Join local expat organizations for events and support in finding an apartment. Join local Facebook pages and post in the groups introducing yourself. Having someone you can reach out to to ask questions before you get there and knowing you will have chances to socialize as soon as you move will be such a balm for your anxiety.

One group I’m a part of Women of Budapest, is a support network for Hungarian and expat women living in Budapest (obviously). They host social events, travel together, post jobs, and answer even your most embarrassing questions (where can I find an English speaking doctor that does paps?). Having a support network like this before arriving will change your experience.

7. Get Your Own Space ASAP

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is taking too long to find an apartment. You should have all of your basic research on apartment hunting covered before you even move. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend signing a lease before you get there, but you should already have showings booked. The longer it takes to get into your own space, unpack, and start to build your nest, the more stressed you’re going to be and the less it will feel like home.

3 Reasons You Can’t Get Over Your Ex

3 Reasons You Can’t Get Over Your Ex

by | Feb 21, 2019 | Love, Uncategorized

As a matchmaker, I have a lot of clients who come to me post-breakup. These clients are always difficult, because no matter what they do or how great the match I set them up with is, they just can’t get over their ex. Sometimes these breakups happened years ago and they still can’t manage to move on!

By helping these clients through their breakups, I have identified the top three reasons people just can’t seem to get over their exes, not matter how hard they try.

If you’re in the same boat, read on.

1. You’re Dating too Soon

I have an aquaintence I see from time to time. Every time we run into each other, she has a new boyfriend. They inevitably breakup within a few weeks or months, leaving her near crazy asking herself (and everyone else) “Why, does this keep happening?!?”

When you jump from guy to guy or relationship to relationship, I’m going to be honest, you start to look pathetic. People wonder why you’re so uncomfortable being alone. And that’s kind of a red flag for potential suitors.

Dating apps have normalized rapid fire dating in a way that makes the average person’s love life look like a game of musical chairs. This is not a healthy dynamic.

I firmly believe you should be single for at least six months post breakup before you start dating again.

I’ve witnessed a lot of friends change completely during a relationship. After the breakup, they have no idea who they are or what they are looking for. Rather than taking the time to get to know themselves, they jump into a relationship with the first guy who shows interest and absorb his personality and desires instead. You cannot be in a functional relationship unless you have a clear sense of your own identity and desires.

Breakups are emotionally difficult, and afterwards you need time alone to process your feelings. If you jump into another fling or relationship, you are really just burying down the pain of your breakup. But guess what? That pain doesn’t go anywhere. And with the next breakup, it will just continue to snowball, until it takes you down in an avalanche of repressed emotions.

You can see how not taking time off between relationships is not only setting yourself up for failure, it’s also setting yourself up for a mental breakdown!

2. You’ve Lost Your Passion

When you find yourself constantly missing your ex, you have to ask yourself, is it really the person you miss, or is it something else?

One of my clients could not for the life of him get over his ex. Everytime he started to move in a good direction, he would totally breakdown. He confessed that he missed his ex like crazy and since they had broken up he had felt dead inside. Alarm bells went off in my head.

Unsurprisingly, around the same time of the breakup he had moved into working in a different industry, an industry he was much less passionate about.

I suggested that maybe it wasn’t his ex he missed so much, maybe he was just lacking passion in his life. Maybe he missed the emotional, intellectual, and sexual passion of that relationship, but not actually the abusive person behind it.

It was like a lightbulb went off for him. I suggested that he focus on consciously replacing his relationship with new passions. He did! And I had the pleasure of watching him come back to live and move on.

Relationships take up a lot of space in our lives and the loss of one leaves a massive vacuum inside of us. It’s the reason why you so often say, “I just feel so empty,” after a breakup. In order to overcome the emptiness that can so often hold you back, you need to mindfully fill this space in your life. It’s all too easy to open up dating apps and to try to fill this space up with a new person. That won’t work!

You need to rediscover old passions and start new ones. Fill this space up with passion and not only with your breakup be easier, you will be a much more appealing candidate when you start dating again… nothing is sexier than passion!

3. You Haven’t Done the Work

I always ask my clients what work they’re doing to get ready for a relationship. I get a lot of blank stares in response. Sometimes people say, “Umm… Nothing. Am I supposed to be doing something?”

YES.

Not doing any personal exploration and development work between relationships, is the reason you are drifting mindlessly from relationship to relationship. It’s the reason you keep getting your heartbroken over and over.

It’s also the reason why you aren’t over your ex.

My matchmaking clients who come to me right after a breakup and are unwilling to work on themselves, have a 0% success rate. And they almost always confide in me that no matter how many dates they go on, they can’t get over their ex. This is especially true for clients who were in toxic relationships.

But the thing is, it’s not so much their ex that they can’t get over… it’s the wound underneath.

If you were in a toxic relationship, something led you to pick that partner. That thing was probably a wound. Probably a wound from childhood or early adolescence.

You can’t get over your ex, because they represent the wound. And wound wants to be healed. If you want to get over your ex, you have to direct your attention away from them and towards yourself. You have to examine your relationship patterns in order to find the wound underneath all of your failed relationships.

When you heal that wound, you will heal your feelings for your ex, and set the groundwork towards having a functional relationship in the future.