As mentioned in my first blog post, I was talking about the biggest fear that I have about moving to New Zealand, which is to lose touch with my friends and family here in Europe. And as I am learning more and more how much our minds can play a role in how we experience things AND how we make choices and tackle situations, the main goal I have for the coming months is to prepare myself mentally for the move to New Zealand.

In this blog I will touch on all the fears I currently have concerning losing touch with my home country. I will just lay them all out and rewrite my ‘current’ story, starting with the fear of my family not liking my partner and not understanding why I am doing this.

 

What if my family doesn’t like my partner and they don’t understand why I am doing this?

Of course, I love my partner. He makes me the happiest and he is a wonderful person. But for some reason I think about what everyone else will think of him. And I know my friends will like him, but I am afraid my family will be quite critical of him. But I also believe in things being a self-fulfilling prophecy, so I am going to write a new story of how I would like it to be:

My partner is a very special person. I am lucky I found him. I don’t need my family to understand it right away, but I trust that over time they will see how happy my partner makes me, how good we are together and how much we love each other. I trust that with time they will see why we chose each other and why we chose to go into this knowing we will have to divide our lives between two countries. I trust that with time they will embrace him with so much love and they will foster relationships with him on their own. I trust that with time, my parents will grow to love my partner. I trust that they will see that my partner and I are meant to be together, that us finding each other was no coincidence and our relationship brings so much joy to ourselves and to everyone around us.

Wow, that’s much better!

Ok, let’s tackle another fear.

 

What if my family won’t be close to my partner and my future children, because we live far away?

One of my biggest fears is that in the future, I will have this beautiful family on the other side of the world that I then don’t get to share with my family and my friends. I have seen it with my parents. They are from South-America and the connection we have with the family members there is definitely less strong than with the family members we grew up around. But again, let’s write a new story of how I want it to be:

Even though we might live on the other side of the world, I trust that the connection with my family and friends will be as strong as ever. I trust that we will keep in touch over the phone and that I will stay actively engaged in the lives of my family and friends here. I also trust that my family and friends love me and love us so much that they can’t help but to stay engaged in our lives. I trust that the annual trip our family makes to my home country is everyone’s favourite event. I trust that they will be excited to spend time with us, go on trips with us and host us at their homes. I trust that there will be no difference in connection between the family and friends we have living close to us and the family and friends we have overseas.

Ok, that also feels way better!

Let’s do one more.

 

What if my partner never wants to move here?

Something I also think about often is that what if I move there, we live out our lives for a few years and then at one point: I’d like to go back. We’ve been in his environment for a while. I would like the same. And I make assumptions in my head about him not ever wanting that and I’d be ‘stuck’ in New Zealand forever, far from everyone I know. I know, very dramatic, but that’s really how I feel. But I would like it to feel like this:

I know my partner loves his own country, but I choose to trust that he will also love mine. I choose to trust that he will love it so much that he will see himself living here one day. And I also choose to trust that he will want to spend as much time here as we can. I choose to trust that we will spend as much time in each of our countries and that we will make choices on where to live that makes us both as happy as we can be. I choose to trust that we will figure it out.

Much better, again.

Ok, let’s just do one more then!

 

What if my family doesn’t want to come and visit us, what if my partner and children don’t want to go back every year and what if travelling becomes way too expensive in the future?

This is a long one, but it all has to do with travelling across both countries and the money it costs. I am afraid my family either won’t have the time, means or energy to come and visit me wherever I am. I am also afraid my own family (meaning my partner and my children) won’t want to travel to my home country every year. But I understand that this also a fear that is quite unreal, because until now, every time I was abroad, my family came to visit me and I want to trust my partner that he will always make the effort to stay connected to my friends and family members as he knows how important it is to me. So, I would like it to feel like this:

I am aware of the physical distance between my family and friends. But I choose to trust that the emotional bond is so strong that it is almost impossible to feel disconnected from my friends and family. I choose to trust that my family and friends will make the effort to collect the means, energy and time to visit us as often as they can. And I also choose to trust that my partner with time will care just as much to see my family and friends as I do, maybe even more. I trust that my future children will be excited to travel to see my family and friends every year, also maybe even more than me. I choose to trust that it will come natural to my family to stay connected with our loved ones. I choose to trust that we will have an extra home in the country that we do not live in, so we can be close to our friends and family whenever we choose to.

I feel so much lighter. It has now already been a few days since I actually wrote this post and I have been rereading all the cursive text multiple times a day now and I feel so much better about possibly moving. 

I will definitely follow up with a new post in case other doubts might come up or if I end up just feeling as excited as I can be about the potential move!

 

Love, 

Marie