Recently, I went to a book presentation with luncheon at the Ritz Carlton. It was a fund raiser for the Crisis Centre on the island and although I didn’t know the author nor the book, I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation given by a friend. The life story of Cheryl Strayed is one that makes me realise how lucky I am to never have been exposed to domestic violence. Nevertheless the message that she wants to bring across is one of inner strength and hope. She wants to reach out to everybody who can find inspiration in her story to overcome the roadblocks on your path, to start new, when your life and your person seems shattered into pieces.
A feeling I can relate to and something a lot of the expatriates around the world at some point are confronted with. Relocating and starting new is challenging yet at the same time is opening new possibilities for personal development.
Over the last 15 years, I have learned more about myself than of any of the new places that I lived in. Each time proving (in the first place to myself) that I was capable of doing the impossible. Don’t think I turned into a daredevil, my bucket list isn’t full with high adrenalin activities. But I nourished my curiosity and empathy to enable me to more easily reach out to others, strangers on my path. Slowly I overcome some preconceptions of my own abilities such as :” I’m not a linguistic person, I cannot learn French” or “I’m terrified of speaking in public, I won’t take leadership roles avoiding to address larger audiences”. Sometimes changes are inevitable out of sheer necessity; it’s hard not to speak French when living on a French island. Sometimes an opportunity just crossed my path and in the friendly environment and through the professional coaching at Couperus Circle, a local club of POWERtalk International in The Hague, I not only overcame my fear but I discovered the beauty of bringing your message or your story across in a speech.
What I learned is beautifully said by Charlie Chaplin: ”The best thing in life is to go ahead with all your plans and your dreams, to embrace life and to live everyday with passion, to lose and still keep the faith and to win while being grateful. All of this because the world belongs to those who dare to go after what they want. And because life is really too short to be insignificant.”
A feeling I can relate to and something a lot of the expatriates around the world at some point are confronted with. Relocating and starting new is challenging yet at the same time is opening new possibilities for personal development.
Over the last 15 years, I have learned more about myself than of any of the new places that I lived in. Each time proving (in the first place to myself) that I was capable of doing the impossible. Don’t think I turned into a daredevil, my bucket list isn’t full with high adrenalin activities. But I nourished my curiosity and empathy to enable me to more easily reach out to others, strangers on my path. Slowly I overcome some preconceptions of my own abilities such as :” I’m not a linguistic person, I cannot learn French” or “I’m terrified of speaking in public, I won’t take leadership roles avoiding to address larger audiences”. Sometimes changes are inevitable out of sheer necessity; it’s hard not to speak French when living on a French island. Sometimes an opportunity just crossed my path and in the friendly environment and through the professional coaching at Couperus Circle, a local club of POWERtalk International in The Hague, I not only overcame my fear but I discovered the beauty of bringing your message or your story across in a speech.
What I learned is beautifully said by Charlie Chaplin: ”The best thing in life is to go ahead with all your plans and your dreams, to embrace life and to live everyday with passion, to lose and still keep the faith and to win while being grateful. All of this because the world belongs to those who dare to go after what they want. And because life is really too short to be insignificant.”
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