Intercultural encounters & the experience of being an expat are exciting, enriching adventures – and they can also be confusing, frustrating, sometimes even unsettling. These two experiences have different dynamics: when being suddenly immersed in a new country or culture as an expat, the scale and intensity of the experience at once is often overwhelming and disorienting. Intercultural encounters, on the other hand, tend to be less intense at any time, yet equally confusing and perhaps much harder to get a grasp on; intercultural marriages and companies with employees from different cultures will keep functioning in certain ways for years, without realizing just how much of their challenges, conflicts and confusions can be traced back to intercultural misunderstanding. And when we talk about "different cultures", we do not only talk about people from different countries (="narrow definition of culture"), but also people from different communities and people with different level of access to privilege, etc. within one country (="broad definition of culture"). Mastering intercultural awareness and competencies, therefore, is simply a must for everyone in today's world – and a huge potential for personal and collective growth and development. 

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Both intercultural- and expat life challenges share one central common feature: your own world (including the values, truths, and the corresponding norms and behaviors that have been guiding you) meeting a different world (be it the internal world of another person, or that of a whole new culture or country), and this encounter resulting in some sort of clash, ambiguity, confusion or conflict. Very often, you may go into these situations mentally prepared (especially when you are an expat, you do expect to encounter some challenges at first), and still: you end up in ambiguous situations that leave you feeling strange – and sometimes it is only much later, that you realize this may have been a case of intercultural misunderstanding, one which was subconsciously governed and interpreted without much reflection.

This coaching journey will facilitate your process of developing your own approach to successful management of the unique expat & intercultural challenges that you are experiencing at the moment. You will reflect on your own values and habits as well as those of the 'other' – this deeper awareness will help you to understand the causes of conflict or misunderstanding better. You will discover your own triggers and further develop your intercultural competencies, especially 'ambiguity tolerance' – the capability to hold the space for uncertainty and conflict. You will practice 'zooming out of situations' and looking at arising challenges through the lens of the intercultural narrative. You will learn techniques to manage the stress and anxiety that often go along with intercultural clash situations. And you will also establish your own, unique approach to constructively solving intercultural and expat challenges.

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Please note that this coaching journey is not an intercultural training, this is not about learning "the map" to a new culture. In my approach, no one should be made to "adapt to" nor "assimilate in" another culture, they just need to find authentic and constructive ways of being together with it. This process is about taking a journey within yourself – a process which will enable you to start creating your own map, with patience, courage, authenticity and confidence. In short: the approach that you discover for yourself will feel genuinely right for you.