On November 21st The Gallery Seoul hosted Dr. Jungeun Kim, PhD, LP, to lead a discussion on the mental and professional well-being of expatriate spouses. Dr. Kim shared findings from clinical research and insights on change management and cultural adaptation issues most pertinent to expatriate families.
The Gallery Seoul is a professional network for expatriate spouses. Presentations and events hosted by the Gallery have shared insight into leadership and career development. By now, three core themes presents themselves:
The Portfolio of Life: Life takes many turns, careers are long and may not follow a straight line. Connecting the dots often happens only in retrospect.
Choices and Sacrifice: Throughout life, choices come with sacrifices. The perpetual dilemma of balancing work and family is an ever-present dilemma.
Preparing for Luck: Making life choices involves preparing oneself for luck. Inspirational stories often seem lucky, but they also emphasize making yourself available to opportunities.
Dr. Kim’s presentation beautifully tied a bow on the above topics, helping us understand why we react to different situations as we do. Why the seemingly privileged life as an expat spouse can also be complicated and how to learn to surf the waves instead of trying to control them.
In this article, we share her main points. Understanding how your brain works will not only help in the current situation as an expat wife but also directly links to the task of leadership, especially global leadership.
Making the Invisible Visible
As a traveling spouse, your life is changing.The first posting involves a significant transition, moving to another country, potentially uprooting your children, and often experiencing a role change. For some this is a one-off experience, and for others, it continues with changes occurring at intervals of years.
Being an expat family is filled with many privileges, making it challenging to discuss the challenges. But Dr. Kim emphasizes the importance of recognizing and talking about these challenges to be successful and settle well. By giving names to your experiences, you develop a language to work with them, validating your unique and often isolating journey.
Because both the cultural adaptation and the role change can be challenging. In fact it requires radical growth on your part. But, because the personal growth is so strong, being an expat can also be a leadership course for the traveling part even though you are not working. Because getting to know yourself better, understanding how you react to stress and how to work with that in a constructive manner, strengthens your personal leadership.
Your Brain Wants to Correct Error
Understanding your brain’s response to uncertainty is crucial. Dr. Kim explains that the brain loves prediction and certainty, considering uncertainty a significant processing error. This can lead to stress and spiraling thoughts, which, while natural, may not be helpful. As uncertainty is inherent in expat life, learning how to calm your brain becomes essential.
Like Transplanting a Plant
Dr. Kim uses the metaphor of transplanting a plant to illustrate the gravity and process of being an expat. The lack of sufficient research in the field of expat spouses’ well-being led her to develop her framework on the basis of the theory behind culture shock:
Preparation phase: Disengagement of your current life,exciting yet hectic.
Arrival Phase: “Honeymoon stage”, working off high energy.
Settling phase: Establishing routines, disappointment, doubt, and depression.
In the Zone Phase: Adaption.
Not everyone experiences depression or struggle, but the framework helps understand sudden mixed emotions and doubts. Once you arrive in a new destination you see “the dark side of the moon”. You also understand the more uncharming part of the local culture or you might not be welcomed as you expected. It can also surprise you that you miss working, even though you looked forward to the break from the hustle and bustle of your old life. That is the settling phase. But eventually you find your way - how to do that we will get into. But, what is interesting to pay attention to here is that once you settle, you will find coming back home can be challenging. You will all of a sudden have an outsider perspective on your own culture as well. This is also why, it is often referred to, that moving back home after many years of expat life is actually the hardest move of all. Because it was supposed to be easy and natural but you yourself have in fact changed.
How to Complete the Puzzle?
Experiencing loss might lead to wanting to make the feeling go away, but grief doesn’t go away. Grief does not disappear but instead life expands. You learn to live with it and new sensations of joy and experiences arise. But the loss of past life, the missing of family etc. does not disappear. It is a part of you and the new life. With care and attention you can put the pieces back together.
Dr. Kim refers to Berry’s model for acculturation, focusing on two variables: context participation and cultural maintenance.
How you use these two techniques affects how you arrive and settle in and it can be seen in this matrix:
Interestingly enough kids will very often start assimilating immediately. That is their survival strategy and as a parent you need to understand that and allow that, even though your reactions might be different. However, it is important not to be in a state of feeling marginalized because that is not a good state to be in - as the wording suggests.
Developing or maintaining a bi-cultural identity is crucial for successful integration, allowing for cultural switching - a valuable skill for pursuing a career in global leadership. Here it is important to note that your strategies can be different in public and private spheres. Perhaps there is more cultural maintenance in the private settings than in public, where we interact more. This is a healthy strategy for integration.
Completing this puzzle can be difficult as you evolve, but your family might not have and they might not be interested in learning from your experiences. So even though you change, and you are part of the family, the family does not change. Then you might feel like you have to play a bit of a role ensuring the family balance. Having this understanding will also help you in leadership and corporate culture. Because even though management changes, and they want to bring the company forward or in a different direction, the organization might not be interested because they haven’t changed.
5 Ways to Flourish and Thrive
Dr. Kim offers five key pieces of advice for successful replantation as a traveling spouse:
Many of these pieces of advice could actually also be leadership advice - because leading through uncertainty is a core skill for good leaders. This entails knowing yourself and having the tools to control the mind when it starts spiraling. In that sense, expat spouse life is an intense leadership course on the self-development side.
Set Realistic Expectations:
Be mindful of your own ambition. We can have so many ideas and thoughts on how life and yourself ought to be. But perfection is the enemy of self. Here using the SMART framework to set realistic goals can be helpful - which is also a widely used management tool. Remember to celebrate when you reach a goal. Don’t just skip to the next task because that creates stress. Which is also a very important lesson in leadership. Especially if you remember that your brain in the middle of all this wants to work in overdrive.
Create a Routine
Having a good routine reduces complexity and quits the overwhelmed brain trying to predict uncertainty.
Build Positive Mantras
It is simple but important to remind yourself that it is and you are ok. Building on this Dr. Kim shared a tool the VIA survey which can help you identify your strengths. This can be helpful if you are experiencing self-doubt. Find out what you are good at and make a plan on how to use those skills. Looking at advice no. 5 volunteering could be a way.
Develop Grounding Skills
Having these very specific tools will help you control that mind of yours that might be reacting in a counterproductive manner. Being able to control these inexpedient reactions is also crucial in leadership when facing stressful situations. Here Dr. Kim shared the exercise called 5 senses where you identify 2 things you can hear, see, smell, feel and taste. Or you can do a gratitude jar, which is a physical jar that serves as a physical reminder of the blessings in your life.
Volunteering
Finally volunteering actually helps because it activates your neural system in a positive way. No less than 3 important hormones are released in your body when you volunteer. This is documented by Lawton that people who volunteer at least once a month reported better mental health. This also makes sense remembering the strategy of context participation, because volunteering is very often a gateway to do exactly that.
Finishing the article, remember that a transplanted flower often loses its flowers at first. Don’t be scared if that happens. It might recover stronger than ever. At the presentation the crowd did a short survey answering one question: What is the value that has grown in you after coming to Korea/starting your life as an expat? The answers speak volume:
The article emphasizes discovering opportunity through making the invisible visible and developing a language and the tools to work with challenges - preparing for luck in the midst of difficulty.
Citations
1. Oberg, K. (1960) "Culture shock: adjustment to new cultural environments". Practical Anthropology, 7, 177-182
Adler PS. (1975) "The Transitional Experience: an alternative view of culture shock". Journal of Humanist Psychology, 15:13-23
Also read this easy-to-read blog: https://toppandigital.com/us/blog-usa/coping-culture-shock-five-stages/
2. Berry JW. Acculturation as varieties of adaptation. In: Padilla AM, editor. Acculturation: Theory, models, and some new findings. Boulder, CO: Westview; 1980. pp. 9–25.
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If you want to follow the work of Dr. Kim you can visit her website:
If you want to follow Dr. Kim on LinkedIn visit her profile here:
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The Gallery is a professional network for spouses living in Seoul with their working partner who wishes to maintain their professional identity. At The Gallery you will find inspirational talks, a network of clever peers and an opportunity to get to know Korea from a business angle although you are currently not working.
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