A Guide to French & American Expat Integration, Part 2

A Fish in Foreign Waters

One of the best ways to exercise the transformative growth experiences is learning to thrive through the discomforts of a foreign environment.

Being an expatriate—who integrates—requires courage and compassion, for oneself, for others and from others.

Photo by samsommer on Unsplash

Personally, as someone who prides herself on being witty, I had a difficult time losing that part of myself as an Expat in Paris. When I arrived, I’d only been taking French classes two times a week for a few hours a week for six months prior to my arrival. So, not only could I not express myself in the new language, but I slowly realized that it wasn’t just the language that I didn’t understand. It was also the framework for humor and intelligence. France turned out to be more foreign than anticipated.

When a foreigner is plopped into a culture, not of their own, there are choices. A foreigner can continue being foreign and grasp their foreignness even tighter, holding onto what makes them different out of instinct to preserve themselves. A foreigner can also adapt to assimilate completely with the new environment, and lose their former selves completely. Finally, a foreigner can integrate. Integrating into a society involves shedding parts of the former version of yourself that the new culture helps you to see and realize you carried or embodied without intention, simply as a product of your environment, and adapting new elements of the new culture, with conscious choice.

Sharing experiences helps us tie together loose ends by creating connections--between humans and situations.

Integration involves waking up to what makes you ‘you’ and which pieces of you were conditions of your environment and which pieces-of-you you chose to make part of yourself. And to successfully shed and grow constructively within a new culture, we need others to support, teach and receive us as we practice and refine our new identity.

Time also helps. I would have loved to read an article like this when I started living and working in Paris, and I truly hope this helps others to bridge over some of the fear, pain, difficulties, and mistakes. I honor my experience and am grateful for everything every single bit of it taught me about myself and culture itself.

Community is paramount in gathering enough awareness to even begin the process of coming to a common ground.

For any expat interested in integrating with a foreign culture, forming groups and communities with other expatriates or formerly expatriated people of the culture (who are now back in their mother-land but with that cracked-open foreigner's perspective) can be essential.

When we experience another's discomfort, we need to look at the situation and ourselves with clarity. Each moment of discomfort is an opportunity to grow. When we learn to feel discomfort as a trigger for opportunity, we consciously create a new dialogue. When we open our minds and adjust our energies, we offer the olive branch to create a bridge in a gap of understanding--a bridge that leads to harmony and to a constructive environment.

But first, as always, and of course:

We have to pause. We have to listen. We have to be still.

Go with me here... become one with a sponge until you have absorbed enough to understand the new water you're in. To breathe it in and realize you're still alive without doing anything but being. Then in this moment, allow yourself to make deliberate choices about what pieces of yourself (your past, your conditioning, your perspectives, etc.) you want to take with you and which ones you can shed in this momentous opportunity that you've given yourself. This is the basis of thriving in a new environment in a symbiotic way that brings joy.

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Please note, this is a grossly (French word for largely, though one of those weird words in an American context) blanketed statement and overview to comparing cultures biased by my own experiences and perspectives and privileges. It is my hope that it helps to create bridges of understanding, to connect and transform people (with love) across the world.

With love and light,

Jennie Souiade
CEO & Founder, Magentic
HelloMagentic.com
jennie@hellomagentic.com