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| Juliette Lowe, lives in the Orb valley, Languedoc. From her background as counsellor, psychotherapist and life coach she explores emotional perspectives on coming to France to start a new life. |
How could it be that we end up in this beautiful country feeling unhappy? Languedoc’s landscape is perfect: fresh, verdant and alive with birds, beasts and wildflowers. We have mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, gorges, waterfalls, lakes, vineyards, forests, fields of sunflowers and poppies, plus, of course, the Mediterranean. The seasons bring with them harvests and festivals in wonderful little villages and there are lots of cultural happenings. The French are warm and welcoming, even if they don’t immediately invite us into the bosom of their family: and why on earth should they? There are markets, vides-greniers and marchés aux puces to explore, and eating out is a dream, with delicious, imaginative food served with civility, care and humour, mostly at prices that just add to the pleasure. Our homes and surroundings are probably beyond anything we could have acquired in Britain. So I ask again ‘How can it be that we end up feeling unhappy?’ The answer, both simple and complex, is that we bring ourselves with us.
The land we live in isn’t necessarily the problem. The problem could lie within us. We knew this land before we came to live here. We had holidays here. We dreamed of our sojourns in France. We read books, planned routes, explored places. We knew it. We knew it and we loved it so much that we wanted to spend more than brief spells in it. We wanted it to be home. With vision and effort and planning we took our dream and made it real. Or did we? Were we as familiar with our own ‘internal landscape’? For a number of people the dream may have become something of a nightmare. This article is the first in a series exploring some of the emotional aspects of coming to live here. I approach the task with enthusiasm and pleasure, but also with humility because I’m on the journey too. Whatever stage each of us is at, we are all on journeys of some sort or another. I hope that together we’ll make greater sense of a puzzling question, which is why is it that so many people - who have come to live in this beautiful country, who have invested so much, in so many way - are simply not happy here? There’ll be many different reasons, not least that people do bring themselves with them. So we’ll take time over the weeks to learn from each other in this task of trying to understand and finding ways to move forward. Later on I hope you’ll have chance to share your experiences and to tell us how you’ve coped.
Don't beat yourself up
Don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re finding it difficult to settle and feel happy in France. But, I know, the trouble is that when we’re unhappy we’re likely to get impatient and critical with ourselves – or with others, or both. We’d be inclined to say, or maybe just to think: don’t be such a wimp; pull yourself together; what are you going on about? You wanted to come to France, you got what you wanted, what’s the problem? But actually, at times like this, it’s really important to care for and understand ourselves and as a result be better able to care for and understand those around us too. It just makes us feel worse to beat ourselves up. Remember that even without the bunch of minor to middling frustrations and the major stresses and tragedies that life might have thrown at you, you were probably already journeying on a difficult, challenging path by ‘upping sticks’ and coming to live in a different country.
It’s an irrefutable fact that life changes are stressful. Even if they’re happy changes they’re stressful precisely because things are changing: wonderful new job, moving house, marriage, first baby - joy, sure, but stress. And here we are taking on the whole lot, well most of it, packing up, throwing out, leaving family and friends, saying goodbyes, letting go of everything familiar, giving up jobs, relinquishing many important things that had given us a sense of our worth, our purpose in life, our ‘power’and who we are. And that’s only what we left behind us. Ahead of us, who knows what? Dreams? Sure, but in a nutshell, we have to start again. How exhilarating and exciting. But that can be a nightmare! Psychologists would tell us that we have embarked on a process of change transition, a reality, according to them, not to be taken lightly. Note ‘transition’, not ‘transformation’. Would that we could think, wish for and have what we want, now and without too much effort, please. But it just doesn’t happen like that and anyway, let’s face it, that’s not what humans thrive on. We need challenge. We’ve got challenge! Instant transformation is for fantasy and fairy tales. What we’re doing is journeying towards something we want, something that could in the end be transforming of us and of our lives. But it is a journey.
We’re all individuals so it’ll be different for each of us but psychologists have found consistently recurring themes and patterns during periods of significant change. As a result ‘transition psychology’ has come up with models and charts and diagrams to help people understand, anticipate and cope better with what may lie in store for them. These are used extensively in training for change and transition in a variety of settings such as the forces, foreign service and businesses, voluntary overseas services, education, bereavement, adoption, organisational change and, not least, personal growth.
You're on a journey
So what can these psychologists tell us today that might be of some use today? Perhaps it’ll make sense of how we’ve been feeling and acting. It might also help us to prepare for the rest of our ‘transition’. Perhaps we’ll feel relief to recognize that what’s been happening is normal, common even. So much so that a psychological theory, has evolved as a result of it, including J.M.Fisher’s ‘transition curve’. Let’s look at that : the journey - the transition - starts with anxiety and moves on to happiness. Then maybe some denial emerges (‘Change? What change? What for?’). Otherwise fear comes in, and threat follows. Self-esteem probably begins to sag at this point, there’s a lot of looking back at life and beginning to experience guilt, maybe regret about decisions and actions in the past. At this stage disillusionment drops in, threatening to drag you ‘back home’ - to give up on the whole thing. But if you stay the course maybe depression will hit you. You are, after all, trying to re-invent yourself in an ‘alien’ environment. And there are two possible routes from this point. One is that you get into a frenzy of hostility, and with much gnashing of teeth, spitting of feathers, swearing and stamping you’ll say ‘I’ll make this work out if it kills me!’ and you’ll strain forward. Or, alternatively, gradually, your feelings of hopelessness and pointlessness begin to change to hopefulness and you start to see a glimmer of a future for yourself with new possibilities. You move forward gradually but with increasing optimism. It is said that this ‘transition curve’ takes at least 6 months…more like 8 and very commonly a year. So be patient with yourself and each other. Dai Williams, Chartered Occupational Psychologist, says “To see a person transforming their life in the recovery phase is like watching a flower open.”
Do you recognize yourself or anyone else in these descriptions? Maybe you’re in the middle of ‘the curve’ (I almost typed ‘curse’ and maybe that’s what it feels like at times). Do you feel you’ve got stuck in there somewhere? Are you out the other side but still feeling as if you haven’t ‘arrived’? Or perhaps you don’t even know where you’re headed. Over the weeks we’ll explore some ideas to help us better understand where we are and how we can help ourselves feel better and live fulfilling, rich lives.
But until the next time, a little inspiration from that great author ‘Unknown’
May you have enough happiness to make you sweet,
Enough trials to make you strong,
Enough sorrow to keep you human,
And enough hope to bring you joy
Juliette Lowe is a counsellor living and working in the Languedoc area. Contact her with any questions at:
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