TCK Academy

How do you belong?… and if you never had a sense of belonging to
a place, can you ever get it?

According to Donna Musil… the answer is no.

You can’t get this sense of belonging in the “traditional sense”,
but you can get it by being around people who had similar experiences…

An interesting question from an attendee was: “if you can live
anywhere, then where on earth should you live?”

Donna suggested to live in multicultural and cosmopolitan cities.
Vancouver, San Francisco, London… are where TCKs usually
feel most comfortable. What is ‘normal’ for TCKs is being in a
place where everyone’s different. It took her 40 years to figure
that out, because she was trying hard to fit in with the dominant
culture… instead of reaching out to other brats and TCKs.

Judging from my own experience, I believe that’s true because I
always feel so much more comfortable in muticultural groups.

After all, I used to live in London, England, and decided to settle
in Vancouver, Canada…

I love the fact that most people aren’t from here… they’re
“outsiders”, just like me.

No more itchy feet for me.

Donna’s advice to TCKs who want to belong is: “find the brats in
your neighborhood”.

I love the idea of simply standing up and asking people at your
school, work place, or activity groups if they grew up overseas…
because you just never know who has lived similar experiences.

There were a lot of interesting stories, questions, and books
shared. Overall, I was very pleased.

What some attendees have said:

“These past few weeks of the TCK Academy have been more help in
tying so many threads of my life together than years of on & off
therapy with a number of therapists. I expect that I am not the
only one with these reactions to the classes.”

“Really good, Brice …I thought it was gonna be mostly about brats
and her film, but many nice things were covered!”

“What a breath of fresh air to have at last some practical
observations and advice on TCK issues. .”

If you missed it, I’ll send you the recording very soon… but if
you’d like to hear a sample right now, or want to email others
and encourage them to join one of our teleclasses, you can send
them this Youtube video.

Watch the video here:

What is next?

We have a teleclass on grief coming up soon… and more experts
lined up for an interview series!

I received a few emails from people who didn’t receive the early
notification… so I’ll make a registration page soon so you can
get the announcements for all those teleclasses.

Many thanks for participating and supporting this project!

Talk soon,

Brice Royer
TCK Academy

Related links:

TCK Academy’s 3rd Teleconference with Donna Musil, Brats: Our Journey Home

Donna Musil’s Brats Our Journey Home website

Brats: Our Journey Home DVD

Edit: … Wow, for some reason Amazon has nothing listed under $199?! Just thought I’d let you know that you can order Brats: Our Journey Home DVD on Donna’s site too!

If you would like to leave us a feedback for Donna Musil’s: Brats Our Journey Home Teleconference please answer the following questions in the comments:

1. How, specifically, did this teleconference help you?

2. What would you say to a friend who was thinking of sigining up for a teleconference – but wasn’t sure?

3. If you feel it is warranted, feel free to leave us an audio testimonial by clicking in the comment box below:

Leave an audio testimonial

Please call the toll-free recording line and leave your message at: 1-800-609-9006. Extension number 3775. International callers may use 678-255-2174.

Thank you.

I know many of you want to discuss, network and exchange
email, so I made this blog post for you to discuss this teleclass and
connect with other attendees. What did you think of the teleclass?

Hi everyone,

This is Brice from TCKID. Wow, I’m still getting my head wrapped around what we just
accomplished on Monday.

Ruth is right, we made history. For a first-time teleclass, it went
better than I expected. I could barely get any sleep last night
because I’ve been swamped with emails from attendees.

I’ll share a few:

- “I have tears just falling from my eyes. I hear tears from others
too. It is powerful to hear so many others validate my experiences.”

- “It makes me feel like a bird happily flapping around in a bird
bath. I felt so ‘at home’ with you all yesterday.”

- “I would strongly recommend the teleclass to anyone thinking of
joining in. It was a both a joy and a relief to listen to others
who really CAN understand, and most of all, are actually willing to
work through the challenges we have all faced as TCK’s.”

I’m so happy to hear this!

But the truth is I didn’t really do much — all thanks should go to Ruth and
Paulette, Joyce from FIGT, Margie from Among Worlds, Girl scouts of
the USA, Team Expansion, and all of our partners and friends for
your support. This wouldn’t be possible without you.

So what happened on this teleclass?

Ruth gave a great overview, there were insightful stories, a lot of healing,
new connections, and intimate conversation.

One caller shared this quote: “We are each other’s
country”. It’s a perfect metaphor for this teleclass because
everyone felt and shared a deep and meaningful connection.

Here’s what I did NOT like about this Teleclass…

Background noise! When we opened the lines for the Q&A session, we
could hear the sound of an AIRPLANE JET ENGINE from someone who
called from an airport!! It made me laugh, because it’s so classic
for a TCK conference.

So what is next?

There is another teleclass! Now that we covered the overview, and
the “WHY” behind those concepts, it’s time to focus on the “HOW”.

My goal is to get EVERYONE the results they want right away and
leave them with some practical tools they can use immediately. I
want people to take action.

Personally, that’s where I always had difficulty. I understand the
concepts, but how do I get started? What do I do exactly?

Well, I’m happy to tell you that we have lined up expert guests in
the next teleclasses to give you practical information you can use
immediately!

You can now pre-register to the next teleclass. I’m amazed
that 45 people already signed-up yesterday, and I get a
feeling the next series will be even bigger.

Again, this will be completely free!

We have an early “sneak-peek” registration page for you and others on this
list until we get an official page ready for the public:

Here’s where you can get more details:

http://tckacademy.com/class/002/

Warm regards,
Brice
TCK Academy

P.S: For those of you who attended and sent questions online, Ruth
has a little surprise for you … so stay on the lookout.

PART 5 – “How to relate to Non-TCKs”.

By Ruth Van Reken.
Being a TCK becomes a way to frame or describe my life experiences
but that it does not define my total identity.

If I believe this, then I also want to get to know the other
person. I don’t need to wait for this person to ask me all about
myself but I can begin to explore who he or she is as well. As I
hear common themes emerge in our life stories, I can connect the
dots at these emotional places. Let me give an example of what I
mean.

When Paulette Bethel, my friend and also participant in TCKID.com and
TCK Academmy, share our stories with each other, the details are
profoundly different. She grew up in the States as an African
American/Creole in New Orleans, Louisiana. I grew up as a white
American child in Kano, Nigeria. Her minority status included
having to sit at times in designated areas because of her race. My
position as a minority was one of economic and educational
privilege compared to the vast majority of those around me.

Could our stories be more different?

Ironically, however, when Paulette first read Third Culture Kids,
she contacted me because her sense of emotional identity with the
TCK story ran so deep. We have spent much time considering these
commonalities and now understand that while my cultural world
changed with an airplane ride every few years, hers changed every
night as she was bussed to school in another part of her town each
day and then had to “reenter” her home culture every evening. I
could go on and on with all I have learned from Paulette alone that
has helped me put my own experience in wider (and hopefully more
usable) context. The point is, we share a common experience of
moving between cultural worlds and both of us know the feelings
associated with trying to understand and assess the operative rules
in each place we are in, even if one happened internationally and
the other nationally.

There is a lot of hope. I have seen countless adult TCKs deal
successfully with these very types of questions through counseling,
through journaling, through friendships, through various other
means and find the healing they need so they can move on to use
with delight the gifts of our background as well. There is so much
to celebrate about your life as well. So after you make a list of
your losses, make a list of your gains as well and dare to live in
the paradox of both realities.

Simply put, this is my bottom line advice. Look for the choices you
can make to move towards where you want to be…choices to stay and
work things out rather than running away, choices to seek to learn
about others rather than waiting for them to ask you about
yourself, choices to dare to find joy in the journey – even if it’s
something as simple as taking a ride on a roller coaster and
reflecting on how this might be a metaphor for your life…wonderful
ups, some scary downs, but overall a great ride!

May you seek and find the answers your heart longs for and may you
realize the reality of what Garth Brooks sings in his song, “The
Dance” …”I could have missed the pain, but I’d a’ had to miss..the
Dance.” Dance with joy, my friend.
Thank you for following this mini-course and I hope you found it
helpful.

You can find heaps of other tips on how to improve your
relationships and fully develop the gifts you received from this
TCK experience by attending the Teleclass and asking your questions!

Looking forward to helping you.

Kind Regards,

Ruth Van Reken

PART 4 – “The #1 Most Common Myth about TCK and Relationships”.

By Ruth Van Reken.

I want to look at one more issue you raise – the idea that you
can’t really relate to someone who is not a TCK. That seems to be a
growing myth among TCKs and likely from the line in our definition
that says a TCKs sense of belonging is to others of like
experience. This doesn’t mean TCKs can ONLY find a sense of
belonging with other TCKs but it was more to broaden the way we can
find our “tribe” by shared experiences in today’s world rather than
only the more traditional ways of defining ethnicity by nationality
or race alone.

While it is true we can have a more instant connection to fellow
TCKs because there are huge chunks of ourselves that we quickly
understand when the other refers to something like reentry or the
adventure of discovering new places with each move, that doesn’t
mean we can’t also be friends with others. While our feelings and
experiences have occurred within a particular context, many others
have similar feelings that have come to them in other contexts. One
reason it is so important for us to do our own internal work to
understand our deeper story is so we can transfer those lessons
learned and understand others as well.
It may take a bit longer to get to know the other person since you
won’t have some of these “automatic” connections you might with
another TCK, but it can be done.

These are some concrete suggestions I would offer:

1. Realize every person you meet is “the same” as you – TCK or not.
Sometimes we don’t want to look at that as we feel as will lose
something of our “identity” if we don’t maintain a distinct
differentiation between us and others so let me explain.

2. Before you were/are a TCK, you are a person. But so is everyone
else you will ever meet. In other words, every person in this world
is fundamentally made to be a relational being with emotions,
creative potential, the right to make choices, the capacity to
think, and a place where all the pieces of who I/they am/are come
together with some sense of meaning in a cohesive place. We are
physical and spiritual beings as well.

Because of these realities, we also have common needs. The need for
relationships, as I mentioned, but also a safe way to express our
feelings, to create new things, whether in artistic form or some
other way, like, for me, with ideas, for others, a new engineering
project, etc. We need a place to make choices for without that, we
are victims. When we have choice, we are empowered. We are living
out the wonder of being human once again. We need physical exercise
and a deep sense that our lives have meaning and purpose.

So what does this have to do with anything you asked about?

Lots!! If I look at any person I meet as someone who has some
fundamental places of “likeness” with me rather then looking first
at the “difference,” then I can also expect that we can relate at
these places despite the variation in details of our life story.
Being a TCK becomes a way to frame or describe my life experiences
but that it does not define my total identity.

So how does that work out practically?

In Part 5, we will conclude the series, and discuss how to connect with non-TCKs, finding
common themes in our life stories, and connecting the dots at these
emotional places.

PART 3 – “Why unresolved grief affect your relationships… and
what to do about it”.

By Ruth Van Reken.

For me, it was important to be willing to actually look at my grief
and name the actual losses. Truthfully, I didn’t even know that’s
what it was when I started the journaling that became my first
book, Letters Never Sent. I only knew something was driving my
behavior and responses that didn’t make sense to me. In doing the
journaling, I made a commitment that I wouldn’t stop the tears if
they came while I was writing.

And as I wrote, I re-experienced the feelings of that first night
in boarding school at age six, the moment when the plane carried me
away from my beloved Nigeria at age 13, and so on. As the tears
fell, I let myself stay in the moment and wrote furiously to try to
get the right words to name the feelings I was having.

I knew they were what I felt so many years before, but at that
point I had to survive them, not define them. It’s interesting how
those past moments are as real as if they were happening once more
and that’s why it’s so hard to let ourselves go back. Who wants
pain? And we’ve become masters at avoiding it.

I don’t know what others do when they have named the reason for
their tears and the ache in their hearts in such moments. For me,
when I have the language then I pray for the comfort that I would
need if, in fact, this was happening in “real time.” Others may
find other ways to express or release the pain through art, talking
with others, and so on. Often this is where a professional
counselor can also be of help to give a safe space where the grief
can come out. Counselors may not all understand your life
experience, but if you can name the losses, especially the hidden
ones, they will be able to help you process it, if needed. For me,
none were available so it wasn’t even an option but the journaling,
prayer, and friends who would listen were enough for me to release
the pain for that while.

By the way, it was important for me to also realize that I wasn’t
disowning my parents or my faith to look at these losses.

The reality is we don’t grieve for something we don’t love and I
had, in fact, loved my life as a TCK, I had loved
my family, and the grief was an affirmation of the very goodness of
these things or I wouldn’t have minded losing them. Even for your
brother, his sense of being abandoned is, in reality, an
affirmation of how much he wanted your parents because there was
the potential for deep relationship there that it seems didn’t
happen for whatever reason. In other words, we can even grieve for
the potential good that was missed in our lives.

When we have named our losses and allowed the grief to be expressed
at long last, and found a place and way to be comforted in that
discovery process (yes, comfort from somewhere or someone is
essential for healing of grief), then we will realize we can
actually make new choices.

One friend with a story similar to yours of always moving in hopes
of finding the magical and elusive “it” began to name the high
amount of mobility and thus the ongoing
losses in her life. In the end, she felt those “itchy feet” again
and started to talk of moving when it occurred to her for the first
time, “I like it here! I have a good job, good place to live, have
just begun to make some friends. Why is it I’m wanting to move
except from habit?” For the first time she realized she could make
a choice to stay!

For me, as I began to recognize the patterns of withdrawal I threw
into my marriage, in particular the days before one of us was going
on a trip, I could make a choice in a new way. I could see the
behavior for what it was…a protection…and make a choice on
whether
I wanted to withdraw and lose this time as well as when my husband
or I would actually be gone, or if I would choose to stay engaged
and kind during the time we did have, and not fear crying like mad
when we were finally apart. Ironically, instead of making the
leaving worse, it made it better as I didn’t have all the regrets
of how badly I had been behaving to go through.

In Part 4, I will discuss a growing myth among TCKs and likely from the line in our definition
that says a TCKs sense of belonging is to others of like experience.

Looking forward to helping you.

Kind Regards,

Ruth Van Reken

Dear Ruth,

I am a 29 year old TCK and am still searching for my ‘home’, mostly
by traveling as far away from everyone I know whenever I get the
chance. I feel very isolated in most places simply because I don’t
end up in areas where there are TCKs to relate to. Although my
parents are becoming more aware of TCK issues, they still do not
understand the grief that was involved in our lifestyle for myself
or my brother and this has lead to many issues that we still cannot
resolve in our lives. For my brother it is breaking off
communication in a form of rejection that is not
intentional but subconscious to pay back my parents for a time he
felt they abandoned him. For me it is moving as often as possible
to the next place that will finally make me feel whole, but it
never does and I am
finding it harder and harder to make meaningful connections in my
life.

These are my questions:

1. What is the best way for TCKs to go about trying to make deeper
connections with the people around them when they find themselves
in situations where they are the only TCK?

2. How can a TCK come to terms with grief that has not been
resolved after many years when they don’t have a support system
around to help them deal with that grief in a safe way?

Signed: Wondering

——

Dear Wondering:

Thanks for the questions. They reflect so many of our stories.

To begin, let me say that it’s great you realize the behavior patterns you see in yourself and your brother are reflections of deeper realities in your life.

This is a huge and positive headstart – to not blame the circumstances you’re in per se for your reactions.

Once we recognize, as you have, that although our circumstances may change but our responses do not, we can begin to look for the choices we can make within our circumstances to bring about the changes we long for.

That’s why I love your questions because what I really believe you are asking is, “When I am not feeling my needs for relationship are met and I don’t know what to do with my grief, what other choices besides running away do I have to try to meet these needs?”

What a perfect place to begin.

Although it may seem to some that you are asking about two separate things – a lack of connection and unresolved grief – my sense is you already know they are connected.

For many TCKs, the pain of losing so many relationships in their lives results in a certain guarding in future relationships. Consciously we long for the very intimacy we unconsciously run away from for fear of one more loss.

It’s a rather amazing paradox, isn’t it?

In Part 2, I will make a couple of points on the issue of “How do I find relationships that are meaningful?”, such as the emotional “distance” we put between the people we love, before we move on to talk about grief and how the two are related.

Looking forward to helping you.

Kind Regards,

Ruth Van Reken

P.S: Please reply to this post and let me know what you think.

Table Of Contents for the 5-Part mini-course:

Part 1 – “Dear Ruth, I’m still searching for my “home”…”

Part 2 – “How do I Find Relationships That Are Meaningful?”

Part 3 – “Why Unresolved Grief Affect Your Relationships… And
What To Do About It”

Part 4 – “The #1 Most Common Myth About TCK And Relationships”

Part 5 – “How to Relate to Non-TCKs”

Welcome to the Ruth Van Reken 5-Part mini-course entitled: “TCK Relationships and Grief”.

In this mini-series, you will discover some great tips and ideas that will help you improve your relationships, and fully develop the gifts you received from this TCK experience.

Download the 12-page mini-course series in PDF format.

————————————————————

Table Of Contents for the 5-Part mini-course:

Part 1 – “Dear Ruth, I’m still searching for my “home”…”

Part 2 – “How do I Find Relationships That Are Meaningful?”

Part 3 – “Why Unresolved Grief Affect Your Relationships… And
What To Do About It”

Part 4 – “The #1 Most Common Myth About TCK And Relationships”

Part 5 – “How to Relate to Non-TCKs”