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
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!
