Keep listening to this episode for two powerful truths Every expat woman needs to hear on why home isn't a location and why the hardest part of adapting to life abroad isn't just the language Welcome to starting over in the USA, the Expat Woman's Guide to overcoming homesickness, embracing cultural differences, and creating a new home away from home. On this podcast, we talk about leaving behind the familiar, you know, the pangs of homesickness and culture shock to the journeys of reinventing yourself. I'm Yolanda Reshemah. And after relocating six times, I know firsthand what it's like to start from scratch, feeling like both a foreign child and a foreign adult in a new world. now Wednesdays episodes are for real conversations with expat women who know what it means to immigrate, you'll hear the courage, and you'll hear the healing. We are meeting expat woman, Karen Geva, professional organizer, wife, mom. Originally from Israel. You are going to walk away with a number of truths, but two in particular the first is that home isn't a location, it's your people. The second is that the hardest part of adapting isn't the words, meaning learning the language, but it's about behavior. Let's dive in. my name is Karen Geva and I am originally from Israel. How long have you been in the us? Almost four and a half years. What was the thing that brought you I always say it's because of my husband. My husband opened his business over 20 years ago here, and because of the time difference between Israel and the states, he used to work nights back home, and at some point it really affected him health wise we talked about it that maybe we should try and move here. It took us 10 years of talking, building a family. And then I said, okay, let's do it. And here we are. Four years later. So you are really still very, very new. I feel that I'm still very, very new. Yeah. Did you have the opportunity to travel back and forth to the USA before? Yeah, it's my third time living in the States. It's the first time doing it with family and kids, so that's a very big difference. That's a difference. It's the first time. Operating a business here. Back in the days, I came, I was very young. I came for a very short time of, not, not necessarily so sold, one time I lived in, uh, the States for four years. Another time. I lived a year, but it was me alone. And, it's, it's a, it's a different experience. Yeah, it is a different experience when you come here as a solo traveler, single woman. I went back with my husband and my daughter to England for a sabbatical. It's very different. Relocating. With A child. Yeah. Still enjoyable, but I would love to hear what life was like for you in Israel. What are the memories you have beautiful memories. A very beautiful country. A lot of culture. I love our holidays, our tradition. It's because it's such a small country. You really feel that. You even feel the Sabbath, you know, every Friday because the whole country is. It shuts down and everybody's kind of getting into the mood of the weekend, although it's a very short weekend versus the state. You feel it in the air, you smell it. This is something I miss so much even the holidays time for us, Rosh Hashanah, and then yom kippur and then we have our souk, which is a, a structure that we build and we eat there and we're supposed to sleep there. But in Novato, it's cold, but the traditional people, the religious people do that. It was wonderful. It was my language. It was my. Spirit. My friends and family, are still there. I love Israel. I had a very, beautiful childhood, and adolescence and growing up there, meeting my husband and my kids were born there. I have to admit that I wish I was there, of course, to raise my kids there and not here. I feel that I belong there. What were some of the big challenges when you moved here or still dealing with now? So the biggest challenge the first year was the difficult one. You are moving, I'm in my mid forties. Start all over again. Meet new people, make friends. At an age that most people are kind of settled in, okay, this is my group of family, this is my group of friends, and now you kind of need to find your way between it and see where you belong. Different culture. It's so different. And getting used to the language that they speak here. Not English, but the language you mean? Ah, yes. Speaking English. Great. No problem. Most of the time. And people are very, nice here to foreigners because, most of the America is foreigners, so they're super nice and they accepting the fact that your English is not perfect and it's great, but the behavioral aspect. The mentality here, this language, I feel sometimes that I'm still learning i'm a very direct person. I'm always gonna respect, I will never offend anyone, come on, let's make it more fun, more easygoing. Not such a uptight, for example, to schedule play dates two weeks ahead. Like, my kids wanna play with your child. Now I'm home. Stop by and come over for coffee, for cake. Let's make it fun. Yes. Even the food, the fact that, our, lunch here in the states is our evening, like dinner, we eat very light at dinner time and they eat very heavy. Yes. Meat and rice and so it's very opposite. It was really super hard to, first of all find the right place to live. And then to find a school and then to get familiar with everything. Our kids didn't speak English at all. They came here at such a young age. My daughter was almost four. My son was five and a half. They only spoke Hebrew. They needed to learn the language and it brought, different behaviors. Especially with my son, he became a bit violent because he couldn't. He didn't know how to say please stop. So it's like, not that again, after we got rid of it in Israel, now it's coming back. So it was a different transition for everyone. I think my husband was the easiest because in the last, 10 plus years, he has been going back and forth for his business. I haven't visited the states probably over 10 years, even, even more. And my kids was, never was, were never here. I had to shut down my business in Israel. I came here and said, okay, I want to work. I love to work. And I said, okay, I'm gonna open my business here. And it was another transition to understand. How it's done here. Because customer service here is very different. You talk about food, cultural differences the way people behave, the way they eat. Those were things that I too had to learn, and I didn't expect that because I thought one, English speaking country to the next would be easy, but not at all. And so you are so right. I felt that. I experienced it. Cultural difference, it's real. How did you make it work? Because I'm very open-minded and I'm extroverted. So for me to enter a room and start chatting doesn't really matter. I speak English, I speak Hebrew. Okay, whatever. So for me it was much easier for, I guess people that are introverted. I went to a small school, so I started to get to know people and you were drawn to people you feel safe with. Yes. And that's how I started. And the people were super nice when I said, okay, I'm gonna open my business here. I said, okay, I know how it's been done in Israel customer service for me, I can do it anywhere. You know, even if it's gonna be maybe except China and Japan, but I know how to speak with people. Yeah, to talk with people how to behave, how to respect. So if you bring that okay, number one, checked. Now. The terminology of items, of stuff, of things, of the rules, how things are being done. That took me a while to learn. I did that only after applying for jobs with other organizers. I found a big company. And I started working with them and with some other organizers that gave me a chance and I told them, I'm new here. I don't know anyone. I have zero clients, so let's just start rolling. And I learned a lot from that, watching how things have been done. And slowly I met more people that introduced me to local. Business things like the Chamber of Commerce of my city and I started going., I believe when you open yourself to the world, you are manifesting and things are gonna start coming. And slowly I met, I called them angels. Along my path. And they said, Hey, you should come and see this place and check this group. And that's what I started doing, i've been here for plus years and I did that in Israel 10, 10 years. So it's exactly what I did when I opened my business in Israel. I started building a community, business one, which some of them became my friends on a personal level, and of course from school. My husband, because he is been here for so many years, he has his old long time friends. Mm-hmm. Uh, a lot of them are Israelis and he introduced some to me and some became my friends. It took time and I still feel that I'm struggling. Building a community. But I feel That when you move, to any country, don't expect to slip into an already established community, you might not be accepted. And that's just normal. It's a matter of building around you, a community of people who feed you in all the ways you need to be fed emotionally, psychologically, who listen to you, who will return your calls, who come and search for you, and all of these different aspects..There is something really important about the transition of creating your business here. The professional side of you, did you really feel like you were starting again yes and no, because. I have 10 years of experience with me. I'm bringing this bundle. No one can take it from me. And organizing is organizing. When someone is moving, he is moving. It's the same thing everywhere. The nuances I needed to learn cultural. The way I behave in Israel with my clients or they behave with me is completely different than how people due. Business here. In Israel, we're again, much more open. Here it's a lot of the times it's very like this, you need to fit yourself into this kind of, okay, this is how we work here. Some people more than others, some people they're more open. It's like everywhere. It's not that we don't have that in Israel, but the majority of the mentality is very different. This is one aspect of the business that I needed to learn, how to approach. For example, when I, communicate with them via text or email, I'm translating from Hebrew to English. It doesn't work. My grammar is not the best, so I needed to use whatever tools that I can, be professional when I'm writing. A business email. And at some point my husband said, you cannot ask that if they're gonna meet you, like, let's meet on Monday at nine. You need to ask would it work for you to meet on Monday at nine? And I, it, it took me time to like, why do I have to ask everything? Why would said that's what's gonna do. Let's do it. And he said it doesn't work like that. It took me a while, what's the funny thing that the last time I visited my country, Israel, I brought this behavior and it's like, what? Who are you? And what did you do with Karen? I would never be direct to a point that I'm gonna offend anyone, but this is the way we do it. That was funny at the, that was really a big struggle for me's. Like, why can't I just say stuff in a nice way, but just say it. Why do I need to go like this? I'm not that kind of person. Sometimes I was kind of mad and at some points I was just laughing about it. Now I'm very good at that because I've taught myself how to approach people here. In Israel I knew what I needed to do. It was more simple. Maybe because it was in my language versus here, America is really like. You have to pay your taxes because if not, and in Israel, it's like, oh, whatever. It's not that you're not gonna, get into trouble if you're not gonna pay taxes. We're bending the rules a little bit more, which I'm not for, by the way. I like the fact that there is rule here because I'm a person of rules. I know what I need to do. So with this aspect, I feel good in America. This is the first time I'm realizing it sounds like there's a Karen in Israel and there's a Karen in the US well, I am who I am. I'm not, acting as a different person. I always say, this is who I am. You can like it and you can dislike it. You can choose to be around me and my friend or my, client and you can choose not to. It's fine because I think the right people will come to my life, and the one that is not supposed to be there, they will continue and I'm fine with that. I think I'm bringing, a charm because I'm bringing myself to this place. I'm adapting myself to the situation. So if you're gonna see me with my Israelis friends, you're gonna see a, a bit of a different Karen, because they get me. We speak the same language when I'm bringing myself to an event. That is American I will maintain a specific, way I am carrying myself because I don't wanna offend anyone. It's always gonna come from the respect aspect. You need to make sure that you're saying the right things, that you're not crossing the boundaries that you're asking the right questions. Maybe you shouldn't ask that. I had a few times that I said something and then I said, oh. Did I said something wrong and I apologized. I said, I'm so sorry if I crossed the boundaries. I said, no, no, you are good. Does it feel pressured to maintain that? And makes, the experience of living here a little bit more, weighty. Sometimes. Yeah. At the beginning it was really hard. I felt that I'm not me, it was really, really hard. It's like if people cannot accept me the way I am, and I'm not saying they didn't, by the way, I guess it's my high awareness of others and my husband that was like, you cannot do this. You cannot say that. You cannot behave, da da da da, he was careful for you, frightened for you. Yeah. Anxious for you so that you can have a good experience. Right? Yeah. Would you say you have created home here in the US yes, I have I believe that your home is where your family is. So if it's here, Israel, Zimbabwe, South Africa or Poland, doesn't really matter. It's your own core people, in my case, my husband and my two kids, this is the start point. I do feel that I was, able to build a home here. I'm not gonna lie and say that I don't miss anything in Israel, because I do. After the first year, that was really hard. It was terrible. I was sad. I didn't wanna be here. I used to be a very cheerful person, very positive. And after this one year, I said, okay, that's it. You're done. This is where you live now. You cannot think of when I'm gonna go back home, because you never know when it's gonna happen. So you are here now. There are wonderful things here in the state. Beautiful. Enjoy it, embrace it. So enjoy your holidays and enjoy the American holidays. It's fun. Karen, thank you for depositing so much in my heart this brings me back to our first takeaway home is where your people are. Karen talked so beautifully about growing up in Israel, home for her isn't only Israel and the memories of growing up there but the presence of her husband and her children, and that mirrors what so many of us expat women feel about the struggle we have in articulating this new place being considered a home. I feel I've just experienced that referring to the US as home. I missed everything that we had built here in the US while I was in England with my family with very old memories. The second takeaway: why cultural difference more than the language. It's the behavior. Karen demonstrated this so beautifully. Her struggle wasn't just English itself, but it was with the invisible codes of American interactions and how people perform or acted in front of each other. It's the indirect communication. It's the scheduling norms and the habits it's a reminder for you and me that even if we arrived in our adopted country, fully fluent in that country's language, it's perfectly normal to experience feeling a little bit lost. My husband and I were just sharing a joke about how different cultures communicate. For example, here in the US it's pretty common to hear a coach or a boss say, yeah, great job, well done. However, in England, a boss or a coach might say well, it wasn't terrible, meaning it wasn't disastrous. It was okay. Or on the other hand, it wasn't terrible. It was really good. And only time alone will help you understand whether you are being paid a fabulous compliment or you are being let down gently. It's layered and it's a journey. That's it from me. If you enjoy this episode, share the link with an expat woman friend who needs to be a part of this community. In the meantime, i'm inviting you to listen to episode 10, three Powerful lessons Expect Women Learn from Homesickness and Cultural Differences in the USA bye-bye.