In this episode, I'm sharing not just the hard truth of belonging in the USA when you're from another country, but I want to show you the power of being authentic and vulnerable, also why healing is a vital part of our experience as expat women in the USA. 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 are for real conversations with my expat guests, women who know what it means to immigrate. And today I am following up a chat with my guest, Karen Giva, from episode 33. We are exploring what we wish we knew before we relocated, acknowledging that moving abroad often means dealing with the hurt of leaving everything behind. I'm inviting you into a space where honesty, vulnerability and healing takes center stage. So let's pick up the conversation. Let's jump into it. What do you wish you knew back then that you know now? Wow. That's a hell of a question. Why do I wish I knew then before I moved here that I know now? I'll give you an example from my experience. When I lived in England, it was so simple to meet new people whether you are on a train on the way home from work, 10 o'clock in the evening after being with your friends or in a park on a Saturday, but it was easy to strike up conversation with random people, exchange numbers, and meet for coffee. And then you keep meeting for coffee. And before you know it, it's two years later, you are going on vacation together and all because you met this person randomly. He struck up a conversation. I was truly expecting friendships to develop that way here so I didn't at all have a plan in place of how I was going to create a community of friends around me. I expected it to just happen. I wish I knew that there would be absence of the things that made up my culture, the, the music and an eclectic mix of people, but I expected that vibrancy to continue., I started realizing what, what am I missing? There's something that just doesn't quite feel right, and it's the, the vibrancy from having different type of people around me with different experiences and ideas all together as friends. And I struggled with that. So that's my example. So if you would've not had the expectation, your life would've been be able to be a bit easier? I would have prepared myself for that. I would've done more research. I had very high expectation that I'm gonna, I told myself, Hey, you lived in the States, this is the third time easy wy and when I arrived, it was not like that. First I didn't wanna move. And when I realized we're gonna stay, it was heartbreaking, we just moved to a new place in Israel eight months before I found my dream house. I made friends like you were saying, I had to leave everything behind and start over in a place I never heard of Novato I didn't know this place existed, Nova. What? I missed the lack of diversity in Marine specifically. I think, I want my kids to meet people different from them. We need to accept everyone. It doesn't matter what his skin color, language, religious, on a wheelchair, special needs. I don't care. You're gonna accept everyone. Be nice help and embrace, that's what we're teaching them, I remember when we sat in Israel at home and Shahar, my husband said, okay, there is Berkeley, there is the city, there is Marine and there is Oakland. And he said, on Marine, you know, there's not so much diversity. But I was looking for warm weather. I don't like the city. I like nature and need warm weather. I'm from Israel and sometimes even Novato is not warm enough for me. But I said, I don't want Berkeley. Too cloudy Oakland. And the city. No, so we chose here, angels brought us here, which is okay. I love Novato. I really miss having, like more, I you know, other people. If I knew it's not gonna be so easy, for me, I would not have expected. Then disappointed not being able to do it fast, because usually i'm very fast, we moved to a new place in Israel, and it took me a month and a half and I had good friends. I started building a community and here, wow. It was super, super hard, and I'm still working on it, if someone told me to take my time and give myself the grace period of making friends, understanding how things are being done from every aspect, from shopping to paying the bills. My experience would've been much, easier than what I experienced in the first year, which was awful. But now, here you are. Now I am here four. It's getting easier. It's still a journey. It's still a road to be travel. I think it'll always be a journey because it's not our home. If you are gonna go back to England, and I'm gonna go back to Israel, we are gonna slide to our slippers right away. In a way we're still getting used to things that we have now in our lives, but it's still gonna be home. You're not gonna have to adjust so much. I'm feeling that I always gonna feel a bit, off here. When I was single, I always said, I felt right at home in America. I lived a year in New York. I lived four years in Los Angeles. I fell right at home, but you know, I was by myself. I was young. It's a different life. Now you have two other beautiful souls that you're responsible of. Mm-hmm. And I'm always saying to my husband, I wish our kids would've been able to have the childhood we had in Israel. Mind the fact that it's not that anymore and everything changed but. The mentality, and, and the, the, the, you know, even the holidays, the small holidays, we have so many small ones we're not celebrating here but in Israel, you're gonna celebrate because it's in the school system and it's everywhere so this is something I will always miss. And you know, I'm not gonna lie that if one, you know, A few years from now, if my kid's gonna say, mom. I have decided to go back and live in Israel. I would say yes. Even the IDF that we have to go. It's a mandatory thing. I don't admire the IDFI, it's not a fun place to be. But it teaches you a lot about life. I'm not sure I would want to send our kids there. What's going on now? Mm-hmm. In my country. So I I wouldn't wanna send my kids, to get killed in a war, I don't want that to happen. I have a son and a, a boy and a girl. To have the experience of handing yourself and answering to a supervisor and how do you handle yourself away from home. For a week, months, how do you handle yourself with food? Taking care of yourself at the age of 18. You're done. Not the war and guns which I hate. And you're a mom. And you look at it from the perspective of a mom wanting kids to be Well, So Karen. It has been a pleasure. That is perfect, note on which to end. Can you believe we have been chatting for an hour? I probably could have been chatting with you more. Let's meet. It's gonna be great if you're gonna come here. I would love that. Let's do that. thank you so much for sharing your transparency, your vulnerability, and the healing that is taking place in you right now. These two takeaways are about vulnerability and transparency, the first is that Karen openly names the hard feelings without flinching. She's not sugarcoating her experience. She calls her first year in the US Awful. And admits that she just did not want to move. We see, and we hear Karen heartbreak of leaving behind her dream home, her friends everything that she knew., The other thing that really jumps out to me is that Karen doesn't wait until everything is resolved before she shared her story it's a journey that is taking place, it will always be a journey because this is not our home. That's vulnerability. Let's talk about healing, moving to the US or anywhere else means leaving behind. Really important parts of yourself, and that grief doesn't always show up immediately, but when it does show up that means recognizing what you are feeling, and talking about it with somebody. From my experience, I see it as the thing that allowed me to find my new north it's enabled me to discover what I enjoy in this new country of mine. If you are hurting for what you've left behind, that's not failing. It simply means that you're still on the journey of letting go, of discovering something new. And many of us expect women arrive in our new place-- assuming that we are going to form friendships very easily. But when that reality doesn't match, it can feel like failure. Healing again is that thing that helps us to rewrite those expectations with compassion, not shame. You don't have to be fully healed to connect with other people. Like Karen it takes courage to speak out and to be so vulnerable about what you're going through, but it helps you to show up with your honesty and openness. That's it from me. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye-bye.