Lessons from Abroad

June 1, 2016 by Kat

Leaving Italy Behind

Every relationship, every experience, every phase of life shapes us. The sum total makes up who we are, becomes part of our story.

Some experiences are more significant than others, of course. Some have a “before” and an “after” you can pinpoint as a moment of transformation. Some are more gradual, affecting a subtle change you don’t notice until weeks, months, years later.

Living in Italy was a before/after time for me, for sure. After I returned, everything referenced back to it. I had changed dramatically and emerged shiny and new. It was not just the travel and experience of living and working in another country, but becoming an artist too. Rediscovering and reconnecting with that essential part of myself.

The time and experiences since moving back home to Oregon have brought more subtle transformation. It’s not the same type of before/after. Italy was like a flash flood, radically altering the scenery. The last five years in Oregon have been a gradual reshaping, like a river over time alters the landscape. Bit by bit I continue to learn, grow and transform… And hardly notice it.

Until recently, that is. Recently there have been a few signs I’m leaving my Italy experience behind…

I’ve sold my scooter. It was a great idea and I’m glad I learned how to ride it, but it turns out I like to bicycle better. I still love a good scooter sighting, but they are few and far between.

I’m rewriting my artist statement. It references the change in my art, moving from Milan, Italy to Corvallis, Oregon. For urban scenes to forest elements. But that was five years ago now, and the change isn’t happening anymore–it’s happened. I need to talk about what’s relevant to my work now.

I took my eCourses down off of my site. A Sense of Place and the Find Your Eye series were all very timely, coming from my photographic experience and artistic growth while living in Italy, but it has become hard to promote them when the art they teach isn’t even close to what I create now.

And with these small steps and signs I realize that my experience in Italy has been folded in to the mix. It’s been integrated into what makes me Kat. It’s no longer this huge thing, so momentous that everything has to reference back to it. It’s part of the greater whole.

That’s a good thing. It’s not that I have forgotten my Italy experience or I don’t want have the big before/after moments in the future, it’s that I want to continue to learn and grow all the time. I want to continue to transform while living in my little town, in my regular, everyday life. And I can.

I know I can, because here I am, five years post-Italy, creating and teaching a different type of art and living a life based on choices which are right for me today. Still an artist — thank you time in Italy, for showing me that — but an evolving one.

So maybe that’s my final Lesson from Abroad: We keep changing and growing, no matter where we are. If you had told me five years ago where I would be today, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Where will I be five years from now? Who knows. I certainly don’t.

All I do know is that I will be different. My art will be different. My life will be different. It will be interesting to see how everything turns out.

July 4, 2015 by Kat

What Living Abroad Taught Me About Being an American

In the USA, today is a day of food, fireworks and friends. It’s a celebration of the birth of our country. It’s a uniquely American experience, one that we missed greatly when we were living in Italy years ago. You see, when you live in another country, you don’t just learn about other cultural traditions, you also learn about your own. You learn how your cultural traditions and beliefs, ones you may not even realize you have, affect you and shape you, and make you who you are.

I truly learned what it meant to be an American, a citizen of the United States of America, by living abroad.

I didn’t fully realize how much country and culture shaped me until I lived in a different one. When you have to navigate everyday life in another country, you discover how deeply rooted cultural norms and expectations are. It shows up in simple things, such as paying bills or grocery shopping, and more complex things, like navigating government processes or building friendships. There are certain ways you expect things to be done; certain procedures you expect things to follow; certain behaviors you expect people to exhibit. And when you live in another country, you realize how much those rules and expectations are based on a cultural understanding.

You realize that a shared culture is the foundation for all of our interactions.

Culture affects everything. And when you step away from the culture of your home country, you step away from that foundation onto what, for you, is shaky ground. It’s scary and it’s exhilarating. You realize that there are more ways of doing things than you ever imagined. You realize that the “right” way is relative to the culture you come from. And you might realize, as I did, that being “American” is fundamental to who you are.

As Americans, we have this shared basis of how things work, why we do the things we do, and what possibilities are available to us. Sure, it might vary based on geographic region, religion or socio-economic background, but underpinning it all are similar values and expectations. Really similar. In fact, I would say that we are more alike than we are different, here in the United States of America.

That might be hard to recognize when so much of what we hear around us is categorized as “us vs. them.” Look at the news media, always focusing on controversial issues. Of course they do… Conflict sells. It’s not exciting to talk about the things we all share in common, or the greater cultural foundation that underpins us all. But it’s there. I know it, because I had to live without it for two years. I learned and grew from the experience, but there is nothing so comfortable as coming back to that foundation, to live in a place where you feel at home.

My experience living abroad gave me a greater understanding of what it means to be an American. It gave me a deeper appreciation of our history, and how that has shaped our shared values and norms. It helped me understand how important my country is, to my history and my identity.

My experience living abroad also helped me see how we can’t expect every other country or culture to behave as we would. The USA is but one country on the earth. And each country has a unique history and culture, many of which transcend lines on a map. They go back much longer and are held more deeply than most Americans can comprehend, with our short 200+ year existence on the global scene. We all need to take the time to understand and respect that history, as much as we do our own. It helps to step outside of your cultural foundation, once in a while, and see the yourself and the rest of the world with a different perspective.

Now that we are back home, I greatly appreciate celebrating Independence Day. It’s not just a day of food, friends and fireworks. It is a celebration of the beginning of my country and the shared ideals and history that have shaped me and my fellow citizens.

I hope that on this day, more than any other, we can celebrate the common foundation we all stand on. Happy Independence Day!

April 14, 2012 by Kat

Lessons from Abroad: Letting Go of Expectations

[Started while living in Italy, the Lessons from Abroad series shares some of the life lessons I learned through my expatriate experience. Since moving back to the US, I’ve found the lessons from living abroad have not abated; just changed. This post continues the periodic series.]

Each of us has a different path through life. Each of us has our own choices to make. We should make the choices with our own hearts in mind, finding the best option for us in the moment. We should be watchful for where we might be choosing to live up to the expectations of others, rather than what’s right for us. This is an area I’ve done a lot of personal work, and feel stronger about ensuring that I’m not following someone else’s path for me. I’m not trying to live up to someone else’s expectations. That’s a good place to be.

The new problem, I’ve recently discovered, is that I’ve been full of my own expectations. Expectations I made for myself while in Italy, upon return home to the US. I returned with many “this is how it’s going to be” statements. I was so worried about losing the personal growth I found in my expatriate experience that I set a path for myself to follow. I made plans. And while I’ve followed those plans for the most part, it’s been with increasing struggle and frustration. I’ve come to realize why – the plans and expectations set for myself while in Italy (let’s call that version of me “Italy Kat”) were done with the best intentions, but without knowing the reality of the situation.

Only the version of me that exists now, in this place and this moment, knows the reality of the situation. Only I can choose what’s best and right for me now. But I’ve become increasingly aware of this little voice in my head as I make new plans, saying, “But you planned… expected… thought…” The voice is Italy Kat, and she’s constantly judging the decisions I make now against the plans I made then. She’s constantly on the lookout for places where I’m off the path she set for me. And she’s quick to make me feel as if I’m falling down on the job if things don’t turn out as she planned.

So I struggle. And I get frustrated. And I discover it’s due to nothing else but my own expectations.

I discover this because the last of my Italy Kat expectations are starting to fray. One by one, over the past months, I’ve had to unravel these expectations. I did have big plans for what life would be like upon moving home. I wonder if I wanted to recreate my Italy experience here. I know now, I can’t. We are in a different place, leading different lives, with different needs. My Italian experience was wonderful, beautiful and life-changing. But I can no longer live my life under the shadow of that experience, with the expectations I set for myself during that time. It’s time to hug Italy Kat, thank her for her only wanting only the best for me, and send her back to Italy where she belongs so that I can get on with the business of living my life the way it needs to be lived. Here. Today.

So I find myself learning another important Lesson from Abroad, almost ten months after repatriation: Living to please and follow the expectations of an older self is just as damaging as living to please others. If we live our lives to please others we only find ourselves empty and unhappy in the end. We lose who we are. It’s the same for our own selves, with the expectations set in another place and time. If we live the path we defined for ourselves in the past, we won’t grow. In trying to keep my Italy experience alive, I wasn’t allowing myself to grow into new experiences. I was starting to lose the very thing that was so important to me – the connection to my heart and soul. That connection must be ongoing, in the moment. It can’t live in the past.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think it’s only obvious to me because the dramatic differences in life that repatriation brought. Has this ever happened to you? Do you recognize yourself in my words? I’ve thought through some steps to help me move through this, and they may be helpful for you as well.

If you are struggling in an area, not feeling satisfied because it’s not turning out “as expected,” take a close look at where the expectations are coming from. Are they from a plan that you created for yourself in the past?
One you identify the expectation, acknowledge it. State the expectation, make it real. So often these are unspoken expectations, hiding in the background, and it takes acknowledging it to begin to deal with it.
Forgive your former self for setting the expectation. Acknowledge and thank her for having your best interests at heart.
Let the expectation go. A ceremony might be helpful here, in order to physically act out the letting go of expectations. I’m planning on writing all of Italy Kat’s expectations down on slips of paper and then burning them, letting the ashes blow away in the breeze. Even visualizing this has already helped me let them go.
From this clear state, look at the choices you need to make and decide which next steps you want to take on your path. This may take some time, as there is no longer a guiding expectation from the past. As you create a new plan, recognize that you are setting new expectations. Make these openly and with flexibility. Give yourself permission to adjust along the way.
Breathe deep, and take the first step on your new path, free and unburdened by the past.

I am still working through these steps for myself. I’ve recognized, acknowledged and let go the expectations set by Italy Kat. I have the blank slate in from of me now. I don’t know that the next step I take will be much different than the one that Italy Kat would have wanted me to take, but I know that I will be doing it for the right reasons now. I will be choosing with my whole heart and soul, in the moment, within the reality of now. That’s the best I can ever hope to do.

January 9, 2012 by Kat

Lessons from Abroad: Focus your Thoughts, Focus your Energy

[Over a year ago I wrote the original Lessons from Abroad series. Since moving back to the US, I’ve found the lessons from living abroad have not abated; just changed. I’ve decided to continue this series with a periodic post on the new lessons as they crystallize for me.]

Venice, Italy

What’s on your mind? Have you thought about where your thoughts are spent? Maybe this Monday morning it’s planning out your week, or revisiting some great moment of the weekend. Maybe you are already into your workday, and your thoughts are on the job. Wherever your thoughts are going, that’s your focus. And wherever you focus, that’s where your energy goes.

This important concept is not new or novel, but it’s one that has been brought home to me in new ways since living in Italy and moving back to the US. I discovered there is nothing like removing yourself from your regular routine for an extended period of time, and then putting yourself back into that routine, to show you where you’ve been spending your thoughts, and consequently, your energy. While in Italy, I had the opportunity to change my thought patterns in unexpected ways. I stopped worrying about some things that had filled my thoughts on (I realize now) a regular basis, such as my weight and money, and created space for new thoughts to arrive. Thoughts about creativity, and photography. Thoughts that have fundamentally shifted my approach to life, and consequently, my focus and energy.

I’ll give a very personal example, that perhaps many of you will identify with: my weight. Since my high school years, I have thought and worried, and at times obsessed, about my weight. Watching what I ate, comparing my body to some unrealistic ideal, always falling short. Dieting, exercising, always keeping my eye on that number on the scale, the size of the clothes. If it was high, I would berate myself. If it was low, I would be full of happiness. The happiness only lasted for the moment… maybe days or months, until the number crept up again.

Then I moved to Italy. My weight had slowly been increasing for years before the move, a stressful job at work, and then preparing for an international move had triggered my stressful eating behaviors. So as we moved to Italy, I packed my “skinny clothes” with the intent to focus on losing weight after the move. I can remember the moment, early on in my time in Italy, when I consciously decided to not worry about it. I looked at those skinny clothes, and said, “To hell with it.” I was not going to spend my time in Italy worrying about what I ate, or my weight. I instinctively knew this would adversely affect my experience. I wanted to experience my life and travels during my time in Italy unfettered. Without the stress and baggage that losing weight would represent. So I put the skinny clothes on a top, unreachable shelf in the wardrobe and put the scale away.

For the first time in over twenty years, I lived without the constant thoughts about my weight. For the first time, my self-worth was not affected by the number on the scale. Sure, my weight increased a bit over the two years but it eventually plateaued. What I gained was so much more than a few pounds though. I gained the space in my thoughts to think of other things… to explore my experience deeply, to discover the call of art and creativity and to see myself in a new way – as an artist. I discovered an almost limitless energy available to me when I focused my thoughts in alignment with my heart. I found an energetic creativity that has touched everything I do, since.

I did not clearly recognize this relationship between my thoughts and my energy until I moved back to the US. You see, in Italy, there was so much going on, it was hard to sort out all of the influences that led to my personal creative renaissance. I had held off the thoughts around weight and other topics by telling myself I would deal with them when I returned home. So guess what happened when I returned home… they came back. Funny thing about thoughts like this coming up after a long absence: you notice them. They are obvious and clear, and felt so out of place in my “new” self. For a time, I succumbed to them. It was easy, part of my “living in Oregon” routine. Then at some point, in those first few months back I stopped and faced those uncomfortable thoughts and said, “I don’t want you anymore. I’ve lived without you for two years, and now I see I don’t need you.” The problem was, I didn’t have the wonderful distraction of living abroad to keep them at bay. This time, I had to deal with them at a fundamental level.

So, I’ve slowly but surely been figuring out ways to deal with these topics as they come up. I’ve had to face each one and find strategies to change my thought patterns. My experience in Italy helped, because I knew the value of letting those thoughts go. I now recognized that these thoughts were draining my energy. It hasn’t been easy though, to define new ways to think while living back here in the old place and routine. Behavior and thought pattern change is hard.

It is also worth it. Because I have learned that were I focus my thoughts, my energy will follow. I want my energy focused on creative things. I want my energy focused on art and photography and empowerment and connection. Things that bring value to my life and to those around me. I imagine you want those same things too.

As with all of my Lessons from Abroad, I hope that you will be able to learn from this lesson along with me. Here are a few ideas, to help you along:

Consider where you focus your thoughts. Do you have any thought patterns that routinely come back to you? For me, a couple of trigger topics have always been weight and money.
Notice your thought patterns around a trigger topic you identify. How often are you thinking about this topic? What kind of thoughts come up, are they positive or negative? Can you see how they may be stealing your energy?
Try an experiment: For a few weeks tell yourself you are taking a break from this thought pattern. Give yourself a deadline. Then, set the thoughts aside and see what other things arise in that time frame. (You really can trick yourself into doing this, I know, because I did it for two years in Italy.) After your self-imposed deadline, see what happens. Do the thoughts come back? How do they feel to you? How did you feel during that hiatus period, without them?
Get help where you need it. Let’s face it, changing thought patterns is difficult and we may not be able to change some of these thought patterns on our own. They involve the people around us, and our interaction with society as a whole. Use all the resources available to you – books, friends, counselors, whatever. For my weight issues, I’ve discovered Intuitive Eating “>Intuitive Eating as a great fit for what I learned in Italy, so I’ve been reading and taking classes to consciously integrate a new approach to eating and weight.
Be clear on where you do want to focus your thoughts and your energy. It is much easier to say “no” to the thoughts you don’t want when you have thoughts you very much want to say “yes” to. For me, creativity and photography are so important to me, I don’t want any of these other thoughts diluting my energy. It makes it easier to deal with them. Changing my thoughts is no longer about being someone I think I should be, it’s about who I want to be. It’s a conscious and deliberate choice.

At the end of the day, all the matters is that each and everyone of us align our thoughts and our energy to our hearts. Imagine what our world would be like, if everyone did that. Right now, rather than changing the world, I’ll just settle for imagining my own life in this way.

August 15, 2011 by Kat

When a Plan Comes Together

Cheerful flowers and colorful paint make me smile!
Carbondale, Colorado

Guess what today is? Monday, yes. The middle of August, that too. It’s also the day I link in to Creative Every Day and the Creative Exchange. But it’s even bigger than that: Today is the first day of my part time work schedule. Woohoo!!

Last week everything was finalized and agreed, and as of today I will be working at my “day job” Monday through Friday ~11am to 5pm-ish. I am so excited. I have been working toward this change for a very long time.

For those of you who may be new around here, I fell in love with having my mornings as my personal time while in Italy. My work schedule was afternoons and evenings, due to the need to work with both the Italian and US folks on a daily basis, which left my personal time as the mornings. Some time ago, as part of a series called Lessons from Abroad, I wrote about how changing my schedule this way led to some great realizations for my creativity. Mornings are my creative time.

When I finalized my schedule and transition date with my new manager last week, I realized how long in coming this transition really was. It was almost a year ago, last October, when I first started talking to my former manager about going part time on my return to the US. It was before that, while writing the Lessons from Abroad series for Jenny Shih‘s newsletter and blog, that I identified the schedule change and aligning to my creative energy cycle as a key factor in my personal transformation. And it was part of writing the specific article, Change up Your Schedule, that I really started to think about how I could maintain my “mornings free” schedule upon my return.

So, over the last year I’ve been having periodic conversations with my husband, my management at work, and myself about how this could work. I’ve played with different schedule ideas, “trying them on” in my imagination to see what would fit for me personally and at work. The Monday-Friday/11-5 schedule is the one I settled on recently, and when I proposed it last week it was a win-win for everyone. My new manager likes that I will be there every day instead of taking a day off; I like that I have 5 more mornings a week for myself. Can’t beat that.

This is a great example of how long it can sometimes take an idea to come to fruition. The idea of part time/ mornings free was a seed planted a year ago. Nurtured, the seed grew into a plan that I took small steps on over time. It is a good reminder that if you stick with an idea, turn it into a plan and take baby steps toward it along the way, you can make it work. Things may not happen immediately, but with action, things do happen. Without action, it’s just daydreaming. Yes, I was nervous when I first started talking about part time at work. Yes, I was nervous to have the conversation on my schedule last week. But all of my groundwork and planning and patience paid off, and here I am this Monday morning, free.

What will I create today?

January 7, 2011 by Kat

Lessons from Abroad: Join the Blogosphere

Lessons from Abroad: Join the Blogosphere

[This is the last part of a five part series. See the previous parts here: one, two, three, four.]

Wow! We’re down to the last of my five lessons from abroad, to help you find your passion and purpose. The final lesson I want to share is: Join the Blogosphere.

My blog and participation in the blogosphere has been a key part of my personal journey to discover my passion and purpose, in ways that I could have never imagined when I began it in 2008. I want to talk about the two parts of joining the blogosphere that have really helped me, and show you how they can help you also find your direction.

The first part of joining the blogosphere is writing your own personal blog. This can seem daunting for a number of reasons. You are putting yourself out there in a public way – other people can read and comment on your ideas – that can be scary. You may be worried no one will want to read it. You may be overwhelmed with the idea of having something to say or share on a regular basis. You may be confused by all of the technology options, what you think you need to know technically in order to have a blog.

There are a lot of reasons to be fearful of starting a blog – but one very good reason to do it: There is no better way to get aligned with your true passion. The only way to sustain a blog long term is to write about something that you are passionate about, this is an important truth of blogging. If you are not passionate about what you write, it will not feed your soul. You may maintain it for a while but you will eventually then lose interest, drop out.

It may take a while to find your voice and topic for your blog, you might start and stop several times in writing your blog, even start and stop several different blogs. That is entirely normal, if you read the stories of long term bloggers. Finding your voice takes experimentation. You may try on different topics randomly, and have no single direction. But in the experimentation and the seemingly random blog posts, a theme may begin to emerge. You start line of conversation that you sustain for a long period of time. When this happens, it becomes easy, quite pleasurable even, to write regularly. Guess what – you are tapped into your true self, and your passion is starting to emerge. Go with it, wherever it leads.

I started my blog when I applied for this job that brought me to Italy. I thought it would be a good way to keep family and friends back home updated on what was going on, if I got the job. After moving, I found that I wasn’t able to sustain that kind of “update” blogging – I just wasn’t that interested in writing about our daily lives. After a friend pestered me to update my blog, I decided to start posting something I was interested in – a photo every day from our European travels. I would pick a favorite and then write a few words of description along with it. With that, I struck gold. As I selected the photos and wrote about them, I started to learn more about my art form and my creative process. I started to notice and write about what creativity and photography brought me at a deeper level. I started to recognize my passion, through the writing I was doing on my blog. The passion that I now realize was already there, just waiting to be noticed.

There are as many different ideas of what blogs are or are not about as there are bloggers. You will find a whole range of types of blogs on the internet. Here’s my definition, now that I’m established and looking back, and this might be a place to start if you want to begin a blog as a tool to help you find your passion.

My blog is…
A place to explore topics that interest me
A place to share my art and what it means to me
A place to share my experiences and what the personal insights I gain from them
A public place, where anyone (even my son or my boss) might read it
A place to positively connect with other people on the internet
Written from a place of honesty and heart

My blog is not…
A personal journal of all of my unfiltered emotions
A record of events
A place to vent or talk negatively
Written for show or to meet other’s expectations

If you don’t have a blog yet, there are many free options available to try it out. You can be unlisted or anonymous or use a pseudonym if you’re worried about the “public” aspects of it. The important thing is to write honestly, consistently, and about what interests you. Keep following the trail of what you seem to want to write about – your passion lies at the end of that trail.

The second way the blogosphere helps to find your passion and purpose is through participation. The blogosphere is not a one way conversation, where you put yourself out there in a vacuum. It may start out that way, but to truly expand the experience, it should be a two way conversation. Once you are consistently writing on your blog, beginning to find your voice and style and topic, it’s good to reach out to others who may have similar interests.

There are so many blogs and websites out there, it seems overwhelming at first. When you start to narrow down your focus and interest though, you start to see that there are smaller communities within the giant internet community. You might start with a keyword search, and see what you find on your area of interest. From there, you start reading the blogs you find. These might lead you to other blogs or articles, resources you didn’t ever realize existed. Once you get brave and leave a comment on someone else’s blog, you might find that you get a comment or reply back. You start to build a community, through your interactions. You find new resources, you expand your network.

Why would you want to do that? It might seem silly, to look to expand your network or build a community if you are just trying to find your personal passion. But each interaction you have, makes you think. You further define and refine your thoughts as you read ideas and have a conversation with others in the blogosphere. The others you run into have thoughts or experiences or insights that are valuable to you as you progress on your journey. What someone else writes may completely resonate or make clear an idea you are struggling with, or vice versa.

My experience with participation in the blogosphere has been extremely positive and crucial to my discovery of passion and purpose. There have been multiple times that a comment on something I wrote on my blog came along at exactly the right time to help me understand myself in a different way. I’ve had others tell me the same of comments I’ve left them, or blog posts I’ve written. In my exploration of the virtual world, I’ve found other like-minded individuals and true friendships that cross all of the borders and boundaries that exist in the real world. As I’ve started to participate, I’ve followed trails to new people and sites and resources that have, over time, let me toward my passion and purpose.

Would I have started the blog if I didn’t move to Italy? Probably not. I didn’t “get” blogging before, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the computer because that felt like “work.”That was before I recognized the real connections – both to my true self and to others – that joining the blogosphere can bring.

My Passion and Purpose

With all of these lessons on how to find your passion and purpose, are you still wondering what mine are?

My passion is photography as an art form and an expression of my self. I have a personal mantra that I created some time ago, through writing on my blog:

I am an artist, my medium is photography, and I have a unique vision to show the world.

This statement is continually being refined as I change and grow, but that’s my passion at the core.

My purpose right now is to help others to see that they too have a unique vision to show the world, through whatever their art or passion is. We all have creativity inside of us, but we spend too much of our time comparing and limiting ourselves, or focusing on just living in the established routine.

I’ve started down this journey of fulfilling my purpose by creating my first ever e-course: Find Your Eye: A photo course with heart and soul. It starts January 9 (that’s in two days!) and runs 6 weeks (registration is open now at wishstudio.com). The course is designed to help photographers at any level start to develop, recognize and appreciate their personal style; the unique point of view that only they can share with the world in their photography.

All this clarity came through the personal practice of the Lessons from Abroad I’ve shared with you. Pretty cool, huh?(Photo is from Venice, Italy)