What Living Abroad Really Teaches You — And How It Transformed My Life

2 invaluable truths everyone should learn to get stronger and more resilient

When I was 21, I left my country, France, for Ireland. Alone. I was going to study there.

When came the day to fly to Dublin, I couldn’t stop crying. I was terrified.

My mind was punching me with every reason why this was a bad idea. The friends I was going to lose, the pets I would never see again, the horrible things that would happen to me there…

Spoiler alert : It was the best thing I ever did. Because I learned 2 truths about myself, that turned out to be invaluable and will serve me for the rest of my life.

1. I am my own person

As a child, I was a good girl. I internalized rules very quickly. To the point where I was incapable of breaking them.

Growing up, I had a hard time shaking those rules off. Be nice, quiet, you’re not a grownup, do this, get good grades, be polite…

At 20, I was still a kid waiting to be told what to do. What I wanted was irrelevant, I would do what I should do. Ironically, it’s because it “looks good on a CV” that I set off to study abroad. When I got there, it was a shock.

I can really do whatever I want ? So if I want to go out now, I can ? No one will stop me ? And I can stay out for as long as I want ? I don’t need to ask for permission ?

This was all revolutionary to me.

Being away from home, away from the sources of the rules I had learned, I felt free. Truly free to be, do, and think whatever I wanted. And for the first time in my life, I asked myself what I truly wanted and needed.

It’s one of the fundamental principles of my life now :

My life began when I understood these 2 principles

There are principles you can hear a thousand times before their meaning hit you in the face like a bulldozer. But when…

medium.com

One I greatly encourage you to cultivate and cherish.

2. I can survive this

I lived a very privileged childhood, without great tragedies or hard times. Things were easy — family, friends, school… I am thankful for that.

And I was aware of being lucky. But I also had not learned how to deal with uncertainty. I had not learned how to overcome. I did not know what working hard really meant. In simple terms, I was mentally weak.

During my time abroad, things got hard.

The first year : I missed home, I struggled with the language, I struggled with the classes, I did not have friends there, and I just barely got along with my housemates.

I survived it. I got stronger.

The second year : I did not get along with my housemates at all, I was taken advantage of, money got really tight, I fell in love, and it was complicated, and I failed a class.

I survived it, too. I got stronger.

And even several years later, when I had moved back home and back abroad again — things got hard once more. I went through a difficult breakup, money ran out completely, I was unemployed and unemployable, living with my ex in a country where I didn’t have any friends or prospects.

I survived. I got stronger.

Now I go through life with the belief that “I can go through this” — and it serves me well. I trust myself to survive. So I’m much more open to take risks and do scary things, because I know that I got my own back.

I have learned to overcome, adapt and pivot. And if I’m telling you this today, it’s because…

Living abroad is not really about meeting other people, it’s about meeting yourself in new ways.

And that’s something that you should know if you intend to move abroad yourself. Sure, it’s nice to see the world. It’s nice to see how other people are doing things differently than back at home. But the experience is not really about that. It’s about how you react to it all, outside your usual environment.

I lived some of my darkness times abroad. But even as I went through them, I knew. I knew that this was the real beginning of my life. I wish you the same.