"Venturing outside the comfort zone" by Clara Robin from The Thousand Tales
Living abroad can be a daunting experience. You're in a new country, presumably with no network, and you don't speak the local language. This might be the recipe for loneliness but it might also prove to be an opportunity.
When I came to Finland, I already knew that I had gone far beyond my comfort zone. I had never lived anywhere but in my home city before. I was forced to put myself out there in a way I’d never had to before; far away were the trusted friends I’d been able to rely on for years, across the ocean was the reassuring embrace of my family. Now I had to be brave enough to show up alone in the hopes of making new friends. I had to put my ‘yes hat’ on. I went to events with other international people and struck up conversations with Finnish people in bars. For the first weeks, even months, I rarely said no to any invitation to go anywhere with anyone. Once I felt more established with my new friends, I could relax a bit more. Prioritize some ‘me time’ more often. Saying ‘yes’ can be exhausting if you’re not an all-round extrovert, but it did a lot of good for establishing my new sense of community. It also did a lot of good for expanding my comfort zone.
It wasn’t always easy. Sometimes I still feel lonely and sense that old tugging of homesickness as a pit in my stomach. But I’ve found a resilience in accepting feeling unsteady at times and realize that I’m still standing. Or, even if I tilt over at times, I get back up again.
There are wonderful aspects to living abroad. At first, I enjoyed the anonymity that comes with being a new person in a new place. No one knew me: what a chance for reinvention! Then I did get to know people, and I became known, too. Another chance for a fresh start: I had a new role to people here. I was an expat, someone who had taken the leap and decided to start over. The roles in which I’d cast myself in the past changed, too. I viewed myself as braver now. More independent. And yet, of course, still dependent on people. But the connections I made, I made by myself; the friends I made were not simply made from the convenience of circumstance, we became friends because we connected. And what an interesting and different assortment of people I connected with! Other expats, people from all over the world; and locals, which in the beginning seemed quite exotic to me, as well, in a roundabout introverted manner. I’m Danish so Finnish culture wasn’t such a shock to me - but it was still different enough to be exciting and new; and, at times, made me feel like a fish out of water.
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The most important thing I learned from venturing outside my comfort zone was to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. Or, at least to accept the uncomfortable as an inevitable part of slowly expanding what had once been comfortable to me. My zone was becoming bigger. Slowly, but steadily, it extended to a whole new country. Turku is a comfort zone to me now, but it wasn’t always so. When all faces were new to me and all places unfamiliar, I constantly found myself in an uncomfortable zone.
My comfort zone is no longer tied to a specific place now, it lives within me. It spreads out around me wherever I go, wider and wider with time. Because when you live abroad, no matter how much luggage you bring, the only thing you truly carry with you is yourself.
How big is your comfort zone?