So, your other half comes home and you are in the middle of making dinner and are trying to find the colander, while the gluten free pasta gets overcooked and simultaneously trying to stop the dog from eating the parmesan. ‘I had an interesting conversation today…’ he begins. You know from experience that this is code for ‘we are most likely moving home again soon because of a job relocation.’ At this stage in the game it’s all about possibility, nothing is in writing and you can’t know for sure that you really are going to be living there. How do you react?
Do you deny it? ‘But we have lived here for so long and I have all my friends here. We’ve even painted the downstairs loo.’
Do you celebrate it? We once had this conversation about moving to Germany and then put on the T.V. to see the Hairy Bikers (of British T.V. cookery show fame) singing ‘We are going to Germany.’ ‘It’s a sign,’ I said. I love to be caught up in the possibility of it and even order travel brochures. I always keep in mind that it might all come to nothing.
Do you get angry and resentful about it? ‘Why should I always have to leave my job? But I am so settled here. The children love their school here.I’ll have to leave all my friends, it’s just not fair.’
Do you get scared? ‘Move to XYZ. But that would mean XYZZZ!!!’
Do you shrug with acceptance? ‘That’s our life, this is how we live.’
Do you know that you are who you are wherever you happen to be and realise it’s only as big a deal as you make it?
You don’t know if you are really moving yet so all of these reactions are just based on your thoughts about a possibility of what might happen. None of your reactions are about the reality of what has actually happened. You are making stories about possibilities and those stories are affecting how you feel in every moment. Coaching can help you to figure out the stories that you are telling yourself and make them nicer, kinder, gentler ones.
Now I’d like to hear from you. If you were told you were going to need to move house next month, how would you react?
I used to be “unmovable”, having angst when thinking I would have to relinquish a house I was living in. But nowadays, the house and the place where I love is just a place and some stones and cement. What makes a home is the peopleI share it with and that can be anywhere in the world. Also anywhere in the world there will be people you attract that feel like “home”…. And as I write this I feel more strongly that soon my time will come to move drastically…don’t know exactly where, but it will be drastic… whether that is literal or a figure of speech, I don’t know yet.