When I began my international journey I was pretty solidly an adult. I was 35, had 3 tiny kids and had just made the leap to living in Amsterdam, sight unseen, without a place to live and knowing no one. Armed only with the knowledge that I wanted the experience of living abroad for myself and my kids, it was an incredible leap of faith for our family to begin our journey on our own accord, not at the behest of an employer.
From final decision to arrival was only about 5 weeks then I found myself in the midst of all of the ups and downs of moving a family abroad, a partner in a very full on startup who was traveling a lot and me, who had never intended to be the primary parent to our 3 kids under 5.
It was the beginning of a few years of rapid self learning, transformation and relationship reimagining that continues today.
Living abroad with a partner gives us both the constraint and the privilege of changing rapidly while in a relationship and we know from the data that there is a higher than average percentage of relationships that end when the couple has spent time abroad.
It is as if we have to consciously choose how we evolve together, or the growth is too massive to contain in the old relationship paradigm.
About a year ago I added psychedelics to my self discovery and transformation journey.
My husband of 21 years Doug joined me and began a process together that I can only describe as breathtaking. Combining personal and growth as a couple with psychedelics that is cutting edge and life changing to put it mildly. The things we have been able to discover about ourselves and process in our relationship has been incredible, and everyone around us, most especially our kids, have reaped massive benefits from. It takes an incredible amount of dedication and willingness on both of our parts but our ability to identify and shift many things that likely would have been passed on to our kids and perhaps have kept us stuck in some pretty outdated and unhelpful patterns we were in we have shifted and we are both so grateful to be living for the moment in a place where this is legal and safe.
I think this growth is rare, beautiful and life altering all at the same time, which is why this is something we talk about a lot at House of Peregrine. The percentage of primary relationships ending among the expat community is much higher than the general population (which is already at 50%) so it is really important that we understand this more deeply and be aware of.
You can listen in to a previous episode to learn about this process more deeply about relationship growth but we wanted to also highlight the benefits of combining psychedelics with coaching for individuals.
I am very excited to share with you an amazing resource and place in The Matter. A retreat center that has helped me and many others make sense of and move through some pretty amazing shifts and realizations in our inner journey and grow beyond cultural and ingrained patterns to move into new versions and lifestages with more ease and connection.
In fact The Matter is offering HOP Members 10% off 2 of their upcoming retreats. The Discovery Group session on Dec 12th 2024 and the NY resolution retreat the 2-5 of January.
Log in to your HOP account and you will find out how to claim.
Thanks for following along on the journey!
Mickelle