You've Got This!

11Surrender ResistanceEmbrace the struggle and transform yourself

Just over two years ago I was readying myself to pack up my home and family in Australia to relocate back to the USA, where we’d previously lived for eleven years. Based on strong assurances of being relocated back to Andrew’s company’s ‘mother ship’, we’d sent our oldest two children — Lachlan and Maddy — back ahead of us to boarding school, something we’d never considered before as, quite frankly, we love having our kids around. Our younger two — Ben and Matthew — were also enrolled in schools for the fall and excited to reconnect with old friends.

And then one rainy morning in late April the phone rang. It was Andrew. ‘Are you sitting down? You might want to.’ My stomach tightened. I took a breath and sat.

Plans had changed. His company now wanted him in Singapore.

Singapore?!*!#?!

This was not in my plans. Not in any remotest plan.

After picking myself up from the ground and soaking a few friends’ shoulders, I decided to move on from my own little pity party (my default go-to response) and dub it as a ‘plot twist’. I figured changing my language around it would help me to reframe relocating my family, business and career to yet another continent as one more chapter in the grand adventure of life.

While no move is easy (we’ve lived in fourteen homes since getting married), this one was the toughest by far. Not only was I not getting back on the same continent as my oldest two children, making up for the precious ...