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A note about the podcast schedule: I’ll publish an episode next week January 25 and the week after Feb 1, then I may take a break from regular publishing while I’m focused on our group program. I do have several episodes in the works, but the production time is significant at this stage, so just a heads up there may be a pause for a few weeks.

Today I’m wrapping up my short series on major transitions that may be more complicated for expats. I’ve got Andrea Puck here to talk about empty nest, which is a term for having sent all your kids off to university or whatever it is they’re doing, making their own lives and not living in your home anymore. And a for a lot of us, this means our kids are not just down the road or in another city or region, but in another country. Which can make it feel further away, and right now during the pandemic it does mean more separation due to travel restrictions.

Andrea is another member of Expat Coach Coalition who’s launching the group program adapt.succeed.together. starting February 15. So again, I want to prime you with that because if her focus area and her vibe is what you need in your life you can get in touch with her.

Andrea is one of those people who’s quiet, but when she speaks you really listen because what she has to say is powerful. She drops these short little statements that land … and then grow in your mind and heart and body as you realize it’s profound, and it resonates on such a deep level. She’s practiced and fine tuned her observation skills and she notices what’s happening in herself and in others and can name it. These are just a few of the things I love about Andrea. So let’s see what she has to say.

Kim: [00:00:00] Welcome, Andrea, would you like to introduce yourself? What you do professionally and a little bit of your background, your international story?

Andrea: [00:00:11] Yeah, thank you for having me. I moved abroad with my husband, because he had the offer from his company in 2009 or 2008 actually, and we had the opportunity to move to the Caribbean. That was quite exciting at that point.

Kim: [00:00:30] Yeah.

Andrea: [00:00:31] And our daughter was just five years before she gets to school. And yeah, the idea was to just stay for two years. So quite easy probably like many expats do.

Andrea: [00:00:47] At that point. And then they expanded and extended and got another offer. And we moved to Bangkok where we stayed for three years and. From there, we were moving to Nigeria – to West Africa for another two years. Which was quite a tough posting, but also interesting. And then, unfortunately, there was no further extending the assignment or getting a new assignment or something. So we had to move back to Germany. And it wasn’t… It wasn’t a nice feeling, very abrupt, very, very soon, maybe three months or so to organize something.

Kim: [00:01:36] Yeah, that’s pretty quick.

Andrea: [00:01:38] There was, yeah, that was was a tough one, and considering that we had no house or apartment or home here and we didn’t know if my husband could stay workwise. So we had to choose a place where to go. And then we choose a place which was the best for our daughter, because she had three more years to go to graduation from high school. And that’s how we landed up here in the northern part of Germany, the Danish border. And over the course of my years abroad and and moving back here, I had several things I did during the time: I did some study about ayurveda. I did a study about feng shui.

Andrea: [00:02:28] I did lots of studies, online courses. And then in the curriculum, I learned Thai yoga massage.

Kim: [00:02:37] Oh, yes.

Andrea: [00:02:37] So lots of different things. Anyway. But I came back, I decided to put my, go into the direction of feng shui, a little bit deeper study. And started here in Hamburg at the International Academy of Feng Shui and graduated and now I can do some feng shui work.

Kim: [00:03:04] Very nice. So for those who aren’t familiar with feng shui, can you tell us a little bit about what that means and what it’s about?

Andrea: [00:03:12] It’s basically about balancing the energy of your home, getting aligned with it. And it’s like when you step into your house and you just feel comfortable and it’s not a burden. Some people come back and open the door and think about, hey, I have to clean here, I have to do this, and they can’t really relax and calm down. It should be, It should be a place where you can replenish, when you can feel comfortable and yeah, just enjoy yourself. This is what it’s about. Feng shui it just gives you gives you a name why you don’t feel like this.

Andrea: [00:03:56] Certain methods you can use. I don’t want to explain that at the moment. Most people think about color and moving furnitures and yes, that’s part of it, definitely. But it’s not all about interior design or something. It’s really about how you feel.

Kim: [00:04:17] Yeah, a lot of that sense of coming home and, oh, there’s the pile over there and the the clutter. And I think that that’s what automatically comes to mind, is that it’s about the clutter. And if I would just get rid of the excess stuff, then that would solve the problem. But I think you’re saying that there’s even more to it than that.

Andrea: [00:04:36] Yeah, I mean, getting rid of clutter. I’m not saying organize your clutter; that’s bad.

Kim: [00:04:42] Right, right, that’s different.

Andrea: [00:04:43] Or worse, that’s even worse! You’re getting rid of what you don’t use, what you don’t like and things like this. And decluttering is the basis, the foundation actually.

Andrea: [00:04:55] You can’t do anything without decluttering. It doesn’t work. It’s like building a house on sand or something. This would be a trap at the end, it doesn’t work out.

Kim: [00:05:06] OK, so that’s something people can contact you through your website if they would like to find out more about that.

Andrea: [00:05:15] Website or email, yeah. Right, the website is just my name: AndreaPuck.com.

Kim: [00:05:21] Ok, you said you came back to Germany and your daughter has now gone off to university.

Andrea: [00:05:29] Yeah, in summer, just recently. Yeah. Yeah, she’s 18 and she and she always had school in English language, so she kind of grew up with that and she didn’t want to stay in Germany after she graduated from high school here. And then she moved to the Netherlands to study in The Hague.

Kim: [00:05:53] Very nice.

Andrea: [00:05:53] I’m fine with that. It’s a nice city and a great university. She’s happy so far.

Kim: [00:06:04] Excellent.

Andrea: [00:06:04] Even if it’s tough, just with all the online studies at the moment due to the current situation. But anyway, she says she’s glad she’s chosen a student this way to do it.

Kim: [00:06:19] First of all, what do you think about the term “empty nest?”

Andrea: [00:06:23] I heard the term empty nest the first time, when I was abroad. Never heard that before, even when I would translate in the German language, I would think about birds falling out of the nest. So the nest is empty. Yeah, I know… I know, I can imagine it’s a great concept, but. And it actually it feels empty when your child is moving out, but when you think about all the memories you still have, it’s not empty at all. I mean, you can just call yourself lucky.

Kim: [00:07:02] Yeah, absolutely. And I think people have different responses to this stage of life. Just like sending your kid off to kindergarten for the first time, I think people have really different responses to that. Some parents are very tearful and have a very difficult time with it. And some are just like this is just the next stage. This is the thing we do and it’s not so difficult. So I think probably a similar similar thing here that they have a wide range of responses.

Andrea: [00:07:34] Actually, sending my child to kindergarten was a lot tougher than sending her to university because I just chose it for her and she had to do it. And university, she chose and we agreed on it and we talked about it. And we understand why she’s doing this. So that’s why it’s just different. And, you know it’s coming. I mean, once they’re finished school, they choose a new path and that’s it, at the end.

Andrea: [00:08:06] And yeah, as an only child you see it coming at the end. And there’s no… You have no choice. It’s nothing, no big surprise.

Kim: [00:08:19] Yeah, well, my oldest daughter says she (I think she still says – she doesn’t say it as often now she’s a teenager, but) she says that she’s never leaving. She’s going to stay with us forever, so we will see what how that plays out. And we tell her that probably by the time you get to be 17, 18, you’ll be ready to try something else.

Andrea: [00:08:40] At some point, she will be ready for sure. Yeah.

Kim: [00:08:45] So you did not find it a difficult transition, anticipating and getting ready for that and then actually sending her off?

Andrea: [00:08:55] Yes and no. I mean, mentally and you,… OK, she’s fine. I’m proud of what she accomplished already and that she really knows what she likes to do, which is not common today.

Kim: [00:09:12] It’s great.

Andrea: [00:09:13] And. But it hit me emotionally pretty hard, and that was kind of unexpected because…. When we would have never moved abroad, there was a natural way to letting go, so my child would have gone to school on her own. So that’s the first step. They are in charge of something and you just can let go. And they can just jump into the bus, jump onto the bike, whatever they want to do, they are free to do it. Or when you live abroad, West Africa, for example, I mean there’s no way you can just go and visit your friends. You have to organise it. There’s a safe space and this deep connection we still have, where I didn’t learn to let go.

Andrea: [00:10:07] And now here in Europe, she just grabs the train, the bus or whatever – my car actually at the moment – and just she can move around freely. And this is something it was hard to learn. And was in such a short time I had to learn this. Because it was not, I don’t know, the last 10 years. It was actually the last three years or two years I learned this and I’m still learning this. So there’s a deep connection we still have, which is good. But emotionally, it just hit me, actually. So even if I knew she will move, and that’s fine, I’m proud of her and. There’s [sharp inhale] something that likes to hold on to her. Where I didn’t learn to let go. She’s fine with it, but I didn’t learn it.

Kim: [00:11:06] I think that’s really interesting to see that that dynamic from the parent’s perspective, because I’ve read about that for third culture kids, that it depends on the context that you’re growing up in, but you do have a different way of exploring boundaries and testing freedoms and having responsibilities. And so, like, if you live in a compound situation, kids might have lots of freedom to go, come and go as they please within the bounds of the compound. Sometimes that’s like a city. But like the context you described, much more we do everything as a family unit and it’s all organized and controlled. And so, yeah, we have different progressions through those normal growing up stages. And so I’ve thought about that from the child’s perspective and how that affects the kids when they go off to university. How are they going to cope with the fact that they have matured in certain ways faster than their peers and in other ways they have no idea about these experiences that those kids have already had. But to think about that from the parent’s perspective, that we also have had different types of practice of letting our kids try different types of responsibilities and freedoms. And then in other ways, we don’t have those that practice. I’ve thought about that from like having house help and Oh, my goodness, my kids haven’t learned how to do chores and I have to force them to do stuff instead of having somebody around all the time, they have to learn how to clean up after themselves and all of that. But I hadn’t quite made the jump to when they leave to university and that whole letting go side of it.

Andrea: [00:13:00] Yeah it surprised me a little bit. I knew and I had this thought before. But I actually skipped them. Yeah, but still. I don’t know how she would describe it. We didn’t do everything together. It’s just you had to organize everything. When, for example, West Africa, she had to organize the driver. She had to organize where to go or call a friend to join her or something just to be safe, even if they were going to a restaurant. It just, it requires more effort to feel safe in that area. And here you just go. And you close your door and just walk wherever you want to go. You’re free. And that’s something I really. I personally missed this because I grew up like this.

Kim: [00:14:03] Right.

Andrea: [00:14:04] But she didn’t. And what we did and when we were abroad, you often chose places in Germany where we had our vacation, where she could do this. So little towns close to the sea where no traffic, it was safe for children, you know,

Kim: [00:14:24] Yeah.

Andrea: [00:14:25] Could say, hey, just go to the ice cream store and grab some ice cream or go to the bakery and grab some whatever. Can you do this for me? I give her the money and just let her go. Thise were little tiny steps for me. I think it’s important for her. And so.

Kim: [00:14:46] Yeah. You said that it hit you emotionally harder than you expected, it surprised you at least. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, the emotional side of it?

Andrea: [00:14:57] I was kind of torn between. I know she will make it. I know I gave her everything I could. There was everything to live a good life. And on the other part was this, I guess it was kind of like sorrow for myself in some way.

Andrea: [00:15:18] Because it’s the only child and it felt like a loss at that point. Deep sorrow, coming from me. I can’t even explain it. But luckily, we have a good connection, so we talk a lot. And still, she sees this house as her home. It’s one part of home. And even if I mean, I told you before my husband moved out for work reason, I only see him every other week on the weekends. So I’m alone here in a big house. And still we decided this is our home. Because here we started our journey in Germany when we came back. And we just need a place where we all feel well, where we all have kind of our stuff. We can enjoy ourselves.

Kim: [00:16:28] Yeah, so you’re not planning to redecorate her bedroom?

Andrea: [00:16:33] No, actually not she wouldn’t like it at this point in her life.

Kim: [00:16:40] It’s very soon.

Andrea: [00:16:42] I don’t need it. I mean, I have so much space here, I don’t need that room. So it’s still hers. I still open the windows and clean it. And it’s still part of our family. I wouldn’t neglect this room or ignore this room. Energetically speaking and from the feng shui perspective speaking, it wouldn’t be good. That’s why I keep it as long as she wants it. If she says, hey, I’m fine with not having a room in our home, that would be fine for me, too. So but at that point now, it is what it is. It stays like it is.

Kim: [00:17:32] So you said that she went to a university where she could have a sense of that international student body and that international connection, so that makes me wonder whether the university did anything in particular to prepare her or you for this transition. Like, just it just made me wonder, are they more up to speed on transitions care? And did they offer any support along those lines?

Andrea: [00:18:00] Transition, they had kind of like a week of transition where they get to know each other, where they get to know the university and some tutors, but other than that, I don’t think they support international students in that way, not in the way I know it from the international schools where you have the counselors you can go to when something gets difficult to handle. I don’t think they have. This I haven’t heard about. It’s just that they invite the newcomers a few days earlier.

Kim: [00:18:42] Right. So a typical orientation program.

Andrea: [00:18:46] A typical orientation program, yes.

Kim: [00:18:48] Yeah, OK. Has your relationship with your husband changed as a result of your daughter leaving? Now, this is may be more complicated since he’s on a new work assignment and that has changed some things.

Andrea: [00:19:04] Yeah. Now, I would say it’s just more free to do what we like to do and we have to take care of her or involve her in some activities just. The decisions are easier to make now when we want to do a weekend somewhere or go to the movies or which actually is not possible at the moment, but yeah, no, it doesn’t really have changed.

Kim: [00:19:36] Does it feel strange to not consider her as you’re making those kinds of decisions?

Andrea: [00:19:40] No. No, that was a part I was looking forward to, to be honest, not to involve and everything, and and even the restaurant visit or whatever it is, it was probably way too often her that we. Choose something to comfort her.

Kim: [00:20:05] Oh.

Andrea: [00:20:05] And what we want and now we can do what we want. That’s.

Kim: [00:20:10] Yes.

Andrea: [00:20:11] Sounds egoistic, but. Just, it’s a freedom you have.

Kim: [00:20:18] I can relate. I mean, even with the age, my kids are just the simple idea of mom and dad want to watch a movie that’s not a kid’s movie.

Andrea: [00:20:27] Right.

Kim: [00:20:27] This is it becomes more complicated because then we have to figure out what they’re going to be doing and be entertained while trying to do that.

Andrea: [00:20:36] But Mr..

Kim: [00:20:39] Is there anything that you have learned in this transition process so far that you would share with others who are coming up on this empty nest to help them prepare or cope with it?

Andrea: [00:20:53] I think that my identity as a mother has changed.

Kim: [00:20:57] Oh.

Andrea: [00:20:58] Yeah, I mean, I am a mother still for the rest of my life for sure, but I see myself not any longer as the one who’s educating or directing my child, or lead my child into a certain direction. It’s more that I step back, that I’ve changed my perspective more maybe more as a friend or as a consultant. I often say, if you like to hear my opinion, tell me. If you’d like some advice, tell me. It’s not that I step in directly as I did when she was younger. So far, this has changed.

Andrea: [00:21:52] I see it as a good thing actually, it’s a way to, to let go, to separate myself from her life. Because she starts her own life. I mean, our children are only borrowed. We educate them. We give them all they need. And then there’s the way, you have to let go, they have to start their own life. And to keep the contact. The connection to her is that’s the way I do it. Just Hey – tell me what’s going on. Can I help you with something? Tell me if I can help you with something. I’m always here. It’s just, hey, I’m here holding up the sign, but use it if you want. And if not, that’s fine, too. So far that mother concept of really educating and directing her has changed to more consultancy or just showing her, I’m here. Use it or not, that’s up to you.

Kim: [00:22:58] And is that something you saw coming and were consciously preparing for and practicing, or did that surprise you?

Andrea: [00:23:07] This concept of our children are only borrowed, I heard this many, many years a friend told me about this and it’s just stick to me. And I don’t know if I consciously or unconsciously prepared for it, to be honest, it was just there. At some point I changed from educating to just hey, here I am. Use my knowledge, use my wisdom, and that’s it.

Kim: [00:23:42] Yeah, I think we’re already moving in that direction, certainly not at that stage yet, but trying to be aware the further we go into the teenage years that, yeah, the brain is really developing and still needs guidance for sure, but. They need practice making decisions and seeing the consequences of those decisions, and then we can be there to help when they need it, but not try to explain everything all the time.

Andrea: [00:24:08] Right. It’s their failures they make, not ours anymore. That’s good. I need to learn it.

Kim: [00:24:19] Now, are you in contact with other parents who have gone into this new stage of life, who are coping with it in different ways than you are or struggling more or finding it easier or harder in some way?

Andrea: [00:24:35] When I talk to friends here in Germany about it, they don’t understand.

Kim: [00:24:41] Oh.

Andrea: [00:24:43] No, not really. They don’t get it fully because as I explained before, I had just the short time to learn to let go. Because our lifestyle is different. Yeah? Through my daughter’s years from she was five to 15 where she/we lived abroad. This is the time where I normally, normally here in Germany, I would just let go naturally. And then it’s just a step to university or somewhere else, that would be a tiny step. For me, there was not much of letting go. Not in comparison to the lifestyle here in Germany. And when I talk about this, even my own mother, she doesn’t understand, she can’t grasp it.

Kim: [00:25:37] Wow, yeah, that’s very interesting.

Andrea: [00:25:41] There’s just actually one, one friend in Bangkok I’ll talk about it because she has a daughter the same age or nearly the same age. And. She understands it. But here, over here… I mean, I can talk about it, but I know they don’t understand it and wouldn’t get any advice on this, so. But it’s fine.

Kim: [00:26:11] Yeah, that’s just another element of the repatriation that, a life experience that people can’t relate to that makes it hard to connect sometimes.

Andrea: [00:26:25] That’s true.

Kim: [00:26:27] And you said you wanted to collect stories on repatriation? Can you tell us a bit more about what you’re looking for and how people can help you with that project?

Andrea: [00:26:37] Yeah. I’ve prepared a questionnaire about the concept of home and the struggles and the ups and downs and challenges you face when you move back to your passport country. And I like really to highlight these stories or give people kind of like a platform to tell what they are going through. And I think it just inspires and motivates other people as well that they are not alone in their thoughts and fears and disappointments and everything that comes up when you move back home. The stories I just published them on my blog. And just hope to get connected to those people and get some good conversation.

Kim: [00:27:26] Lovely. So that’s also on your website, AndreaPuck.com.

Andrea: [00:27:30] Yeah, that’s where I start the blog, which I haven’t yet, but this is part of it. Besides feng shui themes and topics, I like to talk about repatriation and yeah, the concept of home. At the end, it’s all about home in any way.

Kim: [00:27:49] Ok, so if people want to share their stories, they can just contact you through your website or we can put a link or an email in the show notes.

Andrea: [00:27:59] Email, yeah. Just send me a short email, and then I sent them all the information and the questions and then they can decide if they want to get into it, participate.

Kim: [00:28:09] Great, and you are also part of the Expat Coach Coalition, and we are, several of us are working on launching a group program that’s going to start in February. Do you want to talk about that a little bit and say anything about your specialty or special areas of interest with regard to that?

Andrea: [00:28:32] Yes, special area, as I said before, it’s about home. Yeah, I mean, the relationship to home. Just map it all so you can use feng shui wise on the basic level, on the foundational level, to really get settled. Yeah. Just enjoy yourself and love your home, but that’s the point at the end. Which, as a repat, because I talk mostly about repats, it’s kind of yeah, kind of a struggle on its own. You have a certain perception on when you move back and often get disappointed. And home doesn’t feel like your home country anymore, and at least finding this little spot, this little apartment, this little house – get at least this right no matter what’s around. That’s basically the mission behind it.

Kim: [00:29:34] Mmm, yeah. Thank you so much for coming and speaking with us today. Yeah, I think from what you shared, sounds like this is definitely a topic that people need a bit more. They need to hear each other’s stories more around this transition. If you aren’t getting that sense of understanding from your peers where you live, then this is definitely a way that we need to be connecting with each other.

Andrea: [00:30:02] Yeah, that’s important, I think so. Yeah, thanks for inviting me.

Kim: [00:30:07] It was a pleasure having you.

I love what Andrea has to say about the concept of HOME, and how make our home, how we create the energy and feeling inside our physical space. And she has a lot of insights about this having lived abroad and now repatriating and finding out that “home” doesn’t feel like home again and it takes a lot of work to establish yourself, to regain that sense of home. And that’s a common experience for repats. So if that’s the focus area that really grabs you and Andrea’s energy is what speaks to you, then keep that in mind when you visit our website for adapt.succeed.together.

Now this program starts February 15, and time is ticking. If you’re curious about it and want to learn more, we have a few events you can check out for free. Already on our facebook page we have a series of informal talks where you can hear some short stories from all 5 of us who are working on this program. And I love those because you really get a sense of personality from even just a few minutes. Those you can just go to the adapt.succeed.together FB page and watch those replays. 

We also have 5 webinars, spread out at different times so hopefully there’s at least one that works for your timezone. These are giving you a small taste of the actual program. Again, you can find details on our adapt.succeed.together FB page, which is linked below. Hope to see you there!