Ep 02: How My Re-entry Story Can Help You With Your Reverse Culture Shock

ByDr. Cate Brubaker Podcast

Click the play button above to listen to this episode now or subscribe to the Re-entry Roadmap podcast in Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Hey, Forward Launchers!

In today’s episode, I share my my re-entry story and what led to starting SPS.

My first re-entry happened when I was 17 and returned home from living and going to high school in Germany.

I really struggled to transition back to life at home and cope with missing my life abroad, relationship challenges, and the post travel blues I was feeling.

Throughout university, graduate school, and in my career I was able to return to Germany several times to live, work, and travel, as well as work and travel in many other countries on four continents. During that time I did a lot of thinking about what my experiences abroad and in re-entry could teach me, both about myself and what I wanted my life to be like.

So, I combined what I’d learned from my education, research, and personal experiences to create a new approach to navigating re-entry with more insight, meaning, and ease — and that eventually became the Re-Entry Roadmap and SPS!

In This Episode I Share…

  • The major difficulties I experienced in re-entry
  • What I missed the most about life abroad, both small things and bigger themes
  • Common responses to re-entry and repatriation that I rebelled against
  • Why I found attending re-entry workshops was ultimately not so productive
  • The psychological and education concepts I applied from my research on post travel blues, reverse culture shock, and repatriation and work with returnees

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also be interested in:

Hello, I'm Dr. Cate Brubaker! Are you a returnee who has been surprised to find your return "home" harder than going abroad? I created the Re-entry Roadmap workbook just for you. If you work with returnees, I'm here to help you with innovative resources and training that will make it easier to provide meaningful support for your returnees.