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Hi there, new mum in the block!
Welcome! This is a place for expat mums to find the inspiration and drive they need to follow their dreams! If you’re now joggling the motherhood, the romantics and THE language and feel like there must be more to it, then this is the place for you. I am Cristina Guraliuc, Romanian mum and writer living in the UK with my family. Over the years of writing bilingual stories for children out of my adoptive country’s home, I have come to understand at a very deep level the struggles a newcomer mum faces when moving overseas. I know that change is a real setback and it gets sooo easy to lose track of our true selves when we need to constantly…
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How I’ve learned to celebrate Halloween! About settling into a new country successfully
Settling into a new country can be a tricky thing. There are so many ideas on how to successfully adapt to your new environment, but I believe it’s more of a personal choice. We moved from Romania to the UK three years ago and what struck me the most was the way time seemed to have a different value. It’s like England was trapped in a different time and space dimension because people were incredibly calm and slow. Everything, from queueing (which sometimes takes forever!), to having a conversation with a stranger, goes too slowly (in my opinion, obviously). And you know what? I LOVE it! I come from a country where everything is speeding up. Things are happening fast. Act…
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“Sorry, I am multiligual!”
I believe one of the biggest setbacks I had when I was thinking of starting a business in a foreign country was that… I wasn’t speaking the language. Well, at least not to perfection. I always had this inside of me, I wanted to speak the “music” within a foreign language, not just mimic it. Apparently, this phenomenon is called “the chameleon effect” and it happens to people who are good at empathising with others. According to a 2010 study lead by a research group at the University in California, Riverside, this “chameleon effect” is actually in our nature. It describes the human’s instinct to belong and relate. Knowing this didn’t make me feel better, to be honest, because I still…
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Limiting Beliefs That are Holding You Back from Reaching Your Potential
We all have them: thoughts, beliefs that are holding us back. That, instead of helping us evolve and improve, they are a hindrance. They are not helpful at all, yet we do believe in them, and, as far as I’ve noticed in all these years of being both a mum and an entrepreneur, most of the time they’re the only obstacle standing in our way. The only thing that’s helping mums take that leap of faith and start their own business. I really believe we MUST have a debate on limiting beliefs because they are basically shaping our reality. Do you think your life is a chaos? It most probably is. Do you believe you’re super-capable of achieving even the impossible?…
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Moving Overseas? A Few Things to Consider
If you’re a mum and you’re moving to another country, you’ve probably started panicking by now. I am not kidding, this whole adventure can be super stressful, especially when you have kids to consider. To ease this transition which I have experienced myself a few years ago, I have come up with a list of essential things to consider before packing your things. 1. FINANCES FIRST I hate to be the one to ruin the party, but before you even start to consider moving to another country, you should ask yourself the big questions: „Am I able to financially support such a decision?”. You and your partner should first come up with a financial plan. Carefully think over all your possible…
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Success speaks an international language
Ever since we moved to the UK, our lives went into a spiral of events and challenges, none of which we could have predicted entirely. I leave room for doubt, of course, because one must always be cautious when making such a life-changing decision such as moving abroad. But, either way, having moved with my family – my daughter who was 1 yo back then and my husband – made things a lot easier. And complicated at the same time, duh! I won’t go in more details, I wrote another article on the challenges of moving abroad when you have kids. The point is none of the challenges I, personally, as a mum and a woman, have faced, had anything to…
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How do You Know it’s Time to Follow Your Dreams?
I know. Life is already complicated when you live in a new country, to even dare to follow your dreams. Plus, what does that even mean? And what will people think? What if you leave the financial security of a well-paid job to plunge into the unknown and risk it all only to realise your dreams have set you up? Way too many questions! The way I see it, you will never know what your dreams might bring in your life unless you actually DECIDE to give them a chance. As the saying goes, “a comfort zone is a beautiful place to be, but nothing ever grows there.” So how do you know it’s about time to follow your dreams? Define…
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I Want my Children to Have it ALL – But What About Me?
“Oh-wow, I want everything for me – love, joy, a successful business, loving children who dress themselves up for school” – said NO MUM EVER. Except for the last part. Because I guess we all want kids who are already dressed up, ready for school in the morning. After almost one week with no Internet and no way to keep my business running as usual, I had all this time to properly look at my life when “disconnected”. It’s funny how we end up taking things for granted, isn’t it? I mean, look at the Internet – we assume it’s always there, just like the air we breathe. And when suddenly it’s not, we realise what it’s like without it. These…
