Ikigai in Expat Life with Karly Christ and Chloe Le Gouche

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Ibasho: Having a Sense of Belonging

Do you have any places or people with whom you feel an instant connection? That may be considered as your ibasho. Karly and Chloe share that ibasho for them is the feeling of belonging, be it with the places or people whom they encountered in life -- anything that makes them feel good.

Ibasho is a place where you can be your true self.

Karly: So ibasho is a concept, of course that I learned through the training with you, Nick. And it was not something a word that I had heard before but was obviously something that I could understand and relate to. 

And ibasho for me is really a place where I can be myself where I'm true to myself, and particularly in interpersonal relationships, so friends and family and activities that I engage in and the people that are part of those experiences with me. It's where I feel I'm the most authentic and that there's a lot of care from the other side. 

So ibasho for me comes from many different places, where I have numerous ibasho in my life. But those are the conditions that I think need to be met in order to really feel that strong sense of ikigai that comes from having a strong ibasho.

Nick: Wow, you've said it better than I could have. You should take over my coaching program. Chloe, what about this word, there's a note we have here. Maybe we could describe it as a social niche or group where you can be yourself.  So Chloe, is there a word similar to ibasho in French?

Chloe: We don't really have a specific word for it. I think the first word that would come to me is forye, which means home. So that would be really the word that I would think of. And really just what Karly just said is really what I feel about ibasho. 

It's really like people, but not only people, it can also be places, like your hometown, where you're going to have like, the people, the moments, the memories, the places, all of that can be ibasho. Like for me, one of my strongest ibasho is the Southwest of France, where I have so many people from my family. So it's not just one place and one person. 

It's like all this area where I just feel it's home, I just feel good. They're like the people I love. It's like the place I love to just look at and just enjoy. So yeah, it can be one person, it can be a group of persons, and it can be places where you have all of these feelings.

Discovering the Works of Mieko Kamiya

Some people aren't aware of Kamiya Mieko and her contributions to the concept of ikigai. Hence, joining Nick Kemp's ikigai coaching program helped Karly and Chloe discover Kamiya's works. Karly shares how Kamiya's works can be helpful for expats like them, especially her 8 ikigai needs.

Kamiya's ikigai needs in the context of expat life

Nick: So what was it like for you guys to discover Mieko Kamiya? I often refer to her by the Japanese convention of surnames and first names. Yeah, so what was it like to discover her work?

Karly: I think you're right, Nick, she does deserve a spot as one of the mothers of positive psychology and perhaps, having lived during the time that she lived, it's a result of her time period.

I like to think that maybe if she was around today, she might get a little bit more recognition than she gets because she was such an incredible woman. The accolades and the accomplishments that she had throughout her life were incredible.

And going through your certification program and learning about the needs that she developed in her research of working with lepers was just so wise, so in touch, and so able to articulate the human condition in a way that really gets at what our spirit and our soul and a person needs in order to lead a life that's satisfying. 

The way she was able to do that, that was so encompassing to life's diversity was so impressive, practical, and tangible. And the way that she was able to discuss it, we can connect with, and it's not overly philosophical. 

And I think that when I learned about her eight needs of ikigai through your program, I thought about it in the context of my life and of my first move when I moved from New Zealand to France, and that loss of ikigai that I experienced, that loss of ibasho, and the solitude that I had, and I feel like if I had known about her work, and I had known about these needs, it maybe would have changed everything for me. 

And I think that's one of the reasons why Chloe and I with vibrant ikigai, we love to work with expats, because the needs, discussing these needs in the context of the expat life is so pertinent, and so helpful for people who are in the situations that we're in.

Uncovering Ibasho as An Expat

Karly shares that for expats, it is more challenging to establish ibasho (authentic relationships) because they have to familiarize themselves with a new environment. That is why it is vital to have hobbies or activities that can help cultivate ibasho in their new country.

Pursuing hobbies help people establish ibasho

Nick: So let's talk about her needs and how they fit into ibasho creation. I'll just briefly mention the needs now; so there's life satisfaction, change and growth, a bright future, resonance, freedom, self-actualization, meaning and value, and then a sense of purpose. 

So for you guys, how do these needs fit into ibasho creation?

Karly: I think within the context of being an expat. For an expat, we arrive in our new countries without our ibasho, like we were talking about before. And we still may have the love and the support from our families and our old friends back home.

So we may have a strong sense of the ibasho back home, but it isn't the same as having an ibasho where you are, and having it near you in your daily life. 

I think that for people who already have a strong ibasho in their lives, pursuing Kamiya's needs of ikigai will come more naturally and can flow from sort of the support and the grounding, and the confidence that comes from having their ibasho.

So really, having ibasho gives us support and confidence and motivation to pursue those needs. It's where we can feel that we ourselves were understood, were cared for -- that gives us confidence. 

So I think as an expat, finding our ibasho in our new places, and this is true expat or not, but can be can be easily found in activities and in hobbies. And if you're an expat, and you have a job in your new country, you could maybe find your ibasho at work. But not necessarily, maybe you don't value your work. 

So it's a little bit more streamlined to go for the activities and the hobbies that you like doing. Those are things that you put value in, otherwise you wouldn't do them. They're things that you love.

And so pursuing our hobbies and activities will help us to create our ibasho while fulfilling the eight needs of ikigai. 

I think that for expats, it's a little bit harder for us because we start from not having ibasho and pursuing those needs. Whereas perhaps if you're in your hometown, where you have your family, you have your friends, you have your ibasho, it is easier to get the motivation.

And maybe there's your childhood friend, that you go for a run with every Monday, or maybe there's a yoga class that you've been going to forever and you know the community that's there already. 

So pursuing those activities that give you a sense of ikigai can come more easily knowing that you have a place of belonging to begin with. And so for an expat, we need to take those steps to engage in those activities without having that sense of support and grounding, which can be kind of intimidating. You have to do it in a new place and a new culture and a new language. 

And that can be hard but we have to do it, and as we take those steps, we will find our ibasho because we are engaging in things that we give value to that are shared experiences with others, that they also value.

And so we have echoed values. And hopefully the more we engage in those types of things as expats, we will start to create ibasho. And we'll fulfil some of those needs of ikigai through that process. 

And it can be really challenging, you have to pick yourself up, you have to be proactive, you have to put forth a lot of effort, which we have to do to pursue ikigai anyway.

But in the expat context, again, we have to do it from a place where we have those language barriers, where we have those cultural barriers, where things can be intimidating sometimes. And it isn't always comfortable. And in fact, it very often is not.

Reclaiming Ibasho in a Different Country

Life as an expat can be daunting; one must deal with changes in his/her environment. It is something that Chloe encountered during her move to the US. However, with the help of her friends, she was able to engage in some activities that lead her to rediscover her ibasho.

Finding ibasho through shared experiences

Chloe: I would have loved to have this knowledge of ikigai at that time when I moved to Houston. Yeah, it would have helped me so much because I felt everything that Karly just talked about -- the loss of ibasho and the need of recreating one with people you can share experiences and values with, I can really relate to that. 

I remember the first weeks of my expat here, I really lost a big part of my self confidence and my self esteem. And I think that is really strongly related to ibasho. I was so afraid to go out and do all the new things that I was supposed to do in this new city.

At that time, my English wasn't really good. I didn't know a lot of people. I just knew Karly and her husband, and another couple of friends. Remember, I was even afraid to go get the groceries by myself because it was like, wow, such a huge challenge. 

So this is really when I felt the loss of ibasho the most. And I remember there was one day where I felt so bad, so lonely, I can say, like useless. I told myself like you need to do something, like things need to change.

You need to do something. And at that time, Karly talked to me about the English classes that she knew. And I had another friend talking to me, she was working in a pet shelter, she was like, yeah, you can volunteer there.

Like, okay, let's do this. You're going to register to do English class, and you're going to go and register as a volunteer at the pet shelter. And so this was really the beginning of creating my new ibasho. 

Thanks to these two things, I started a new routine. I remember just waking up in the morning, getting dressed, putting some makeup on and just going out like, okay, I'm gonna do something today.

This brought me life-satisfaction, which is the first need of ikigai. So at the pet shelter, but mostly at the English class, I met new people that I'm still friends with today. 

And these people, we share the same experiences, expat experiences, the same stories -- we were living abroad, we were all learning a new language.

So we would have really a lot of things in common like values, experiences, something that we could share, and we could understand each other. So there really was this feeling of resonance.

So it really at that time, started to give me the power to be like, okay, I have friends, I can go out, I can do things. And I started to learn English, which gave me confidence to talk to new people and to do new things and new activities.

So it's really like, it just started with these two needs, resonance and life-satisfaction. And then the rest just followed.

Ikigai Needs for Expat Life

Karly and Chloe share that amongst Kamiya's 8 ikigai needs, expats experience change and growth, and need of freedom the most. Because living the expat life means being open to changes, and through those changes, people can experience growth. Moreover, living as an expat means more freedom -- freedom to choose the life you want to live.

Creating new life and ibasho

Karly: I wanted to just say one quick thing, because I feel like we're talking a lot about how hard being an expat is and the loneliness, and all the things that are difficult, and how we have to kind of go the extra mile to meet these needs as expats.

But I think that there is actually one of the needs that we as expats have, a little bit handed to us, and that comes very easily and that's the change and growth. 

I think we're always having the carpet pulled out from under as we're constantly growing from these experiences that we have, almost whether we like it or not, and we are we're constantly out of our comfort zone, which we know is really important for feeling ikigai in our lives, and we of course, the more we are focused on being proactive in that change, in that growth, the more beneficial that will be.

But even just our circumstance alone, as an expat, kind of hands us that ikigai need, and we grow immensely, as we live the expat life.

Chloe: Yeah, and there is another need like that, that really comes easily to expat. It's the need of freedom. Because when you have to create a life away from your long lasting ibasho, all the expectations that come with it, you know, from your parents, your family, the people around you, the society in your country, it can really give you a strong feeling of freedom, like of power, like you can really do anything, it's like all new. 

So you're here living abroad, creating your new life and your new ibasho, you can create a life really for yourself. You get this feeling of independence and also the feeling that you can create the life that you want that has meaning for you, and that is aligned with your values. 

And I think this one comes, it's just really the essence of being an expat and I think if you talk to any expat they will all feel this feeling of freedom -- of creating something new.

For the full podcast conversation, go to: Integrating ikigai in the context of expat life