on the move

For someone who’s lived in six different countries to date, you might mistakenly believe that I enjoy, indeed relish, change.

However, you’d be wrong.

Granted it was different when I was younger; I saw change as something exciting, an adventure. I considered moving to a different country thrilling, a voyage into the unknown. That was especially the case when I moved for the first time to a country where English was not the first language, The Netherlands.

I can remember, as if it was yesterday, learning my first Dutch word – ‘uien’ meaning ‘onions’. I had wandered into the local supermarket for a browse around and, being a lover of onions (I basically put onions in every meal I cook), I was intrigued by this 3-voweled word that had caught my eye, never mind how you would ever go about pronouncing it (I still struggle with that one).

Skip forward some 13 years when it was time to leave the Netherlands and move onto my next non-native-English-speaking country. My experience of moving this time was much different.

It wasn’t just because I was older and, somehow as we get older the things we easily embraced and saw as adventures in the past become more challenging and stressful, it was also because I had contracted Crohn’s disease a number of years earlier.

Physically, Crohn’s is an intestinal dis-ease and, when you have it, you soon become deeply in-tune with your body and its sensitivity to food. However, it is also a deeply psychological dis-ease and one of the major contributors to keeping Crohn’s active, is stress.

As, no doubt, you already know or have heard (if you haven’t experienced it personally), moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do in life. Moving house and also country, well… that’s stress on steroids.

The impact moving countries had on my body was quite severe. Where I was leaving the Netherlands in pretty good shape with my Crohn’s well under control and in remission after many years of working to find the right combination of drugs that supported my body, I quickly found myself unable to leave my new home because, suddenly, my Crohn’s had been triggered and was very active and out of control once again. Additionally, working with a new consultant who felt the drug combination I had been on was too risky and didn’t want me back on it, it took months before we got my Crohn’s (and me) to a place where I could live a close-to normal life… interestingly with my new consultant admitting defeat and putting me back on the drug combo that he had been so vehemently opposed to.

Gradually, I began to rebuild my confidence, going out for short walks which then became longer and longer, eventually building up to going out for a 6-7 hour walk every Sunday.

Just as I had got myself to a place where my Crohn’s was in-check most of the time, where I felt I had rebuilt my life, my husband told me he had been offered a new job. And that new job would require another move to another new country.

When I was young, moving countries was fun, an adventure. There was nothing to be feared. I had only everything to look forward to.

When I was older, moving countries felt more stressful because I was more in-tune with my body and the impact stress has on it. However, not quite knowing just how much stress would impact my body, I still enjoyed the idea and the initial thrill of moving to a new country.

The latest move to my third non-native-English-speaking country was, however, far from easy. My reaction to my husband’s news about his new job was nothing I had experienced before. I dug my heels in and didn’t want to move. I futilely tried to resist the move and the change that was pending. I decided I didn’t like our new country before I had barely set foot in it. I cried. And I was scared.

This time, the move came with experience and knowledge; experience and knowledge that wasn’t positive for me. I knew, after my previous move, just how strong and negative an impact this next move would have on my body. And I was reluctant and resentful about it because I felt I was giving up my health.

Had I been healthy and Crohn’s-free would I have resisted the change as much? Probably not.

Had I been younger and seen the next move as a great new adventure would I have resisted the change? Again, probably not.

However, I was neither Crohn’s-free nor did I see the next move as a new exciting adventure. Rather I felt resentful towards it because it was ripping me away from a country I had fallen head-over-heels in love with and I knew, inevitably, it would take a toll on my health.

There are a few things I have learned from my experiences with change.

• Change is something we easier embrace when we’re younger. As we grow older, whether it’s because we prefer a life that is more predictable, whether it’s because we prefer familiarity, whether it’s because we’re more settled and prefer our home comforts, whether it’s because we carry more responsibilities, whatever the reason, change becomes more challenging.

• Resistance to change (or indeed a fear of change) is often based on past experience(s). If you’ve had a bad experience, then when another and similar change comes along, your body, your mind, your energy remembers that previous negative experience and does everything possible to prevent you having to repeat that experience again. In other words, you dig your heels in and resist as much as possible, even if you know that it’s futile.

• At times, the process or aftermath of change can be tough. However, if you’ve experienced change, like me, you’re still here to tell the tale. It may have been tough, however you’ve survived, and you’ve learned and you’ve grown so much as a result. And, no doubt, looking back you (hopefully) can say that, whilst it was tough as you were muddling through, the change you experienced wasn’t as tough as your imagination, mind and memory had convinced you it would be.

The thing about change is it’s inevitable. Some changes are small, some are big. Some changes are expected, some creep up and surprise you. However, change is something we all have to deal with in our lives. No-one is immune to it. Indeed, the more you resist it, the more you fear it, the more you lose sleep over it, the harder you’re making life (and change) for yourself.