Dear Brooke,
Around 6 months ago our family moved to a new country across the world because of my husband’s work. I did massive action to find a new home and set up our new life and made that work. But now I’m struggling and low. My husband travels a lot and we don’t see him much in the week. We’ve tried to meet people but we don’t yet have any real friends. We’ve been sick often and there’s nobody we can really turn to for support. We’ve moved from a city to a rural area with 1 tiny shop and I’m finding that piece hard especially in winter. Our living costs have increased and money is tight. I suspect it won’t be easy to find work. I was and am a stay at home mom, now our 4 year old has started school and I miss him greatly. I’m alone a lot. I worry about my son – the adaptation to a new situation and climate is a challenge for him and he doesn’t seem the cheerful loving boy he was. It’s been a strain on the family and our marriage. I have difficulty sleeping. I try hard not to think about the life we left behind that was filled with friendship, community meaning and adventure – but it would be hard (impossible?) to go back. I work on gratitude for the many things I have in this new life, but 6 months in I am struggling to find joy or optimism.

I know that with time I can improve things here, but there are so many challenges. Recently I’ve gotten so down that I don’t feel in a good place to go out and try and meet people or network. I continue to work on SCS every day and am so grateful for that. For my impossible goal I picked exercising every day because I thought it would be good for my health and mood. But some days I wonder if I should face facts and accept I can’t transform this situation and my impossible goal should be to leave this place where I can’t see a future and try to get back to my “home”.

I recognize I’m in both sadness (that I need to accept) and overwhelm (that I want to move on from). Could you coach me a bit around how to pick myself up and what to tackle first?

With gratitude.