My name is Irina Pravet and I’m a language and cultural transitions coach. I help people tap into their inborn ability to learn Finnish, and feel at home in their lives abroad.

My work brings together the threads that have run deep throughout my life: transitions, adaptation and belonging (between languages and cultures).

Why does this matter so much to me and why do I believe this work is essential? Well to answer this question, I’d have to start at the beginning…

This year, two themes have stood out for me as we head into the fall: 1) fall is the best season for a new perspective and 2) it’s a time to intentionally slow down. Symbolically, fall has long been celebrated as a time to reflect on: balance (between night and day), impending darkness, change and transformation (and how foliage reminds us of the beauty, alongside the death, of transitions)…

Compassion allows us to take things lightly. It leaves room for play and allowing our natural abilities to bubble up to the surface effortlessly. We are wired for language, after all! Once you recognize the importance of compassion (hey, awareness is half the battle) then it’s a matter of actually putting it to use when you need it. But how? What can we do when we recognize we need more self-compassion in the moment? I’ve boiled it down to 3 ingredients:

[video] I believe self-compassion is often the missing ingredient in getting… just about anything we want. When we go after something, we tend to ignore our side of things: our feelings, thoughts, beliefs, experiences, expectations, considerations, the bigger picture, etc. – it’s insanely ironic. We’ve been so well trained to consider everyone and everything else, but who’s standing up for you? Who’s in your corner, empathizing with the entire picture of being you? No one. Not-a-single-person can really witness what it is to be you, in all your entire-ness.

It took me a couple of years to track down the lie I’d been telling myself that was holding me back (there are lots of them and like you, I’m a perpetual work in progress). The first year I lived in Finland was tough. Honestly, what helped me through the uncertainty loneliness was something I told myself over and over again…

At the 2015 polyglot gathering in Berlin (an event for those who love learning languages), I gave a talk called ‘Beyond Language: Lessons about life, self-understanding and transformation.’

During the talk, I shared what I had learned from living in Finland for 5 years, and how I had adjusted (the ups and downs I went through) – basically the messy process of personal growth abroad.

Ever have those days where it seems that everything would just be easier if you’d stayed home or moved back there? Me too. There’s some growth involved, and with it comes some pain as well, but fear not! I wrote this post to help you understand 2 things: why we get into bad moods/funks in the first place (and why you’re especially likely to develop them if you live abroad) and, how to shift out of them when they happen.