Holding Both Workshop
Navigating Mixed Emotions as an Expat
Have you ever felt grateful for your life abroad and still felt like something was missing?
You're not alone in that.
Many women living abroad carry a mix of emotions that doesn't fit a simple story. The excitement and the grief. The freedom and the loneliness. The pride in how far you've come and the quiet ache for what you left behind.
Most of us get very good at managing these feelings. Keeping them contained. Staying functional. Getting on with it.
But managing isn't the same as processing. And over time, the weight adds up.
This workshop is a space to put that weight down for a moment — to understand what you're actually carrying, and give it somewhere to go.
Spaces are limited to 8 women.
If something in this has been speaking to you — this is the nudge.
What to expect
This is a 90-minute online workshop that works in two ways.
Paula (Expanding Waves) guides the conversation — helping you name what you're feeling, understand why mixed emotions are a normal part of expat life, and realise you are not carrying too much or feeling too much. You're just carrying it alone.
Janaline (Healing Art Journey) brings the creative side — simple, guided art practices that help you process what's still sitting in the body after the words run out. No art experience needed. This is not about making something beautiful. It's about giving your emotions somewhere to go.
Together, these two approaches do something neither can do alone.
You leave with more clarity. And a little less weight.
This workshop is for you if:
You love your life abroad and still carry a quiet grief for what you left behind
You feel grateful and lonely at the same time and don't quite know what to do with that
You've been managing your emotions rather than actually feeling them
You want to be in a space with women who understand expat life from the inside
The details
📅 Thursday 29 October 2025
⏰ 17:30 GMT | 18:30 CET | 20:30 Gulf Time
🌐 Online via Zoom
⏱ 90 minutes
👭 Small group — maximum 8 women
💶 €15
This is not therapy. It is a supported space for exploration and reflection.
Your facilitators
Janaline Smalman — Healing Art Journey
Janaline is a Certified Therapeutic Art Facilitator and expat of 23 years who has lived in 13 countries. She supports women living abroad through guided art practices that help them process emotions that feel difficult to untangle or put into words — especially during times of transition, uncertainty, and adaptation.
Paula — Expanding Waves
Ten years ago I moved from Spain to Munich, telling myself I could always go back. Here I am, a decade later — deeply happy with that decision, and also very aware of what it means to live in-between.
It still hurts when I can't be with family on important occasions. The language and bureaucracy still feel overwhelming sometimes. And I know what it's like to feel very Spanish in a German world, and a little German when I go back home to visit.
That experience is what led me to focus my coaching work on expat women — because this journey comes with very specific emotional challenges that others who haven't lived it may not fully understand. And because it can feel lonely, and I believe there is no need to walk it alone.
