Thailand: When A Grief Consultant Left Home to Teach English Abroad

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to leave the only home you've known and move to Thailand to teach English?

In Episode 3 of Creating Your Happy Place, we've got Diane Nnaemeka, a fearless adventurer who left her childhood home 5 years ago to teach English to kindergartners and grade school kids. While she's moved 5 times while living there, she's happy in her tropical life and sees no end in sight to the adventure.

Diane's now left teaching behind and is a self-sustainability and grief consultant  who helps empower individuals to harness their strengths and cultivate sustainable habits. She supports people on their journey towards long-term self-reliance and guides individuals through the healing process that unfolds following a significant loss.

- - Where to find Diane - -

For those interested in learning more about Diane's work or reaching out for support, check out:

Linktree: linktr.ee/dianenn
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diane.nnaemeka/
Email: sweetenedsoul123 (at) gmail.com

- - About the host - -

Rebecca West is a business coach for ambitious residential interior designers who are determined to become the only designer their clients and contractors call.

She's also obsessed with creating happy homes, so if you need some advice for your home you can check out her book Happy Starts at Home or sign up for a via-Zoom Design Helpline. 

Rebecca can't resist a costume party or a cat video, and has a weakness for Oreos, Taco Bell, and Scotch whiskey. 😁

🙏 If you like this podcast, make sure to review, subscribe, or share! 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Rebecca: Welcome to Creating Your Happy Place, a podcast that explores what it takes to create your happy place and then empowers you to do whatever it takes to make sure that your home is making you seriously happy. I'm Rebecca West, host of Creating Your Happy Place and author of the book, Happy Starts At Home, and I'm so glad you're here.

This season we're having some fun exploring the idea of becoming expat and setting up a home outside of the United States. While it might sound like a great adventure to leave the United States and set up a home in another country, it does come with its own unique challenges. 

So Today's episode we're gonna be chatting with Diane Nnaemeka about her unexpected move to Chiang Mai Thailand. We'll talk with her about how she's made it feel like home and how she's navigated the challenges and rewards that come alongside calling a new country your home for a while. 

When she's not sharing her relocation adventures on a podcast. Diane is a self sustainability and grief consultant who helps people understand and move through the loss that happens in [00:01:00] life. She helps folks develop healthy, sustainable habits that equip them to face challenges with strength and courage, no matter what happens. 

I am so happy to welcome her to the show today. Hello Diane.

[00:01:12] Diane: Hello, hello. Thank you for that intro. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:17] Rebecca: I am delighted to have you. I am so curious because I know that you said this was an unexpected move, so I wanna get into how it even happened, but before we do, let's get a little context. Where were you living before you moved to Thailand? Where were you?

[00:01:32] Diane: Okay, so, it's been almost five years that I've been here now, so five years ago I was in, uh, Beltsville Maryland, a very small city probably about 30 minutes from Washington DC I really just tell people that I'm basically from Washington DC cuz my city's so small. Yeah, so I was, I was living there. That's my childhood home with my family. My brothers, my dad, my stepmom, her mom, [00:02:00] and yeah, that's just my childhood home.

[00:02:02] Rebecca: That's a lot of family in the area! 

[00:02:04] Diane: Have a lot of family in the area...

[00:02:05] Rebecca: Yeah. And had you moved abroad or traveled abroad before this moved to Thailand? 

[00:02:09] Diane: So my family's from Nigeria, so we've traveled to Nigeria a few times, but before this, I've never done anything, like, I've never come to Asia. I've never done a trip by myself. It was just a lot of firsts, which is why it was so shocking, I think.

[00:02:23] Rebecca: Yeah, I'm sure not to just to you, but to other people that knew you as well. So how did you choose Thailand? 

[00:02:29] Diane: Uh, so I have a good friend and she, she took a teaching job in South Korea and sometimes we would talk and um, she was saying that it's such a rewarding job being able to teach abroad. Like she's never had an experience like this before.

And she was like, you know, you just need to like check it out, pick a country, do your research and then, go. And then, um, I did a lot of research. It was like months. It was just months and months and months. I decided on [00:03:00] Thailand because I read how the people are really friendly, the tropicalness, the good food, the beaches, I was like, man I just, I need this in my life. And of course like cheap cost of living in case anything like happened with my job, I could probably afford to stay a little longer, so yeah, that's why I chose here. Yeah.

[00:03:20] Rebecca: And so what were you expecting it to be like and what was it like? 

[00:03:25] Diane: Man. So my first, um, my first city I was in, it was my first school and our coordinator, she's a very happy, jolly person and the few times we would video chat before I accepted the job she would always just be like in a really nice background, just be like, it's amazing. The weather's beautiful, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, wow, like, this is where I'm gonna be living. But that is not where I was living. You know, it wasn't like it was beautiful, but she just travels a lot. So I don't know where she was on these calls, but the town I was in, it was not like that. it was, [00:04:00] it was, how do I describe it? Not that it was a bad town, but you know, like Thailand is known for its islands, its beaches, and you would just assume as the first time coming here that you would be near all of that.

 And actually it's kind of like a hub town that's like you can go there and then go to the islands and the beaches from there, but it's not actually a beach town or a place where the islands are at all. It's still a little far. 

[00:04:27] Rebecca: And how long were you in that city before you moved? 

[00:04:30] Diane: So the city was Surat Thani I did a whole year there.

[00:04:33] Rebecca: Okay, so when you were first making the move over, you lived somewhere, obviously, uh, did you live on your own with a host family?

[00:04:40] Diane: So, um, basically it's kind of like a hotel room. It's not really a condo. It's not really, I mean, it's closer to a studio by American standards, but it's really just, uh, like a nice hotel room. 

[00:04:55] Rebecca: Does it have like a kitchen and stuff like that? 

[00:04:57] Diane: So the first place when I was in Surat Thani did not [00:05:00] have a kitchen.

[00:05:00] Rebecca: Interesting. Did you just always go out to eat?

[00:05:03] Diane: Literally that whole year I went out to eat. If I ever cooked, it was at someone else's place. It's definitely part of the culture, like there's street food, there's restaurants, there's quick bites, quick eats everywhere. Even around here, just up my road, there are three like little restaurants. There is a, um, a smoothie guy. Like it's, it's very much that kind of culture. So I, I barely cooked that first year.

[00:05:27] Rebecca: Is cooking a big part of your hobbies? Were you like, oh, thank goodness 

[00:05:32] Diane: Yeah, I've never really been a big, uh, cooking person.

[00:05:37] Rebecca: So that worked out. 

[00:05:38] Diane: It did work out and it's not, I wouldn't say that I just straight up don't like it. It's just not something I really grew up doing. I will say now that I'm older, I think for health reasons, I do it a little bit more, but that's how I did it the first year. 

[00:05:54] Rebecca: So then you moved a year later, and how did you find your next place to live and what's it like? Is that [00:06:00] where you are right now? 

[00:06:00] Diane: so actually no, since I've been in Thailand, I've moved, uh, maybe like four different times. Or five? Yeah, like once every year basically. So I'm, I'm tired of moving. That's exhausting. Man. 

[00:06:16] Rebecca: No kidding. Cause it can get expensive too. 

[00:06:18] Diane: Yes. And I think I might have to move again in a few months. But anyway, so the first place I came to when I moved to, to Chiang Mai, the city I'm in now, was actually another kind of, um hotel / apartment, and it was called Inspire House Hotel. 

[00:06:31] Rebecca: It sounds like you, at least with your experience, you haven't had to do a lot of setting up necessarily, like, furniture buying or anything like that, that hasn't had to be part of your home setting up story. Do I have that right? 

[00:06:46] Diane: Well, technically I have a sofa now because, I use a lot of like body oils and I just love luxuriating on my sofa. Like I just, I love just sitting and just laying down and, um, oil stains are harder to get [00:07:00] out, So when I was moving out the, the, what do I call him? The guy who owned my unit, he said that he couldn't get some of the stains out so then I pretty much had to buy the sofa because he was like, well, I can't use this for my next few tenants. And I was like, ok, it's a good thing I like this sofa anyway, so now I have a sofa. It's my one piece of furniture. 

[00:07:20] Rebecca: Wait, so have you moved that into the studios ever since. Okay so what's it like to move a piece of furniture that big, what's the logistics of that? 

[00:07:29] Diane: Yeah, I did hire some moving people, so it's kind of similar to the us. Um, I, I've been gone for some years, I don't remember the exact names of moving companies, but whatever moving companies are there, it's a similar process here.

 Like you book them, they have a date, you a scheduled time, and then they come and they have about an hour or two and they help you move your stuff. So I moved it into my previous apartment cuz it was actually a legitimate apartment. And then I moved it here into my service apartment / hotel because besides this chair, [00:08:00] and then the bed, of course, that's the only thing you could sit on. And I was like, I actually need my sofa.

[00:08:05] Rebecca: It's one of the things that I have found in traveling is that we are very used to our creature comforts in the United States. Everything is soft, everything is squishy. And I know I really come to miss that when I'm traveling for a very long time.

So, I mean, you sound like you're just a very capable person. Like you're like, oh yeah, well I just did this and I just did this. What has been the hardest thing about creating a home for yourself in Thailand? 

[00:08:31] Diane: Wow. Um, I would consider myself a city girl. I like comforts. I like being around people and, and I don't drive a motorbike here and that's how a lot of people get around and I don't drive a car here either. So, um, it was important to me that I could build community here and there are cafes and places to go to that are walking distance. So the hardest thing has been just like finding areas that I feel that comfortable in. And in the past almost two years [00:09:00] that I've been in this area, I felt very comfortable here.

So, definitely having these comforts around like cafes. Like there's a mall nearby, there's like, kind of like, um, like a meeting square where they have markets, they have dance classes, they have other restaurants. And like, this is really important to me... 

[00:09:17] Rebecca: Interesting. So for you, it's not necessarily about the physical space that you're sleeping in but it's what it gives you access to is, is that? Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

And I assume that other people are like me, you see Airbnb, pictures of Thailand and you're like, Ooh, beautiful wood hut with spa overlooking mountain, right? Like totally not real life. 

Are the apartments just like normal apartments? Are they different from what you had in the United states?

[00:09:46] Diane: Wow. That's a really good question. Let me think of some of the differences. Like, um, like here, something that's really normal is to have a bathroom situation where the shower area can have no separation from the rest of the bathroom. [00:10:00] So if you're taking a shower, your whole bathroom can just get wet. Like it's, it's just a wet room basically. 

So that, that is a huge difference because I'm pretty sure anywhere in America there's like a designated shower area, and then the toilet and then the sink. But here that shower area is not guaranteed to be separated. It's just there's basically no separation. So that was a huge difference.

[00:10:22] Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. What about uh, when it comes to the weather? I imagine it's quite hot and humid much of the year. Is it a place with air conditioning? Do you just suffer when it's hot? 

[00:10:32] Diane: So here's the thing. Around late November, all of December, and I would say all of January, it's actually pretty cool, like cool weather as in you wake up and you can see the frost on your windows. Like it's actually that cool. Which I, I was surprised as well. So of course there's air condition here, but in these colder months there's no central heating. So, you're just in a cold room and then when it's nighttime and around like midnight 1:00 AM it's like, oh man, I need [00:11:00] like three blankets. I'm actually pretty cold. 

[00:11:02] Rebecca: Wait, is there no heating system at all in the apartments? Just... so they do have AC, but they don't have heat. I did not see that coming. 

[00:11:11] Diane: Man, when you come and visit, just prepare for that if you're ever here in these months, especially northern Thailand. I don't think it's like this in southern Thailand, but yeah, it's wild. 

[00:11:22] Rebecca: Have you had to worry about things like utilities being separate or is that all just included.

[00:11:27] Diane: Hmm, utilities. So those are their own separate bills. There's the, the rent price, and then on top of that there's the electricity and the water. And, um, I mean like compared to American prices, it's definitely not as expensive, but it's definitely its own separate utility. Like that's still a thing here. 

[00:11:46] Rebecca: So it sounds like it's pretty standard living. People might think of Thailand as really foreign but it's not that different in many ways. 

[00:11:54] Diane: It's really not. Like the differences are, I think it's just like cultural differences really. [00:12:00] Yeah. 

[00:12:00] Rebecca: Are there certain house habits, like is it a culture of taking off your shoes ? What kinds of things have you noticed in that regard? 

[00:12:07] Diane: Yeah, so you definitely always take off your shoes. And now I've taken after them and I never wear my shoes in here and no one is allowed to wear their shoes in my place anymore. Not a single person. 

[00:12:17] Rebecca: What converted you? What made you go, yep, this is how I wanna live too. 

[00:12:21] Diane: I just, I started thinking of everywhere I walk around in the day and then like, bringing that into my space and I'm like, man, I should really start thinking more about this. And I mean, my place is a little bit cleaner. It's a little less dirt cause I don't wear shoes in here anymore. And, um, I just really like it. It just feels like there's a separation from the outside and like here, like now I'm in my, my sacred space and I leave my shoes outside. I really like it. 

 Um, what else? There's something, there's something. Oh, so something I've actually seen mentioned in Facebook groups sometimes here, having a dryer is not like a [00:13:00] standard thing. 

[00:13:00] Rebecca: Laundry is definitely different in the United States from other countries, and dryers are not a given in the rest of the world. 

[00:13:07] Diane: They're not. I miss dryers. Wow.

[00:13:10] Rebecca: I love a good fluffy, drier-dried towel. You know, I can handle it for the rest of my clothes, but a good fluffy towel, that's one of my US luxuries for sure.

[00:13:20] Diane: I feel so warm thinking about.

[00:13:26] Rebecca: So do you have pretty much the same amount of stuff as when you moved to Thailand or has it grown in quantity? 

[00:13:33] Diane: It has definitely grown. I need to get rid of stuff. Like if I'm gonna move, I need to sell and then just get rid of the rest of it. It's, it's ridiculous. I do love clothes though.

[00:13:43] Rebecca: I thought you might, because even right now what you're wearing feels so fashionable. 

[00:13:47] Diane: Thank you. I You know, it's just like expression. Like other things I feel like I don't need as much, like I could really care less. But clothes, I really need to be able to express myself differently so I can't really get rid of my [00:14:00] clothes. But the other stuff I, I would love to get rid of it. 

[00:14:03] Rebecca: It's interesting cuz you're basically saying that you are decorating your body rather than your physical environment. But it's a very similar thing, expressing your own personality. And our clothes are the decoration that we take with us outside into the world. 

[00:14:15] Diane: I've never thought of that. Wow. Yeah. I do decorate my body more than my space. Hmm.

[00:14:21] Rebecca: So aside from this sofa that now travels with you, what have you done to make your spaces feel like your home? 

[00:14:27] Diane: I do have, uh, I do have some blankets that come with me everywhere. I have a satin pillowcase that makes me feel luxurious. Like I like a really comfortable bed, I bring pillows, blankets, anything to make my bed comfortable. But the rest of my space is kind of like, well, I'll just put this here. I'll put this there, and then I'll just go about my day. 

[00:14:45] Rebecca: When you're like, dude, I need a new pillow I'm guessing there's not a Bed Bath and Beyond next door. Where, where are you shopping? Where have you found your household items? 

[00:14:53] Diane: So you can order them online, but there are some small little shops around the area that actually do sell pillows. [00:15:00] Um, they do have a few places in the mall where you can buy bedding. Also, there's this place, that's kind of like Bed Bath and Beyond, but it's called ban... because ban means home, ban something. I don't remember the the rest of it, but yeah. So there are a few places in the city where you can buy bedding, thankfully. 

[00:15:19] Rebecca: Did you like ask your Thai friends where these places were? Did you just Google it? How have you found your resources as you've been navigating Thailand? 

[00:15:27] Diane: There's this Facebook group that's called the Chiang Mai Nomad Girls, and man, almost any question you can imagine is there. Like, where can I go get my nails done? Where can I go get a massage? Where can I go get wax? Where, where can I go get my hair done? Where do people go out in the day, what are the best restaurants? And of course things for housing, like everything, uh, like any question you can imagine is there. 

[00:15:49] Rebecca: I've noticed that as a common theme amongst my interviews now, that Facebook groups are a very essential part of expat living.

[00:15:56] Diane: Yes. What would we do without it? I have no idea.[00:16:00] 

[00:16:00] Rebecca: Right. 

[00:16:01] So what advice would you give to somebody who wants to create a happy place for themselves overseas? 

[00:16:08] Diane: Wow. The first thing is find community. Like I really messed up in that way my first year. It took a while to acclimate, but put in that effort, like go to different events and just know that you're not alone. There's other people who are new as well, or even if they're not new, there are people who'll be willing to help you, show you around, like put in that effort to find community. 

[00:16:31] And another thing is just to really like, just accept certain things as they are. Like, don't try and change the culture you're going into because they've been doing things this way for who knows how long.

[00:16:44] Rebecca: Does that strike a memory for you of something where you're like, gosh, I'd really like to change this habit of all of the Thai people.

[00:16:50] Diane: If anything, I will say something that I did not like in the beginning, especially cuz I didn't understand it, was the staring. 

[00:16:59] Rebecca: The stare, [00:17:00] like with your eyeballs? 

[00:17:01] Diane: Yeah, like with your eyeballs, like people always staring at you everywhere you go, cuz you just look different. And especially in the first city, there's just not that many foreigners. So it's like people are staring, kids are staring, parents, everybody's looking at you and I didn't like it. But you're also different in a different country, so there's not much you can do about it. As long as no one's touching you, that's a different thing.

[00:17:24] Rebecca: Did you have people want to touch you? 

[00:17:27] Diane: Um, I had like one instance with my hair, which was very strange I think that only happened once, thankfully but, um, yeah, the, the staring have to get used to that. Yeah. 

[00:17:39] Rebecca: You're not saying that the Thai people are staring at each other. It was you coming in as this definite other person who didn't belong. You got stared at by the Thai people. 

[00:17:49] Diane: If you don't look like a Thai person you will be stared at.

[00:17:54] Rebecca: Do you speak any of the language or are you able to get by with the english? 

[00:17:57] Diane: I can get by with English. If I know [00:18:00] any words it's just because of teaching and it's like the little kid Thai. For example if the teacher is coming they'll say like, teacher! Teacher! Like "the teacher is coming." So I heard that a lot because you know, the kids are always doing something naughty before class.

[00:18:13] Rebecca: What grade were you teaching? 

[00:18:16] Diane: I did kindergarten and fourth grade. 

[00:18:19] Rebecca: Oh, wow. Yeah. Little ones. 

[00:18:20] Diane: Ah the little ones. Miss them..., 

[00:18:22] Rebecca: I wanna circle back for a second to the very beginning of your journey. Um, you decided to go to Thailand, you went by yourself. Were you ever lonely? Were you ever homesick? 

[00:18:34] Diane: Yeah. Most of the first year, I would say I was lonely because there is not too many people of color in the town in general. In my first school, there were some interesting, like dynamics, like, saying things that made me feel really uncomfortable. So I felt very much like an outsider in that way most of my first year. And that in general made me homesick. 

But then I also told [00:19:00] myself I really wanna try it. I wanted to finish the year, and the kids were just amazing. They really made that year. Like I was always tired but my heart was always full. I just wanted to just thank them for just letting me into like your little hearts because they really made that year. 

But outside of the teaching I was a little just, I don't know, it was just kind of closed off that year. But then when I came to Chiang Mai, I made the decision that I don't want to do that anymore, and I just kind of let the first year go and every year since has been, it's been amazing really. 

[00:19:35] Rebecca: Do you feel like you have a really good social support network now?

[00:19:37] Diane: I do, I really put in the effort the past couple of years, I was like, okay, let's make some friends, let's go to all these events. Let's meet people, let's have lunches. Let's just, let's just get together a lot. And I have some really solid friendships now... 

[00:19:51] Rebecca: Do you find that they're mostly expats like yourself, or are they Thai people that you're getting to spend most of your time with?

[00:19:57] Diane: Most of my friends are expats. Um,[00:20:00] I don't have too many Thai friends. It's mainly expat friends.

[00:20:04] Rebecca: I mean, it makes sense. Expats tend to be drawn to each other because you're all the kind of person that's willing to uproot and completely change your life, and that is a, it's a special community. 

[00:20:16] Diane: It's a lot of bonding in that way. And like, what are we doing? Like, how are we still here? Like, what does this even mean? What are we doing in the future? Are, am I gonna keep living here? So many questions every day.

[00:20:27] Rebecca: So what would you like to leave our listeners with today? 

[00:20:32] Diane: Hmm. Man. I just wanna say that if you want to go live in a foreign country and you feel really, really drawn to it, do your research and then just go for it. You don't really know what you're gonna walk into, what you're gonna come into, and that's fine. I think that's just part of the journey. But stay open and then find community and have fun. Try it out for as long as you like and as long as you can. If you don't like it, you can [00:21:00] always go home.

[00:21:01] Rebecca: It doesn't have to be forever. Yeah.

 So I'd like to ask one more question related to what you do for a living with grief support. Um, I know that there are people who will make really big life transitions after a big loss, right? Could be a breakup, could be a divorce, could be somebody's death.

Given the intersection of travel and your work, do you have any advice for somebody going through a big loss right now and they're thinking, you know, maybe I just wanna run away. 

[00:21:29] Diane: Hmm. Actually something did happen last year with a family member that passed away and I couldn't attend their funeral. Like if you decide to move away, you have to keep that in mind, like, life is just gonna happen. You can't... if you decide to physically be at a distance, you don't know when things are gonna happen.... it's just life. But mentally just know that's a possibility that there will be that physical distance and you might miss things like that. 

 And it's not even just loss. You also miss birthdays, you miss people growing [00:22:00] up. Like I have nieces I have not met yet that are like four or five years old. There are things like this that you miss, but it's just kind of a part of life. So to not beat yourself up over that. 

As far as like the travel aspect of it and going to escape after a loss that you've encountered. I mean, sometimes people need that for a certain period of time, like something similar to eat, pray, love, where she had a divorce and then she. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, maybe it just needs something like that, and it doesn't have to be forever, but if you feel that you do need to travel to process things, like go for it. Because I've heard different stories of how it's really helped people, and I love that. 

[00:22:43] Rebecca: So there's, there's no one answer. There's no one path. And if you're called to do it, just do it. 

[00:22:48] Diane: Do it. Go for it. Nothing to lose.

[00:22:52] Rebecca: How did you go from teaching English to helping people with their grief and support? 

[00:22:59] Diane: So [00:23:00] my mom passed away a really long time ago, and then a few years ago I was having like chest issues, I was having issues with breathing I just didn't know what was happening with my body. I was like, okay, time to try the holistic approach. 

And then I learned from an Ayurvedic doctor that it was unprocessed grief and I learned so much about myself, so much about moving through grief and how when you really understand it and you really let yourself put down your walls and you just really, I don't wanna say let it consume you, cuz it doesn't have to be like that, but you just let it really move through you and move out you just learn so much and then you drop a lot and then you just feel lighter. 

Then last year I was teaching a lot and getting kind of burnt out and it just hit me. I was like, it's business time. What do I, what am I waiting for? I'd started off with some workshops and just seeing what it would look like in a professional sense, like getting paid for doing it, having resources. I'm just like, this is really, this is really awesome. I wanna keep doing it. So yeah, that's how it [00:24:00] happened just from September of last year till now. I've been trotting away at it.

[00:24:04] Rebecca: That's really cool. 

[00:24:05] Diane: Thank you.

[00:24:06] Rebecca: Thank you so much for giving me your time. 

[00:24:08] Diane: Thank you for having me. This was really awesome.

[00:24:11] Rebecca: If people wanted to find you, where can they find you?

[00:24:14] Diane: So, um, I think the easiest way to reach me I have my link tree which has my Instagram, it has my Facebook, it has resources, and my link tree is linktr.ee/dianenn. And then if you want to email me, my email is, sweetenedsoul123@gmail.com. Hmm, I'm just gonna spell this out. It is S W E E T E N E D S O U L. And then the numbers 1 2 3 at gmail.com. 

[00:24:54] Rebecca: And of course that'll be in the show notes for anybody who wants to go see that.

Well, that is the end of our conversation today to our listeners. I hope you enjoyed this episode of creating your Happy Place and that you feel a little bit more encouraged, empowered, and excited to make your home your happy place, even if that means relocating to another part of the world.

If you're feeling less than happy in your home, remember that my book, Happy Starts At Home, is here as a resource for you. It's full of exercises to help you figure out how your home could work a little bit better for you, and support the values you hold and the lifestyle you want to live.

That's it for this episode of Creating Your Happy Place. Until next time.