So we're going to try to do it again.

This is a new series that I'm creating all about things I'm honestly filling the gaps in the gaps here because I look back at my old videos and I'm like, oh my God, who is that girl?

There was a girl that was, that I recognized that felt fear of sharing the in depth moments of living here, moving abroad, life lessons, things like that.

I'd like to touch on past experiences, like toxic jobs or relationships and the things that I've learned in my twenties living here abroad.

But this can also apply to you guys who are living at home as well.

That's kind of the idea of this whole entire thing, but also addressing your questions and things like that.

I don't actually have tea in my hands, but I'm sure I will at some point when I'm talking, I like to sit on my floor and talk.

So we're just going to make this a very casual thing.

But this whole series is about spilling the tea of, you know, just life and living abroad here in general.

I'm not gonna touch on topics that you can easily google like top five places to move in Japan or top things to do in Japan in the summer because that's so overdone.

It's, I'm bored with it, but I want to talk about the things that I've experienced here that a lot of people aren't discussing when I first moved to Japan.

The one thing that I noticed the most is that a lot of the noise, the conditioning, the influence of close family and friends was silenced and that was where I really subconsciously felt.

I didn't know who I was and I didn't know myself, I didn't know what I believed in, I didn't know if this was the right thing to do.

I had a lot of guilt, I had a lot of struggles internally when I first moved here and I think that was a challenge that I did not expect to have because when I first moved out here, I was like, oh my gosh, so exciting.

I kind of felt like it was a vacation or a long vacation, I was excited to travel.

I was excited to meet new people, but when I first came here, it was like a clean slate.

I was like starting over, it felt very quiet in my mind.

I think you would expect to think, oh my God, you'd have so much stuff running through your head, so many things running through your mind.

But I didn't have that, I felt like I was starting over, but I wasn't starting over and that was something that I didn't know in the beginning.

I think a lot of people are confused with that right now when you do move to another city or you move to another country, it's not about starting over, it's about closing one chapter and beginning another at the time, I didn't know that I kept thinking oh I have a clean slate like starting over.

I don't have any friends dinner.

But the truth is I still had contact with my friends back home and my family and things like that but at the same time was away from all of that comfort right?

And I think a lot of people are excited to move here and they don't realize how uncomfortable it is to move to another country no matter how prepared you are.

I felt very isolated.

I felt like I had to adapt to this whole new life.

It wasn't just studying abroad this time I didn't know when I was going to go home, I thought that I was going to stay there for stay here for a year and then go back home and I never did.

I came here specifically to teach english.

I have a degree in education and a minor in english as a second language.

So I came here for that purpose.

A lot of people don't, again no shame in that sometimes that's the only option for people to even get here and to move abroad and to experience this country which is totally fine.

No shame but I specifically came here because that was the goal is to teach english and I was an assistant E.

S.

L.

Teacher in the States.

So I had a lot of like experience under my belt.

I had certifications, all of those things and my passion was teaching so I had no desire to get a corporate job ever.

Um here in Japan that was not what I wanted to be, was a businesswoman in Japan, I just wanted to teach, I wanted to inspire, I wanted to learn about the education systems here so I came here and I thought that's what I wanted to do but as I went along In this life and as technology started to grow and adapt and as social media started to rise I started to find more happiness and creativity in social media and creating on social media and so I started to learn how to edit and film and my parents used to film me from the time we were babies to age 13 basically.

And so they were like the O.

G.

Vloggers of the family.

And so I was inspired by them to bring a camera over to Japan and start filming originally just for my family.

But as Youtube started to become more popular I started posting stuff there.

Um and so over time things changed.

I thought that I wanted to be a teacher and when I decided to change my mind everyone was so shocked.

So here's the thing when you move to another country, move to another city when you're away from family and even when you're in college moving to a dorm and you're not near your family, you're a little bit out of your comfort zone.

It's a new chapter right?

You're still being influenced by a lot of people.

I wasn't that far away from my family.

So I went home like every other weekend.

Um so I was still kind of like in my comfort space, but when you move on the other side of the world is a whole new thing and I felt like the one thing that Japan taught me when I came over here and this was the most unexpected lesson that I learned growing up here in my twenties, I moved when I was 23.

I'm now turning 32 but throughout my twenties I learned so many things about who I truly am and what my beliefs are, what my thoughts are and I learned how to build the skill of self leadership and stop um finding validation and other people because back home I would always ask my family should I do this or should I do that?

I would always need that self validation or I would always need that external validation of self validation.

That external validation, I didn't know how to self validate.

So that was something that Japan unexpectedly taught me was to learn how to create my own path.

And that was something that I really had to wake up to and a lot of people don't wake up to when they come here saying this comfort zone, they don't ask themselves what they truly want, what they want to do, who they want to be, how they want to do certain things, how they want to be and so we stay stuck, we stay in this version of ourselves that needs to grow right and a lot of the times we're afraid we're going to lose people if we change our minds if we um decided to go a different path, but that's all part of the human growth and process right?

Is that you outgrow certain people as you outgrow versions of yourself and I think Japan taught me that the most is how to become the most honest true version of me and I see that progress in myself when I talk to family back home, I see that shift in my mindset um and how strong I've become and how resilient I've become and the ability to change allow myself to change my mind and to give up on things here, A lot of people think giving up is failure and that's not what it is, it's giving, giving yourself permission to give up on things to do other things is self leadership, like you're allowing yourself to evolve and to change in the shift.

That's incredible.

And again Japan taught me that and I think that was something that was so unexpected going through the heartbreaks, going through the setbacks um all the happy moments, all of those moments in my life here alone, learning how to adapt um in a place that feels so isolated sometimes um was a big challenge for me and a lot of people give up, a lot of people get scared and they can't do it and so what I really want to encourage you guys to do, if you ever were to move to another city or if you ever were to move to another country, really listen to yourself and find that inner voice because again, when I first moved here, everything was so quiet, I didn't really have a voice, I didn't have that inner voice and now I found that and I've been able to use that as a guide to create the life that I want right, it takes a lot of awareness and self understanding in order to achieve this, but Japan was able to push me and living here was able to push me in that direction and answer that call and a lot of people don't answer the call so they kind of again stay in that comfort zone, they don't know what they really, truly want, they start to feel bitter about the things that are happening in their life, not just here, but like anywhere in the world, there was someone in my instagram comments that was saying like I got a degree in business and I got a degree in this and but I don't really want to do that and um I am so inspired by you because you've been able to shift so much and change so much, I don't do anything with my degree now.

But the thing is all of the things that happen in your life are skills that you will use later in life are lessons that you will use later in life.

So, me being a teacher, allowed me to become a better coach and me being an influencer and creating on social media and online taught me self confidence, it taught me how to work with other people, it taught me how to express myself.

And I think all of these little things in your life that you've acquired through other experiences, create the experience that you were living now.

And so that was the biggest lesson that I learned over here was how to become who, how to un become who I am I was so that I can become who I truly am and you don't have to move abroad to learn this, but it's going to be a lot harder when you're in your comfort zone and when you're around people that you've been around all your life, Whereas if you were to just up and move and start a new chapter for yourself, you're kind of thrusting yourself out into this society and learning how to find your own way and find your own path and I've been through it all.

I've been through again, the setbacks and the hardships and things like that and they weren't, it wasn't always rainbows and unicorns living here.

100% nobody talks about these things.

And again, that's what led me to create my older series Girl abroad to share with you these moments that weren't always perfect, but I think Japan really accelerated that self growth and that human growth because I was kind of forced into it, right?

I feel like if you're in and around people that you know very well and you're relying on other people and looking for external validation all the time, it's going to be hard for you to really grow quickly and to become that true self at a faster rate if that makes sense.

I don't know if that made sense.

This is what I wanted to create this series for sharing these experiences that I've had in my twenties living in another country, but also sharing the more deeper inner work that I had to do to get to where I'm at today in the best life ever.

Like I'm so grateful for everything that I have and um I'm happy that I made the decision to do what I'm doing today and to embrace that self leadership and knowledge that I have to create what I have today.

I know I've lost a lot of subscribers but wow am I so happy about it only want people that have been supportive, supportive of my journey and I only want people who can see the imperfections as something that is strength and you want those types of people to surround you as well in life, in real life and online.

But this series is strictly just about everything that all the gaps that I wanted to fill in with my older series Girl abroad, I wanted to be in these chats with you.

And so again, I'm going to share the deeper, the deeper moments of my life living here and what's to come in the future and um what I didn't address or didn't felt afraid to talk about.

I want that to be in this series.

I hope you enjoyed this video.

I don't know if it was as good as the first time that I filmed it, but nonetheless, I think it was a lot shorter and I want to keep these pretty short.

So thanks for listening and I will see you in the next video.