WOANDERS

Five months ago, when this postcard caught my eye in a small bookstore in Bad Tölz, I had no idea how much it would come to resonate with me.

„Woanders ist es auch nicht besser.“ ("It is not any better elsewhere.")

Postcard from Bad Tölz, Buchhandlung Winzerer

I was deeply touched by it, although I didn’t yet fully understand why.

Since moving to Germany, I have been observing myself and other expat stories with great interest. As a therapist and coach, I not only follow my clients’ lives with awareness, but I also frequently reflect on my own feelings and on how this new expat life shapes my identity.

The success of emigration depends on countless factors: age, cultural distance, financial situation, family structure, or whether the move is temporary or permanent. But beyond all these practical circumstances, there is one factor that may make the biggest difference of all: the reason why someone leaves their homeland.

Over the past 3.5 years, I’ve answered the question “Why do you live in Munich?” mostly with confusion. I created both a short, diplomatic answer and a longer, more honest and self-disclosing one.

Looking at this postcard now, I realize that the difference lies in the freedom of choice.

If I live abroad because I didn’t feel well in my own country, then it won’t feel right anywhere else either. „Woanders ist es auch nicht besser.“

But if I choose to live abroad - even though I could be happy in my home country - then it becomes a real choice.

To explore this process more deeply, I turned to the Self-Functions Theory from Gestalt therapy: Impulse, Personality, Ego Functions (Perls, F., Goodman, P., From, I. Hostrup, H.).

Skottun, G. & Krüger, Å. (2022). Gestalt Therapy Practice

1. IMPULSE function is driven by our needs and desires.

After moving to Germany, I was desperately longing to belong in Munich. It became my goal, and I did everything I could to achieve it. I attended intensive language courses, participated in networking events, said yes to business meetings regardless of how interesting they seemed, and put enormous effort into making new friends.

But the harder I tried, the more difficult it became. I was exhausted from constantly searching for my new well-being - while simultaneously trying to build a new professional and personal identity.

2. PERSONALITY function is shaped by our history and by who we really are.

In my expat life, I often perceived myself as an Eastern-European who had started a completely new life from scratch and struggled as a beginner. My identity as a Hungarian immigrant and not-yet-recognized professional had quietly become a burden over the years.

I envied the fruitful business partnerships of local consultants, while I felt ashamed of speaking imperfect German in conversations. I was not proud of myself, and this feeling kept me stuck.

Even though I had the tools, knowledge, and experience, I lacked confidence and self-belief to successfully transfer my capabilities into a new country and culture.

3. EGO function is what we decide to do, based on our evaluated choices.

I was stuck - even paralyzed - in the pursuit of my new identity. But through my relatively developed self-awareness, I sensed that I should not force myself to move forward. I understood that sometimes it is okay to stay with our blockages and simply observe them.

In practice, this meant choosing not to act. I decided to wait and trust the process.

After the Hungarian elections in April, I finally understood why. Since then, friends from both Budapest and Munich have repeatedly asked whether we would move back home. And they are on the right track: the hope for a new era in Hungary carried a symbolic meaning for me on a deeply personal level, and something liberating emerged within me.

It marked a shift in how I relate to Hungary - my homeland, where I come from.

I had been living abroad because I didn’t feel well in my own country. But now, as I no longer feel that I have to live elsewhere, living abroad has become my free choice.

I choose to live in Munich - not because I have to, but because I want to.

This realization recalled a sentence my German teacher once said to me when I was struggling to find my place here:

“Du musst dich neu erfinden.” (“You have to reinvent yourself.”)

And that was the moment his words finally landed.

The postcard with my "kokárda", the symbol of Hungarian freedom