Leaving Canada at 26 and returning at 42; seeing one's country more clearly from abroad.
Where it comes up 5
Within this theme 28
Concepts 1
- Intergenerational Patterns
Patterns, beliefs and shame passed down a family line. Nev went to the Balkans to understand hers, and says shadow work includes these inherited layers.
Books 2
- Abandoning a Cat
Murakami's autobiographical essay about his father, published in The New Yorker. Salih recounts the story of the family abandoning a cat at the beach only to find it home before them, and…
- Going to Canada
The first story in Grant's collection, about returning from Budapest to Canada, family trauma, and an old friend who finds the narrator's blunt observations off-putting. Tamir reads it as…
People 4
- Nevena
Nevena (Nev), Instagram @iamnevenag, is a Toronto-raised shadow worker and guide of Serbian/Balkan descent who works mostly with women. She combines shadow work with nervous-system…
- Ambalal Patel
Sheela's father, who took her to hear Bhagwan's discourse because he believed that if this man lived long enough he would be 'the second Buddha'. He read Kahlil Gibran to her on his lap and…
- Sheela's mother
Mother of six children whom Sheela never once saw with a serious face; Sheela says her own joyful disposition comes from her. It was a visit to her mother after an eye operation that…
- James Joyce
Irish author of Ulysses. Grant is not a fan but admires his aim of exposing his frustration with his own country, which he wants to do for Canada.
Quotes 1
Insights 3
- Wisdom sticks when delivered with love
What stayed with Sheela was not the Gibran text but her father reading it with affection, and teaching his children the stars. As Tamir puts it, the teaching mattered because it came from a…
- Your roots explain inherited patterns
Immigrants and their children can lose touch with the people who came before them, and with it the source of the patterns and shame they carry. Living in her ancestral culture let Nev…
- Distance clarifies your homeland
Living abroad for years makes a country's faults clearer. Like Joyce with Ireland, Grant wants to write about Canada from that vantage.
Practices 2
- Visit your ancestral homeland
For anyone who wants to know themselves at the root, spend time in the land and culture of your ancestors to understand the patterns, beliefs and shame you inherited. Nev says it isn't…
- Teach children a new star each night
On summer nights Sheela's father had the family sleep outside in the garden and helped the children find a new star in the sky every day. She remembers it as teaching delivered through love…
Stories 13
- Immigrant child discovering her roots
Nev's parents moved to Toronto in 1996, when she was nine months old, and she grew up Canadian with only brief summer trips to the Balkans. Living there, she came to understand her father's…
- From Lisbon to Budapest at 26
At 26 Grant left Canada and travelled by car and train from Lisbon, which he expected to be his home, all the way to Budapest, where he stayed. He returned at 42 and plans two…
- Grandfather's two pieces of advice
Colin's father died when he was two, and his grandfather looked after him until he was about nine. On a walk shortly before he died, his grandfather stopped and told him: don't ever grow…
- Leaving Canada on a full-body impulse
Soon after meeting Tamir, Nev had a 'full-body knowing' that she could no longer live in Canada, though she had few logical reasons. With no expectations, she packed up and went to the…
- Meeting Bhagwan through her father
Sheela wasn't looking for spirituality and 'didn't even know what it meant'. Her father asked her to come with him to Bhagwan's discourse because he believed that if this man lived long…
- Abandoning the cat at the beach
Salih relates Murakami's memoir of his father: the family left their cat at the beach, drove home, and found the cat already waiting there, inexplicably. Salih takes this as Murakami's real…
- Bullied without a dad
Colin was bullied mercilessly as a child, picked on, beaten up, and mocked even for not having a father. That pushed him into boxing. He says it made him stronger, not weaker.
- Gibran on papa's lap, stars in the garden
At five, Sheela sat on her father's lap while he read her Kahlil Gibran, which she didn't understand but felt as affection. In summer the family slept outside in the garden, and every night…
- Growing up Serbian Orthodox and strict
Nev grew up in a strict Balkan family in the Serbian Orthodox faith, which gave her a lot of shame. She notes that her clients from strict religious homes now mostly call themselves…
- Stepfather's Apple shares
Colin's late stepfather joked that Apple would 'come knock on my coffin' to tell him the stock was finally up. Colin uses it to show that small investors trust what they invest in, and lose…
- Bureaucracy in British Columbia
In BC the drinking age is 19, yet signs demand ID if you look under 35, nearly twice the legal age. Grant uses this to explain why it's hard to love Canada with all its bureaucracy.
- Mother of six monsters, never serious
Sheela's mother raised six children ('all monsters, one is talking to you'), yet Sheela never saw her with a serious face. Sheela's eye doctor used to say that when her mother walked in…
- Tamir's ever-positive 77-year-old father
Tamir sees Sheela's optimism in his father, about to turn 78, who had a very difficult childhood and life but was always positive and having fun, never depressed or dwelling on the past…
Places 2
- Canada
Grant's home country; on returning after 16 years he finds it bureaucratic, overly agreeable and hard to love, and plans a memoir about it.
- Balkans
Nev's ancestral homeland. She went there on impulse and spent 11 months uncovering her lineage, its history of war, oppression and sexual shame, and her own inherited patterns.