Expats Like Us
A podcast series exploring life as a U.S. Expat in Mexico. Topics include preparing to move to a new country, navigating your new home and finding your passion as a retiree.
Expats Like Us
Author and Therapist Ed Risling: Relationships in Retirement
Embark on an enlightening adventure with Bob Bosse and special guest Ed Risling, and discover the secrets to a seamless transition into expat life. Together, we delve into the psychological nuances of uprooting and settling into the vibrant communities of Mexico, unraveling the tapestry of cultural adaptation with an expert's eye. Ed, an accomplished clinical psychotherapist and author, brings a wealth of knowledge on the importance of attitude and curiosity for couples ready to make the leap. His personal stories intertwine professional expertise with a passion for diving, illustrating the harmony between work and leisure made possible through modern technology.
This episode isn't just about geographic change; it's a treasure trove of strategies for enriching relationships in any setting. We dissect the wisdom contained within Ed's book, "Fully Half Committed: Conversation Starters for Romantic Relationships," sharing pearls of insight on fostering deep connections through intentional actions and constructive communication. Learn how to manage frustration, inject playfulness into your routine, and use simple yet profound mechanisms like the symbolic jelly bean to repair and strengthen your bond. Whether you're an expat or a couple seeking growth, join us for a candid heart-to-heart that promises to resonate with the adventurer in every listener.
We are incredibly thankful for engagement and stories from our listeners, who have found their own sense of 'home' across the globe. Stay tuned as we continue to share the wisdom and wanderlust of those who've charted their unique international courses. We'd love to hear your comments and questions. Email them to expatslikeus@gmail.com
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I think actually the most important thing, particularly in moving to another culture, another country, is to be aware of the attitude you bring to the move. If you're expecting to experience the world in the same way you did at home, you're going to be disappointed.
Bob:Welcome to Xpats Like Us, a co-production with me, vita Margarita, exploring the world of US expat life in Mexico. In each episode, we'll meet new people and hear their stories. We'll also learn more about expat life and get a few tips on everything from making your move to settling in, to living your dreams and, most of all, having fun. Let's dive in. Welcome to Xpats Like Us. I'm your host, bob Bussey. My wife Sherry and I sold most of our possessions and moved, along with our dog, to Mexico in the summer of 2021. Today I'm thrilled to be talking with Ed Risling. Mr Risling is a registered clinical psychotherapist, a psychiatric nurse and holds a degree in social work. He lives in practices in Saskatoon, canada, where he lives part of the year and, along with his wife, glenda, spends his winter months in Mexico. Mr Risling is co-author of Fully Half Committed Conversation Starters for Romantic Relationships. Mr Risling is here to share his insights on relationships, especially in times of change, for example, adapting to retirement and to a new life in a new country. He will share some insight and perhaps some advice about things to consider beyond simply quitting your full-time job and packing up and moving. Hello, ed Risling, and welcome to Xpats Like Us.
Ed :Thank you very much.
Bob:So what inspired you to get into social work as a profession?
Ed :Well, I actually considered myself to be an accidental therapist. I had gotten a job working in a psychiatric institution and discovered I liked it. I had no intention of staying there at the time, but I met my ex-wife who was a psychiatric nurse and decided I'd rather have sex than consider another career. And I found I discovered I really liked it.
Bob:So tell us about your practice.
Ed :Well, I started private work in 1985. Prior to that I'd worked in youth psychiatry, a maximum security prison system acute care psychiatry around the country. Decided I didn't like working for other folks so I just opened my own practice and I've been going since then.
Bob:And you enjoy your practice. You plan on continuing your practice, for you're not retired. Right Is what I'm getting at.
Ed :No, I've cut back on my hours. I've had conversation with my wife and I've told her I would consider the possibility that I might maybe retire when I'm 75.
Bob:Okay, maybe Right, okay. And you and your wife come down to Mexico every winter. That's how I know you and have met you in Acomal, where we live. So what attracts you to come down here?
Ed :First of all, the weather I mean living in Northern Canada is a bit of an issue come snow time. I'm also a diver, so living here on the Caribbean allows me to do diving and I fell in love with the community.
Bob:How have you adapted your practice to living in a foreign country?
Ed :I still continue to see clients at home. Thanks to Zoom and virtual connections, I do quite a bit of work. I work two days a week here in Mexico on the computer working with clients. The other thing that's happened since I've published is that I end up seeing people from all over the world Other parts of Canada, costa Rica, united States and Australia.
Bob:So you've been able to expand your practice by the use of technology and go diving when you want to go, and that's exactly right. So one of the things that we talk about on this podcast is adapting to making a move. I think that, like in my case, when I decided, you know, we'd vacationed here for a long time and decided we wanted to move but I don't know that we thought it through that much, you know, beyond, just moving and getting here was kind of our goal.
Ed :I think actually the most important thing, particularly in moving to another culture, another country, is to be aware of the attitude you bring to the move. If you're expecting to experience the world in the same way you did at home, you're going to be disappointed. And if you bring in an attitude of curiosity and a willingness to adapt to where you live, the different norms, the different expectations, it makes it much easier. And so I think, primarily, attitude is what's going to generate success.
Bob:How can a couple judge if they're ready to make a move of such?
Ed :magnitude? That's a difficult question to answer, partly because many people won't know until they actually are. It's like trial by fire, and if you are adaptable in other circumstances, you're likely to be adaptable in moving to another country.
Bob:That makes a lot of sense, yeah.
Ed :If you're rigid at home, you're likely going to be rigid here.
Bob:And I know you know, I've met people here that they come down here and they stay for a little while. And you know, with every intention of staying here and living, you know, in a new country, and they just it's for some reason they don't adapt, they're maybe not ready to adapt to, Because there's a lot of things to adapt to when you move to a new country.
Ed :Absolutely. I mean and language is only part of it People in Mexico think differently than people in Canada or the United States do, and they process differently. I've had to learn, for example, to develop a little more patience than what I'm used to.
Bob:Right. I think a lot of us can agree with that.
Ed :Right, and my children are telling me that it's God's intention in this lifetime for me to become a little more patient. So that's been somewhat difficult at times.
Bob:Okay. So yeah, that's, but that's a good thing. You know, I feel like I'm much more patient than I at once was, because you have to be.
Ed :Yes.
Bob:You have no other option, yes, other than move back to where you came from.
Ed :Exactly true, and I think you need to be somewhat comfortable with taking risks, because with their, when there's new demands on you, you're going to feel a little uneasy at times and you have to be able to handle that.
Bob:What are some of the things that couples should maybe consider if they're thinking about making that move but really haven't thought about all of this and the cultural shift and the change they're going to go through? What are some things that they should be thinking about that maybe they're not?
Ed :Well, you mentioned at the beginning of this interview that you had been down on vacation a number of times, and so if somebody were to consider moving to another country, or I would certainly recommend spending some time on vacation extended period six weeks, two months to sort of immerse themselves in where they're considering they might stay and have some serious discussions about what they like and don't like.
Bob:Right, and you know, one of the things that other people have said on this podcast is don't just, if you're doing that, don't just go to an all inclusive resort, because that gives you no indication of what life is going to be like.
Ed :Exactly. I think part of our experience has been using Airbnb, so we would rent a house or a place and stay there for a couple of weeks or a month and we would try different areas. So we spent time on the West Coast and Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan. We spent time in Brazil and Portugal and when we bought here, we had already vacationed a lot in different parts of the world and what we knew is that we wanted to escape Canada in the wintertime. So that was where we started that was the primary goal.
Bob:Right Right, and that's a good point. Like with Airbnb that forces you to go grocery shopping to find transportation Right, all of the, it's a small little getting your feet wet in your new country, potential new country.
Ed :Yeah, and some of the places we discovered we needed to adapt were a surprise to us. My wife loves to cook and all of a sudden she can't get the spices that she's used to. The vegetables are a little different, the fruit's much different.
Bob:That's a common thing. People talk about that a lot. So if people don't adapt, what psychologically are some of the consequences that they might suffer or experience?
Ed :The most common one would be a sense of frustration, then also anxiety, because where they have their feet firmly planted on the ground, all of a sudden it feels a little shaky and they may have to deal with anxiety. One of the skills I think that's really essential, both for making your relationship work and for making your life work in a new area, is the ability to self soothe.
Bob:Okay, explain what that is.
Ed :Well, once I experience some activation in my nervous system, my body becomes aroused. I need to be willing to take responsibility to calm myself down rather than make a demand on the environment. So sometimes that environment is my wife, and I want her to behave differently. Sometimes the environment is somebody at a grocery store that I'm trying to communicate with who doesn't speak English, and so I need to have developed that ability to calm down my own nervous system.
Bob:Okay, that makes sense. So how do you begin to do that?
Ed :Well, there's a number of little tricks that you can use. The first and most important one is that I'll take responsibility rather than make the demand on other artists. Okay, this is my issue. One of the things that I might do is write my name with my bomb. So what happens when I become cancer activated? I become a tight ass and I squeeze through the pelvis, which puts pressure up against the gut, the diaphragm, and holds breathing to the top part of the chest. So you get kind of an anxiety breathing going on, like if I relax my pelvis so, which I do by writing my name with my bomb, micro movements, you don't have to get really gross about it.
Bob:It doesn't have to be a whole production, a whole dance in the grocery store.
Ed :Right, but the idea is to relax the pelvic floor so that you begin to breathe deeper without resistance from your body. So that's one trick. The other, of course, is what kind of exercise I do. If I keep myself active, it's easier to relax. I can go for a walk. If I'm frustrated in the store, I need to give myself permission to walk away. Just walk away with the intention to calm down.
Bob:Right, right, remove yourself from the situation if you can, as much as possible. Right, yeah, okay, that's a really good piece of advice that you just give there. I wish more people would do that, because I see people get frustrated all the time and with exactly those sort of things.
Ed :Yeah, if you may know that, lisa Divine Put� the book salon director I was at saw you. I take that responsibility to calm myself down. The other thing is that I become easier for other people to be around and they're becoming less reactive to me.
Bob:Right, so it creates its own environment.
Ed :Exactly right.
Bob:Yeah.
Ed :I've heard forever I mean it's fairly common adages you get back what you give out. So if I can bring my own system down into a relaxed state, people are likely to follow my experience rather than me following theirs.
Bob:Right, absolutely. Oh, that's a great piece of advice for when you start feeling frustrated. So you've written a book fully, half committed, right.
Ed :I said earlier that I consider myself an accidental therapist. I'm also a bit of a reluctant author, I don't like writing, but I've been doing couples counseling now for 50 years and one of the things that I've noticed is that many relationships, if not most, are accidental, so that people fall in love, they end up married. Life happens and we end up reacting to that. We react to the circumstance, we react to each other and then we react to the reactions and all of a sudden we're going how the hell did we get here? This isn't where I wanted to be. What you can do is actually decide intentionally to be married, and I define marriage as an emotionally committed relationship, so that I can have a discussion with my wife about okay, what is it that I want to create here? And then I can evaluate myself on have I behaved this last week in a way that's consistent with what I want to create? And then you break it down to what do I want to create spiritually in my marriage? What do I want to create financially, sexually parenting, how do I want to retire? And have those discussions Then we can also make decisions about okay, when we run into difficulty with each other, how do we do repair? That's set up a mechanism for fixing it, one of the things I might do if I have a fight with my wife. I put a jelly bean on her pillow. Now I may still be angry with her, but the jelly bean is a communication that I'm in and she'll look for that jelly bean if we have a fight. If I'm really mad, I'll put a black one there.
Bob:It's all in the symbolism.
Ed :Or I want playfulness in my marriage, so I make sure I do something every day that's playful. It might be grabbing her dancing, it might be how we have sex, it might be how I tease her, but I make sure I do something with her every day that's playful.
Bob:So I've read your book and it's 45 chapters. They're short, but tell me what the intention is behind having those short chapters with the discussion questions.
Ed :Thank you. We deliberately made it really short chapters. I consider it to be a shitter book, which means that I wanted it to be in the bathroom. People sit down, do their business, they can read a chapter and they can open the book anywhere. Each chapter stand alone, and then at the end of each chapter there's a couple of questions. To sit down with your partner and say what do you think about this? One of the chapters, for example, is that nothing is personal. We always take things personally that aren't about us. The only thing that's personal is how we behave, and at the end of the chapter there's okay, how do you take things personally? How do you see me take things personally? And you can get into a discussion about whatever the chapter is about and not only have conversations, make connection, but perhaps make some changes.
Bob:So, yeah, what do you hope that people take away from your book? If they'd sit down and they go 45 days in the bathroom and they do this and they follow through, how do you hope that changes their life?
Ed :Well, what I'd like to see people do is to bring into awareness some of the ways that we behave sort of automatically, and to consider how we're actually doing the relationship with each other and then decide okay, on purpose this is what I want to do and even to read the chapter and discover why we're already doing that you know, we got this one nailed and to celebrate that, in terms of how we make connection, lots of people do repair really well already. That's how they get to stay married.
Bob:See, for me reading that, my wife read it too. We've been married so long you start to get just on automatic pilot and you don't think about these things Exactly. You know, and it's a good reminder, that there are all these different aspects to being in a committed relationship.
Ed :Right. You know, and we picked the title fully half committed. The colleague that I wrote it with and I were having a discussion and we'd been noticing over the years that people seem less committed now. Then they used to be. So in terms of our practice, people were splitting up for not so serious reasons as they used to. I worked with one couple, for example, who they decided to split because she wanted to dance and he didn't like dancing, and for them that was real.
Bob:You would think you'd be able to overcome that, or, you know, to some of us that sounds like a really shallow, yeah, a reason, you know, but yeah.
Ed :Yeah, so and our experiences that with people younger than us like I say, I've been doing this for 50 years they're less committed than what we used to be. I don't think they go in with the intention of a lifetime together all the time anymore.
Bob:Right. What do you think caused that in society? Our grandparents would be married, no matter what Right I mean. Divorce or splitting up was, in my mind, a very rare thing 50 years ago, 60 years ago.
Ed :Right. Well, my parents have been married for 73 years now. I think part of it's the demands socially, and I think lots of people back then stayed married because they didn't have the choice to leave. They were financially really dependent on each other in a way that people aren't right now. One of our chapters is about rewriting the marital vows. Our contention is that the traditional ones fall short. Even in rewriting the commitment we're making to one another I think people can do this even after they've been together for a long time is re-come back to the okay. What are we committed to here? Once we have that in mind that framework again, we can evaluate ourselves. So I'm behaving consistently with what I've committed to. With you, that might be I committed to learn dancing. Whatever it is that's really important.
Bob:Okay, the book is called Fully Half Committed and we're talking with Ed Ristling. He's the co-author of this book. So where can people find your book?
Ed :It's on audio, it's on amazoncom andca, it's on Kobo Books and you can go to your book local bookstore and have it brought in if that's what you would like.
Bob:One last question If you had a list of top things that couples should do or consider in terms of their relationship when making a big move like becoming an expat in Mexico, what would those tips be?
Ed :To really be clear with each other about what your expectations are. You have some discussions about how it's going to impact relationship, where it might put strength, where you can see yourself getting into conflict, and again to commit to the attitude that you're going to take with each other in making the move and how you're going to support each other in a positive attitude.
Bob:Okay, thank you, ed, for being with us today on Xpats Like Us.
Ed :My pleasure. Thank you very much.
Bob:Bob, in each episode of Xpats Like Us, we're going to teach you a new Mexican slang word. This is something you may not find in your phrase book or your online Spanish class or your Spanish app or wherever you're learning your Spanish. Instead, this is a term used primarily by Mexican Spanish speakers. Today's word is A was. A was, a was.
Ed :A was. It literally translates to water, but it also is watch out, look out, a was.
Bob:I've been in a car. Watch out, there's a car coming. Okay, thank you, erika Kowalski. From Me, vita Margarita. That's your Mexican slang word of the week. We'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on today's topic. Just look up Xpats. Like Us on Facebook or send us an email at xpatslikeus at gmailcom. You can also see videos of interviews and all sorts of fun content on our YouTube, facebook and Instagram pages. Follow, like, subscribe and leave us a review. Thank you to our guest, ed Risling. Thanks also to our co-producers. From Me, vita Margarita. Most of all, thank you for tuning in to Xpats. Like Us and thank you for interacting with us on social media. Next time, we'll bring you more first hand information about your international move. Until then, remember, our homes are not defined by geography or one particular location, but by memories, events, people and places that span the globe.
