Sin Señal
Hello all and welcome back to the blog!
When I last wrote I had just gotten to Spain after a marvelous, albeit interesting, journey in Morocco, ending my 2 months in Africa. Next up was Valencia, Spain! I have to say as soon as my feet touched European and Spanish soil I already knew things were going to be different, but not in the ways I expected.
Africa was a good place for me to start this journey because it was a continent that was unknown to me and frankly I was most apprehensive about there. It was a classic case of fearing the unknown and I let that be my mindset going into South Africa and Morocco. And thankfully my fears were squashed in both places, but they are both countries that I do not see myself living in long-term. Spain on the other hand though, I saw myself there from the beginning. My expectations were high going into Spain.
Expectations
“When you have expectations you are setting yourself up for disappointment.” Ryan Reynolds
Expectations are a tricky beast, especially when on Remote Year. I heard from countless Remote Year staff, participants (known as remotes) and graduated remotes (known as citizens) to go into every situation on Remote Year without any expectations, and by in large I think that theory worked in Africa. Spain on the other hand though I subconsciously made a list of expectations long before I even got there.
A little background on me I have traveled throughout Western Europe rather extensively, most of which was when I studied abroad in Rome, Italy in 2008 and used that as a base to visit over a dozen countries in 5 months. I speak conversational French and Italian (albeit neither get used very much, so I’m a bit rusty) and I can understand Spanish. I have found that all cities in Europe from London to Paris to Athens to Rome all largely run the same and each of them just have small regional tweaks to them, like the process for getting a bus ticket (in Italy you go to the tobacco shop, in Spain you just pay on the bus, etc, etc). I was and still am comfortable with Europe and I thought I’d know how Spain would go and I expected a lot.
Comparison
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
Theodor Roosevelt
My biggest expectation in Spain was my apartment. I was SUPER excited to be paired with my roomie for the month, besides being a fantastic human and someone I look up to greatly (seriously she’s amazing), I was also glad that we had similar interests and worked the same hours, so I’d have someone to eat meals with and walk home with at 11pm.
But then I let the expectations creep in. The apartment was smaller than I imagined, didn’t have much of a living room and kitchen, laundry was outside and we were the only two in the building. I was immediately annoyed with these very small aspects of the apartment that if I just changed my mindset could have easily remedied the situation. What I should have thought was the apartment is recently renovated, has a lot of amenities, very central, safe building and there was an outdoor space to dry the laundry. But I continued to focus on the negative and pout as I thought/expected to get a really nice apartment as I hadn’t gotten the nicer ones since on Remote Year. The situation was then exacerbated when I turned on the T.V……sin señal (no signal), yep I had no T.V.
For those of you who know me really well you know I love my T.V., but for the first 2 months of Remote Year I didn’t really have time to watch any, so again I expected to be able to do so in Spain. I was immediately annoyed when I couldn’t watch t.v. and around the same time I saw Instagram stories of my other remotes who had much nicer apartments, I was jealous. I started compiling a list of items in my head that annoyed me about Remote Year and I let the negativity fester. So much so I thought about writing Remote Year a letter about my frustrations.
And it wasn’t just my negativity as a result of misaligned expectations (over something so silly as an apartment) that was festering around this point, the rest of my group was feeling it too.
The Storming Phase
“Once you start replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”
Willie Nelson
At this point we had all been together and on the road for over 60 days, so that in itself starts to weigh on people. I’ve said it in countless blogs before that we get to do amazing things on Remote Year, but that involves us uprooting our lives every 30 days and restart in a country where we may not know the language, culture, customs or even where to find face cream (anyone reading this that is coming to visit several girls on this trip will kill for some Cetaphil or a generic version right now, including moi!). We were tired and thus ripe for our storming phase.
There are five stages of group development according to psychologist Bruce Tuckman: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. The storming phase is often the most focused on as it is the one where the conflict occurs. An overall dip in morale, confrontation, dissatisfaction, and unmet expectations are experienced in this phase. And RY Ohana ended up being a textbook case.
Now out of respect for my group members I never use their names in my blogs without their expressed permission nor do I share any details that could be easily used to identify them, so I will talk in broad strokes about what occurred in our storming phase.
As a group we all started to jump on the “I don’t like Remote Year because” or “I may want to leave Remote Year because” band wagon. As a group we started to focus on the negative aspects of Remote Year instead of the amazing opportunity or community that we get to be a part of. We let silly things like apartment amenities, mileage reward programs, small communication issues, group demographics, scheduling of events and communication platforms consume our every conversation. We even had a small group of individuals that were considering leaving for these and other personal reasons. We all collectively started feeding into a toxic group dynamic.
And this toxic group dynamic and talk of people leaving really affected me. I, like many of the amazing people in my group, had to change a lot in their lives and sacrifice things like a home, higher salary, jobs and more to come on Remote Year, so to see people consider leaving was hard for me to watch. I am extremely dedicated to almost everything I do, including my friendships, which I had started to form with my Ohana, so I was also really sad to see them leave and give up on this community. But everyone on this trip is an adult and entitled to make their own decisions, so I supported them in their decisions, but it wasn’t easy to watch. And our group as a whole was hurting with all of this talk, the storm was getting worse.
Our storming phase came to a head when a senior RY staff member came to visit in Valencia. Every two weeks we have “town halls” where we check in as a community, look at the upcoming calendar of events, etc and this was a special town hall since we had the senior RY staff member there. At the end he gave us 20 or so minutes for a Q&A. The first few questions were soft balls, but then we started to dive into some of our pain points that were starting to contribute to our storming phase. The conversation was clearly going to take more than 20 minutes, so those of us there decided to table the conversation to the following Monday.
Monday was a real wake up call and one of the best attended events that we had in weeks. There was a ton discussed, but in the end it wasn’t really these administrative things on Remote Year’s end that were the problem, it was the fact that we all as a community felt disconnected, we were sin señal, we didn’t have a signal anymore. We all had forgotten why we were doing this and the amazing community that we have formed in such a short time.
Now were there still issues that needed to be addressed in regards to administrative things on Remote Year’s end, of course, and credit to Remote Year for mobilizing and addressing them head on in less than a week. But that talk on Monday really opened the door for people to be vulnerable and express their concerns. I think we all as a group made a commitment to do better and embrace all the good around us that day.
Nation House
“Maybe it’s not about the length of time you’ve know someone; maybe it’s about instant recognition on an unconscious level. Our souls know each other.”
S.E. Hall
The Friday after our “come to Jesus” conversation as a group I had the opportunity to attend Nation House. Nation House is another curated Remote Year event that you apply to and it centers around a business or personal development topic, in my case it was leadership. The aptly titled “Who’s the Boss” Nation House took place in a gorgeous village outside of Tarragona, Spain for three days.
Going into Nation House I was still reeling from the conversation earlier in the week and I was actually relieved to be getting out of town for a few days. I was also lucky that three of my other Ohana had been accepted into Nation House that included individuals from 3 other Remote Year communities, citizens and Remote Year staff.
In short the weekend was magical. I had never felt so immediately connected to a group of people that knew exactly what I (and my Ohana) had been going through and who could share such fresh perspectives. The group also helped me open my mind to so much more about myself, my professional and personal life.
The workshops themselves (everyone presented on a leadership topic) were fresh, new, engaging and downright helpful. I even found myself implementing some of the lessons learned just a few days later while I was onboarding a new employee.
And again the people. Remote Year does an amazing job finding amazing people to go on this journey. I was forever grateful to be able to go on Nation House with 15 other incredible individuals that I am now happy to call friends and that I hope to see again soon.
Be Present
“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”
Andrew Gray
After Nation House I spent two days around Barcelona enjoying multiple Aperol Spritzes (if you haven’t had one go to a bar now, they’re amazing) with a few Ohana. Before Spain we would have tried to pack in as much sightseeing as we could, but this time around we just enjoyed getting to know each other on a deeper level and being present. We stopped rushing.
And we embraced the Spanish culture. I think it was so appropriate that we had our storming phase in Spain because Spanish culture naturally makes you slow down. Spainards take two hours for lunch and don’t bother you to get up so that a table can be cleared. They have multi-hour conversations with you and don’t stress as much.
My fellow Ohana said it best at Nation House and he lives by this motto every day: “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”, slow down, smell the roses, be present, because you miss a heck of a lot when you speed through life.
I am happy to report that RY Ohana’s t.v. is back on, sin señal no more. We are in this journey for the long haul and are slowly, but purposefully transitioning into our norming phase.
Thank You
I don’t typically have a thank you section, but it was warranted this time around.
Thank you to our AMAZING city team in Valencia — you two were there when we needed it most and you have no idea how much it meant.
To RY staff for dealing with our storming phase and reacting appropriately and in a timely manner.
To everyone at Nation House — that experience was life changing and I will carry it with me forever.
To the RY citizens that were with us in Valencia — thank you for being a sounding board and giving us real, practical advice.
To our Ohana PLs — you two have dealt with a lot from us and I don’t think we give you nearly enough credit for all you do. Thank you. Mahalo.
To my Ohana — for sticking it out last month and for coming out better on the other end. Even though I won’t see a few of you for a bit, you’ll be back and it’ll be even better than before.
So What Did I Do All Month?
So ok we had a messy last month, but what did I do?? Well here’s some of my favorite pictures from last month.
