Melissa Parks, PhD - Author & Coach for Globally Mobile People

My son is 6 years old today. Six! I’m definitely feeling the saying “the days are long, but the years are short” as I prepare to celebrate this milestone.

In my latest Substack article I reflect on my (rocky) transition to motherhood and the unexpected challenges I’m actually celebrating. I’m now thinking I should have titled it, “Everything I didn’t Expect When I was Expecting.” 🤪

If you’re parent, I think some of it will resonate. If you’re a parent of a neurodivergent child I think a great deal of it will resonate.

But even if you’re not a parent at all, you may still enjoy the article as I also reflect on transitions in general and how even though I’m an expert in how to best navigate them (this is often what I coach people through), my nervous system still resists big changes. Like I say in the article:

“When I imagined what motherhood might be like, I did hope that it would help me grow, but I didn’t expect it to involve so much of the ooey-gooey messy middle of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly.”

You’ll find the link to my Substack here: https://open.substack.com/pub/melissaparksphd

12 years ago I started a blog on the intersection of global living and mental health 🌍🧠

It started as a passion project as I was finishing my PhD dissertation. I’d always loved to write, but this was the first time I shared it in hopes it would reach as many people as possible.

The year earlier I’d (finally) read Julia Cameron “The Artist’s Way” and started to heal my inner artist. This blog was my way to own my desire to be a writer and to trust that the universe was conspiring on my behalf.

It certainly was! While my secret dream to leave psychology behind and become travel writer didn’t happen (thank goodness!) within weeks of publishing my blog I had many potential therapy clients reaching out for support.

I knew nothing about marketing at that time, but I’d accidentally tapped into the “know, like, trust” factor and spoke directly to my ideal client.

In the years since, my business, and life, have taken many twists and turns. I’ve moved from Madrid ➡️ Netherlands ➡️ Seattle. I transitioned from offline therapy to 100% online, becoming one of the pioneers in the online therapy world and co-founding LIT Community I’ve also switched to coaching to allow me to serve more globally mobile clients.

I’m now in an intercultural, bilingual marriage, I’ve become a mom, I’ve gone through repatriation firsthand, and have done so much learning and unlearning about neurodivergence for myself, my son, and my clients. I also returned to my desire to write and published my first book this year. A memoir called “A Compassionate Mess: A Therapist, Her Monsters, and a Journey to Self-Acceptance.”

But when I thought about what I’d most like to celebrate over these past 12 years, it’s not the things I’ve accomplished. It’s the clients from around the globe, in all continents except Antarctica, who have entrusted me to help them. To support them as they navigated creating a new home, making the impossible decision of whether to stay or go, to ride the rollercoaster of repatriation, to care for their deeply feeling selves while living internationally, and so much more. I’m beyond grateful that this is the work I get to do

Thank you 💗
Gracias ♥️

8 years ago was one of my favorite days ever 😍

My husband and I spent an entire year trying to figure out what we wanted our wedding days to be like. Where in the world, who needed to be there, and what we wanted to prioritize (not to mention where we were willing to compromise).

It’s not a small feat to plan a wedding when you’re an intercultural couple with loved ones around the world. We explored so many different possibilities and in the end settled on a small ceremony overlooking the Bay of Biscay in the Basque Country of Northern Spain. 🌎

We were surrounded by family and friends and celebrated late into the night with amazing Spanish food. Even my 1.5 year old nephew partied until 2am 😂

One of my favorite parts of the wedding was that the week beforehand my family came from the U.S. and my husband’s family from Costa Rica, the U.S., and Spain so we could introduce our families to one another and bond before the big day. It was truly magical and something we may never get to repeat in exactly the same way.

We kept the celebration going one month later with a BBQ in Seattle with even more family and friends. 💗

Over these past 8 years we’ve had plenty of challenges, but even more things to celebrate. An international move, buying a house, becoming puppy parents, and then human parents. Navigating sleep disorders and neurodivergence, entrepreneur life and a pandemic…and much more. We certainly haven’t been bored!

An intercultural, bilingual marriage is its own unique version of hard, while also its own unique version of rewarding. I wouldn’t have it any other way 🥰

My recent Substack article is about something I dive deeper into in my memoir.

The belief I harbored for years, even while pursuing training as a therapist, that therapy couldn’t possibly help me.

It wasn’t until my life abroad came crumbling down that I decided I had nothing to lose (and nowhere else to turn).

Ultimately that scary leap into the unknown ended up providing greater healing than I ever thought possible, and made me the helping professional I am today.

Link to the full Substack article: https://open.substack.com/pub/melissaparksphd/p/i-didnt-believe-therapy-would-help?r=lstfy&utm_medium=ios

Where is home? 🏠

That question is one globally mobile people dread, but also can’t stop asking ourselves. 🌍

Many of us end up discovering it’s not a geographical place (at least not just one), but rather a collection of memories, people, feelings, etc. 🌟

Back in June, I sat down with .weber on the House of Peregrine podcast for a conversation about what “home” actually means once you’ve lived across cultures, languages, and versions of yourself. 🎙️

We talked about the difference between fitting in and belonging. The cost of being a chameleon, and the relief of finally coming back to yourself. What it’s like to code-switch across cultures — and how my own late-in-life autism diagnosis added a whole new layer to that story. 🧠

My favorite reframe from our talk: home isn’t a place you arrive at. It’s the feeling of safety in your own body — where you can take off your shoes, exhale, and just be, without performing or translating. Something that often requires more of an inner journey, not an outer one. 🛣️

If you missed the episode, it’s still up — link in bio. 🎙️

I’m on Substack ✍️

I’ve actually been on there for a few months but with the busyness of my book launch it was hard to find time to write an article.

One of the things writing and publishing my memoir reminded me of was how much I miss writing my blog. Next month it will be 12 years since I launched my “Intentional Expat” blog. Back in 2014 I quickly learned that writing about the intersection of international living and psychology was a great way to find therapy clients!

But my blog quickly went from a place to share my love for writing to a business. I’m grateful the business took off, but along the way my writing became more focused d on SEO and I lost the joy I once had with writing it.

Now that my first book is out in the world, I want to get back to finding that joy in writing and regularly sharing it with the world. Substack is going to be the place to find my reflections on belonging, globally mobile life, self-compassion and likely some stuff about parenting and neurodivergence (and parenting neurodivergent kids while being late-diagnosed neurodivergent yourself).

Come find me over there and let me know if you’re on there too so I can subscribe! 💌

https://open.substack.com/pub/melissaparksphd

When this review came in from a psychologist in Belgium, it left me speechless. She so eloquently articulated the main themes of my book and summarized it in a way I haven’t quite been able to do myself.

She put into words something at the core of this book that I hoped would come through in the pages: knowing how healing works professionally is not the same as knowing how to offer that healing to yourself.

She also connected something I didn’t fully have language for until after I’d written the last chapter. Something I speak more to in the afterword. The strain that comes from the years of masking, adapting, over-functioning, and trying to become the person the world seemed to expect.

Suffering doesn’t come from sensitivity itself. It comes from the relentless effort to hide or manage it. From trying to hide your neurodivergence from the world because you didn’t even understand it yourself.

But underneath all that, this book isn’t about surviving what life threw at me. It’s about the slower, harder work of transforming my relationship with myself — reconciling with my own nervous system, my own history, and, most of all, with myself.

The person I spent years trying to repair was never fundamentally broken. Just waiting to be understood.

So grateful for each and every review. Thank you! 💗

📖 A Compassionate Mess is available now — https://melissaparks.com/memoir/

Want to start your week off by putting your own oxygen mask on first?

Come join me for my FREE Self-Compassion Mondays series I’m offering through the end of August.

45 minutes of time to tune in to what you need with:

✨ Guided meditation
✨ Journaling
✨ Self-Compassion focused

Zero pressure to share, stay off camera if you prefer.

Self-care isn’t selfish, but it is sometimes hard to prioritize!

Come join us by signing up at the link in bio. Hope to see you there!