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Belonging, Identity & the Emotional Journey of Living Between Cultures
What does it really mean to feel at home?
For Third Culture Kids, expats, immigrants, global nomads, and anyone who has lived between cultures, “Where are you from?” can be a surprisingly complicated question.
In this episode of Quiero un Panino con Cheese, I’m joined by Nina Aziz Justin, keynote speaker, strategic advisor, resilience mentor, and author of The Home Within: A Soulful Memoir of Self-Belonging Across Cultures and Change.
Nina was born in Malaysia and has spent decades living and working across cultures and more than 40 countries. Her experiences have led her to explore one of the most fundamental questions of multicultural life: Where do we belong when we no longer fit neatly into one place, culture, language, or identity?
Her book The Home Within explores migration not simply as a physical journey, but as a journey of identity, becoming, and ultimately returning to ourselves.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why the simple question “Where are you from?” can trigger such a complicated emotional response for TCKs and global citizens.
- The difference between fitting in and truly belonging.
- Why Nina describes belonging as a muscle that we strengthen through practice.
- The hidden grief of migration—and why gratitude does not cancel grief.
- How we can love our new lives while still grieving the people, places, languages, traditions, and versions of ourselves we left behind.
- The unexpected gift of non-belonging and what happens when we stop seeing it as a wound.
- How living between cultures can make us more curious, empathetic, inclusive, and aware of other outsiders.
- The connection between belonging, neuroscience, emotional safety, and the nervous system.
- Why spirituality can become a kind of “portable home” when everything around us changes.
- Multilingualism and why Nina describes having different languages as having different rooms inside her home.
- How language carries memory, emotion, personality, humor, and identity.
- The realities—and unexpected gifts—of multicultural marriage.
- Why repatriation can sometimes be harder than moving abroad.
- What running can teach us about resilience, discomfort, patience, and self-trust.
- Nina’s resilience equation and why resilience isn't about becoming unbreakable.
- And perhaps the most important question of all: How do we come home to ourselves?
A conversation about the multicultural experience
One of the things I loved most about this conversation was Nina’s reminder that we don't have to choose between gratitude and grief.
We can be grateful for the life we've built and still miss home.
We can love our new country and still long for the language, food, humor, people, and childhood references of somewhere else.
We can be successful and still feel lonely.
And we can discover that belonging doesn't necessarily mean finding the one place where we finally fit. Sometimes, belonging means becoming comfortable enough with ourselves that we no longer need to shrink in order to fit anywhere.
Nina's beautiful concept of “the home within” feels especially relevant for those of us who have spent our lives crossing borders—physical, cultural, linguistic, and emotional.
About Nina Aziz Justin
Nina Aziz Justin is a keynote speaker, strategic advisor, business resilience mentor, and author of The Home Within. Her work draws on decades of international experience, weaving together resilience, identity, migration, reinvention, neuroscience, and belonging. Her book explores what it means to build a sense of home within ourselves while navigating cultures, change, and different versions of who we are.
Connect with Nina
Website: The Resilience Mentor
Instagram: @nina.aziz.justin
LinkedIn: Nina Aziz Justin on LinkedIn
The Home Within: Buy or learn more about The Home Within
A question for you
Where is home for you—and has that answer changed over the course of your life?
If you've ever struggled with the question “Where are you from?”, I'd love to hear your story.
If this conversation about Third Culture Kids, global parenting, identity, belonging, and raising multicultural children resonated with you, I'd love your support.
Please subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating or review, and share this episode with someone navigating international life, raising globally mobile children, or searching for where they truly belong.
Together, we can help more globally mobile families feel understood, connected, and at home—wherever they are in the world.
For more, please follow me also on Instagram at Quiero un Panino con Cheese
