From Home to Unknown: Moving to a new Country

What happens when you leave everything familiar to chase something unknown? In this deeply personal episode, I share my journey from Bangalore to Canada—a story of courage, culture shock, and learning to find yourself in a new country.

From the first wind-slapped airport welcome to awkward cultural moments, $6 coffees, and late-night loneliness, I reflect on the challenges and small victories of starting over. Through self-conversation, resilience, and embracing my hybrid identity, I learned how to honor my roots while integrating into a new world.

Highlights of this episode include:

• The emotional reality of moving to a new country
• Navigating loneliness and cultural differences
• Finding your identity in a “between” space
• Small but powerful moments of growth and connection
• How food, conversation, and everyday interactions shape your integration

Whether you’re about to embark on your own immigration journey or are navigating life as a newcomer, this episode is for anyone learning to embrace change, uncertainty, and growth.

✨ I’d love to hear your story—share your experiences and let’s figure this out together.

Follow, subscribe, and leave a review if this episode resonated with you—it helps more people discover the podcast and join our journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Episode Introduction
• 0:37 The Decision to Move
• 1:31 First Impressions of Canada
• 2:51 Confronting Loneliness Abroad
• 4:07 Cultural Integration Through Food
• 5:14 Identity Shift and Finding Balance
• 7:00 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everybody. Welcome to Self-Help Podcast, where we unpack what is really real and true. So this episode is all about New Country, new Me, the episode where we will look at what's it really like to leave behind everyone you know to chase something unknown. I am Deepali and today I want to take you on a deeply personal, very chaotic and a real journey of how I moved to Canada. And, spoiler alert, it wasn't all maple syrup and polite strangers, though Majority of it was. Now let's rewind the decision of what if I actually do this?

Speaker 1: 0:37

Sometimes you make a decision that feels like it came from a higher version of yourself. That was me, sitting in my bedroom in Bangalore, surrounded by papers, timelines, application forms and the creeping thought what if I actually do this? What if I move to Canada? And it wasn't glamorous my desk was a mess, I was not eating well, my laptop fan was making sounds, but just the idea of Canada it shimmered in my mind the cities, the kindness, the Canadian culture, the moves I still haven't seen one, thank god the snow and and everything. Just the sheer idea of hating the and just the sheer idea of hitting the reset button. I love it. So it's about rebuilding. It's about being anonymous but also being someone new, and I said yes, I hit the submit button, I cried and then I waited.

Speaker 1: 1:25

Now, landing in Canada really felt like stepping into a movie, like literally, it wasn't how I expected it to be. It wasn't freezing cold, no, like the place where I came to. I live in the best place in the world. It's Victoria's Way tropical, so it wasn't like actually minus 18 degree but it was very windy. So it wasn't like actually minus 18 degree but it was very windy. So the winds slapped me in the face like okay, welcome, and I hope you have packed your socks. And my husband and I remember getting into the cab at the airport and the driver asked him how long have you been here? And he said 15 minutes. And we laughed yeah, that was the first encounter with somebody here like a real person, besides the immigration, of course. But there was a thrill, there was a rush, the way you feel when everything is unfamiliar but still possible. So you're both excited and nervous in a way.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Now my first week was a blur of using google maps, like oxygen. It was mandatory, it was very important getting to go to a convenience store and getting yourself the bus pass for the entire day and whispering sorry to strangers even before I touched them See very Canadian of me and buying a $6 double-double at Tim's and also at Starbucks and wondering if I made a mistake coming here because everything I would buy and I would convert it into Indian currency and of course that would amount to a lot, right. But then something shifted, really things changed and nobody talks about the silence that you feel when you're away from home, far, far away from home, in a completely different foreign land. Now that kind really wraps around you when you are in a new country and no one knows your name. And it hits you when the you know excitement wears off and you realize your phone hasn't rang all day, not because it's broken, but because there's nobody messaging you or checking in on you, and when it's day here, it's night back home. So all of that came to reality.

Speaker 1: 3:12

I vividly remember sitting in my apartment on a Friday night looking at some of the YouTube videos and wondering back home I'd be out with friends or you know, just laughing and eating eating a lot, especially because it's the weekend trying different joints, but here I was watching reruns of friends and some similar episodes, just to hear familiar voices. Now these were moments, small, sharp ones, when I felt like a ghost in my own life. I felt like who am I and which life am I even living? But in that loneliness, something else grew grew Resilience, curiosity and self-conversation. You start to talk to yourself, you become your own friend when you're lonely and you're not surrounded by too many people and you ask okay, so what do I want to do with this time? Now, when we think of culture, culture change, a culture shock is often used in a negative connotation, and to me I've been supremely lucky in that department, like I received both acceptance and acknowledgement in great abundance here.

Speaker 1: 4:07

So let me tell you a quick story about my first Canadian potluck, and I showed up with the samosas homemade, thank you, and I thought I nailed it. But then I saw the spread, the mac and cheese, something called an aimo bar Caesar salad Also can't recall the name of that dish. It's called I think it's the very famous butter chicken poutine, however you call it, and a mystery casserole. And someone asked me are those spicy? And my first reaction was well, they taste like home. So in that moment I realized food isn't just food, it's identity and sharing it it's integration. So soon I was learning how to say sorry, even at times when I don't mean it, and why sorry is a form of punctuation here, and what's the difference between a and her really is.

Speaker 1: 4:51

I feel like I'm so confused and slowly but steadily, people stopped asking me where I was from and like, why am I here? Did work, get me here, and things like that, and started asking me you I was from and like, why am I here? Did work, get me here and things like that, and started asking me you know what I thought about the raptors this season? So that was progress and it led to a big identity shift. The mirror looks different here and I'm just not talking about the physical aspect of it. One day I looked in the mirror and noticed I had changed. Not physically, though, you know, having a layer on, especially because it's windy, did change the look, but emotionally I was speaking differently, thinking differently, and I had opinions now about Tim Hortons and Starbucks and which one's better and which one's not, but I'll reserve my opinions for this podcast and I was defending Canadian healthcare like I had grown up here, like I'm immensely thankful for different reasons, but I would like, any time anybody says it's bad and how the healthcare system is failing us.

Speaker 1: 5:47

I take great offense, and grave offense, because I've received some immense, immaculate care by Scots skilled doctors, surgeons and nurses here. So and I say that with a lot of pride, but I also carry my roots with a great amount of pride. And it's not like you, it's not a dichotomy, it's not that I don't love my country, but I love Canada more. It's about loving and respecting both countries and you learn to live in the between, not quite from here, not fully from there anymore, but you're a blend, it's like a remix, a hybrid, and it's beautifully messy. Today I can say this Canada didn't magically solve my problems, but it gave me the space to find new answers and I've made friends from countries I can't even pronounce the name of. I've danced at different festivals, celebrated Diwali in downtown squares and found comfort in diversity.

Speaker 1: 6:35

Really, and believe me, even today, most days, I feel homesick, some nights I cry and I miss my parents and I miss my food, but most days I feel proud and thankful that I made that decision of saying yes and coming here Proud of that version of me who was afraid and still decided to say yes and take the leap of faith. So if you're listening to this and you're about to move to your new country, or you already have it and it feels overwhelming, know this it's okay to be scared, it's very okay to feel lost, but you're also building something extraordinary One moment, one friendship, one uncomfortable new experience at a time. So, yeah, thank you for spending this time with me. If this resonated with you or reminded you of your own journey, I'd love to hear from you. Send me an email, send me a voice note. We are all figuring this out together Until next time signing off. Bye-bye.