From Self-Criticism to Self-Compassion 

A free five-day guided meditation series for people living abroad

Because the hardest part of life abroad isn’t the logistics, it’s being kind to yourself through all of it.

Life abroad can look like a dream from the outside. And there are parts that genuinely are.

But anyone who has built a life in another country knows that’s not the full story. Life abroad also comes with loneliness, overwhelm, and guilt for struggling when you feel like you shouldn’t be.

These feelings are real, and more common than you think. And there’s a way to approach them that doesn’t involve telling yourself to snap out of it, or look on the bright side.

Over five days, I’ll guide you through a series of mindful self-compassion meditations — a practice I discovered during my own decade of living abroad, and one I now use with the globally mobile people I work with around the world. It’s evidence-based, it’s portable, and it will change the way you relate to yourself, wherever in the world you happen to be.

What you’ll get: Over five days you’ll receive one guided meditation per day, along with personal reflections from my own experience and that of my clients. These are practical tools you can reach for in the middle of an ordinary hard moment, wherever life takes you.

Hi! I’m Melissa

I created this series because self-compassion is truly one of the best tools I’ve found for navigating the emotional complexity of life abroad.

I spent a decade living abroad, in Spain and the Netherlands. Building a life, losing it, rebuilding it again and slowly figuring out how to be kinder to myself through all of it. Along the way I earned my PhD in Clinical and Health Psychology, built a practice supporting globally mobile people around the world, and became a trained teacher of the evidence-based Mindful Self-Compassion program.

The tools I share in this series aren’t just what I recommend to clients. They’re what I’ve used to create a home inside of myself — one I can connect to no matter where in the world I am. I’ve seen firsthand the way they’ve transformed my own life and well-being, as well as helped my clients around the globe.

That journey is also at the heart of my memoir, A Compassionate Mess (June 23, 2026) a book about the years I spent living abroad, falling apart, and slowly learning to be kinder to myself.

I hope you’ll join me.