#90 Navigating Life’s Transitions: Lessons from a Diplomat’s Wife

How does it feel to constantly move from country to country? As a diplomat’s wife, Lavinia shares practical insights on navigating international relocations, sustaining a fulfilling marriage, and supporting her family through transitions. Gain valuable perspectives on cultivating resilience, being internally prepared for change, and creating a shiny little corner of personal achievements. Whether confronting global events or personal shifts, this episode offers practical wisdom for finding contentment and making authentic choices.

Discussion Topics: Navigating Life’s Transitions

• Some changes in our life can be crappy – we still need to be ready for them
• This is not a sacrifice for my husband – I do it for myself
• Constantly be aware of your children’s feelings about moving
• The secret is in putting in efforts
• Have your own shiny little corner – a corner for your achievements
• The one responsible for moving must consider the needs of the family
• You yourself don’t know how beautiful you are
• Closing

Transcript: Navigating Life’s Transitions

Yana Fry: Lavinia, thank you for joining us today on Timeless Teachings all the way from Berlin. Lucky us!

Lavinia Thanapathy: Thank you for having me, Yana. It’s really a pleasure, to have a conversation with you.

Yana Fry: And the topic today I find is so important because we live in the modern world where everything is moving and changing all the time. And as the famous quote goes, the only constant in our life is change. And pretty much in all aspects, both personal and business, usually what People tend to struggle the most is adjusting to new realities and we have seen what happened after 2020 and then a few other global events happened and happening right now in Europe also and people are struggling. Let’s talk about change. I think it’s a great topic.

Some changes in our life can be crappy – we still need to be ready for them

Lavinia Thanapathy: Yana, it’s not that I talk about change and it’s not that I have any magic solution for anyone, but what I have learned over the years from the work that I do and the life that I’ve led is that some changes in our lives are great, they’re wonderful, let’s accept them, and other times, it’s not so good, it’s something bad that’s happening to precipitate the change, but being ready inside, right? Knowing that change is going to come and having this deep conviction that you will be okay on the other side of change, regardless of what it looks like, is something that we can cultivate.

Change can come and something else is going to happen, and I’m going to be okay. This ability to do this multi step process is internal, and it’s something we have to work on constantly. And the people who can do that, the people who do that, who think about it, who are Practising it in their regular lives, who are raising children and saying, okay, look, sometimes things are not so great and you’re doing that with yourself, with your partner, with your family, you do this.

This is the secret to contentment in my book. I live a diplomatic life. My husband is a career diplomat. We move all the time.

Yana Fry: I don’t know how you deal with that. That was my other question. I’m glad you said that because this is what I wanted to ask. You’re not just teaching it, this is your life. But sometimes I hear people say, Oh, I grew up in a diplomatic family and I went to 6, 8, 10 schools during my childhood in different countries. And it’s very interesting what forms them as human beings. And so for you, then also as a parent, right? You have to constantly deal with it and adjust.

You and I met in Singapore where you had a wonderful life, but you also established yourself professionally and career-wise. You were doing amazing things here and then you had to move to Europe because of your husband’s job and again, you need to readjust and find peace and change. How do you do that, Lavinia?

This is not a sacrifice for my husband – I do it for myself

Lavinia Thanapathy: I’m going to answer this in two ways. One is that I am someone who is ready for change.

Yana Fry: There is something in my mind and my heart that says change is going to come. And the other thing is, I see people around me like you, we have people around us who also live this life.

Lavinia Thanapathy: There’s a very high divorce rate amongst expat families generally and children often go off the rails in their teenage years, particularly children are a challenge, an extra challenge in this type of family. And it looks from the outside, there are a lot of privileges in this type of life, but there’s also challenges in this type of life.

So being ready for it and making sure your kids and you’re talking to your kids about it is very important because each child I tell you will. We’ll have a different approach to having to move all the time. The second thing is Never seeing this as a sacrifice. I never look at my husband and say, I did this for you.

I do this for me. I was aware of who he was when I married him. I knew life. I know what life is. I never ever think it’s a sacrifice. And I encourage my children, even though they are not making the choices, we are making the choices for them. This is not a sacrifice. And this is crucial when I talk to people who have been living this life. And it’s always the, Oh, woe is me. I have sacrificed. I used to be this. And now this is unhelpful. It may well be true, but it’s unhelpful.

Yana Fry: Not helping, but it’s not helping here. How is this helping the family?

Lavinia Thanapathy: till today women are the core of their families So if the mother or the wife is unhappy this translates to the whole family. So it’s really important to find a way in yourself that you can find a new beginning wherever you go.

So next year in July, we will move. I know it’s in my mind already that, okay, we have to make plans and there are some things that are going to change and maybe we will go somewhere that I don’t like at first, but every place has its magic.

it’s just so beautiful that I also want to pause here just for a second because what you’re saying I find is so important. Your life and just how you’re approaching your life, it is such a wonderful example of acceptance. When you’re just accepting life as it is, you’re not fighting with that, right?

Yana Fry: You’re welcoming it. And then as you said, in every corner of us, it doesn’t matter where the destiny is gonna bring you guys or the decision of the government. You’re gonna find your happiness and your peace. And it’s very beautiful, Lavinia.

Lavinia Thanapathy: and it’s accepting the things that you can’t control. Control the things you can control by all means. I’m not saying sit back, just wait for life to happen to you. Just control the things you can control. The things that are outside your control, I’m not going to complain about those. Someone else is going to make the decision of where we go.

And we’re going to be told where we’re going to go and in, in your career or whatever, and people who are in a corporate job, even whatever seniority you have, at some point, someone’s going to tell you, this is now no longer your department. This is no longer your budget. This is no longer your people, whatever it is, they’re going to tell you the stuff.

And it’s the things that you can’t control. Let it go. Find a way to work with it. Think, always look for the things that you. Can control and it seems so simple to control the things you can control.

Yana Fry: And you touched upon the lives of the experts. I just would like to talk a little bit more about it because that is such A large group of people around the world in all industries,

And I, like I even saw one that was funny and sad at the same time. I saw once a woman going on stage as a public speaker and presenting her speech and her piece. And her piece was about being an expert wife and how deeply unhappy and resentful she was towards her husband and she was giving examples of all of her girlfriends.

It’s exactly what is, what has been happening to their marriages after the first move, second move, third move. And so to me, I just would love to ask you. In your experience in your own family and also when you look around and you see those families that actually managed to go through this kind of life when you’re constantly on the road and you stay together for a long time in a happy marriage because people also stay for a variety of reasons.

Lavinia Thanapathy: So we’re interested here specifically. So how do we make it a long-term relationship with the partner with whom we know we have to move all the time? I’m gonna preface this with a caveat my husband and I are on our second marriages so maybe a second marriage is easier

Yana Fry: I agree with that. We are also in our second marriage with my husband. I totally agree with this. You learn the hard way, and then you try your best to make it work the next time.

Constantly be aware of your children’s feelings about moving

Yana Fry: It’s a second marriage. So some people who’ve been married much longer start from when they’re in their twenties and then they’re going, it’s a different life, from what you are in your twenties to what you are in your fifties, for instance.

Lavinia Thanapathy: What I think works is that. The family needs to be aware. I think as a general rule, your whole family needs to talk about this. I have four stepchildren. So we have

Yana Fry: Four stepchildren, you’re a superwoman.

Lavinia Thanapathy: I have four stepchildren. So it’s and then I have one biological child who is nearly 15 years younger than his youngest member. Half-brother, right? And the difference between his oldest sister and him is 20 years. She could be his mother almost. It’s interesting. But we are always aware and talking about our lives and what we’re doing and what it’s affecting. It’s important to have conversations. Not to think, I think never assume that your children are all okay at any time.

Constantly have conversations about how they are. feeling about what is coming up. I think this is really important. The second thing is don’t embark on a moving life. If your relationship is not on stable ground, I’ve heard I’m part of different expat groups and sometimes I hear women tell me, oh, we’re going to move because it’s getting a bit boring at home and our relationship is starting to be rocky.

This is not the time to move. If your relationship is not in a steady place, don’t think that. An expat assignment will solve that problem. 

Yana Fry: It’s a little bit like having another child, right? When people sometimes think that it’s not doing well, let’s have another baby, and hope it’s all set. It usually leads to divorce. So I guess it’s very similar here.

Lavinia Thanapathy: It is a stressful thing. Yes, you will most likely have a more physically luxurious life when you go on a posting. Depending on the type of posting, these luxury postings are fewer and fewer, but still, as a general rule, you only move if you’re going to have a better financial outcome. So moving will give you the trappings of a better life.

On the outside, you might have a better job, better house, better all those things. But If you are not working on the relationships, all of that doesn’t matter. All of that is hollow if you are not working on the relationships and you’ve not prepared your children for the move to a different type of school.

So I always put my children into international school, even here back in, so Berlin is our hometown. It’s our home base because my husband’s a German diplomat. And so even here, he doesn’t go to a normal German school. He goes to a bilingual school that is supported by the foreign ministry. Because this is the type of school that’s used to people coming and going.

So they are making friends with kids who are only there for a few years. If you put your moving child into a school where most of the children are there from kindergarten to high school, your child is going to suffer. So be always aware of what is going to happen with your child. And being constantly looking for the right environment for them.

I also try not to put my child in the most exclusive school in a new country. If it’s possible at all, I try not to do that because I want him to have a normal life. Because here in Berlin, we have a normal life. We are normal people with a normal life. And I want him to remember that when we’re out, this is just his father’s job.

And it comes with things. are not our regular life. We appreciate them, but we know they are only there for a short while. So constantly keeping your family grounded, yourself grounded, your family grounded. I never think that I am part of whatever new life or this that we are, I’m there. I’m visiting for a while.

I’ll enjoy it. I’m participating in it. I have no problems with people seeing me as my husband’s wife. It’s fine if that’s what they see me as. That’s fine. I’m still my own person. I still have my own career and I must say, COVID for all its problems, really made my life so much easier because now I can have a business that’s like this.

No one expects me to go in to deliver anything. Everyone is

Yana Fry: Online!

Lavinia Thanapathy: to do this. Oh my god, so this acceptance of the online world has been a real boon

Yana Fry: Yes, it’s a blessing, right? 

Lavinia Thanapathy: I think particularly women are scared of the word being opportunistic when you say, when I tell people to be opportunistic, look for the opportunities, whatever comes your way, and people have a negative idea of this, but it’s really just being open.

What is coming your way, being ready for it, being open for it and sometimes challenging yourself. Recently I took a board role here in Germany and the board functions in German and my German is okay.

It’s fluent enough, but I’m functioning on a day-to-day level in German. And I use all the translation apps, everything to make sure that I understand clearly, but I’m going to say it’s not, it’s not fantastic for me. It’s always each email is fraught where in English I could just type it and it’d be gone, but now I have to do it in German. So thinking about whether I wanted to do that was a big thing for me, but because I’m opportunistic because I am unashamedly open to opportunities when they

Yana Fry: I love that.

Lavinia Thanapathy: I say yes. It’s difficult. I’m going to say it’s difficult. And sometimes I wonder why I put myself through this. But it is important. I can see I’m making a contribution because I’m different. I think it’s important for us to stretch ourselves a little bit. You don’t have to be 100 per cent ready for the things that come your way. It’s okay to be mostly qualified for it and work the rest of it out. It’s okay. You’ll work it out. I did. I didn’t know. The truth is, I didn’t know.

Yana Fry: I think most of us don’t, but this is another thing. And again, we don’t want it to generalise. However, generally, it is the case, right? It’s a common joke when they say that. a guy often might not be entirely qualified and would go fully for the position with full confidence and a woman could be totally overqualified and still doubt herself whether she is a good fit.

So especially for women, it’s important to find this bravery to step forward and to be yourself. And you don’t have to shine away from the limelight. If this is your destiny, and in my experience, it’s very interesting, sometimes people who end up being in front of everyone are not necessarily the ones who enjoy it, but when they talk, others listen. And so to me, when I look at you, Lavinia, you’re actually, in my eyes, you’re like one of those wonderful examples.

You’re incredibly charming and very graceful. And, for those who don’t know Lavinia, check her out. Connect with her if you’re listening right now to this podcast. Podcast and you are not seeing the video, so you can’t see how she looks right. So I would encourage you to actually go on social media and you will see an incredibly beautiful, very charming woman.

And at the same time, you have all those significant professional credentials, despite being married to a diplomat where you have to keep moving all the time and being a mom and stepmom. And yeah, I have been watching you for years. You’re also doing it effortlessly. What is the secret? Please.

The secret is in putting in efforts

Lavinia Thanapathy: a lot of effort. Oh, there’s a lot of effort. I’m sorry. There are no effortless things in the world. There’s a lot of effort. There is a lot of effort. There’s, and there’s a lot of help. I’ll say there’s a lot of help as well. When you are willing to look for it, there is a lot of help. So I’m part of a German family now and my husband’s a Berliner, so his family are in Berlin and they are a huge support for me.

They’re not my birth family, but they’re a wonderful family. And. It’s a different kind of warm and inclusive. It’s very different to an Asian warmth, but it is warmth nonetheless.

And I do feel very accepted and loved by them. It’s just very practical. No one threw me when I had a baby, no one threw me a party. There was no party, okay? You don’t get that kind of thing. It’s not a German thing. But my father-in-law, His first thought was, you have a cleaning lady, right?

I’m going to pay for your cleaning lady for one year so that you don’t have to think about it. I’m like, this is the most practical. sensible gift I will receive as a new mom. And this is their love.

Their love is much more practical. In Singapore, I probably would have had this big party. Everyone would have come. I would have got impractical gifts, but here, They do things differently. And if you’re open to it, I could have taken it as, Oh my God, this family does not love me.

but what I saw was them Doing absolutely everything to make my life easier here. They helped me with so many things. My husband’s aunt would come over when my son was a little bit bigger, she would come over every Wednesday.

She takes a bus for an hour. She would have been about 80 years old. She took a bus for an hour to come to my apartment at 3 p.m. to give me two hours to run errands on my own. Then she would take a bus back to her house.

It’s just for those two hours. I could leave my son with her. She didn’t care what I did. She says, go have a coffee, have a massage, go for yoga, get out of the house. Isn’t it just amazing and unobtrusive and completely unobtrusive. She didn’t tell me anything, but she taught my son all the German kid songs that I did not know.

And all those things. So it’s a different kind of support. This is what I mean about keeping your eyes open. And in a way, wear rose tinted glasses. The world is dark. If you wear your sunglasses, and you just, block out all of this, no point. Wear rose coloured glasses. See the good things.

I’m not naive, but I am constantly looking for the good. Where is the good here? And let me make the most of that good. And in every new place, in every new place, I can tell you it’s an effort. There are days when I just want to close the door and say, Oh my God, what the hell did I do? Can I just go back? Can I just go back? It’s okay to have those moments, but If you’ve done it, you’re there now. Find a way to swim.

You’re in that pond now. Work it out. Take what you need. Some days I want to, I’ll tell you, my backup, I My, my guilty pleasure. Some people exercise, which is much more useful. I sit down in front of the TV and watch Grey’s Anatomy. This is why I binge watch four or five episodes. After that, I’ve done my binge and I’m okay. The next day I get dressed, and I get out clear your mind.

Yana Fry: So basically what you’re saying is that you have your own ways and it’s unique to each person.

And the other very important part you said, which I feel we should just, highlight. When you talk about your German family here in Berlin, you say that their life is different. It’s a little bit like when we talk about the different types of love, there’s this famous book, right?

Like five languages of love and then there’s like a work related book I think because you can’t usually we can’t use the word love In the corporate context. So we talk about kindness or attention, but it’s pretty much the same thing especially if you have a cross-cultural marriage, which is very common in expert marriages.

Again, you would often see people who are coming from different cultures and creating families. Then your expectations of how love and care are expressed might be very different. And what I admire about your Lavinia, that even you see here. You recognize that your husband’s side, who also culturally comes from a different part of the earth, has different views on how you care, and you’re not taking it as offending, or you’re not taking it as liking something.

For you, it’s an extra gift, an extra opportunity. And I just find when we talk about change. This is one of their skills. So it all depends on how we look at it. And it just says you were sharing and I’m listening to this. I think there are so many beautiful, graceful lessons that we can stretch into all kinds of areas of life, married life, parenting, business, and moving. So your story is really beautiful.

Have your own shiny little corner – a corner for your achievements

Lavinia Thanapathy: Thank you, Yana. I wanted to just add one little thing. And that I think everyone can use for themselves. I have for myself something I call my shiny little corner. And my shiny little corner is a collection of my achievements. Whatever you consider your achievements. It doesn’t have to be anything else.

Because there are times in my life where my career has been put on the back burner, right? And it’s very easy when you’re sitting at home with babies and all of this and not having a career at that moment to forget who you are. So it’s really important, I think, especially for women who are going to take little breaks in their career to keep a shiny little corner.

My shiny little corner has articles that are written about my work or achievements that I’ve had in my career. Maybe some interviews, things like that. So I have them on a slide. And I have some referrals and things. And I keep them all together in one place. Because once in a while, I need to be reminded of who I am.

I need to be reminded of what I’ve been able to achieve for myself. When we take inspiration from outside, it’s very easy to be overwhelmed. If I look at someone really amazing, like Michelle Obama, I’m like, I’m never going to be married to the president of the United States. I’m not going to do that.

So I’m being inspired by myself. In this instance, I am looking at myself and looking at you. You have done those things, and you have achieved those things.

These are you. If you could have done that with less experience, what can you do today, now that you have more experience? So it’s just that my shiny little corner is full of things that I am proud of, and I don’t need to show anyone. So you can, everyone should make their shiny little corner. If you’re Taylor Swift and you want to line up all your music awards on one wall to have a look at, then that’s great.

But maybe for you, it’s something different. It’s whatever you find achievement. This is such a beautiful advice. I actually don’t have my little shiny corner. Now I’m inspired to create one because I can totally relate to this and… Again, I don’t know if we could say it is gender related, but from my life experience, I think women tend to fall more into those holes of less confidence, especially when it comes to career or professional achievements because we just go through more change in our life, right?

Yana Fry: I think women who are out of professional world for a while because of motherhood or because maybe they have to take care of someone who is ill within the family or there’s something else that might be happened and they need it elsewhere, and they can’t channel the energy in the professional life, right?

So it creates this massive identity loss. So and then it’s not always easy even psychologically to go back. So that’s your advice I find is incredibly helpful. So thank you for saying that, Lavinia. And I would love to look at this topic and this conversation from a slightly different perspective, right?

We have been talking until now from your perspective. So in terms of you as a married woman, you are a spouse to a diplomat, so he gets postings and you have, and you made a decision that you’re going to accompany him on those postings, and so you move the family with him. And again, that’s probably statistically, would be for most families, again, I don’t want to generalise and there are exceptions where women are the main breadwinners in the family.

My question here would be. What do you think the person who is actually moving the family who is getting the job, who is the main reason why we are all relocating somewhere can do to make the whole transition easier for everyone else? So is there something that you felt your husband had done?

The one responsible for moving must consider the needs of the family

Lavinia Thanapathy: Oh, it’s a partnership, the whole thing. And especially when you’re going to move your family around the world. I think doing it without consulting the family is guaranteed to make everyone unhappy. So the foreign office, the German foreign office actually has a whole department for families and partners. So there’s a whole, the short form is FFD and they are an organisation that just takes care of the welfare of the families and partners.

So there’s a whole department at my husband’s, in my husband’s organisation that takes care of us. So always being aware, I think as a woman, taking care of your legal rights, always being careful to ensure that you Independently have rights, that you are aware of what’s going to happen with your children, with yourself, with your money.

Make sure you have some independence on that front before you start this. The partner should always consider the needs of the family. One of the things my husband puts down as a criterion is a German school. I am not a native German speaker. We are raising a German child. So he puts that, even if it’s a lesser post for him, it doesn’t matter. For him, family is still, and this is important for the people who are moving their families, whether you’re a man or woman, however, you identify yourself. If you have a family, think of your family, and how they’re going to live.

We don’t take high security positions right now. I cannot raise a teenager who has to have a security guard all the time. It is not a life we are willing to live. It’s not fair. So you have to think. And I plot out the years. So what years is he going to be away? What grades are we going to be away from? And what kind of life do we want? And we don’t want that kind of very restrictive life. So think through your whole family, not just your own career needs, but how your family is going to cope.

You can’t just say it’s going to be only three years. For a child, every year counts. Every year is an important year. 18 years that you get with your kids before they go to university. Every year is an important year. There’s no unimportant year in all of this.

So all of the years need to be accounted for to make sure there’s a school to make sure that It’s going to be a place where they can make friends. The language is not going to be so outside their possibilities. Make choices. Our son does French. He does German and now French.

So make choices with your children, with your family. family where they can find something. And my husband always insists we don’t go anywhere where there’s no good internet because my wife needs the internet to work.

Yana Fry: We have a lot of conversations when we get the list. We consider it. My husband would never dream of taking a position without consulting the family. It’s just not, he would just never do that.

Lavinia Thanapathy: And being considerate. That is, it is work for everybody. My husband will arrive and I always say he arrives and he’s important from day one, from the moment he lands, he is important. He has a role. I am stuck with 700 cottons. And no idea where anything is. There’s no staff for me to work out where everything goes. It’s what he has, he knows and he recognizes that his position, while yes, he has to go in and do difficult things he has more guidance and more framework in place than I do.

People always ask me, what’s your secret to moving? I move with a six month supply of everything, like everything. Like liquid, toilet paper, cereal, anything that can last.

I know that six months after I arrive, I have no idea what’s going on. I accept that I have no idea what’s going on. I’m just trying to survive, trying to get my kid to school, my life in order, the house in some shape.

And again, I don’t see it as a sacrifice, this is my choice, no one put a gun to my head and said, please marry this man and live this life. And my strength, if there is strength in me, comes from the fact that I always know I am making a choice. I am choosing to move with this man, I’m moving to move, I’m choosing this life every single time.

Yana Fry: Lavinia, I can listen to you for hours. Just the way you express yourself. And it’s so beautiful. And I find the message that you just shared right now about shifting the narrative in our mind as women. From sacrificing and martyring ourselves for our spouses and our children and our parents and everyone else in our family, right? To make choices so that there’s no resentment in that.

And you’re always free to make a choice because that’s your choice. And then you own it and you can build your life around that. So I just find this is a very powerful message. And again, I feel this conversation could go on and on, and yet I’m mindful of your timing, our audience timing, and I just feel maybe, final few questions.

If I were to ask Lavinia to look at your life, and perhaps to look at your younger self. Like maybe things, maybe even in your first marriage, right? When you were clearly a different person. And so now when you look back what would you like to say to Lavinia? 

You yourself don’t know how beautiful you are

Lavinia Thanapathy: To young women, every young person. I recently looked back at a picture of myself young. You don’t even know how beautiful you are. Oh my God. I’m looking at my younger self and thinking I wasted so much time and effort trying to make myself, I don’t know, more beautiful, more whatever.

So I spent the weekend in Paris with my best friend of 36 years. We met when we were 16 years old, and we found a picture of ourselves at 16. And she had permed her hair. And I was trying all kinds of looks with makeup. And we were both looking at each other going, Oh, my God, we were so beautiful.

And we did not know. And we were wasting our time with all this crap when what we should have been doing was really just enjoying being young. So if you are young, it is a gift. Enjoy it. I know it doesn’t feel like it at that moment. Everything seems up in the air. It is the time for you to try new things.

So try new things. And as for my first marriage I tell you, I would not take it back. I would not have not married him and made careful decisions about your partners, because for women, even though I have a divorce, I never say anything bad about him because he was not a bad person. So I would like to say, make careful choices with your partners. They need to deserve you, not you deserve them. Be very aware of that. Now that I’m in, I’m 53 this year and I can tell you, there’s nothing old about being 53. It’s great. But when I look back at the 23 year old me, oh my God, she was so silly. She did not know.

Yana Fry: First of all, you don’t look 53, I can tell you that. I didn’t, I thought you were in your 40s. And I also feel that perhaps one of the secrets to staying young longer and having this usefulness about you is actually how you perceive life.

And everything that you shared with us today. about you always looking for the brighter side, seeing the light and the sun, making choices that empower you as much as they empower other people. And just the energy that you radiate when you talk, I can feel so much uplifting positivity and you’re like you’re beaming.

With light from your centre, and it is really beautiful to watch, And again, especially for women, particularly for younger women, your sense of self worth is so important. And if you are coming from a background, which may be a little bit or very difficult and you suffered in your childhood, you’ll have a higher chance to not believe in yourself or to sabotage yourself or maybe to fall for men or women or someone else that they’re not meant to be for you.

So it’s an important reminder here to actually also do the inner work required to align yourself. So if you feel that you need some kind of support, there are tons of support groups of all ages all around the world, you can go and talk to people that will help you. To refine who you are and who you are not so that you can find the partner and the spouse, which is meant to be for you.

Lavinia, thank you for being on Timeless Teachings. We love you and we appreciate you very much. That was a beautiful sharing. And to our audience, I just would like to say that please do take action. So now when you listen to this conversation, and again, Lavinia shared so many small and big things about a variety of aspects of our life.

And you can also listen. And find something that you feel really resonates strongly and you feel that, yes, this is the time in my life and I have to do something about it. Maybe you need to change the way you look at life and you have to start looking more for positive things. Or maybe you have to start owning your choices and stop sacrificing.

Or if you’re in your very early twenties or a teenager. Look at the mirror and keep repeating this mantra. I am beautiful. I am beautiful. I deserve myself. And just keep doing that until it registers in your mind. Take action. It is very important. And it’s also… Helps us to go in the conversation deeper when we actually have those conversations with our friends and family.

So we would encourage you to share this episode with your friends or family and see what they have to say. And then maybe you can have a… Dinner table, right? Conversation about everything, but we discussed today and then living it. I would love to hear from you. You can find us online on social media.

So if you listen to this episode today and there is something you would like to say to contribute or maybe share your story. So please absolutely go ahead and do that. We would love that. And I appreciate each one who is listening or watching right now. And we are going to see you next time on Timeless Teachings with another guest.

Our Guest: Lavinia Thanapathy

Lavinia Thanapathy is a sought-after motivational speaker and media commentator on change leadership, public speaking and overcoming imposter syndrome. Lavinia’s “Embrace the Crazy” Keynote and TEDx are helping people in organisations around the world to develop habits to turn resistance into resilience. She was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices 2020 for her thought leadership on change during the Corona Pandemic.