Don’t Transplant Your Life, Translate It: Repatriating to Poland
Key Takeaways
- Lucyna Boland emphasizes the core philosophy that when returning home, you should not try to transplant your life, but rather translate it to fit the new soil.
- Repatriation often brings unexpected identity shifts, such as feeling like an outsider in your mother tongue and struggling to joke or let go.
- Creating a written list of the specific reasons for returning can serve as a powerful anchoring tool when reverse culture shock makes you want to book a flight out.
- Trilingual families can successfully maintain multiple languages at home by establishing a few simple, consistent communication rules.
- You can map the physical logistics of a move, but you cannot map the deep internal metamorphosis that comes with repatriation.
Don’t Transplant Your Life, Translate It: Repatriating to Poland
Lucyna Boland left Poland already asking where she could go next. Twenty years later she had lived in the United States, Germany, England, Spain and France. She had built a career in corporate learning and talent development, married a Canadian and started a family. Then, during the pandemic and while grieving her father, she felt a pull home she couldn’t quite explain. Within a week, the family had decided to move into her mother’s attic flat. Today Lucyna is an expat coach and a fractional learning and performance partner. She lives in a house built on the very plot where, as a girl, she was embarrassed to pick potatoes beside her dad.
What You’ll Walk Away With
Lucyna never called it going back. Poland had changed, and so had she, so she set out to build a new home in her old one. She admits to feeling like an outsider in her mother tongue, unable to joke or let go in Polish. People also asked her about her own country, and often she couldn’t answer.
You’ll hear what the move meant for her husband. He found Poland’s endless calendar of celebrations exhausting, yet sums it up in one line: here, things work. You’ll also learn how their trilingual family keeps three languages alive with a few simple rules.
If you’re facing a repatriation that feels harder than expected, Lucyna shares a practical tool. When she’s tempted to book a flight out, she rereads her written list of the six reasons she came back. She also explains why, as a coach, she rarely gives advice, and why she still hasn’t “landed” and doesn’t mind.
At the heart of it is the phrase that lingered after we stopped recording: "don’t transplant your life, translate it". The soil is different, so your joys need a new language to grow.
Connect with the Guest
Expats, repats and anyone with more than one home can find Lucyna at lucynaboland.com. Recruitment agencies will find her on LinkedIn, where she posts every day.
Share this episode with someone who’s standing at one of those thresholds — a new country, a return home, or simply a life that’s asking them to become someone they haven’t quite met yet.
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You can map the move. You cannot map the metamorphosis. Nomadic Diaries explores the interior journey of expat life — the belonging, the identity shifts, the repatriation, and everything that travels with you that can't be packed in a suitcase. This episode may be part of our Re-Entry Series (30 episodes on coming home) or The Belonging Project (29 episodes on belonging across cultures). Browse the full catalog at nomadicdiariespodcast.com and please share or leave a review if this episode resonated.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Lucyna Boland?
Lucyna Boland is an expat coach, fractional learning and performance partner, and global nomad who spent twenty years living across multiple countries before repatriating to Poland.
What does it mean to translate your life instead of transplanting it during repatriation?
Translating your life means recognizing that both you and your home country have changed, requiring you to build a new life that fits the present reality rather than trying to recreate the past.
How can you cope with difficult moments during repatriation?
Lucyna recommends writing down a list of the specific reasons you decided to return and rereading it whenever you feel the urge to leave.
Where can you connect with Lucyna Boland?
You can connect with Lucyna on her website at lucynaboland.com or find her daily posts on LinkedIn.