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Are You Truly Here? How to Slow Down and Thrive in Your New Dutch Life.
You have a Dutch bank account, a BSN, and you’ve even figured out which side of the bicycle path you’re supposed to be on. You’re attending work meetings, exploring your new city, and dutifully sampling every flavour of hagelslag. From the outside, you are successfully living the expat life in the Netherlands. But it’s worth pausing to ask a crucial question: Are you truly here?
For many internationals, the first few months (or even years) are a blur of activity. There’s the pressure to excel in a new job, the challenge of building a social circle from scratch, and the endless mental checklist of cultural nuances to learn. We become so focused on doing that we forget about being. We're so busy planning the future and processing the past that we miss the present moment. The result? A strange, disconnected feeling, as if you’re watching your new life happen from behind a screen.
If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. But the solution isn't always to do more; it's to slow down. Living in an era that glorifies being busy, choosing to slow down is a radical act of self-care. It’s the key to moving from merely surviving your expat experience to truly thriving in it.
Here’s how you can start.
1. Reframe "Slowing Down" as a Strategic Superpower
A good first step is to challenge the belief that "slowing down" is a form of laziness or unproductivity. For ambitious professionals, this can be the biggest hurdle. We often feel that if we aren't constantly striving, we'll fall behind.
In reality, the opposite is true. A mind that is constantly racing is inefficient. It makes more mistakes, struggles with creative problem-solving, and burns out quickly. Slowing down - by intentionally creating moments of pause and reflection - is a strategic tool. It leads to better decision-making, improved focus, deeper connections with colleagues and friends, and a more sustainable pace for long-term success and happiness. It can be helpful to think of it as a professional athlete taking a rest day; it’s essential for peak performance.
2. Embrace the Dutch Art of "Niksen"
Perhaps no culture understands this better than the Dutch. You may have heard of gezelligheid, but have you met its quieter cousin, niksen? It literally translates to "doing nothing," and it's a celebrated part of the culture. This isn't about being lazy; it's about consciously choosing to do an activity without a purpose, like looking out of a window or sitting on a park bench, just letting your mind wander.
- How to Practice It: Consider starting small and without guilt. Schedule five minutes of "niksen" into your day. Find a comfortable spot, perhaps with a view of a canal or a quiet street. It helps to put your phone away. The idea is to have no goal, so you don't need to try to meditate or practice mindfulness. Simply sit. Let your thoughts drift without holding onto them. It may feel strange at first, but this practice is a powerful antidote to burnout. It gives your brain the unstructured downtime it needs to process experiences, spark creativity, and reset itself.
3. Master the Art of the Single-Task
The modern world has sold us a myth: that multitasking is a skill. In truth, our brains are not designed for it. When we multitask, we are actually "task-switching" very rapidly, which depletes our mental energy and increases stress. As an expat juggling countless new inputs, this is a recipe for exhaustion.
- How to Practice It: A great way to begin is to choose one simple activity a day to do with your full, undivided attention. When you drink your morning coffee, just drink the coffee. Avoid scrolling through the news or checking your email. Experience its warmth, its aroma, its taste. When you walk to the tram stop, just walk. Notice the feeling of your feet on the pavement and the sounds of your neighbourhood. This practice retrains your brain to focus. It brings a sense of richness and calm to mundane moments and improves your ability to concentrate deeply on important tasks when it matters most.
4. Listen Mindfully in a New Language
Living in a country where you may not be fluent in the language can be a constant source of low-grade anxiety. In meetings or social gatherings, we often get so caught up in trying to understand every single word and formulate a perfect reply that we miss the essence of the conversation.
- How to Practice It: Experiment shifting your goal from "perfect understanding" to "mindful listening." Pay attention to the speaker's tone of voice, their body language, and the overall feeling of the conversation. Listen with curiosity and patience for yourself. When you don't understand something, simply notice it without self-judgment. This approach reduces the immense pressure of communication, allowing you to relax and, paradoxically, absorb more of the language and the connection being offered.
Thriving in your new Dutch life isn't about having the most crowded calendar or the most impressive list of achievements. It's about the quality of your presence. By giving yourself permission to slow down, you give yourself the gift of truly arriving.
About the Author:
Helen Robert is a writer, coach, and creator of the newly launched Harmony Within guidebook series. Through her writing on presence, peace, and inner transformation, she shares simple, effective tools to help people find calm—especially expats adjusting to the beautiful challenge of life in a new home. You can discover the Harmony Within guidebook at https://beacons.ai/helenrobertstudio and follow her journey on Instagram @helenrobert.studio , Substack, and YouTube.
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