Yesterday, my husband and I talked through a misunderstanding we’d had earlier in the day.

It wasn’t a major conflict, and it didn’t linger.
We were able to come back to it within a few hours and resolve it the same day.

Still, it stayed with me — not because of what it was about, but because of how differently we experienced it.

From my perspective, I thought I had been communicating something clearly, just not directly. I’d named it indirectly more than once, assuming that with enough shared context — and with the fact that we’d circled this topic before — he would infer what I was pointing toward.

From his perspective, nothing had been stated plainly enough to respond to. If I wanted something, he said, I could have said it more directly and repeated myself until there was no ambiguity.

What interested me most during the debrief wasn’t whose interpretation was “right,” but what I was projecting that he, simply, wasn’t tracking.
He didn’t notice my body language,
The way I softened my tone,
The pauses I left open.

He reflected that in Spanish contexts — with him, and often with others — being more “cañera” would likely reduce confusion rather than create it. Being more direct. Less, as he would call it, “American polite.”

I understood what he meant immediately.
And at the same time, I felt a clear internal resistance.

Speaking more roughly, more pointedly, or more forcefully than I need to doesn’t feel like clarity to me. It feels like hardening.

And despite having lived here — in this Spanish context — for over 16 years,
I’m not interested in reshaping myself in that direction just to be more easily legible.

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I grew up in a cultural context where hierarchy mattered,
Where tone of voice was something you monitored closely,
And where indirectness wasn’t avoidance so much as social literacy.

Take, for example, the famous American Shit Sandwich approach to feedback:
Here’s a great thing you’re doing to soften the blow of what I’m about to say.
Here’s the thing you need to work on improving that I will say as nicely as possible.
Here’s one more great thing so that any blow to your ego in Part II is erased.

The implicit message for me growing up was often that how you say something determines whether it will be received at all.

Here in Spain, directness tends to carry less relational risk. You can state something plainly without softening it, without asking permission, without worrying as much about how it lands.

Neither approach is inherently better.

But moving between them — daily, relationally, often without noticing — creates a subtle negotiation inside me that I’m still learning how to name:

Which version of me is being called for in this moment? And am I choosing consciously, or defaulting out of habit?

I’ve been reflecting on this since — not as something to analyze, but as something to stay with.

In this month’s audio reflection, I slow the moment down and explore what it’s like to choose how to speak when different cultural instincts are pulling at once…

Without rushing myself toward the “right” version.

Forest path, Winter, Crossroads image — Photo by Klaus for Pixabay

Below is a short guided audio, Which Version of Me Speaks First?. I’ve recorded it for the long-term expats who find themselves caught between different versions of themselves — each shaped by different places, languages, and expectations.

It’s for moments when:

You’re mid-conversation and unsure how much of yourself to bring forward
You’re navigating a decision where two impulses both feel valid
You can feel yourself about to default to what’s familiar, expected, or culturally rewarded

This is not a meditation to calm yourself down. And it’s not meant to help you decide anything.

Instead, it offers a way to:

Pause without overriding yourself
Notice what’s actually present before you perform coherence
Stay with the tension of “both/and” without rushing toward resolution

If you’ve lived long enough across cultures to feel this internal negotiation — and you’re learning to listen without forcing clarity too soon — this audio is here to walk that edge with you.

If solo reflection feels supportive right now, stay with it.

You’re not alone.
You’re welcome here.

Let’s keep walking the edges together.

Onward,
Kay✨

Who’s behind Edgewalkers Collective?

I’m Kay — Filipina American TCK (Third Culture Kid), 17 years in Spain, and a counsellor-in-training (CPCAB, UK). I spent over a decade working in inclusion and cross-cultural strategy, helping organizations bridge cultures. Now I’m training to offer something different: recognition-based support for expats and global citizens who are done being told they should feel lucky to be here.

If you’d like a sense of what working together could look like, you can read more on the Work With Me page.
If you already know you want to sit with this more regularly, you can upgrade to paid for monthly guided audios and quarterly pattern reports from my ongoing research interviews.
If this work is useful and you’d like to support it another way, you can buy me a coffee.

When Two Versions of You Are Both Right

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