Melissa Parks, PhD - Coach for Globally Mobile & Writer

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United States
Seattle, WA
Melissa Parks, PhD - Coach for Globally Mobile & Writer

I've been working in the field of mental health and wellness for almost 20 years now, in the USA, Spain, and the Netherlands.

🌍 Helping women find home in themselves, wherever in the world they are | 🧠 Former therapist & self-compassion advocate | 📖 Author, A Compassionate Mess (June 23, 2026) | 💻 Co-founder, Location Independent Therapists (LIT) Community I have my PhD in Clinical and Health Psychology and worked as a therapist for many years. These days I provide coaching to expats and entrepreneurs. I primarily support my clients through transitions, helping them to cultivate resilience, coping skills, and a better understanding and appreciation of themselves and their values. I'm also the co-founder of “Location Independent Therapists," an online community made up of mental health professionals around the globe who are living and working across country lines. We support them in growing their private practice and finding ways to combine their career in mental health with international living. I'm currently writing a memoir that's primarily focused on the decade I lived abroad in Europe. I share about my journey to pursuing therapy myself, and becoming a therapist, making peace with my highly sensitive side, and discovering the power of self-compassion. I'm also the mom to an energetic preschooler who keeps me on my toes so I have a lot of empathy for my clients who are parents themselves. I'm married to a global nomad who I met while living abroad and we speak a version of Spanglish in our house, and keep our love for international living alive with as much travel as we can, staying in touch with friends and family around the globe, and enjoying international foods.

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If you’re interested in discussing how we could work together, I invite you to set up a free consultation call at https://melissaparks.com/free-consultation-call/ or email me at melissa@melissaparks.com

04/01/2026

It's hard to believe, but it's been seven years since I said goodbye to my life in Europe and moved back to the U.S. 🌍

Somehow those seven years have gone by faster than the ten I spent abroad. Maybe because it was a different season of my life? Maybe because life abroad is so picturesque that the memories just feel more vibrant?

My life abroad was about adventure, growth, beauty, excitement, and independence.

These past seven years have been about different core values — connection with family and lifelong friends, self-compassion, gratitude, fun, and growth as a mom.

The decade abroad was an outer and inner journey. These past seven years have been much more focused on the inner one. I feel lucky though that I've still had outer adventures too — local trips and several visits to Costa Rica and Spain.

And yet I can't say I feel completely settled here in Seattle. I still have dreams where Seattle and Madrid are just a short drive from one another.

I'd give anything to stroll along Alki in the afternoon and step out into Puerta del Sol in the evening.

On hard days I worry we made the wrong decision. Thankfully those days are few and far between.

I write honestly about all of this — the stay-or-go dilemma, preparing for repatriation, the dreams — in my memoir, A Compassionate Mess, out June 23, 2026. ❤️

For those of you who have your heart in more than one place - where do you wish you could visit all in one day?

03/30/2026

I need your help! 🎙️

I'm publishing my debut memoir on June 23rd and as part of the launch I'm pitching podcasts. The problem? Most of my podcast listening these days revolves around parenting — which has nothing to do with the book! 😅

A Compassionate Mess: A Therapist, Her Monsters, and a Journey to Self-Acceptance is a memoir about the decade I spent living and working abroad — across Spain and the Netherlands — navigating expat life, building a therapy practice, and dealing with some of the same struggles my clients were bringing to therapy. It's the story of my own healing journey: as a therapy client myself, and ultimately through discovering the transformative power of mindful self-compassion.

Topics I can speak to:
🧠 Self-compassion and the inner critic
🌍 Expat life, repatriation, the stay or go dilemma
✍️ The process of writing and self-publishing a debut memoir
🦁 Living a life of courage instead of fear
🌱 Life after recovering from an eating disorder
💔 Rebuilding your life after it takes an unexpected turn
♾️ How writing about my childhood led me to a deeper understanding of my high sensitivity and neurodivergence

What are your favorite podcasts on mental health, globally mobile life, or the intersection of the two? Shows you love, shows you've been on, or shows you think would be a good fit — drop them in the comments or send me a message! Thank you! 💖

03/27/2026

Do I let the fear make the decision? Or do I let my values? 🤔

This is something I come back to constantly, both in my own life and in my work with clients.

Our feelings are rarely the best compass. Fear, self-doubt, the voice that says who do you think you are? — these are real, and they deserve to be acknowledged. But they don't deserve to be part of our inner compass.

Our values do. 🧭

My work with globally mobile clients often centers on navigating big, complicated decisions. The "stay or go" dilemma - do I stay abroad, or move back home? Stay home or go abroad?

Or maybe it's the dilemma of whether or not to continue a relationship, change careers, grow their family... these decisions become even messier when you've got a life that spans countries.

It can be so difficult to know what you truly want when you have different people in different parts of the world giving you different advice. Different futures, sometimes on different continents, that you could imagine. I often tell my clients I wish I had a crystal ball that could help them make these decisions easier. 🔮

Since we don't have a way to predict the future, we have to settle for the next best thing - clarifying their values. Untangling feelings from values allows us to ask the questions we need to answer in these difficult dilemmas - "What matters most to you when you strip everything else away?" and "What would you want most of all if fear wasn't getting in the way?"

✨ So here's my question for you as we head into the weekend -

Is there something you've been putting off? Not because it isn't important to you, but because it scares you? Something your gut, your values, keep coming back to?
And would it look like to let your values make that decision, instead of your fear? 💖

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, wherever in the world you are 🌎

03/24/2026

"I wished someone had warned me that when you went out to explore the world there was a risk that you'd never feel entirely at home again.

Then again, had I really felt 'at home' before moving abroad? I'd moved to Spain precisely because I'd always felt out of place in Seattle. Spain was supposed to be my chance to find out who I was when all the familiar fell away. But what if the familiar was the very thing that made a place feel like home?"

This is a passage from my upcoming memoir, A Compassionate Mess: A Therapist, Her Monsters, and a Journey to Self-Acceptance 📖

If you've ever felt caught between two places — or wondered if you'll ever feel truly at home anywhere — this book was written for you. 💖

I'm still looking for a few early readers to get a copy before it's published June 23rd. Sign up via the link below or message me your email ✨

03/19/2026

I knew writing a memoir would be vulnerable, but it turns out the whole process of publishing is one hurdle of vulnerability after another 😅

This week's vulnerability challenge is asking people to read my book before it's published.

My debut memoir, "A Compassionate Mess: A Therapist, Her Monsters, and a Journey to Self-Acceptance," comes out June 23rd. And I'm looking for a small group of early readers to get a copy before anyone else.

If any of this sounds like you:

✨ You've ever felt like you should be more grateful for your life abroad
✨ You've had your heart in more than one place and didn't know what to do with that
✨ You've spent years trying to fix yourself — and are ready to try a different way
..then this book might be for you.

Here's all it involves to be an early reader -

📖 I'll send you a digital copy in late March
✅ You read it before June 23rd
⭐ Ideally, you'll leave an honest review during launch week — wherever you show up online (Amazon, goodreads, social media, etc.)

Sign up here - https://efficacious-helmet-348.notion.site/321a2011e3eb807284c7f4283fb280c1?pvs=105

(or send me a message with your email)

03/16/2026

There's something I notice a lot working with my clients who have moved abroad. 🌍

They don't usually come out and say "I thought moving abroad would fix things."

But somewhere along the way (often in the middle of a session, often with a look of surprise or embarrassment), they realize that's exactly what they'd hoped.

That the anxiety would stay behind. Or the perfectionism. The people pleasing. The procrastination...whatever it is that we're working on.

The thing is, the things we carry don't stay packed. They find their way into our suitcases, no matter how carefully we try to leave them behind. No matter how far away we go. 🧳

This is one of the threads woven through my upcoming memoir, A Compassionate Mess, a book about what it really takes to find home inside yourself, no matter where in the world you are.

The book will be released June 23rd. Does this feel relatable? I'd love to hear in the comments if you've had this realization yourself. ⬇

03/10/2026

Something that's been living inside my head for years finally has a face.

When my cover designer asked what I imagined my memoir cover would look like, my mind went completely blank. I'd written and rewritten this book for years. I'd even visualized holding the finished copy in my hands. But somehow, in that visualization, there had never been a cover.

So we started from almost nothing - a vague sense that the title needed to do most of the work, and a small visual hint at the "mess." A few iterations later (and after consulting my husband, my son, and yes, even my 16-month-old), we landed here.

A huge thanks to the talented Michelle of Fresh Design https://freshdesignbooks.carbonmade.com/ 😍

This is A Compassionate Mess: A Therapist, Her Monsters, and a Journey to Self-Acceptance.

The book is about the journey of learning to meet the messy, uncomfortable parts of ourselves with compassion rather than trying to fix or hide them. It felt important that the cover capture that spirit without being too obvious or corny.

Seeing it like this - real, finished, out in the world - is a little surreal. Exciting and terrifying in equal measure.

Next week I'll be sharing how you can read it before it's published. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, what's your first impression? I really do want to know. 💓

03/06/2026

After my breakup in Spain, one of the questions I wrestled with most was this -

Should I stay… or should I go? 🤔

Stay in the country where I had been building a life, even though the relationship that anchored it was suddenly gone?

Or go back to somewhere familiar and start over again?

At the time, I had no idea what was the right answer. 😥

Part of me wondered whether it made sense to keep trying to build a life in Spain after everything had fallen apart. Was it a sign it was time to move home?

Another part of me wasn’t ready to walk away from the life I had started there.

A few years later, when I first posted about this time in my life on my blog, I learned just how many people living abroad face similar crossroads. 🛣

In fact, it's become one of the most common reasons globally mobile clients reach out to me - should I stay or go?

It's also one of the threads that runs through the memoir I’ve been writing.

What about you - have you ever faced a moment where you had to decide whether to stay somewhere… or start over somewhere else? 🌎

03/04/2026

Four years into living abroad, my life in Spain fell apart in a single conversation.

I had been building a home - and a life - with my Spanish boyfriend. And suddenly that future disappeared.

At first I assumed the breakup meant the end of my time in Spain too.

Part of me thought it would make the most sense to leave.
To return to where my family was.
To start over somewhere familiar.

But something inside me wasn’t ready to give up on the life I had begun building there, even if it suddenly felt like it was in ruins. 💔

So I stayed.

Not because I had a clear plan.
Definitely not because I felt strong, confident, or certain!

I stayed because some quiet part of me hoped there might still be something for me in Spain. 🇪🇸

Looking back now, that decision changed the course of my life in ways I couldn’t possibly have imagined at the time.

It’s also where my memoir begins. 📖

Have you ever made a decision that felt uncertain in the moment, but later shaped everything that came after? ✨

02/28/2026

Some of you may know this already, but in May I’ll be publishing my memoir, "A Compassionate Mess."

It begins with my life in Madrid falling apart and traces the years that followed as I tried to rebuild something that actually fit.

The book explores living abroad, identity and belonging, therapy (on both sides of the couch), and learning that self-compassion isn’t indulgent - it’s necessary.

It feels strange to share something like this when the world feels heavy. And yet, at its core, this book is about our common humanity - about the importance of human connection and recognizing we are all imperfect and vulnerable human beings worthy of compassion.

That feels more important to me than ever.

I recently updated my website to reflect this next chapter, including a dedicated book page where you can join the mailing list for updates and early access when preorders open. I'll also be sharing the cover with my mailing list very soon!

If you’re curious, you can find it here:
https://melissaparks.com/memoir/

07/28/2025

Really excited about this! For years my co-founder, Sonia Jaeger and I have been offering these one off consultations to other mental health professionals interested in becoming location independent therapists. But it was never something we advertised, just something we offered when people emailed us about it. We recently decided it was time to change that and we’re now spreading the word about this offer for mental health professionals who are curious about location independence, but might not want (or be ready) for the entire LIT Community experience.

Please spread the word to anyone you know who could benefit from this - https://locationindependenttherapists.com/consultation-with-co-founder/?fbclid=PAQ0xDSwL0jhhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABp2clfZvaSj66eX2XRoU0iUEWb3RwrtxHKudRr8_9az6-BirzTZ1o9rMetkwh_aem_zMatZCL3qS5f0w7Kc9VSCg

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http://www.melissaparks.com/

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Welcome to My page!

Hi there! My name is Melissa Parks and I have my PhD in Clinical and Health Psychology and I’ve been running this page since 2014 providing information and resources to support the expat and international community.

I provide coaching to expats and other international clients living around the globe to help them live joyful and fulfilling lives, wherever in the world life takes them. I lived abroad myself for 10 years in Madrid, Spain, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and repatriated back to my hometown of Seattle (USA) last year. However, because I’m in an intercultural marriage, speak Spanish in my home, and interact with clients, colleagues, friends, and family around the world on a daily basis, I still consider myself a global nomad. I also am fond of saying “once a global nomad, always a global nomad,” because living abroad changes your worldview and identity.

My coaching clients include expats, English teachers teaching abroad, international NGO employees, immigrants, adult Third Culture Kids (TCKs), location independent professionals, digital nomads, diplomats, accompanying spouses, and other internationals whose lives span cultures, countries, languages, and times zones.

In addition to coaching, I also co-facilitate a community for location independent therapists and coaches and teach the evidence-based Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program in the Seattle area. I really think mindfulness and self-compassion are essential skills for navigating the emotional rollercoaster that comes with living a globally mobile life. The MSC program is designed to help you cultivate these resources and learn to treat yourself in the same way you’d treat a loved one.