She Dubai-it by letting go: How a British expat stopped forcing her path – and found everything

Dubai: In the middle of chaos, when the world feels like it’s falling apart, would you just let go of control and see where life takes you?

It may seem counter-intuitive, but for British expat Carina Harvey, it’s the decision she needed to make to change her life.

Harvey arrived in Dubai in 2015, after a difficult period in the UK. She said: “I [separated] from my partner and was made redundant from my big corporate company job, which had felt pretty safe at the time – all in the space of about six months.”

She needed a change, and the first place that came to mind? Dubai. She had visited the city before, and it seemed like a good place for a fresh start. Harvey said: “I had no job, and after a couple of trips to Dubai, I realised I needed to be on the ground to secure a role, so I took the plunge and moved here to find work.”

But her first year in the city gave her a different kind of reality check. Although she landed a job fairly quickly, in human resources for an international company, she found herself with no friend circle, no idea where to go to network with people, and no proper understanding of the city’s systems and nuances. She felt alone.

Harvey said: “I was starting off from scratch in a country that on some levels, I didn't even understand. But rather than throwing myself into it, I held myself back.”

She admitted that although she tried hard in her first year in Dubai, she spent too much time “playing the victim” about her situation: “I was over-processing everything, and in some ways, making it more challenging than it needed to be. Eventually, I decided I was moving back to the UK. I handed in my notice, and fully planned to leave.”

When she returned to the UK for Christmas, in 2016, she informed family and friends about her decision – she was done. She would work through her notice period in Dubai, and then return to the UK. That was the plan.

A switch turning on

When she returned to Dubai for her handover, however, everything felt different.

Harvey said: “And that's the strange part: during that time, because I thought Dubai was no longer going to be where I lived, I stopped trying so hard. I stopped forcing it. And that's exactly when things started to click. I met people naturally, started building networks, both personally and professionally, without pushing for any of it.”

She added: “That was my first real spiritual lesson here. You can go all guns blazing after the thing you think should be yours, but the real question is whether it's actually meant to be yours. Allowing things to flow, rather than controlling them, is often what lets them land.”

The lesson kept showing up in her life in different ways. It’s how she met her husband.

She said: “We had actually worked for the same business I was made redundant from, for years, but due to its scale and size, we had ever met. He relocated to Dubai with the company, and we were introduced by a mutual friend.”

Although Harvey met him in her first year in Dubai, they initially “friend-zoned” each other. She said: “It wasn’t an instant romance. But it was during the period when I’d decided to move to the UK, and things became less challenging, that things between us developed. The relationship I built with him happened almost by accident, once I stopped forcing it.”

The same lesson – of letting go of control – showed up again in Harvey’s career.

She said: “I spent a while trying to force the same corporate career girl I'd always been in London, here in Dubai. After a few different jobs, I finally realised that wasn't actually my path here. I was meant to be an entrepreneur.”

She built a coaching business in 2019. But this, too, didn’t have a smooth trajectory: “I quickly realised it wasn't actually the business my heart, or my original intention, had set out to build. So, I took a step back from it. When you realise something isn't right, you have to actually stop and understand why, before you pick it back up again. That's exactly what I did.”

A journey to identity

Harvey continued to explore her interests, taking a sabbatical, working as a stylist part time, travelling, and going on what she calls her “self-discovery journey”, where she delved into past challenges and traumas, went through life coaching and therapy, and worked on her mental health. She said: “I'm a fairly complex human being, so that took real time.”

But what started as personal coaching for herself turned into serious study. Harvey began learning about human behaviour and coaching modalities, like neurolinguistic programming (NLP) – a set of techniques and principles that connect neurological processes, language, and behavioural patterns to help people change how they think and act.

Finally, everything clicked into place: “That's when I realised the thread running through all of it wasn't really about any one problem – it was about identity. You can't understand yourself, or build the life that's meant for you, without taking the time to actually know who you are.”

The realisation set her on a path to healing, resilience, and ultimately, sharing her knowledge and experience with others.

A position that’s been a long time coming

Today, she works as an identity guide and advisor at her own interior design services business, Carina Harvey LLC, where she helps create intentional spaces, shaped around a deep understanding of personal or brand identity, rather than trend-led aesthetics. In this role, Harvey’s experience in styling and interior design, her coaching and NLP credentials, and her Master’s in personnel development (HR) have come together in perfect serendipity.

Harvey also speaks on stages and online: “I work with entrepreneurs and leaders who feel somewhat lost or disillusioned, whether they feel they have it right on paper or perhaps not. It often shows up in a lack of self-confidence, trust, motivation, or contentment. I help guide them back to who they are at their very core. My work gives clients the framework to support their journey, but also to understand broader aspects of human behaviour, and to make sense of the world around us.”

Looking back, Harvey said she had to experience life’s curveballs to get to this point of clarity: “That's ultimately what let me step into being an entrepreneur – understanding myself well enough to know what needed healing and what my real path actually was. Part of that has been learning to leverage who I am, not despite what I've been through, but because of it. Learning to actually use that, rather than carry it as a weight, has been its own piece of the work.”

Living in a diverse, fast-moving city like Dubai has helped her understand the value of knowing who you are: “To want to live in, and truly thrive in a city like this, you need a real level of determination. My own thread through all of it has been staying open-minded about how that determination actually gets you there, rather than deciding in advance exactly what it has to look like.”

She said that’s ultimately the principle behind her own understanding of Dubai-it – the city’s cultural philosophy of achieving something extraordinary, with excellence.

For Harvey, “it's about believing something can be extraordinary, but staying open to how that actually unfolds rather than forcing one specific outcome. One of the incredible things about being here is that there is so much opportunity, but you can be overly specific, and overly forced, about chasing it. When you allow yourself to flow with it instead, the things that are meant for you tend to find you.”