About the migration process

Marc Auge, a French philosopher, refers to places and non-places, referring to them as different ways of perceiving the same space. The author defines seconds as an interchangeable space where the human being remains anonymous.

When a subject arrives at a new space, for whatever reason, motivated by desire or by a state of force majeure, he, in principle, fails to appropriate that space.

Lately, these types of issues reach psychological consultations. Thanks to the opportunities of a globalized world and new technologies, people who are thinking of emigrating and want to make the leap in the safest way possible (or who did) they find new emotions along the way, often difficult to manage in the solitude of the distance.

• Related article: "What is Cultural Psychology?"

The migration process

Today, migratory movements have changed rapidly and, unlike our ancestors, we usually do them without the extended family; grandparents, parents, siblings. Instead, we do them alone, with a partner, children. In this process we find ourselves with a host of different emotions. The polarity of sadness and joy that can be felt for having emigrated and having left the country of origin can be difficult to integrate, since perhaps our tendency is to want to feel joy and leave sadness aside, separate them.

On this roller coaster, many times we can feel that we are going to die, that we can't take it anymore, that the challenges are bigger than the resources we have. Then we revive, we recover faith and hope to perhaps fall again, and in that fall and rise, die and revive, we can learn a lot about ourselves. Each person has their internal battles when emigrating; Perhaps what for someone may be something very simple, for another it may represent a great challenge.

Fears protect us, of course they do, but when they are poorly attended, they limit us.. When you don't pretend that they don't exist and you don't repress it, it is in that fearful advance that the resources that will lead you to discover a new facet of ourselves will begin to unfold.

Because courage is not fearlessness, courage is fear walking.

Regarding the recurrence of migratory mourning

When we have settled in to the new country, the new city, culture, and in some cases languages, when we manage to feel comfortable in the new space, it often happens that some triggers connect us again with the duel.

It is common for it to appear before facts or events that are important to the migrant, facilitated today for access to technology; moments in which the distance between your country of origin and the current one becomes more meat. Sundays can be days where the recurrence appears, birthdays, weddings, Christmas, some illness of a relative or a friend. In the same way that a duel is updated. The recurrence does not imply that there is suffering; It can hurt, but you don't necessarily have to suffer.

The demands on mourning

Within the mandates, there is the call to “overcome”. But there's nothing to overcome, life abroad is not about something left behind. It is a movement that can become profoundly expansive for the individual and family soul. We are not talking about failures or successes, we are talking about experiences, about a life that makes sense, according to the process.

Some experiences will enrich you, others will make you doubt, others will invite you to question the reasons for your decision. We rethink the decision over and over again, from a different perspective. And it is that emigrating implies walking with the illusion of certainty, holding hands with fear. The decision to emigrate is not an irrevocable commitment.

Many times we fall into the demand of wanting things to happen immediately. In the excessive demand, there is a part of us that is activated, demanding that not and immediately, sometimes nothing is enough and the complaint settles, displacing gratitude.

Being benevolent with our history, with who we are and with our own processes, will be an aspect that will facilitate adaptation. We are not machines that press a button and immediately develop skills to understand a new way of seeing the world in the country they arrive in. It is interesting to ask the question of where we take ourselves to punishing extremes, when we are in a learning process.

Making peace with ourselves is urgent. There is already too much pain outside. The experience that comes from emigrating is a non-transferable process...

If you have not emigrated yet or, if you already did and need to share it or think you need help with it, I will accompany you in the process.