Have you migrated recently? 5 key tips

When we migrate we can come to face different challenges, depending on personality characteristics, belief system, coping skills, training professional and emotional management, all these can cause a migration situation to be perceived with different sensations in front of the same facts.

• We recommend you read: "Return Migration and Reverse Culture Shock"

What happens when we migrate?

One of the first challenges we face, and it is the same for everyone, is stress and anxiety, due to uncertainty in the face of the unknown.. The most common challenges are: adaptation to the culture we are going to, the language and the search for a house, since It can take many months and even years, as it is in most cases to find a home.

Different fears that were not previously had may appear, fear of illness, social fear, aggravation of pre-existing disorders. The migratory duel is suffered with its respective phases, the first is the loss of home, that place that we felt was safe and that reflects who we are.

The loss of identity, since our person is formed according to the environment and our culture, determining many of our tastes and ways of behaving. The distance from the family, even if it is not a family structure with the best foundations, the loss of that network of trust that sustains us and that we know supports us and picks us up when we feel that we are falling is greatly resented.

The social circle, our lifelong friends, accomplices and confidants, with whom we feel that we can be ourselves and share our joys and sorrows. The loss of comforts, although there are many reasons that move us, most likely in the place from which we fled we had many comforts, a house, a car, our own business. An inexplicable contradiction, because we had a lot but never lasting in time.

Loss of our professional value, if we have academic achievements, we can suffer the total loss of our achievement, since they are professions that differ greatly between countries such as degrees in law or architecture, where we must do extra studies to be able to obtain our academic position again. Or in other cases, spending a long time waiting in processes to obtain approvals to be able to practice. In other cases there is a total transformation of the professional profile.

For many it is usually a traumatic experience, since the migration process was probably not something planned with enthusiasm, as a personal decision because they wanted to experience other lands and cultures. Rather, it was an arbitrary decision that led them to an immigration action because they found themselves in an uncontrollable and irremediable situation, such as a lack of economic resources, war, dictatorship, violence, political persecution or degrees of corruption in the country of origin that did not allow them to have stability in the future.

A common denominator for migrants who move even within their own country is loneliness, feeling sad being alone is much more painful than feeling sad and being accompanied, the resolution of the financial and housing problem, obtaining regulatory papers in the country of reception. In many cases we will find discrimination, due to prejudices that also depend on the "fame" that has been created around our nationality. Especially when it comes to renting a home.

They are issues that challenge us and in turn hurt us, a combination of many important discomforts that we do not allows us to concentrate, and depending on our personality, we will or will not want to do things, we will feel motivated or not What is certain is that even if we manage to unleash within us an idea that this migratory movement It is a new opportunity and a way out of the other old problems, it does not mean that we are not going to feel that pain.

The barriers that we can find as migrants could be those of access to health, to mental health, due to lack of resources in the host country to attend to migrants with programs, due to ignorance, due to not mastering the language, not having health insurance, lack of financial resources and in many cases it is the stigma associated with seeking help psychological.

Tips for coping with these experiences

Given the increase in stress and anxiety that is experienced in these processes, for which there is not enough time to plan and fill up on information as well as develop coping skills, recommends:

• Once you have arrived in the host country, find out, since in misinformation there is emptiness and lack, which do not allow us to act. Find out about the services available for migrants, help centers, integration programs, psychological support groups, participation in community activities in the host country, as well as seeking support groups and activities in the home country (if there would be).

• Self-pity, affection and patience with oneselfAn unfair context makes anyone a victim. Understanding ourselves as vulnerable humans and as passing victims of a situation helps us to be more condescending to ourselves, normalizing our emotional and psychological states as well as putting aside expectations and self-demands, this improves our internal dialogue, treating ourselves as if we were our best friend who loves us is a good daily antidote to uncertainty, hopelessness and perhaps despair.

• Making an effort to connect with other people even without the desire, allows us to socialize and begin to create that much-needed trust network marked in our own DNA, we do not stop being a kind of social animal that needs a herd.

• Create a realistic life project in the medium - long term, gives us the feeling of having a path, encourages motivation and illusion. Creating lists of actions to be carried out, even if they are small, when we cross off things like: -Take the photo for the residence application or -Enroll in the language course (from the host country), psychologically makes us feel that we are moving and the satisfaction of complying with us, increasing the self-confidence.

• Take care of our self-esteemIn addition to internal dialogue, what reinforces our love for our own person is making decisions and acting seeking our well-being, avoiding our suffering as far as possible, defending ourselves when necessary need. In the same way that we do it with those we love.