Saying goodbye after having decided to move abroad is difficult and exciting at the same time. The following are tips you can use as you prepare for your trip to make it easier.
TIP #1: Acknowledge your sadness and enjoy your relationship while it lasts:
When a good friend or loved one tells you that they are leaving, it’s okay to acknowledge your sadness. It is very likely that your friend also feels some sadness. Although, the leaver and the “leave” seem to have different timelines for how and when they experience their feelings.
Sometimes we have the belief that if we leave first (emotionally), the loss won’t be as painful. If you hold this belief and examine it closely, I think you will find that there is a hole in the logic. If someone we care about leaves, it hurts. This is one of the strengths seen with expat therapy.
It also helps to share your feelings with the person who is leaving and to allow them to share their feelings as well. And surprisingly, by consciously dealing with these feelings, you can help release any stored pain left over from childhood.
Tip #2: Nothing Risked, Nothing Gained:
When a friend of mine, a soul sister, recently left India, where I live, I knew then (and still know now) that I would not have given up our friendship in exchange for not feeling sadness and loss; not for a minute! For one thing, I was a better person for the experience of knowing her. But more importantly, it would have gone against one of my core beliefs, which is to experience life as fully as possible.
Emotional risk is often difficult to handle, yet I believe that without it, life would lack passion and depth. For me, experiencing life as fully as I can is worth the price I have to pay, in the former case, feeling sad and lonely when my good friend left. This is an important point to consider with expat therapy.
Tip #3: Get back on the horse…:
If you have friends and people you care about deeply in your life, then dealing with loss is inevitable. We live in a time when people move a lot, whether it’s a job or career change, or simply trying to live somewhere else. You may not like this fact, but it sure beats the alternative, which is not having friends and people we care about at all.
At the same time, sadness and the desire to protect ourselves from feeling sad is perfectly natural and understandable. We all want to increase pleasure and minimize pain. Many have argued that these are core ingredients of being human. And when someone you love leaves, it might make sense for a period of time to withdraw and heal your wound, being kind and gentle to yourself during this time. You are most likely setting the stage for new relationships to emerge, especially when considering expat therapy.
Soon it will be time to go out again and build new relationships or rekindle old ones. One tip for building meaningful relationships is to get involved in something you are passionate about. There is nothing like two people doing something they are passionate about creating new bonds. And remember that when an old friend or lover leaves, it creates the space for a new one to enter. It is important to remember this during your transition. You can always get help with expat therapy.
