I moved around the world mainly from when I was 19 and up to when I turned 26, and it has been 5 years since I moved to the Netherlands. We could say that it was only 5 years ago that I decided to leave Mexico and move abroad. When I look back on the places I have been and the time I have spent in each one of them, I can say that somehow I always knew it was temporary, so I never really looked back at “what I had left behind” in Mexico, because somehow I knew my current time abroad had an “expiration date”. However, after living 5 years in the Netherlands, I thought it would be useful to provide you with some advice on how to make the best out of your decision while trying not to feel (too) homesick.
1. Be open and enjoy life as if you were on a holiday
In other words, keep on feeding your excitement. Remember that last trip you did, which you looked forward to every day you planned? This is the kind of mindset you need to maintain. There must have been an amusing reason you decided to move to this new specific city, country, and/or even continent. First of all, have you thought of doing a free walking tour? Why not! In the first week I moved to Maastricht I did one. It gave me a glance into the city while meeting new people and getting explanations of the city’s history. It was a great start. Have you been to all the museums? cafes? all favorite food restaurants? all the bookshops? If you start to make lists of the places that make you happy and turn them into bucket lists, you will see how easy it is to keep happy and busy. When that runs out… start to look at the cities and closest airports, are there some interesting places for weekend getaways? When we make life entertaining, we do not leave mental space to think about what we could fail to experience elsewhere ;).
2. Do not compare your home country with the new one
Listen to me here: This is VERY important. You are in a different place, with diverse people, and most likely also a different language and culture. For example, the average local supermarket will not sell me fresh tortillas! Period. The decision to move abroad implies a will to adapt to the new. On multiple occasions when going back to Mexico, people have asked me things like –
- Do you ever speak Spanish? or
- Don’t you miss Mexican food? or
- So you move by bike everywhere?
The answers to these questions are:
- I do it with some of my friends and plenty at work.
- Not really.
- Yes practically, to work, to the supermarket, and even for going on dates and meeting friends.
And people get shocked at these answers, but frankly, there is nothing to be surprised about. We, humankind, have an endless capacity for adaptation, on top, life has to offer so much more than the context we were given! Go and enjoy the new food, take some language lessons, check out the way of commuting, etc, and most importantly remember that being in a new context allows space for discovering a new self. How exciting is that?
3. Focus on what you have and not on what you left behind
We have a saying in Mexico “Para atrás, ni para agarrar vuelo”: “To look back is not good, not even to take the impulse to continue moving forward”. Ask yourself:
In the beginning when homesickness strikes:
- The job you always wanted?
- A studying opportunity?
- The chance to introduce yourself to a new culture?
In a later stage when the homesick feeling may revisit (because trust me, even years later, it can reappear), all of this is also worth continuing building on:
- your career
- your personal development
- all close relationships
- the places close by are still worth visiting
4. Commit to life as if you were not going to go back
This is a tough statement, and it is not that you are not going to go back ever. Everything is a choice. All I am saying is that it is ideal to commit to life to the fullest daily. For example, here in the Netherlands, it rains often, in my hometown in Mexico it practically never rains. It would have been absurd to say “I will not buy a raincoat because back home I will never use it”. That is equivalent to living in denial of the reality I am living in.
On the contrary, the truth is that it rains plenty. From the start, I got an excellent quality raincoat even when in the beginning I did not know how long I would stay there. 5 years later I can tell you it has kept me dry hundreds of times.
Commit to your new life. Embrace it all. Stay present.
5. Remember happiness goes with you wherever you go, the rest you can buy or build
This is something we all know but we easily forget too: happiness is found within and not outside. If we live life sourcing joy from external factors and third parties we will encounter ourselves emotionally unstable and extremely vulnerable. Emotional strength and mental stability have its foundation in your resilience capacity. When you move abroad, especially if you do so by yourself, you will not have friends, your usual routines and activities, and a specific amount of financial resources. You require patience, but you still have all your capacities to make friends, rebuild your routine activities (sports, hobbies, etc), find a new job, and rent a new house, it is all ok. You did it before and you can do it again. You are alone but not lonely, you have yourself and that is wonderful.
6. Never lose sight of the reason why you moved
Do you remember those days spent back home dreaming of your life abroad? the job applications… the school admission requests… the scholarship applications made… suddenly you are here and say you want to leave? No, don’t give up! The mind is so capable of tricking us, do not fall in the trap. We are so easily dragged to our comfort zones, so vulnerable to choose again what seems easier, to accept only what is familiar… Stay strong! Remember that version of you who dreamed of this and what the short, mid, and long-term objectives were.
7. Do not convert expenses to your currency
This is one of the most toxic and energy-draining things you can do. I am not saying that you should be careless with your spending, I suggest making a budget, but that’s it!
Let’s go back to the tortillas example. At some point, I found Tortillas in the local supermarket. I practically get 10 nonfresh tortillas, for the price of a kilo of fresh tortillas in Mexico. If I were to think of that every time I bought a tortilla pack, I would not enjoy every meal of a dish that otherwise would make me happy. What I do is that I make a weekly budget for groceries, and try to cover my needs and wants weekly with a specific limited amount. Don’t convert the exchange rate, it is the source of misery abroad.
By the way, if you move to a place where things are CHEAPER than back home, the same applies, do not overspend, and be mindful of your resources. Any day that something unexpected happens, you will wish to have some extra savings.
8. Moving abroad is just the first step, you will need to continue stepping out of your comfort zone
Think about all of those things you love to do. For example, I love public speaking, going to the gym, speaking and learning languages… Eventually, I searched for the clubs and institutions that could fulfill these interests: I joined the local Toastmasters club, enrolled in the gym, and found the local Confucius Institute to continue learning Chinese. This has resulted in personal satisfaction and development besides making friends with similar interests! This is SO important, gradually you start to create a usual community that shares your joys.
9. Build your tribe
And this connects to my last sentence within point 8. Eventually, it is a must to identify which members of your community could belong to “your tribe”, meaning that they are the people with whom you identify the most, not only in hobbies and interests but also in values, character, and life outlook. You need a small number of friends but they should gradually be the only friends you can trust. You need friends who stand by you blowing your candles on your next birthday and through your next disappointment you need to vent about. For example, I made one of my tribe members my emergency contact at work. She speaks Spanish and has met my entire closest family a couple of years back. My mom has her WhatsApp number and vice versa. This is the kind of closeness I would expect and suggest for your tribe members, people you identify with, and that you can rely on, no matter what.
10. Despite all efforts, there will still be times when you will feel lonely, it is tough to admit but make peace with accepting there will be difficult days anyway
We have reached the last piece of advice full of this ugly truth. No matter how much effort you put in, there will still be difficult days. There will be special dates back home that you will miss, weddings, birthdays, family events… Here, like back home, you will have bad days at work or school; some other days the weather can be worse than expected, or too many days too cold or gray. I do not intend to bring you “the blues” in advance, but yes to make you aware of these realities too. Knowing that these hard days will come, will at least not make you too disappointed. Life is challenging, and choosing life abroad will add challenges, but in my experience, no matter what, stepping out of your comfort zone will always be more rewarding than settling with what you were only given back home.
You have been so brave in leaping crossing cultural and territorial borders, you have flown over oceans and made it so far in adapting to this new life. Please don’t give up and keep going! There is so much to discover and the rewards are all ahead.
With love,
Sofia
