What Are You Leaving Behind & What Are You Moving Towards?
A Somatic Reflection for Expats, Digital Nomads & Globally Mobile Lives
For international communities navigating change.
When we move countries, the focus is often on what we’re moving towards.
A new job. Better weather. A different lifestyle. Growth. Freedom. Reinvention.
But there’s a quieter, often unacknowledged part of relocation that lives in the body rather than the mind:
What are you leaving behind?
As a somatic therapist, and someone who has moved countries myself, I see this as one of the most important (and least explored) questions in expat life.
My Story: What I Was Leaving Behind
Before moving country, fear of change had stopped me from doing anything new.
After experiencing deep grief, I needed stability. Something in me had once been broken, and stillness felt safer than movement. But like a river that comes to a standstill and becomes a swamp, that stillness slowly turned into boredom, heaviness, and disengagement from life.
I remember sitting in the office, in front of my screen, afraid to make any change, at work or in my life. I had reached the limit of that pause. I could feel that fear of change had quietly disconnected me from myself.
There was a dead heaviness I carried everywhere. Instead of pushing it away, I decided to become aware of it. That awareness led me to explore work opportunities, and eventually, to apply for a secondment in another country.
The Part of the Move We Don’t Pause For
When we move countries, the focus is often on what we’re moving towards.
A new job. Better weather. A different lifestyle. Growth. Freedom. Reinvention.
But there’s a quieter, often unacknowledged part of relocation that lives in the body rather than the mind:
What are you leaving behind?
Most people don’t consciously process what they’re leaving behind when they relocate. There’s usually too much to organise, decide, and mentally hold.
So instead of being felt and integrated, what’s left behind is often carried silently in the nervous system.
This might include:
Relationships that shaped you, even if they were complicated
Versions of yourself that made sense in your home country
Familiar roles, status, or identity
A sense of being known without explanation
Cultural ease you didn’t realise was holding you
Even when a move is chosen and positive, there is still loss.
From a somatic perspective, unacknowledged loss doesn’t disappear, it shows up as restlessness, anxiety, numbness, or a sense of being untethered.
What I Was Moving Towards
I wasn’t only looking for a change in work…I wanted a change in life.
Living in a new country felt like an invitation to re-engage with myself. New people. Sunshine. A different culture, and way of life. My curiosity came back online, and with it, a quiet willingness to confront my fear of life rather than remain protected from it.
Fear exists to alert us to danger. But after trauma or deep grief, fear can become overprotective.
A traumatic event can push the nervous system into a freeze response. The stronger and longer-lasting the fear, the deeper that freeze can become. The body holds sensations it wasn’t able to process at the time, and when movement or change threatens to bring those sensations back, the nervous system retreats into freeze again.
This creates a cycle of fear–freeze–fear, where life slowly revolves around avoiding activation rather than moving towards aliveness.
Something in me knew that if I wanted my life to expand again. I would need to meet fear through the body, not think my way out of it.
I was moving towards space, warmth, curiosity, language, architecture, people, and a deeper healing journey. Sunshine was part of that. So was novelty. So was the nervous system learning that movement didn’t automatically mean danger.
Identity in Transition: Between Who You Were and Who You’re Becoming
Living internationally often places people in an in-between space.
You are no longer fully who you were in your home country…and not yet fully who you are becoming.
This liminal phase can feel uncomfortable, disorienting, and lonely.
From the outside, it can look like freedom. From the inside, it can feel like groundlessness.
Somatically, this is a period where the nervous system is recalibrating:
Old patterns no longer work
New ones haven’t stabilised yet
The body is learning new cues for safety and belonging
Without support, many expats interpret this phase as failure or instability, rather than a necessary stage of transformation.
Trauma, Transitions & Why Some Moves Feel Heavier Than Others
Trauma narrows life.
It shrinks perspective, limits perceived options, and reduces the space the body feels safe to take up. You can often hear it in the voice when someone speaks about a painful event. The throat tightens. Breath becomes shallow. Expression constricted.
Safely coming out of a fear response doesn’t just calm the nervous system; it opens the body, the mind, and the field of possibility.
I wasn’t just moving country towards something new. I was also moving away from something.
The nervous system is always orienting—towards what feels nourishing and safe, and away from what feels threatening or depleting.
Understanding this helped me see my move not as escape, but as a regulated turning point.
A Somatic Question Worth Sitting With
Rather than rushing to feel settled or “successful” abroad, I often invite expats to gently explore:
What am I leaving behind that still matters to my body?
And what am I genuinely moving towards, not just in my mind, but in my nervous system?
These are not questions to answer quickly.
They are questions to feel, notice, and allow space for, without judgment.
How Somatic Therapy Supports This In-Between Space
Somatic therapy offers support when words and logic aren’t enough.
For expats and internationally mobile people, it can help to:
Process unacknowledged loss and grief
Regulate fear during identity transitions
Build internal grounding while external life shifts
Support the nervous system to move forward without leaving parts of yourself behind
This work isn’t about forcing clarity.
It’s about creating enough safety in the body for clarity to emerge naturally.
A Somatic Question Worth Returning To
When you’re preparing for or living through a move, it can be powerful to gently ask:
What am I moving away from that no longer serves my nervous system?
And what am I genuinely moving towards, at a bodily, not just cognitive, level?
These questions aren’t meant to be answered quickly.
They are invitations to notice what wants comfort, connection, and expansion.
An Invitation for Expats & Digital Nomads
If you feel blocked, frozen, or caught between fear and longing during a move, I can support you in working through what’s held in the body.
Being in a new country can be both exciting and deeply challenging. Alongside novelty, there is often grief for familiarity, relationships, and the life you once knew.
I offer online somatic therapy for expats, digital nomads, and globally mobile people navigating trauma, transitions, and identity shifts.
This is the second post in an ongoing series exploring expat life through a somatic lens, including belonging, loneliness, identity, and burnout abroad.
You don’t have to force yourself forward. Your nervous system is allowed to move at its own pace.
Reflection Prompts
If you’d like to sit with this gently, you might reflect on:
What am I leaving behind that my body still feels connected to? Even if my mind has moved on?
What am I moving towards that genuinely feels nourishing, not just impressive or logical?
Where might fear be protecting me, and what support would help my body feel safe enough to move again?
There’s no need to answer these quickly. Sometimes noticing is enough.
This Series on Expat Life & the Nervous System
In the first post of this series, Moving Country & the Hidden Overwhelm, we explored how relocation can dysregulate the nervous system even when the move is chosen and exciting.
In this piece, we go a layer deeper: what we’re leaving behind, what we’re moving towards, and how identity and trauma shape that transition.
In the next post, we’ll explore a common but rarely spoken experience in expat life: why you can feel lonely abroad even when you’re surrounded by people, and what the nervous system has to do with it.
Author Bio
Soul Somatic Therapy is founded by a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) therapist and former international finance professional, Verinder Sharma, who has lived and worked across multiple countries. After experiencing firsthand the hidden nervous system impact of relocation, career transitions, and life abroad, he now supports expats, InterNations members, and globally mobile professionals through somatic experiencing therapy.
His work focuses on helping people regulate overwhelm, anxiety, and burnout during major life transitions, especially moving country, adapting to new cultures, and rebuilding a sense of belonging. He offers online sessions for the international community, integrating trauma-resolution, body-based approaches that go beyond traditional talk therapy.