Culture

MIGRATION – from Places and Relationships — do we need it?

Moving away, literally or metaphorically, can be vital.

Migration from relationships can be a positive and necessary step when they no longer serve their purpose, become toxic, or diverge from one’s values or aspirations. While it may be painful, it creates space for healthier connections and personal growth.

Migration is vital when seeking prospects, better living conditions, career advancements, or escaping unfavourable circumstances.

However, it is also essential to reflect on whether the challenges one is facing are better resolved through communication, adaptation, or patience. Migration needs to come from self-awareness and the desire for positive transformation.

Self-awareness is not just a tool; it’s a source of empowerment. It enables the individual to take control of one’s choices and guides one towards the right path, especially regarding migration decisions.

Migration is a natural part of life, from one place to another or one relationship to the next. It’s most welcome when it happens at the right time and moment, serving as a reassurance about the inevitability of life’s progression.

Living beings migrate to greener pastures, pursuing dignity, safety, and a better future as an integral part of the communal fabric and a crucial crossroads between development and eventual expansion. This is not a problem but an inevitable, critical, and sought-after progression. Ecstasy comes from changing horizons and seeing a different sunrise.

Something analogous is the Exodus, a state in which many people leave a place simultaneously—like the people’s liberation from slavery in Israel in the thirteenth century BC.

 

Migration should be accepted as a way of Life—part of nature. There isn’t a turning around to challenge commencement. However, one can start from where one is and change the culmination of one’s actions.

Migration isn’t easy; it can be painful and emotionally challenging because pieces of ourselves are left behind while leaving the things behind. Our emotional connection with people and the ambience has significantly impacted our growth.

Going back to school, I rushed to my old chemistry lab and classroom and got the same aroma as thirty years ago. A weird déjà vu seeped into my system when I touched the doors and windows of my old flat. Unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely at home again because a significant portion of me wasn’t there but migrated somewhere else.

We pay a tough price by loving someone and leaving for another relationship. The pain lies in the quiet moments—those silent gaps where laughter once filled the air, the absence that echoes in places we once shared. Sometimes, it’s the guilt of knowing we had to let go, even when love still burned because staying would have meant losing ourselves. Migration was imperative. With time, though, the pain carves space for growth, teaching us the bittersweet balance between holding on and setting free.

“Migrating from this place was an option for my betterment, but a significant part of me was left behind and cried.”

Sometimes, considerable emotional baggage hinders the migration process and can alter one’s thoughts and moods, changing the situation altogether. It took me seven years to get my green card approved in the United States of America. Parental affection and family commitment prevented me from accepting that migration. I have no regrets, but the emotional baggage changed my destiny—whether it was good or bad is debatable. Support from friends and family and a positive attitude helped me navigate this emotionally painful and challenging period. No one else can understand the gruelling journey one undertakes.

Eventual migration may take time due to changing situations, making the job challenging and painful. When should one feel ready for the journey? Sometimes, people wait their entire lives for the right moment, ending their voyage abruptly in the crematorium.

Nurturing a positive attitude allows one to step on the gas and take the adventure in full zeal and throttle.

Migration is not related only to a change in physical state. A child leaves the womb for the world’s light, then for adolescence and youth. The journey continues with marriage, raising a family, slogging through career pursuits, and finally culminating in the demise. Isn’t this also a migration?

 

“The journey through the physical and worldly state, denouncing the pleasures and attaining spirituality to the Divine commune, is the migration to a different level.” John McDowell.

However, few accept this migration, accepting the eventual divinity. Most people slog in life’s pleasures and can’t relinquish the craving for mundane worldly pleasures.

Emotional Migration—The journey through emotions and the clutches of a toxic relationship is elaborate and intricately woven and is the most significant migration. But that doesn’t guarantee a lifelong warranty and usually lasts seven to ten years. Eventually, things start decaying, and recurrent grumbles and expectations swap warmth. This issue is controversial, but one faces it through individual discernment and decision-making. One visualises and experiences signs of inspiration as one makes wiser choices.

‘You are more courageous than your trust, more formidable than you seem to be, cleverer than you contemplate and more prized and adored than you know.’

 

“You don’t need to move to a new place to begin again; a new mindset is all you need to start over,” says BARB SCHMIDT.

 

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4 Comments

  1. Dr Ashok Kumar Ojha says:

    Rightly said that migration, if it is an option then it good otherwise it may become painful if it’s obligatory..We have come accross many Instances when we leave our home for higher studies.This migration is going to reward us.We, ultimately, are destined for a greener pastures.Again… nicely explained that we migrate from one phase to another like from childhood to adolescence to adulthood and then to old age and finally migrating from this materialistic world…And this way life goes on and on..

    1. Dr. Anuj says:

      thank you so much for the input and your views Ashok Bhai. true…. the life goes on. Your insight and analysis are very encouraging, please do keep writing.
      regards

  2. Hello Doctor
    Never really thought so much on migration. It was very insightful and enjoyable to read so many dimensions to it.
    Now a days I see so many migratory birds coming in my garden. Makes me wonder how they know it is time to migrate. How do we humans know when it is time to move on. You got a chance to fulfill your dream to go to USA, yet you chose to stay back because you felt that is your “Dharm”. I think that needed enormous maturity.
    While death of a loved one makes it impossible to move on at first, but then since the loss is irreversible by definition it becomes inevitable to move on.
    Then moving on from relationship is life’s most difficult task.We enter them and stay in them for reasons rooted in our earliest attachments those formative relationships where there is perpetual optimism due to child’s natural innocence. You think such relations will also have a life or will be lifelong…
    Migration is indeed a deep subject to ponder. You have set the ball rolling , no doubt.
    Regards, RG

    1. Dr. Anuj says:

      Hello RG
      You are right, this subject is really intriguing. I was in a forum where a guy talked about migration from childhood to old age. At that moment my mind was ignited and I thought about the modes of migration. being close to relationships and a sensitive person myself; the migration from relationships touched me deeply. You are right, I think the most difficult part is the migration from the emotional alliance. It takes a whole lot of the person to do so.
      thanks for sharing your views so beautifully…regards.

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