Emigration: The Challenge and Gift of Letting Go

Can we lose ourselves? Can we find ourselves again? Yes, and yes.

In Luis Felipe Lomelí’s haunting micro story El Emigrante, a single line captures the emotional truth of departure:

“Did you forget anything?”

“If only!”

This exchange speaks to the disorientation of emigration. It is not just a logistical event, it’s a threshold moment. A departure not only from a place, but from a self.

And like all great journeys, emigration is an initiation. A rite of passage. A version of the Hero’s Journey that begins not with a sword, but with a suitcase.

The Call to Leave

In Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, transformation begins with a call to adventure. Often uncomfortable, sometimes urgent, it comes as a whisper or a storm:

There must be more than this. You were made for something else. Go.

For those of us who emigrate, by choice or necessity, that call is followed by the crossing of a threshold. There’s no going back. The old world is behind, and the new one is not yet home.

And as Polish Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska once wrote:

"Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice..."— Wisława Szymborska, “Nothing Twice”

Her words capture the vulnerability of starting over, without a rehearsal, without a map. Each crossing is final. Each step forward changes us, even if we don’t realize it yet.

You may arrive with hope in your heart, but also grief in your bones. Because you don’t just leave a place. You leave roles, expectations, familiarity, language. And perhaps most painfully, you leave a version of yourself behind.

That departure is rarely clean. It’s often laced with guilt:

Guilt for choosing yourself
Guilt for "betraying" your family, culture, or community
Guilt for stepping off the well-worn path others expected you to follow

These emotions are rarely spoken, but they linger.

We wonder: Did I do the right thing? Did I give up too soon? Have I become someone unrecognizable?

Trials and Shadows

In Campbell’s arc, the hero faces trials, tests, losses, and revelations. In emigration, these trials often show up as invisibility.

You may have been accomplished, respected, or confident in your previous life. Now, you feel like a beginner again.

You may carry degrees, wisdom, and experience, and still feel unsure. You may appear as if you've lost something. And in many ways, you have.

Your savings may be gone. Your status erased. Your identity shaken. You find yourself underemployed, overlooked, or misjudged.

Meanwhile, friends back home build careers, accumulate status, and settle into lives that seem stable while you're climbing a mountain, again, but this time in another language and without familiar support.

Shame creeps in. You shrink a little. You feel the weight of being misunderstood, underestimated, or simply unseen. You may wonder if you’ve made a mistake.

This is the abyss, the part of the journey where many give up or go numb.

But there is power in this darkness.

The Revelation: Finding the True Self

The Hero’s Journey teaches us that from the abyss, a new truth emerges. A treasure. A realization that could only be uncovered by walking through fire.

For the emigrant, that treasure is often the rediscovery of self, not the one shaped by old expectations or external rewards, but the essential self.

The voice beneath the roles. The truth beneath the noise.The light that doesn’t flicker, even when everything else changes.

This journey of soul retrieval, of reclaiming your values, your voice, your authenticity, is the gift hidden inside the challenge.

As Brené Brown reminds us:

“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.”

The Return: Becoming a Bridge

In the final stage of the Hero’s Journey, the protagonist returns, not to the same life, but with new insight. They carry wisdom. A deeper understanding of what matters.

As a transformational leadership coach, and as someone who has walked this path, I see this again and again. Emigration, or any life-altering transition, doesn’t just change you.

It reveals you.

And with support, reflection, and courage, it can empower you to lead others home, to themselves.

Emigration: A Universal Journey

Not everyone crosses national borders, but we all, at some point, emigrate in other ways.

We leave behind a version of our life, a job, a belief system, a relationship, a dream, and step into the unknown. In these moments, our souls can get lost… or be found again.

This is why I believe emigration, in all its forms, can be a sacred path to soul retrieval.

Maya Angelou once wrote:

“You only are free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all.”

That line lives in me. It speaks to the paradox of belonging.

True belonging doesn’t come from fitting in. It comes from standing in your truth, wherever you are.

Leading Ourselves Home

Transformation sounds beautiful in theory. But in practice, it often begins with rupture. With shedding. With unlearning and with beginning again.

Whether you’ve emigrated across oceans or through inner landscapes, the journey of rediscovery is a courageous one. And you don’t have to walk it alone.

This is the work of coaching, to hold space for grief, uncertainty, and rebuilding. To walk beside you as you let go of what no longer fits and step into your own clarity and power.

So if you’re asking yourself,“Who am I now?” Know this:

The ache to be true is not a sign of failure. It is the beginning of your return.

You were never really lost.

You were just becoming.

And maybe, just maybe, emigration gave you the space to finally come home to yourself.

Hi, I’m Monika, Strengths Coach and facilitator. I help individuals and groups cultivate resilience, emotional intelligence, and well-being through strengths-based coaching. Passionate about transformative and creative leadership, I empower leaders to drive meaningful change within themselves, their organizations, and beyond.

I hope you’ll visit often, and I look forward to connecting and working together!