Migratory Grief, Trauma & Family Constellations: What Moves in the Soul When We Change Lands

Migrating is not just moving. It is not simply changing countries, language, or landscape. Migration is a deep movement of the soul—an intimate trembling that sometimes feels like a whisper and other times arrives like a wave that shakes everything we once believed was stable.

Migration is grief. A silent grief, complex, full of small and large goodbyes. A grief that lives in the mind, yes, but also—and above all—in the body.

Along the way, something essential happens: we begin to discover that we do not only migrate geographically. We migrate emotionally, somatically, spiritually. One part of us moves forward, another part stays looking back, and another part still tries to find its place in a land it does not yet recognize as home.

This article is meant to be a bridge: between what happens inside and what happens outside, between migratory trauma and possible healing, between the body and the systemic field. And it is also an invitation—to look at yourself through these words, to notice what resonates with your history, your body, and your own journey.

Psychiatrist Joséba Achotegui describes migratory grief as a multiple, recurrent, and partial grief. You lose without losing completely. Family still exists, but far away. The language is still yours, but it no longer holds you in everyday life. The land of your childhood is still alive, but you no longer step on it each day.

Perhaps something here resonates:
“I feel like a part of me stayed in my country and I don’t know how to bring it with me.”
Migration is a collection of griefs: for family, for language, for culture, for the landscape, for social status, for belonging. Each one asks for time. Each asks for a body. Each asks to be seen without rushing.

Migration is not always traumatic, but it often awakens old memories of trauma or creates new wounds. Trauma is not only what happened to us—it is what happened inside us when that experience occurred.

When we migrate, our nervous system is placed under enormous demand. Everything familiar disappears at once: the signals, the faces, the social cues, the shared hugs that require no explanation. Without that holding, the body easily enters states of alarm, freeze, or exhaustion.

A phrase I hear often in sessions is:
“Since I migrated, I feel like I’m not the same person anymore.”
And it's true. Because one part stays behind. Another part marches forward without internal support. And another part is still looking for integration.

Migratory trauma feels like a soft fragmentation, as if internally we were splitting into several versions of ourselves.

From a somatic perspective, migration alters the internal compass. The body searches for familiar references to relax, orient, and feel safe. Without them, it tenses, contracts, breathes less.

You may notice some of this in yourself:

• tightness in the throat or chest
• feeling you belong neither here nor there
• digestive difficulties
• hypersensitivity to noise or change
• fatigue, anxiety, or sadness without a clear cause

This is not weakness—it's adaptation. The body is trying to understand where it is. It is looking for signals that say: “It is safe to be here.”:
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In my somatic work, I often invite migrants to orient to their environment, soften their breath, feel the support of the ground, or move slowly and gently. I notice this again and again: when the body feels welcomed in the new place, the soul begins to inhabit it too.

Family Constellations and Migration: A Systemic Approach to Healing
In the field of Family Constellations, migration is considered a sacred movement. We do not migrate only by personal choice—we migrate also through the impulses of the family system, through the stories of those who came before us, through interrupted destinies or forces that push life forward.

In constellations I have often seen this internal image:
One part of the soul looks toward the country of origin, while another part tries to settle into the new place.

When one of these parts has no place, fragmentation appears: guilt, self-sabotage, confusion, difficulty thriving, rejection of the new country, or idealization of the past.
And when we work with this—when we look at the origin with respect and the present with acceptance—something reorganizes. Something rests.
Sometimes it is enough to say inwardly:

“Dear land of my origin, thank you. What I received there lives in me.”

“Dear land that receives me, I respect you. I am here to find my place.”

It is a delicate act, an intimate agreement. Not forced. Not merely mental. A silent recognition that moves deep roots.

As you read, perhaps you can pause for a moment and notice:

• What part of your body reacts when you think of your country of origin?
• What do you feel when you think of the country where you live now?
• Is there a part of you that hasn’t fully arrived yet?
• Is there a part that stayed behind, waiting to be included?

You don’t need perfect answers. Just observe. Sometimes simply noticing is already a gesture of integration.

Migrating is like being a tree that discovers its roots can divide without breaking. One part continues drinking from ancient water. Another begins to feel the moisture of new soil.

Migratory grief is the gentle art of allowing both sets of roots to coexist, to dialogue, to breathe.

And little by little, the sap begins to move again. The trunk strengthens. The branches open to a new sky. And one day—sometimes without realizing it—we find ourselves blossoming in a place where we once only survived.

Because the true closure of migratory grief is not forgetting the previous land nor merging entirely with the new one. It is learning to become a bridge: a bridge between stories, between cultures, between times.

And in that bridge, the soul discovers a simple and profound truth:
I do not belong to a single place. Every land I have loved belongs to me.