Some places become emotionally powerful enough that leaving feels like a personal loss. Meaningful memories can deepen longing when people cannot return in person. Cognitive immobility can create a stressful sense of mental entrapment in a place, leading to unconscious efforts to hold on to memories of people, places, events, cultures, and objects encountered there. This process can contribute to anxiety, insomnia, exhaustion, and depression. Better understanding of feelings can support wiser choices about belonging. A marketing executive moved permanently to Medellín after feeling strongly drawn to the city, describing optimism and positivity that felt missing when returning elsewhere.
"Some places can become so emotionally powerful that leaving them feels like a personal loss. Memories of meaningful places can deepen longing when people cannot return in person. Cognitive immobility can contribute to anxiety, insomnia, exhaustion, and depression. Understanding our feelings better can help us make wiser choices about belonging."
"This was Jason Bennett's experience. Have you ever travelled somewhere unfamiliar and felt something change inside you as soon as you arrived? Or, when it was time to leave, were you hit with an overwhelming sense of sadness and longing? After leaving, did you find yourself unable to stop thinking about your experiences there?"
"In Jason's case, it suggests that he began to experience feelings he could not easily explain. Such feelings may be linked to cognitive immobility, a stressful sense of mental entrapment in a place, which can lead to unconscious efforts to hold on to memories of the people, places, events, cultures, and objects encountered there. This may help explain why he fell hard for Medellín."
"Reflecting on these experiences, he said: "I was feeling just optimism and positivity in the air in these cities, that I found, frankly, missing when I would go back," adding, "Maybe there's something else out there." He started his own company in 2015 because he wanted more time to travel."
Read at Psychology Today
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