How to Cope With Homesickness After Moving to Leeuwarden

What is homesickness?

In 2014, I left my small hometown in Utah, USA on a two-year service mission, all the way to Alabama. To put that move in perspective, it’s roughly the same distance as moving from Leeuwarden to Porto, Portugal. It was my first extended time away from home, and I quickly learned firsthand what it’s like to be homesick. Perhaps you’ve recently moved to Leeuwarden too, as a new student, for a job, or as an immigrant from an entirely different country. You might not realize it yet, but there’s a good chance you’re feeling homesick, or will be soon.

EBSCO, a leading academic research database, defines homesickness as “a profound emotional response characterized by an intense longing for one’s home… a feeling that can manifest at nearly any age, typically arising shortly after leaving home.” That longing can take a lot of different shapes. Sometimes it’s full-blown loneliness or depression (I’ve written about both of those here). Other times it’s something more subtle, a favorite treat or spot back home you can no longer visit, or the routine you’d built for yourself before you left. As Find My Therapist puts it, “it’s about missing the safe space of comfort that ‘home’ represents.”

Who is most affected?

Homesickness is most commonly felt by people who’ve recently moved or are going through a big life change: new college students, people starting a new job, military personnel, and children are all common examples. Each of these groups has left what they called home for somewhere new, or had their sense of home taken from them by circumstance.

It can be especially hard on children. Even something as short as a weekend camping trip or a longer trip abroad often hits them harder than it would an adult who’s already spent time away from family before.

For a lot of people, though, their first real move away from home happens during their education. If you started the new semester in Leeuwarden this past week and are already missing your old home and friends, that’s exactly this. If these feelings are turning into something closer to loneliness, I’ve written some practical tips on that here.

What can you do today?

According to EBSCO, everyone experiences homesickness from time to time. Feeling a little homesick is completely normal, but when it drags on, it can turn into real loneliness or depression. The best way to fight it is to make your new situation feel a little more like home. A few places to start:

Make new friends, and hold onto the old ones. If you’re not sure where to start, I’ve written a guide on how to make friends here in Leeuwarden.

Find a routine or hobby you actually enjoy. That could be as simple as a coffee and a walk in the park near your house, or something bigger, like trying a new dance class.

Explore with curiosity. You’ve likely moved to a new city or country, so take the time to actually get to know it. Doing that alone can feel hard at first, but it gets easier every time you try.

Start small, and enjoy the small wins. You don’t need ten activities and five new friends in your first week. Try ordering food you’ve never had before, or just notice the music your new upstairs neighbor is playing too loud. Celebrate the moments you do enjoy your new environment, and stay optimistic.

You can’t control everything. Maybe, unlike most people reading this, you haven’t moved at all, you’ve stayed right where you are, but things still feel different. Everyone you used to know has moved away, or maybe you’ve lost someone unexpectedly. Don’t be discouraged, you’re not alone.

Find a support system. That system can be family back home, new friends you’ve made here, or a professional like a therapist or life coach. People are out there to support you until you’re comfortable doing it on your own.

How Empowered Connections Coaching can help.

This is exactly the kind of support I offer. Moving somewhere new, whether that’s Leeuwarden or anywhere else, means rebuilding a life from scratch, new routines, new relationships, and a new sense of what home even feels like. Coaching gives you a consistent person in your corner while you do that, someone to help turn “I miss home” into an actual plan for feeling settled here. We’ll use the G.R.O.W. model to figure out what settling in actually looks like for you, and build toward it step by step. Schedule a free consultation, and let’s start making Leeuwarden feel a little more like home.