Moving Emotions: How to Cope with All the Moving Feels

Moving is one of life’s most stressful events and it comes with a whole host of emotions that make staying organized during your move tough. One of the best ways to manage your moving stress is to be well-prepared for your move, but how do you prepare for a move when you feel paralyzed by complex emotions?

Being in the business of moving for almost 30 years, All My Sons Moving & Storage has seen all the laughter, tears, and hair-pulling that moving can bring. At our company, we understand that an unorganized move can give our customers a serious headache, so we’ve compiled this series of moving guides to help empower you with tips and tricks from the pros.

Moving often follows significant life events like marriage, death of a loved one, divorce, getting a new job, or becoming an empty nester. No matter the reason for your move, you likely feel a full range of emotions from excitement to apprehension. What’s the best way to manage and cope with these emotions so you can get back to your moving checklist? Here's a list of common emotions regarding moving and how to handle them when they arise.

With so much to get done and the clock ticking, it’s no wonder moving brings a lot of anxiety. You might feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of possessions you have waiting to be packed into boxes. All the options for moving companies could have you biting your nails and hyperventilating, not to mention all the stressors that come with being in a new environment for the first time.

Here are some strategies for managing your moving anxiety:

• Get Organized and Plan Ahead: The easiest way to manage moving stress is to break down the process into easy baby steps that you can take one at a time. First, make yourself a simple moving checklist to give yourself direction during your move. A moving inventory can make the process of unpacking and finding your different possessions so much simpler. 

• Take Good Care of Yourself: Throughout your move, remember to practice your basic self-care. Eat when you’re hungry, shower in the mornings, and mindfully check in on yourself to make sure your own needs are being met. When you are well-rested, clean, and satiated then anxiety can be much more manageable. 

• Ask For Help: There’s absolutely no shame in asking for help when you need it, whether that means having a family member babysit your child while you pack or hiring professional packers to take some of the load off. Moving is a big task that is rarely accomplished alone.

Your move may have been prompted by a sad event like a death in the family or a job loss. Even if the reason for your move is a joyful occasion, like getting a dream job, relocating to your favorite city, or getting married, you might feel some sadness at having to leave your old community behind.

Here are some important tips that could help manage your moving sadness:

• Remember It’s Okay to Feel: Sadness is a natural response to loss and change. If you find yourself feeling sad while you pack or declutter before your move, you can take five or ten minutes to take a breather and express your sadness by crying or writing your feelings down in a journal. If at any point your sadness seems overpowering and you’re not able to go through your moving checklist, seek help from friends, family, or mental healthcare professionals. 

• Take Time to Say Goodbye: Schedule some time to take a walk through your local neighborhood and practice gratitude for whatever happy memories arise for you. Meet up with your friends in the community or throw a going away party to give yourself an opportunity to say goodbye in person. Above all, remember that goodbye doesn’t have to be forever, especially in this great digital age where keeping in touch is easier than ever before.

• Focus on New Hopes: Moving can be an exciting time. There’s a new neighborhood to explore, incredible people to meet, and wonderful opportunities waiting around the corner. When you imagine the future, try to focus on what good things could be waiting for you at your new home.

The reason for your move could involve some anger, whether that’s anger with a relationship that didn’t work out, anger with a job situation that fell through, or anger at life circumstances that are beyond your control. Anger is also an understandable response when things seem like they are not going according to your moving plan, but we all know that uncontrolled fury can have disastrous consequences. 

Here are some tips for managing anger during your move:

• Practice Relaxation: When you feel yourself starting to get riled up, take some time to breathe. Get a stress ball and squeeze it as hard as you can, try progressive muscle relaxation, do a guided meditation, or mindfully focus on your breathing for a few minutes. Taking the time to calm down will help you address whatever is angering you in a more constructive way.

• Let Go of Perfection: It’s easy to get riled up when you want something to happen a certain way, and things go wrong. Instead of focusing on details, try embracing things as they come. Let it be okay for life to feel a little messy and let the daily irritants roll off your back rather than bother you.

• Problem Solve: Instead of focusing on your feelings surrounding a problem, try to focus on ways you can alleviate or diffuse the problem. This might mean removing yourself from a negative environment, strengthening your communication skills, or trying to look at things from another perspective.

Your move might be taking you into unknown territory, and it’s only human to fear the unknown. When you’re trying to establish new roots in a place, you might be afraid that things will fall apart. 

Here are some ideas for helping to cope with moving fear:

• Remind Yourself of What’s Rational: Our brains tend to jump to the worst-case scenario and wallow in preemptive terror of a future that hasn’t even happened yet. When you find yourself fearing what could happen, remind yourself that the worst-case scenario might not even be likely. 

• Make a Plan to Avoid Bad Scenarios: When you do find yourself convinced that a doomsday-like fear is bound to happen, ask yourself what steps you could possibly take to avoid the feared situation. This might mean creating a moving inventory to avoid losing anything or hiring licensed and insured pro movers for peace of mind during your move. 

• Put Yourself Out There: One of your fears is likely being lonely in your new community, so take some time to explore your new neighborhood and look for ways to forge new friendships. Try inviting all your new neighbors to a house-warming party or looking for local groups with similar interests on social media that you can meet with in person. Introducing yourself to strangers can be daunting, but almost every friend you’ve made in life was a stranger at some point. 

Moving brings in all the feels, but you don’t have to let the feels lead to a disorganized, stressful moving experience. With these tips and tricks for managing your emotions during a move, you can get started on your moving checklist. Get ready to pack up and feel the moving excitement, you’re going places!

When you’re ready to tackle your moving checklist, why not schedule your licensed and insured pro movers? All My Sons Moving & Storage has been in the business of relocation for almost 30 years, and we would be delighted to take a load off your shoulders. Whether you’re looking for professional packing, local moving services, or packing supplies, we have all your moving needs covered. Let All My Sons Moving & Storage handle all the heavy lifting so you can focus on your next adventure. Call us or get a quote online to start your big move today.