Immigration, Mental Health and NVC

I have had the opportunity to migrate 3 times in my life. At 19, at 29 and now at 41.

I think different versions of me have migrated.

The last time I migrated to United States was last year in August 2024 and I had a difficult transition, many things collied: delays in the visa process, new job, new relationship, new culture, reconfiguration of being a consultant and now an employee.

I left behind supportive conditions like a home that felt mine, my pet, my friends, my family, the ease of speaking my own language.

I got new and exiting things: the promise of a more stable income, the dream of saving money to buy a home in my country, a new job, a new romantic relationship, a “safer” environment, a new exiting project connected to community.

But reality hit and for several reasons, I started to feel a lot of distrust, I started to see all the things that were not working, I started to see so much incoherence inside and outside.

My dignity and integrity started to hurt. There were moments that I perceived myself trapped in the whole situation and suddenly, I just hit the trauma stored. Apparently, migrating, the lost of a pet and moving with your partner tends to do that.

There was a moment that my mind just wanted to understand, I wanted to figure out why I was not feeling well. And I think creating enemy images is a function of the mind that tries to keep us safe by understanding where the threat is coming from so we can identify and do something. But then, the fires came and the elections came and the political became personal.

I started to feel more scared, to be honest I lost trust in what Nonviolent Communication could do. If I already had issues with belonging in my new reality, with the new political environment, I felt more the sensation of not belonging, of being less of just for having this label: immigrant.

I started to bring my passport with me and got scared when I saw police even if I am legally here.

I even was involved in a car accident because I saw four police patrols chasing a car and got scared even if they were not chasing me.

I think the intention of writing this is to shared that I lived on my own skin something that was very difficult for me to bring full NVC into the situation, and as trainers, I imagine we all have this type of stories.

I tried to keep listening to my feelings and needs but things got so chaotic that I just started to lost trust on two principle that have been fundamental in my life: that people are inherently good and that we all have an actualization tendency, then one Carl Rogers talked about. I always forget the part when he said: in the right conditions.

Back to my migration story: I started to not sleep well and really, this is a basic need. My capacity, my attitude, my view of life changed.

I started to feel so anxious and sad that suddenly it was very difficult to even speak in ways that people could really understand what was going on (plus that I had to express in English in most cases). I was impressed how I started to silent myself and now I think how difficult it was to bring my honest voice if I was not feeling safe in many areas of my life. Then, I just started judging myself for not beeing able to speak up honestly, clearly and assertively but I just couldn’t when I went inside I could just touch the fear and anxiety, much later I could access the anger and sadness. Now, I think anxiety was just I way to keep myself protected.

I felt that I was not myself and at the same time, a more honest, raw voice was showing up.

I started to sense how touching feelings in conversations just brought tears and suddenly, NVC was not safe for me, specially at the work place where for almost 5 years we had introduce NVC to almost all we do.

I learnt the hard way that in the company we had the way of speaking NVC but not fully the consciousness, that speaking NVC is not enough and that the consciousness just takes time and we were in a mix of power over and scarcity mindset trying to practice NVC.

My migration process and discomfort opened a door to patterns. And, the thing with a pattern is that you need time and perspective to fully see the associations. If you try to describe isolated observables won’t make sense. Patterns feel like a wave, they just hit you, and then when all is over, the wave is gone and you cannot grasp it so easily.

The hardest of all this experience is that it has been very hard for me to articulate why and how I feel the discomfort. The sad part is when I have tried to explain to people and I have been received with quick strategies, no acknowledgement, defensiveness, etc.

And I know, it is hard to witness pain, specially if you don’t understand what needs to be done to heal it.

I think I want to say that I have been learning and practicing NVC since 2013 and teaching it since 2017 and I am in a very humble and curious position about migration, mental health and NVC. I am inside the experience, and my hope is to make sense of all that has happend so eventually when I work with immigrants or any person that has experienced anxiety and depression that I have an attentive heart and mind. The gift of this experience is that I was already working with immigrants and that now, I want to work more with them as a peer support.

My invitation is that when as a trainer, you are in front of a person that is speaking to you in their second or even third language, to be aware that their hearts are being translated to other codes and culture, that they might be coming from a very different reallity and that is not only the translation of language, is culture. That working with feelings and needs is part of many therapeutic processess and that we are opening a door to something sacred and also in some cases, to trauma. That we all ethically need to inform ourselves about trauma because more and more, we live in a world that is creating massive trauma in people, we are able to see simultaneous wars all over. That if we have privileges like owning a house, having a car, having savings, stable income, we might not see things that people that don't have that level of safety are seeing.

Finally, I want to share that in top of this. I was in one of the DEI conversations, I dare to share how I see barriers in access and the question that I received privately from one of the trainers that was participating, just left me with a deep sadness of not being able to express the depth of what I am seeing and my longing to be received with curiosity and not with questions that implied that I did not do something that the person thinks I could/should have been able to do in the past.

I hope this resonates and that we all as NVC trainers, hold this three words with curiosity: immigration, mental health and NVC because in the middle of all this experience, being very intentional about what words I use and how I speak to myself has brought healing and concrete tools to cope and regulate. I truly believe words can heal the mind and that NVC can be a code that can restore balance and hope. I can’t imagine how my process would have been without NVC.

Claudia Sanchez