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.

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? This was Jason Bennett’s experience.

Jason, originally from California, was a senior marketing executive and had worked with Gap Inc. according to a CNN report. Like everyone else, he wanted to reach the highest level of his career, but in 2018, he left everything and moved permanently to Medellín, Colombia. The report stated that he moved after “falling hard” for the city.

That phrase—“falling hard”—could mean many things. 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.

Jason had long wanted to travel the world. He was........

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