Cognitive Exhaustion
I was trying to figure out why our move to London was more exhausting than our move to Madrid or Dublin.
By all counts, it should have been easier.
It was our third move, so we should know what we needed to do.
We had downsized even more, so there were fewer suitcases to pack and transport.
We were moving to the city we wanted to originally, so the excitement, relief and feeling of completeness should have been more fuel.
We know many people in London, so we should the emotional and logistical support should have mattered more.
My husband’s company handled almost everything for our visa (except us physically getting them in our passports), and didn’t have a strict timeline for our move.
But, at least for me, the move was still exhausting.
Although we relocated in August, I’m only now feeling settled…even though London felt like homecoming almost immediately.
I originally thought the exhaustion came from needing to start over again after just settling into Dublin—finding “our pub”, establishing a routine, getting all of the invisible logistics finally complete.
And although that wasn’t incorrect, I now think the reason for my non-physical exhaustion was from living inside and needing to navigate an environment that was changing and had multiple open loops—all needing to be evaluated, managed and resolved.
What this actually looked like for me was:
- Needing to retract my application for spousal EU treaty rights to reside in Ireland, only after finally completing and submitting the application
- Completing the UK spousal visa process
- Waiting for official documents so I can start my Cyprus citizenship process
- Shifting my networking from Dublin (where I just started to build my network) to London
- Navigating financial implications of a property we were negotiating
- Exiting a rental lease early, after our landlord graciously wrote in a provision for us to exit early if my EU treaty rights application was rejected (not because my husband got hired for a role in another city)
- Securing a home in London, including a short-term one while we looked for a long-term lease
- Learning a new coaching framework that could be integrated into my existing practice
- Evaluating whether I wanted to return to corporate, because London affords many more options than Madrid or Dublin
The list goes on, but even these were multiple responsibilities pulling at my attention, on top of my usual logisitical unwinding and spinning up that I needed to look after (utilities, local phone number, address change, loyalty programs, etc).
What’s strange is I didn’t have the perspective or language to see that this was my energy drag until I started doing deep research on cognitive architectures for my coaching practice.
But that didn’t mean my nervous system didn’t feel the energy drag.
Only that I lacked the tools (which I now have) to see and name what was happening.
Being able to name and explain what was happening couldn’t have eased things (other than answering the question “why is this move so exhausting?”).
But this was a nice example of understanding being enough.
