Why Moving to Portugal Won’t Solve Your Problems

"Commit to being a depressed F*ck somewhere!" my friend said, both of us laughing when I couldn't decide if I should go back to Los Angeles or try something new.

I already spent 4 years in Los Angeles, after my time in San Francisco. I knew in my heart, I was done growing there, but I didn’t know exactly where else to go. So my friend basically say “anywhere but Los Angeles, you already gave it a try”.

The indecision, back-and-forth, and lack of commitment was killing me in every area of my life.

I told her, at this point in my life I was equally happy, and sad anywhere I go or live.

So the solution wasn’t to run.

I had to take a hard look at myself at this point, come to terms with my instinct to run when things got tough and ask myself - when did this pattern develop?

When I first moved to the US, I was a pretty decisive, and determined person. I fell in love with California when I was 20 years old, and it took me 7 years to finally make my dream of moving from Canada happen.

I slept on people couches to interview for tech jobs in San Francisco, studied for 6 months straight to get into Meta, and rejected every other opportunity that stood in my way, including taking a job offer in New York, or settling down with a partner in Toronto.

I knew what I wanted, and with blinders on I went for it.

Somewhere along the way, after COVID started I lost this decisiveness, and commitment to my dreams.

From the outside I still had a home, partner, job and was exploring new interests and career paths. But on the inside, I was going back and forth between decisions, second guessing myself, doubting and not fully going all into anything.

I wasn’t focused. I would make a decision. Second guess. Pause. Make another decision. Pause. And the cycle went on forever…

Until I sat down, and examined it.

If you notice a similar pattern of:

1. Overthinking

2. Going back and forth between decisions

3. Starting and stopping

4. Constantly thinking something else, somewhere else is better

5. Day dreaming about a different place, partner or job

6. Waiting for something or someone to save you

Read on…because I’ll help you clearly see what’s going on, and fix it once and for all.

Why it’s Difficult to Make Decisions?

The answer is fear.

I was still living in fear.

Fear of making the wrong choice.

Fear of ending up in the same spot I didn’t want to be in again.

During COVID I found myself alone in the US, without much of a support network. I still made the best of it, but didn’t realize the impact that a subsequent relationship, job and home loss would have on me. My stability was threatened in every area of my life, and I was incredibly burnout.

Fear kept me trapped.

It told me “no it’s safer to just stay and not act”

So I’d try to act. And then the escapist in me would stop.

💡Step 1: Ask yourself why it’s difficult for you make decision, and how fear plays into this.

The Pattern of Starting, Stopping and Running Away

Often, fear of failure can look like this:

• You start something

• Just get comfortable

• Drop it and run away

• Just to start something else

• And repeat the cycle

Maybe you start a business project, get a few sales, finally get a hang of it and say

“Nah this will never work out...”

• You get your first few rejections and you stop. In reality, most successful companies post everyday on Instagram, or send thousands of emails before reaching their goals.

• You apply to a Google one time, get rejected, and never apply again. In reality, most people have to apply 3 times before they get in.

In trauma psychology and neuroscience, this pattern maps to a learned shutdown response, your nervous system’s way of conserving energy when fight or flight no longer feels effective. Over time, the brain links action with threat, so inaction starts to feel like safety.

When we’ve been hurt or disappointed enough times, the nervous system learns to swing between activation and shutdown, bursts of inspired energy followed by collapse.

As Polyvagal Theory explains, we move between the sympathetic surge of “I’m going to change my life” and the dorsal withdrawal of “it’s safer not to try.”

This start–stop is the body’s way of protecting us, retreating into fantasy or distraction whenever taking action starts to feel dangerous.

💡Step 2: Notice the pattern of starting, stopping or running away in different areas of your life.

It will become clear how you’re traumatizing yourself over and over again.

That this pattern puts you in a constant state of secondary grief.

When I would run away, I would mourn the thing I started, the decision I made as if it didn’t work out already, the identity and the daily routine attached to it.

But in reality I didn’t even give it enough time to manifest.

I didn’t commit. I didn’t try my best. I didn’t put in the same amount of effort that is required to achieve dreams like moving to the US, or getting a job at a Facebook.

Is Your Day Dream an Escape?

Sometimes we drift into a daydream: a different life, city, or version of ourselves.

It feels peaceful, exciting, and far from whatever is uncomfortable right now.

For my coaching clients this is usually the same dream, repeated over and over again. That also reminds them aren’t good enough, or haven’t accomplished their dream yet.

It’s often the image of sipping cocktails on a beach, working from a lap top in Portugal, living in a different city with more opportunities.

Another version of this: people look into their past and say “If only…”

If only I studied something different, if I had parents that could give me money for a house downpayment, I was born in a different place, had a different childhood.

From a transpersonal psychology perspective, daydreams can be help us imagine new possibilities and step into them, or they can be barriers and forms of avoidance distracting us from the current moment.

Neuroscience and positive psychology echo this: our brains seek dopamine from fantasy and novelty. Daydreams light up reward centers, offering quick relief from stress. So we need to move towards long-term fulfillment by building a habit of consistency.

For years, I mistook these daydreams for “purpose.”

I thought, this is the vision I need to pursue.

But not every daydream is our vision, or purpose.

Some are escapes: distractions that keep us from being present and building something where we are, even if times get tough.

Here’s how I tell the difference between fantasy and true purpose:

Your dream becomes real when you take action toward it.

Your escape remains fantasy when you keep thinking about it, but take no action to see if you actually want to live it out.

When I dreamed of San Francisco:

• I visited, made connections, built a plan.

• It wasn’t just an idea, I took steps to see if my vision is truly something I want to make come true.

• It made sense both in my heart and mind: nature, tech, community, weather.

• Every time I went, I felt alive.

When I fantasized about moving to Portugal, it was different:

• No plan. No visits.

• No answer to “How will I support myself?”

💡Step 3: Notice the dreams you are actually taking steps to make a reality, and the fantasies that make you feel good in the moment, but distract you from the present.

If you recognize yourself in that pattern, you might be meeting a part of you I call The Escapist.

Who is The Escapist in You?

🌑 Meeting the Escapist

In Internal Family Systems (IFS) and shadow work, The Escapist can be seen as a part of you and not as something to get rid of, but someone inside you to get to know.

It took that conversation with a friend, for me to stop and see The Escapist in me and ask:

• When does The Escapist show up?

• What is it trying to show me?

• What is it trying to protect me from?

After hundreds of conversations with clients (and with myself), I’ve seen The Escapist take many forms:

• Waiting to be saved. Fantasizing that a mentor, a man, friend, family member or partner will step in, decide the right path for you and fix everything so you don’t have to take action.

  • This can lead to a pattern where you give away your power in relationships, only to abandon yourself.

• Deferring responsibility. Hoping someone else will run a part of your business, like marketing or finances, instead of learning, asking for help, or taking small imperfect steps.

• Outsourcing intuition. Habitually asking friends for advice, or seeking endless validation before acting.

• Over-spiritualizing. Waiting for “a sign from the Universe,” another tarot card, or psychic reading instead of trusting yourself.

• Perpetual planning. Talking, researching, vision boarding… but never actually doing anything.

• Self-sabotaging. Quitting the moment it gets hard, then saying, “See? I knew it wouldn’t work.”

• Blame and projection. Fixating on what others did wrong, to cause you to be in a specific situation, instead of owning your part and taking responsibility for your life.

• Avoidance through numbing. Scrolling, oversleeping, skipping routines, checking out of your own life.

The Root Cause: When Did the Trauma Happen?

If you recognize this pattern, it’s important to go back to its origin story, the moment your Escapist first appeared.

Close your eyes and rewind to the time in your life:

• When you stopped trusting yourself.

• When uncertainty started triggering fear instead of curiosity.

• When rejections, failures, or other negative experiences started to stack up.

• When you started to feel numb, frozen, or stop after you try to act.

In Internal Family Systems (IFS), this is when the Escapist part forms, a protector that steps in to keep you safe from disappointment. It says, “If I don’t risk, I can’t fail.”

Another Pattern: Grass is Greener

We have so many options in front of us for people to date, cities to live in, places to work here in the US.

Social media makes us think why can’t we be 10 people in one person, and live 5 different lives at the same time.

So sometimes we forget that each dream requires dedication, consistency and work.

• It’s easy to feel down and wonder “Why don’t I have that?” Instead of putting in the action to get to your goal.

• It’s also easy to not appreciate what we have, because we always see “better” options.

To stay balanced, I’ve learned to let myself explore the “grass is greener” fantasies in small, intentional doses.

• Sometimes that looks like taking a few months between jobs to travel and see what a more nomadic lifestyle actually feels like.

• Other times, it means experimenting working fully remote for one role, then returning to an in-office environment in San Francisco to feel the contrast firsthand.

• Taking a few courses from a Traditional Chinese Masters, and then also a coaching program to see if I’d rather do acupuncture and herbal medicine, or lean towards psychology before committing to a degree.

• Taking an AI course, and vibe coding an AI prototype to see if I want to make the commitment of switching into an AI-focused product role.

I also remind myself that the meaning of life is to feel and experience. It’s ok to try one thing, and then try another as long as there is decisiveness, commitment and enough time given to each experience, or it’s treated as an experiment to collect more data about the direction you want to go.

My Step-by Step Plan to Get Through This:

(1) Write Out the Worst Case Scenarios & Retrain Your Brain

Step 1: Write Out

The worst possible outcomes of every decision you’re contemplating whether it’s moving to a new city, changing your career path, or committing to a relationship or business.

• When I did this, I realized these fears became subconscious thoughts I would live with everyday. Every time I would start something, my brain would say “Oh no...this won’t work...” and I would freeze or run.

• When you imagine the worst, you bring unconscious fears into the light and allow yourself to examine them, so they stop quietly running in the background.

Step 2: Ask Yourself

• What can I do now to mitigate each fear?

• What is the reverse scenario?

• What if everything goes well?

You’re retraining your mind to focus on the best outcome, and steps you can take to get there instead of the fear.

(2) Meet the Part of You That’s Running Away

Ask yourself, or journal:

“Which parts of me are scared to choose right now?”

“What are they afraid might happen if I did?”

“What are they running away from?”

Write down what each says.

You’ll probably find:

• The perfectionist that wants to make the “right” choice to prevent failure and pain you experienced in the past.

• The protector that fears you will fail again.

• The escapist that chooses to run away, instead of staying because it’s easier, and again prevents you from getting hurt

All of these parts have the same goal: to protect you from the worst case scenario, to make sure you don’t end up in the same spot at the past. They remember how hurt you felt when things in your life didn’t work out and don’t want you to be in that spot again.

(3) Sit With Your Past

Instead of ignoring, running away, telling yourself “you’ll deal with it later” take the time to be present and face the part of you that is running away, and keeping you stuck.

Trace back where this pattern of running began.

For this you need to carve out the space to be with the past, the emotions and your thoughts. That means no distractions, phones, people, work.

You can’t face the past and let it go by thinking about it for an hour. Really carve out a weekend, in a safe space to be with yourself. Create a gentle atmosphere, eat good food, get enough sleep, make sure to take care of yourself and then really face yourself. Which to most of us, is the scariest thing we can do.

Ask yourself and journal:

• What was that moment that you had to “run away” or leave a situation?

• Or a moment where you were forced to leave, and your stability was threatened like loss of job?

• Is this a recent pattern, or can you go back to memories in your childhood where this pattern began?

• What was I protecting myself from when I left?

• What emotions did I never fully express because I had to go back into survival mode?

Write about these past memories until you have nothing left to write.

Sit with the memories by closing your eyes, placing your hand on your heart:

• Notice if there’s any specific parts of your body that feels tight, or hurts while you process the past.

• Allow yourself to cry and release the emotions in anyway you want.

• Shake, walk, move after you are done to release anything left.

Keep repeating this exercise every day for a week or as many days as you can.

(4) Release The Past Through a Ritual

If you want me to guide you through a powerful visualization, energy healing and meditation session to help you cut-cords with the past and let it go, please book here.

Write a letter about the experience when the trauma triggered your escapism (or use the writing you have from above).

When you’re done bury, burn, or flush the pieces of paper, or do all three.

Want support letting go of the past, trauma and this pattern? I’ll guide you through powerful visualizations and meditations with energy healing.

Join my November Discover Your Purpose: Reinvent Your Career program - 10 weeks of lessons, reflections, meditations and 1:1 coaching.

(5) Choose to Stay Even if it’s Uncomfortable

Let me be clear I am talking about staying through discomfort, not abuse or trauma.

When the impulse to run arises, practice staying present with the sensation: the restlessness, the fear, the doubt.

Remind yourself, “I can feel this and still be safe to act.”

Stay in one place long enough to rebuild safety in stillness:

• Stay in a new city long enough to form genuine connections.

• Stay in a project or idea long enough to see what happens after a few rejections.

Resilience is exactly this, staying through the waves of life and proving to yourself that you can rely on YOU and get through anything. That you don’t need an external force to “save you”.

(6) Choose Movement, Instead of Over Thinking

Next time you want to spend more time thinking through something, planning or researching choose to act.

For example: take small actions forward in your business. Grow that to 2 hours a day. Then to 4 fully focused hours a day. With consistency you’ll be surprised at how much things stack up over time.

If it’s easier to sit in anxiety, fear, doubt choose to act in a positive way:

• Do something to care for your health

• Go to an event to meet new people

• Write that newsletter for your business

• Contact a few more people for job referrals

This is another mental habit to build.

It’s the most difficult to break.

Next time you over think, get up, move, do something productive towards your dreams instead.

(7) Experiment and Then Decide

Take the pressure off “the right choice.”

Try micro-experiments:

• Spend one week working from a different city or co-working space.

• Try one day structured around the career rhythm you imagine wanting.

• Shadow someone in a field you’re curious about.

(8) Work With EMDR of Trauma-Informed Therapy

If the running pattern comes from deeper trauma, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) can help release the emotional charge from past experiences.

It reprograms the nervous system’s response so that you can remember without reliving.

Combined with somatic and reflective practices, EMDR helps integrate the past instead of being chased by it.