Navigating 101

Sometimes it feels like chaos all around us. Most adults wear different hats, and within the different roles we perform each day, there can be a lot to keep up with. On top of that, we're in the midst of a pandemic! It's normal to feel overwhelmed at times. And it's normal to feel lonely, especially when our usual way of interacting has been altered thanks to Covid-19. It's always been important to have ways of re-centering or grounding ourselves. As we continue to navigate through our adulthood, the network of support that we have as well as the coping strategies we have help us to keep on keeping on.

The networks of support we have might include our families, our partners, our friends, or our coworkers. Some people have a big circle of friends; other people are more selective and have 1 or 2 close friends they can confide in. Some people are close to family members; others create their own family, separate from their biological one. Finding, developing, and maintaining these relationships may come naturally to some people. But others might struggle to make connections, especially if we have fewer opportunities to meet new people. Navigate's services can serve as a type of supplement for these supportive connections. Ultimately, it is Navigate's goal to nurture the insights we need to form and maintain healthy relationships, whatever those look like.

Supportive relationships come in many forms, and so do effective coping tools! Different people require and benefit from different tools. Discovering the tools that work best for us can take some experimenting. And we may find that tools that used to work well for us no longer cut it. As we age, we continue to learn new things about ourselves. So it should come as no surprise that what our coping tools look like over time changes. Healthy coping tools are the ones that allow us to honor our feelings and manage our emotions without denying, suppressing, or amplifying them. Again, it can take time to get better at...feeling what we feel! Talking through what we feel is just one way to become comfortable with coping healthily. Through intentional dialogue with a professional active listener, we can build upon the tools we might already have, and explore new ways of coping healthily with whatever life throws at us.

Ultimately, we are each responsible for our own emotions. But we are also all in this together, and as social creatures, tend to thrive when we have a good support network. Learning how to healthily cope increases our ability to empathize and provide support to others. Basically, when we take care of ourselves, we take care each other as well. Navigate can help with developing coping strategies and strengthening relationships--and if we learn how to do that, we can manage just about anything.