If you’re in your late 20’s and you are struggling. You’re not alone. Our Atlanta counselors meet with a lot of you and there’s a theme here. You’ve had the incredibly difficult journey of going through very formative years during a pandemic. If we think back on all of the world events that happened in the last 10 years we can see how your young adult years would be different than others.
Maybe you’re working the job you dreamed of, and you live in an awesome city. But you’re just struggling to find friends and really, truly connect. Or, you thought you’d know exactly what you want and how to make it happen but instead you’re just kind of existing. You’re going to a job that most people would envy but you just can’t seem to love it.
Instead, you feel lonely and kind of down. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you’re sad. An Atlanta counselor wouldn’t be surprised by this. It can be a difficult time.
While we can sometimes expect that our 20’s will be fun and full of adventure, they can also be quite an adjustment. Gone are the years of friends being plopped into your lap via school and classes. Instead, you work a job and have to figure out how to connect with people at a genuine level. And in a big city that can be hard to do. We won’t even get into how COVID made this something we even avoided, being told to stay indoors and not get within 6 feet of people can really teach you to avoid connection.
This is hard because you’re human, and while we want life to look like what we see online, it often doesn’t. The messy, lonely, boring moments are here, and our brains might be really confused by this because we see picture perfect situations often online and through the lense of filters.
So what do we do about it? As an Atlanta counselor, I often times find myself encouraging people to do the following:
1. Volunteer or find a hobby that happens weekly. Get yourself into something where people rely on you, expect you, and learn your name. It may not feel like it’s doing much at first, but eventually you won’t be the new person. You’ll belong there and you’ll have a role to play and that is good for your mental health. 3 months in if it’s still not jiving, try something else. But try it and stay committed to prioritizing something.
2. Practice spirituality, gratitude, and mindfulness. These are not fixes, at all. But, they do promote getting detached from media and attuned to your body, your sense of self, and the Earth. Some ways that this benefits us is it gets us more grounded and less distracted. We get more comfortable with boredome and the reality of life rather than the fantasy of media, TV, and video games.
3. Prioritize genuine connection. Find two or three people that you can be genuine with, and make it a priority to connect with them consistently. Have a phone call with each of them weekly and hang with one of them every week ( at minimum.) These are people you can be real with. You don’t have to stay on a surface level or be fake. You can be genuine. They don’ thave to be the most fun or entertaining person. Your goal isn’t to have the best time with these people. The goal is to connect. Genuine connection is great for mental health.
4. Seek out fun. This can be more difficult if you don’t have a sense of belonging with a group, but that’s okay. Our Atlanta counselors have worked with this many times. Stay open to seeking it out, and find ways to place fun in your life. There are going to be lots of duds when it comes to this, but try anyways and be open to what happens when you do seek it out. Ways to find it are to sign up for meetups and actually go even if you feel awkward. Go to free places where people have fun like the park or hiking locations. Sign up for a social sport like pickleball, and go play. Things will feel awkward if you go alone. Do it anyway. You WILL feel awkward. Do it anyway. Laugh when things are awful and awkward, and then talk yourself into doing the awkward thing more often.
5. Know that feelings and experiences pass. Forcing them to go can be somewhat futile. Instead, lean into being healthy in the process and know that life will change at some point. The journey is where we need to focus rather than on the destination.
6. Seek support. It goes without saying that an Atlanta counselor is going to encourage you to see a counselor. Sometimes, our difficulties can be connected to deeper issues. Past experiences. Family traumas. They can all impact how we show up and experience our 20’s.
We’re here if you need to reach out.
