Do you know that adaptation during emigration takes from 3 to 7 years? Yes, yes... this is exactly how much it will take on average to adapt to a new country, city, culture, language, people around. Now, working with the topic of adaptation with my clients, it seems important to me to understand how this process works. So that rose-colored glasses do not break with the lenses inward. The reasons for moving, your starting capabilities (knowledge of the language, are you moving alone or with someone, have you found a job, etc.), how easy it is for you to make new acquaintances - all this, and more, will influence how easy it is and your adaptation will quickly pass. So, let's talk a little about the stages of adaptation that you will most likely have to go through if you emigrated. The first stage is the tourist stage. The person feels euphoria. At this stage, you are still focusing on everything that is pleasantly new, better, and on your pleasant sensations. Unfortunately, this stage does not last long. From several days to 6 weeks. Unfortunately...The next stage is the stage of unhurried disappointment. Problems begin to mount. The emigrant begins to compare countries, sometimes not in favor of the one he chose to emigrate. For example, I was faced with the fact that I underestimated all the difficulties with starting official work as a psychologist in Poland, realizing that I would be forced to sit back on the student bench, and this all went in parallel with a change of job (difficult, because I didn’t choose the time the most successful), seeing that not everything is so simple with legalization, having compared my new expenses, I realized that my quality of life was higher in Belarus, where I came from, where the practice was already good, but here I had to gain it almost with zero again – and, to put it mildly, became despondent. At this stage there is a feeling of absence of “home”, there is no support, there is no feeling of being in one’s place. At this stage, thoughts of inferiority may also arise: I’m somehow not like that, since I can’t cope. After all, others have moved and are happy, I’m not “out of place.” I can’t find myself, find a use for myself here. For example, some, faced with a closed labor market for them, are disappointed in themselves as a professional. “At home, I was a professional marketer, but here no one takes my knowledge into account, because... I don’t know the specifics of the market and the language at the proper level. We have to start from scratch. And this is not fair, because I am already a great specialist.” In the country from which you came, you were someone, here everything has to start again (the problem of Losing a Role). It may seem that local residents are deliberately creating difficulties and do not want to communicate. Some feel some hostility from the local population and respond with the same attitude. Plus: refusal, rejection of local rules and routines, language. For example, I met a woman who very aggressively asked a local resident why he had not learned her native language and did not communicate with her in it (and her native language is not English, which everyone learns at least somehow in school, so you they understood that it is not specifically taught anywhere except in the country of her residence, except by notorious polyglots))). During this period of time, the migrant more often seeks opportunities to meet and communicate with fellow countrymen, communicating with them on the Internet. This becomes a kind of drain of negative emotions that accumulate. Unfortunately, such a strategy only complicates and delays the completion of adaptation. A person creates a comfort zone for himself, convinces himself of the aggressive attitude of the locals, and refuses to learn the language. This helps reduce anxiety and pressure, but does not really help adapt to changes, since you decide to hide from them. But in fact, he does not deal with the real bearers of culture, only with his fears and fears about what they might be. I don’t discourage communicating with fellow countrymen when moving; many of them have already walked your path and will be able to help you and suggest some things. Rather, it is important not to get stuck at this stage, not to prevent yourself from adapting by hiding exclusively behind