Our Pasifika people have long understood the moana and how to navigate our way through it in order to make it to safe shores.

Our feelings and emotions are like the moana. At times, the moana is calm and still, making navigation smooth and easy. Other times, the waves become rough and raging, with stormy conditions, making navigation harder. Our feelings and emotions can change like the waves of the moana, but – like our ancestors – when the waves are rough, we can use our knowledge, values, skills, spirituality and collectivity to navigate our way through safely.

There are many ways we can navigate safely through the crashing waves of anxiety. But first we must learn to notice the signs in ourselves and our surroundings. As our ancestors learned to look for signs of a dangerous storm approaching, we too can learn to look for the signs of our worries and anxieties.