| Losing your job
is one of the most hurtful things that can happen to you |
You need to know
that ...
 | it's all right to feel bad about it |
| it isn't your fault and you're not a bad person |
| you can survive this, and your
life isn't over |
|
| It may feel like
losing a person |
It's quite like
living through the death of somebody close to you. Being bereaved of your job often
brings up the same painful feelings as a bereavement in the family - disbelief &
denial, wanting to escape or hide, guilt, frustration & anger, a deep &
long-lasting sadness, a wish to turn the clock back, a sensation of having lost control
over events and feeling powerless. If you're feeling any of these then don't be afraid
that you're going mad. You're not. You're a normal person suffering something abnormal and
anything bad that you're feeling is natural. But - even though you may be finding this hard to believe just now
- "nothing lasts for ever", and you will be able to cope with
this severe blow.
Doing the right things can help speed up
the recovery process. |
| Talk about it |
Almost the worst
thing to do about a hard knock like this is to bottle it up and try to deal with it alone.
This is because the strong feelings you're experiencing make it very hard to think
straight, make decisions, or take action. "Talking out" the feelings is the best
way to get them into proportion and stop them from pulling you about. You may be a private person who finds it hard to
talk about feelings. This, though, is probably the time in your life when you need to make
yourself do it. |
| Two main
possibilities |
talk to a friend
talk to a professional helper |
| Get a balanced view of this experience |
However bad this
may feel, it's something that's happened to you and it isn't the
only thing that's important about you. There's a lot more to you
as a person and, since you're probably already feeling negative, the things to focus on
are the positive ones to get a bit of balance into this. That means thinking about and
writing down all the things you can do and have already done - there will be many of them
to counterbalance this bad event. This isn't the time to be modest - it's the time to be
fair to yourself. |
| Be clear about
your strengths |
Get a piece of
paper & head it "Achievements". Write on it all the problems you've solved
in your life, all the difficulties you've surmounted, all the things you've done that
you're proud of. Write all of them, big and small - there will be a lot of them if you do
this honestly and take a day or two over it. Don't knock yourself - look at the good
things you've done. Get
another piece of paper and head it "Skills". Write on this one all the things
you can do - you might divide them into three columns, "Skilled",
"Competent", "Can Cope". Again, take time over it and write down all
the things you can do - there are lots of them.
When you feel low, look at your lists and
remind yourself: you're able to do many things and you've achieved a lot in your life. |
| Look for solutions, not at problems |
It can be very
difficult to see past a problem of this size, because it dominates your field of view and
makes it hard to concentrate on anything else. However, the problem has already happened,
so it makes more sense to spend time thinking about what could happen. The past can't be changed, but the future can.
Analysing a problem can sometimes be
helpful, but analysing redundancy won't change the facts of it, so may not be worth while
(but will certainly be depressing). Try to let go so that you can move on again.
Thinking about solutions and trying them
will often break the log-jam of inertia, and I've noticed that if you can get yourself to
do something, it will often free you up and give you confidence to go on getting
back into control.
Here's more on the solution-focused approach. |
