 Recovering
from redundancy
Losing
your job is one of the most hurtful things that can happen to you,
so 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 someone 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.
Try to find
somebody who...
will give you space and really listen to you
is warm, calm and trustworthy
won't try to tell you what to do, but will help you work out your
own answer
won't tell you all about their own troubles
will
help you to tell your story in your own way
And if you
don't know anybody like that then think about getting
help.
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.
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