Job Loss

The loss of one's job ranks high on the stress scale as fundamental to human well-being. My last post addressed this around the need to belong to something bigger than our own small world.

I have opportunities as a career counselor to engage with people who encounter the rough world of downsized businesses. Some see the "reduction in force" as a blessing; some react with resignation; and some are enraged. It is this third group I want to address here today.

All people have emotional responses to loss, and ordinarily we have or at least are encouraged, to take the time to deal with the pain of such losses. We have read of the extremes where someone who is laid off goes home for the shotgun and comes back to massacre his boss and/or his colleagues. This is rare, but the feelings of such rage and its subsequent revenge reside in most of us, but are transmuted into healthy action through the willingness to let the shock and loss go through a natural source of healing.

To mitigate against the negative residue infecting the next positive steps which must follow one into a healthy career transition, I recommend taking time off, disengaging completely from even thinking about work. I strongly suggest a mental health break. Just last week I did this for myself, not taking time away for job loss recovery, but giving myself a "yoga" break for having completed one large assignment and flowing right into another, very different and challenging new one.

It all comes down to this. Energy, rich and peaceful psychic energy, feeds a job campaign in highly positive ways. The angst we feel is lowered to a manageable level and the persona we project to others is more appealing. Jobs are won and lost not on the minutia in a resume but in the connection of people to people. Take time off, even if it's three days. The renewed energy you gain will be timeless.