Coping with Job Loss

          Are you anxious and worried about the possibility of losing your job?  In these economic times, you are not alone.  As of April 2009, the jobless rate is 8.5 percent, which means that 13 million people in the US are currently unemployed.  Job loss is a real possibility for most of us, and the loss of a job brings about  very real financial and emotional issues.   Anger, panic, depression, hopelessness, and feeling completely overwhelmed are all common reactions to losing a job, and you may feel all of these at varying levels over the course of several weeks.

Losing a job is a great lesson in the impermanence of things. 

     During good economic times, we take for granted our paychecks, our status, our achievements, and if we like our work we see it as a cup overflowing with opportunity for advancement.  If our salary is high enough, we think nothing of dedicating 60+ hours a week to our work, setting it and all of its requirements at the very top of our priority list.  We often rationalize this behavior, as our job pays our bills and affords us a lifestyle to which we attach a great deal of value- a big house, exotic vacations, expensive ‘toys” we can purchase without worrying too much about the cost.   Losing these attachments can feel like the end of the world.

            Many of us also over- identify with our jobs.  We reflect our own sense of self- worth in relation to our work achievements.  Without it, we quickly start to question our own adequacy, ability, and our confidence falters.  This low confidence can make finding new employment particularly difficult, and the downward spiral begins.

            If you have recently lost your job or feel that job loss is imminent, give yourself time to grieve this loss.  Pay close attention to what you are thinking and feeling during this time.  Thoughts usually fuel feelings- if you feel sadness try to put it into words, and see if you are sending yourself negative messages.  “I’m worthless when I’m not working” or “ I’ll never find another job as good as this one was” need to be acknowledged, but also countered with something more realistic and positive.  There will be another job, you are important in other aspects of your life that do not involve work, and you do not need the expensive attachments as much as you think you do. 

         You may feel you don’t have much of an arsenal to fight the emotional stress that job loss creates.  Yet, we can choose how we think about the events of our lives, and job loss is no different.  We always have a choice between thinking optimistically or pessimistically.   As Martin Seligman states in his best selling book Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, ‘”Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.”

          It may also be the central skill necessary to survive  the loss of a job.