 Coping
With Career Loss - Learning to Listen to Ourselves &
Our Needs
By Gwenn Blowatt
There are few people who can say they have never experienced the loss of
a job or career. While automation and international outsourcing of labor can
offer some explanation of why this is so, it is often not the main cause.
Instead, the loss of a job can be related to the loss of one’s own “ideals”
that they held for that position.
I can recall a position I held as a sales agent many years ago. When I began
the job, I was very enthusiastic for the product I was representing. As time
progressed, I learned that the product was not what it claimed and I lost my
drive to sell it. However, needing a steady income, I did not quit. Instead,
I became ineffectual at selling and was eventually fired. At that time, I
was devastated. Now I realize that if I had paid more attention to my body
and thoughts, the humiliation of being fired might have been avoided.
Kelly, now a Career Counselor and Program Coordinator at a community
collage, told me of a job she was forced to quit due to illness. “I was
really depressed about it because I wanted to be strong and independent.
Yet, it seemed I couldn’t do anything about it,” she said. Suffering from a
severe form of fibromyalgia, she was forced to resign from the position she
held at a bank because she experiencing loss of depth perception, extreme
exhaustion and numbness of her fingers. “My body was definitely telling me
something,” she says. “I was forced to listen to it.”
Catherine, an entrepreneur who owns and operates a message therapy studio
also told me of a job she thought she would love but had to quit. “I
developed terrible backaches,” she said. “I would wake up in the morning
with it and just know, ‘Catherine, you’re not going to have a good day.’ It
was the mental stress I was enduring that was manifesting into my body.”
In all these cases, before there was the loss of a job, there was the loss
of the “ideal” of what the job was about and what it would fulfill for us.
“Now I use my body as a barometer of my emotions,” Catherine says. “My body
relaxes when the decisions I’m making are right.”
For Kelly, the solution for a cure came from an unexpected source - herself.
“When conventional medicine couldn’t help me, I began looking at holistic
approaches. It was then that the inward search began.” She discovered that
her sickness was telling her that life is not all about work. Instead, she
had to relearn the real value of her life and to balance her career with her
own needs.
Catherine has come to the understanding that in order for her to be
effective with her clients, she must find time to be alone to “recharge”
herself. “When my batteries are full,” she told me, “I have more juice to
give to others. As a massage therapist, I have to be aware of how I am
feeling and what I am giving out. If I have no energy, how can I help my
clients?”
Learning to listen to your body and heed your own needs is just half of the
answer. The other half resides in listening to your self-talk. As Kelly told
me, “If you don’t know what you’re saying to yourself, you can’t change it.”
She believes that hearing where the internal dialogue is leading her is
essential to her success. In so doing, she has been able to recognize her
own strengths and limitations. “There is nothing to fear when we lead our
lives by our own truths,” she said.
Catherine believes that the decisions that have made her the happiest have
been effortless. “There are no obstacles and I just know it’s right,” she
told me. “Everything seems to fit together and it all works out. Where that
has led me is where I am now - at the pinnacle of my career. I couldn’t be
happier.”
When most of us find ourselves faced with the loss of a career or job, we
tend to feel it as real grief. The five stages of anger, denial, bargaining,
depression and acceptance that accompany death often go along with job loss
as well. Additional to this, many of us feel the sting of failure for not
achieving success. “Society teaches us dual values,” Kelly has told me.
“We’re supposed to be confident in who we are, but only if we have
successful employment. It is used as our reflection to society of our
worth.”
When we lose a job or career, we often feel we have lost our worth as well.
To top it off, the loss of a career or job can also bring with it the loss
of work friends we leave behind as well as a lack of security. Kelly has
this advice to offer:
a) acknowledge your loss as real;
b) give yourself permission to grieve it and work through it;
c) take good care of yourself and find someone who will be a support to you
through this time, and;
d) use the experience as a opportunity to reevaluate your skills, goals and
options.
In learning to listen to ourselves and our needs, we have a much better
recipe for achieving our goals. Whether that is to your body, or your
thoughts, it is imperative to happiness, success and health! Recognize what
you are telling yourself and follow through. When job or career loss comes
your way, don’t let guilt overwhelm you. Instead, take heart and take stock
of who you really are and what truly motivates you. You may find that what
you are seeking isn’t where you have been going after all. It is simply time
for a new approach.
Gwen Blowatt, B.A., is a free-lance writer who resides in Lethbridge,
Alberta with her two children & husband. Gwen can be reached by email at
gblowat1@telus.net |
