The other day, a lovely inquirer sent me an email to ask if I would write a Grace Note about job loss.
As in….
….HEEEELLLLLLPPPPP! I LOST MY JOB!!!!! OMG!!
If you’ve ever had the experience of unexpectedly losing work, the one or only way you relied on income, then you might panic.
Or….could it be your thinking is making you panic?
(Say yes).
Right now, in the Money teleclass, we’re looking at Everything Money. And it’s so closely connected to Everything Work, because you do your work, it seems, to obtain the paycheck.
Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t go to that job, right?
When you like your job, or you feel happy with the security it provides, you may feel very threatened when it drops out from under you in a way you didn’t plan.
First step….breathe very deeply.
And then, do The Work.
Here’s how you might approach your predicament, if you notice you’re waking up at night, anxiously checking job postings, or freaking out….
It’s a little counter-intuitive, as in opposite of what you might naturally do.
After you’ve breathed a few big deep breaths, and relaxed yourself as best you can….
….consider your Worst Case Scenario.
I know this is odd.
But what’s deeply helpful is to actually explore, rather than going insane on the inside and trying to avoid feeling too much, your greatest fear in this situation.
What are you picturing?
Are you thinking you’ll have to move? That you’ll lose all your worldly possessions? That you’ll be considered a failure? That you’ll starve to death? That you’ll be living under a bridge?
Be realistic now.
When I lost all my money, I had visions of absolute failure. When I really thought it through and took a look a my prospects, I knew my mom would take me in (she had already offered). I knew it would take a whole lot of crazy circumstances for me to ever become homeless. Too many friends, too many family members.
It made me sick to think I was about to lose my house to foreclosure (I didn’t actually wind up losing it, but I cut it close) and I felt like sucha loser.
The shame was immense. I wouldn’t have wanted any of those family members or friends to know….that was the real problem.
My embarrassment. My self-criticism and anger with me. My fury at feeling so alone and unsupported.
So who would I be without these self-defeating beliefs? Without these visions of me the victim? Me who wasted my education, who should have gone to medical school and planned a better career?
Who would I be without the belief that I was unsupported, and foolish? Who would I be without the belief that I needed money in order to be happy?
Noticing how much I still had.
Feeling the joy and excitement of change, new possibilities, inventing a new life, open.
Turning the thoughts around: you are supported, you are being invited to something new, you are smart, connected, a winner, you don’t need more money in order to be happy.
You will be fine if you lose your house, your possessions, your car.
More than fine, it could be an incredible, magical adventure.
That’s what happened to me.
I now have a house the most perfect size for cleaning, living in, sharing with my kids and husband, having people over….and it’s an 8th the size of my old house. I’ll have it paid off completely in less than a decade.
I love every piece of work I do (well, maybe some of the admin stuff irritates me from time to time, but its rare).
I own a car without any car payments.
The sky’s the limit with my income possibilities, it just keeps going up.
Every day I get to question my thinking, and study silence (my favorite).
See the benefits of whatever it is you’ve lost. They will be there, if you look.
See how it could be a good thing that you’ve landed where you are.
You may as well give some weight to the advantage of reality, rather than objecting to it.
In fact, the more you resist, the more you lose. Bummer, but it’s true.
“When you’ve become a total success in business and have more money than you could ever spend, what are you going to have? Happiness? Isn’t that why you wanted money? Let’s take a shortcut that can last a lifetime. Answer this question: Who would you be without the story ‘My future depends on making a lot of money’?Happier. More relaxed. With or without the money. You’d have everything you wanted money for in the first place.” ~ Byron Katie in Question Your Thinking, Change The World
Who would you be, right now, without the belief you need a job, or money, to be happy?
Having a blast finding a new job?
Love, Grace