How to cope when you've lost your job

You are not a failure for a start (David Seymour is)

“I feel like a failure”.

There’s nothing worse than seeing your friends struggle due to the actions of the Government. It’s not a new thing - but it never gets easier. Hearing wildly talented, generous, kind, and hard working people think of themselves as failures is bloody devastating.

And right now, many of our friends, family, colleagues, and neighbours are feeling this way.

It’s estimated more than 6,000 people have lost their jobs in the public sector alone due to David Seymour and this Government.

In May, the number of unemployed people in our country was estimated to have risen 10,000 to 134,000. This pushed the unemployment rate up to 4.3 percent.

Everyone in Wellington knows someone who has lost their job recently.

The stories coming out of the public sector are devastating - crying in toilets, breakdowns and vomiting from stress, farewells where people can’t even say who is leaving, months of limbo with folks not knowing if they have a job or not. This is combined with a new crushing workload as public servants must now take on the work of their colleagues who have been forced out.

“I feel so lucky that I kept my job but I’m now doing the work of four people - my whole team is gone. It’s miserable. I am exhausted and I feel so burnt-out”.

Everyone I spoke to couldn’t share their names because they’re looking for work. Everyone I spoke to was struggling in the job market. One friend said they’d applied for more than 90 jobs in the last month. “I made it to the final interview for a heap of them but they’ve said they’re getting hundreds and hundreds of people applying. They’re getting senior people so desperate for work that they’ll take junior pay so I don’t stand a chance”.

What I have worried a lot about is the impact all of these job losses will have on mental health across the country. So I asked some experts what people can do if they’ve lost their job to try to keep their spirits up.

Gaayathri Nair is a counsellor and author of the newsletter Healing For Collective Liberation. She says the key to coping when you’re struggling to find work is to remember your worth.

“The capitalist economic system wants us to derive our worth from being productive economic units however as humans we need to develop a wider view of our value. It can be useful for people to spend some time coming back their values and the other parts of their identity.”

Photo by Rivage

Nair suggests job seekers spend some time thinking about, and then writing down, the things they are good at outside of their jobs.

Document how you practice your values day to day. And write down all of the things you’ve been proud of outside of your job, so that you can come back to it when you are feeling low.

“The other thing to remember is that this is part of the current economic climate right now, Nair says. “It has very little to do with people's individual failings. Finding a way to hold this in your mind while doing the very demoralising task of job hunting during a recession might ease the sting a little bit.”

Counsellor Danni Ridley of Little Shadow agrees that it’s important to look at the big picture.

“It’s really worth acknowledging the macro systems that are at play and how much as individuals we tend to give ourselves a sense of over-responsibility and then internalise that as our “fault” when we’re up against a system that’s rigged against us (capitalism).”

Ridley acknowledges it can be hard to understand who we are outside of the context of our jobs.

“We often align ourselves and find identity in the reflection of key markers like our careers and relationships. So when something unexpected happens, like redundancy, it can pull an identity rug from underneath us. This feels incredibly personal and can create distress and unease within yourself, which is really hard,” she says.

“It’s also hard to be faced with ambiguity and questions around providing for your self and your family. Feelings of limbo and uncertainty can be extremely triggering for some people, alongside the questions of identity and being “good enough”.”

“Try to maintain a sense of what is happening on a larger scale to negate some of the responsibility and blame. In this current economic crisis and moment of change - it is not personal. Which is what also makes it so shitty.”

Losing your job at a time when mortgage interest rates are through the roof and rents are (always) rising means so many families in Aotearoa are under huge stress.

Photo by Nik Shuliahin

Nair has advice for keeping stress levels down at this difficult time.

“It makes sense to be stressed when we are in a stressful situation. Where it becomes a problem is if it is getting in the way of our ability to actually cope with the stressful situation. Worrying often gives us the illusion of control when we don't actually have any. Instead, it can be useful to focus on the things that are inside of our control, and taking steps. That could be doing things like making a budget, or job hunting, or asking for support.”

“Whenever we are feeling overwhelmed, if we can direct that energy into a specific and helpful task, it helps us to feel a tiny bit better.”

The trick, though it’s not always easy, is to not feel bad about feeling bad. Nair suggests looking into Tara Brach's RAIN practice.

The acronym RAIN is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness and compassion using the following four steps:

• Recognize what is happening;

• Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;

• Investigate with interest and care;

• Nurture with self-compassion.

She also recommends Kristin Neff’s self compassion test.

“Their work is based on eastern Buddhist practice but is developed for a western therapeutic audience. A self-compassion practice helps us recognise our own innate human worthiness and also not feel bad about feeling bad which, if we can get the hang of it, halves the amount of feeling bad.”

To anyone facing the job market - I’m sending you lots of support and I know many others are too. I hope you find good work and get through this garbage fire time. If your brain is telling you that you’re worthless, it’s a liar. Don’t listen to it and ring one of the helplines below.

Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor.
Lifeline – 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or free text 4357 (HELP).
Samaritans – 0800 726 666
Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO).

Next in this series will be tips to save money during this cost of living crisis, particularly for folks who have lost their jobs. Reply to this email if you have a money saving tip that isn’t “sell your beach house” because y’all we do not have beach houses!