I’ve been out of work several times in the past. What I have learned and what I tell everyone else who experiences a job loss that the worst thing that happens is the first work day that you don’t have anywhere to go is when the full weight of unemployment hits you. The uncertainty, not only of your financial situation, but of your own self-worth comes tumbling down on you like a ton of bricks.
People were designed to be in motion. When we don’t have a plan or feel that our life is under the control of others, it can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening. Your mind begins to play tricks on you. All the questions you have had about your value throughout your life come to the surface. You begin to ask why was I let go? Am I so easy to leave behind? If I can’t keep a job, how much value am I to anyone? How will I provide for my family?
In everyone’s mind, there are two people and they are always vying for dominance. There is the actuated, self-empowered dynamo of energy filled with love of life and there is the lich. A lich is an undead creature of fantasy fiction which claims its victims by sucking away their life’s energy. So as the victim becomes weaker, the lich becomes more and more powerful.
It is easy to fall into the lich’s trap when you feel beaten down. The more we feed it by thinking about our own doubts of self-worth, the more powerful it becomes and the more difficult it becomes to escape the tragic circle of demoralization and indolence.
But the lich’s fatal flaw is that it’s a paper tiger compared to the True You, represented by the dynamo. The choice to escape the tragic cycle is to feed the dynamo. Our working life is only 1 dimension of a fulfilled life. When one aspect of your life becomes a potential energy sucker, you must find ways to fill yourself up with energy from other sources. Energy, mental, emotional and physical is the lich’s bane.
When the lich tries to exert it’s power over you, STOP! Get up. Smack that silly grin off its pitiful face and flip it off. “Not today!”
Remember all those things that have given you joy in the past, be it music, pictures, those movies that touch the deepest parts of your heart and soul. Hug your kids and loved ones. Go to the gym and beat the lich out of your body. Find those things. Do them. Live them, again! They’ll remind you of who you are and what you are!
Push back! Not today!
