Keeping Your Head After Losing Your Job (10 page)

Claire recognized that her rumination was not helping her get the next job or plan a better strategy for moving forward. It was not motivating her, she wasn’t learning anything through her rumination, and it was not solving any real problems. In fact, it was generating more problems and more worries. I asked Claire to think about rumination as a “tool” that she grabbed when she felt down: “Perhaps if I use this tool I will make progress.” But this tool is like taking a hammer and hitting yourself over the head and then wondering why you have a headache.

EXERCISE: IS MY RUMINATION REALLY HELPING ME?

Go over the list of the advantages that you think you will get from ruminating about your situation. Then list the evidence that you are really getting those advantages and the evidence that you are not. For example, if you think that rumination will help you get clarity and certainty, list the evidence that it is working and the evidence that it is not working. What do you conclude? Here’s an example.

What I hope to get out of my rumination	Evidence rumination has helped	Evidence it has not helped
I hope to work out why this happened to me	I can see that there are a lot of people who are unemployed through no fault of their own	I still feel stuck and I find I am unhappy when I ruminate. I can’t enjoy anything

4: Will your rumination lead to any productive action?

If you think your rumination is really helping, then I want you to think of how you would answer the following simple question: “What productive action can I take today that will really solve my problem?” I think there is productive and unproductive rumination. Productive rumination will lead to a to-do list today. For example, if you had a job interview and you noticed you were complaining about your last employer—and you didn’t get the job—make a note of that mistake and don’t repeat it. The productive action is simply making a note—that took you one minute. All the rumination after that minute is a waste of your time. Another example of productive rumination is reflecting on whether your CV is up to date. Productive action: your to-do list today is to get out the CV and work on it. That is taking action. All the other excessive thinking about it is useless—and depressing.

Focus on what needs to be done, not on ruminating

The good news is that the answer is irrelevant. Even if you had the answer as to why this happened, or what it means, or what caused people to make decisions—you are still stuck with the same problems to solve today: finding a job and building a life. And rumination does not help with real problems in the real world. In fact, by focusing on rumination you take your eye off the ball. The ball to hit is getting a job and getting a life. Now, the good thing about those problems is that you can actually do something about them in the real world—not the world going on inside your head.

Is there any productive action
today
that you can take? If you lost your job, you can’t reverse history. But perhaps you can engage in other productive behavior: exercise, socializing, looking for a job, acquiring new skills. If there is no productive action that your rumination suggests, then set it aside.

Claire realized there was some productive action that she could take; she could contact some people she knew in her field, meet with them, and talk with them. This was productive because it got her out of her rumination, it helped her feel she was making some effort to move forward, they might know of some leads, and they could also comfort her by normalizing the problem of being unemployed and supporting her in coping with this difficult time.

EXERCISE: IS THERE ANY PRODUCTIVE ACTION THAT I CAN TAKE?

List the content of your rumination down the left-hand side of a piece of paper. This could be thoughts like, ”Why did this happen?” or “I can’t believe it” or “It’s not fair”—or whatever is going over and over in your mind. Then beside it list the productive action that will help you make progress in solving the problem. For example, finding the answer, getting closure, working out why it happened, and so on. Is there any productive action today? If not, why not? What keeps you from making progress on finding the answer, closure, and the other thoughts you are having? Write this down on the right-hand side. See the example below.

Content of rumination	What productive action can I take today?	Why is there no productive action to take today?
I can’t believe I don’t have a job	I could look for a job. I can do some positive things for myself	There is always productive action to take. I just tend to think it’s not productive if it doesn’t immediately lead to a job

Now work through the list below to help you move forward.

•
What specific behavior would be productive now?

•
What can you do that is rewarding for you?

•
What are the goals that you need to achieve—and will rumination help?

•
What will help you achieve these goals?

5: Set aside specific times to ruminate-and put it off until then

Ken felt that he was ruminating all the time; from the moment he woke up until the moment he went to bed, and he woke up ruminating during the night. He could never escape. I asked him why he had to pay attention to those negative thoughts, and he looked at me with a puzzled expression. “I don’t understand. They just come into my head.” He thought he had to pay attention to them and find an answer to every thought that came into his mind.

Do you really have to follow your rumination when the first negative thought appears? Do you really have to keep spinning your wheels and digging yourself deeper into a rut? The answer is NO.

Book ahead to ruminate

You can make an “appointment” with your rumination. Catch it, write it down, and set it aside for later—say, at 4.30 in the afternoon. You can ruminate then. At all other times, write it down and set it aside.

You might say, “That’s ridiculous.” You think that the moment it pops into your head you have no choice than to follow the negative thoughts right down the drain. But you do have a choice. Here’s how you can prove it to yourself:

Have you noticed that when you are ruminating, and the phone rings, you immediately stop ruminating? Or, if your partner starts talking to you, you stop ruminating?

Or, try this.

Look around the room that you are sitting in and describe all the objects that are blue. Then describe the objects that are white. Now, try black. As you have refocused your attention to other things in the room you will notice that you are not ruminating. This kind of distraction helps you realize that you can choose to redirect your attention somewhere else. You are in charge.

What do you think you will find if you put off your rumination until another time during the day? Most of my clients think they can’t do it—until they do. Here’s what most people find:

1.
They are able to put it off until later.

2.
When they get to the time for their appointment with their rumination, they no longer care about most of the things they were ruminating about.

3.
They realize they are ruminating about the same things over and over—so it’s a lot less overwhelming.

CBT techniques to use at your rumination appointment

When you get round to rumination time you can then use some cognitive behavioral techniques to focus your thoughts:

1.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of ruminating about this?

2.
Is there any productive action to take today?

3.
If it is unproductive worry, you can set it aside and start using some of the acceptance techniques described below.

Now that you have a strategy to get past the orders and the nagging of your rumination, you are in charge.

When you get to rumination time, you will find that a lot of the thoughts that bothered you earlier in the day are no longer problematic. They just don’t seem important to you. What does that tell you? Perhaps you think a thought is important because it “intrudes” on you—like a burglar trying to break into your home. But it turns out that the thought is just a thought—nothing more. It’s the wind against the blinds. It means nothing.

Or you may find that you are having the same repetitive thoughts—and nothing is really new. If that is the case—and these thoughts still bother you—at least you know it’s only a few thoughts, not a million. Now you can use your cognitive therapy techniques listed above. Is there any advantage to ruminating about the thought? Is there any productive action you can take today? If so, then plan the action and do it. If there is no productive action about this thought, then perhaps you can accept that you don’t have the answer right now and you can then focus on productive action about something else. For example, if there is no productive action to take right now about getting a job, go back to your reward menu (see page 34), then plan and do some rewarding things. There is always something else to do besides ruminating.

Plan ahead

Have the following plan in mind ready for when you start to ruminate:

•
Set aside rumination time.

•
When a negative thought pops into your head and you think you are going to get stuck on it, write it down and make an appointment to deal with it later.

•
When you get to rumination time, are those thoughts really bothering you as much? Are you having a few thoughts—over and over?

If you are having thoughts that bother you earlier, but don’t bother you later, perhaps you don’t really need to pay attention to them. If they get weaker and less relevant as time passes, then let them go at the earlier time and get on with enjoying your life now. You don’t need to solve a “problem” that goes away on its own.

Or, if you are having the same thoughts over and over, you are really having “one thought.” If that is the case, you can recognize that you are repeating yourself ad nauseam to no avail. Just recognize, “Oh, it’s the same thought that keeps coming up; I can just use the same cognitive therapy techniques on it. I don’t have to keep nagging myself with the same thought.” Those techniques are outlined below.

6: Accept that you can’t always know why things happen

We humans are always looking for answers and meaning. You may be ruminating because you think you need to know why this has happened. Or you may ruminate because you think you need to know what will happen in the future. As I have said, rumination about your unemployment keeps you focused on the negative, and leads to more negativity, depression, and anxiety. You keep thinking that you will get the information and the insight so that everything will make sense. But is it really working? Are you really getting the insight and the answers? You may think that the advantage to rumination is finding the answer. But you may be chasing the air. You will never catch it. You can’t know what other people were thinking or how the market forces or the company decisions were made. It’s out of your control and probably unknowable.

Sometimes we need to accept uncertainty or the lack of answers. Sometimes accepting limitations actually empowers you. It allows you to give up on a lost cause and can help you move on to more productive and helpful behavior. If you over-think the situation you are in, you will find yourself trapped in inaction and passivity. Accepting, “I don’t know and I don’t need to know,” may lead to, “Now I need to take productive action.”

In the next chapter we will look at a specific focus of a lot of your rumination: your sense of the unfairness of what has happened to you and your feeling, at times, that you are an innocent victim. I want you to be clear that I am not saying that what has happened
is
fair or that you are
not
an innocent victim. But I want you to consider how you might get stuck in this way of thinking and that it only adds to the difficulties that you are having.

6

WHY ME? FEELING LIKE A VICTIM OR BECOMING EMPOWERED?

We met Bill in Chapter Three and found that he had rediscovered being involved with his young son and also found a number of rewarding activities from the past to enjoy again. Previously, Bill had been working for a small company that he had tried to build up, but he and the boss had some run-ins. Bill felt that the boss didn’t give him enough credit, that his pay wasn’t what it should be, and that he was being ignored. He didn’t feel appreciated. Angry and bitter, he began to drink more, get into arguments with his wife, and act grumpily around his children. Eventually he lost his job.

For weeks afterwards, Bill focused on how unfair everything was, complaining to his wife and to me that his boss really didn’t give him a fair chance, and that he had been “squeezed out” of the company. He would fantasize about getting revenge—thinking of how he could ruin the reputation of the company by telling competitors what his boss was like. When he thought of looking for a new job he felt both discouraged and bitter. His bitterness was based on his view that he shouldn’t be in this position—he shouldn’t have to look for a job or, to make matters worse, settle for less than he was getting before. When his wife told him that he seemed angry all the time, Bill retorted, “What do you expect me to feel? I was screwed!”

1: Validate the unfairness

Yes, it really might have been unfair. After all, you had a job, you were trying to do your best, and then it was taken away from you. That wasn’t the deal, that wasn’t what you expected. You went to work and then you were “robbed” of your livelihood. Who wouldn’t feel upset? If you hadn’t lost your job—if they hadn’t taken it away—you wouldn’t have these problems. You wouldn’t worry about money or the future, and you wouldn’t feel ashamed or have these arguments with your partner. You wouldn’t be ruminating, worrying, and complaining. It’s not what you wanted. They did this to you.

These thoughts, I believe, are perfectly natural. You are human. When we feel someone has hurt us, we feel it’s unfair, and we complain. I do think that really unfair and lousy things happen to good people—and I agree with you, it shouldn’t be this way. If you do your job, you shouldn’t have to lose it.

But you did.

So your feelings of anger and resentment, your desire for retaliation, and your complaining all make sense. But I want you to think about how long you want to stay in this frame of mind; angry, resentful, bitter. You have a right to it, but how long do you want to stay where you are?

2: Are you thinking like a victim?

I know if I mention this—that you feel like you are a victim—you will think, “He doesn’t understand,” and “He makes it sound so easy—it’s not.” I know you may think I am dismissing your feelings, minimizing the wrongs done to you, and even making you feel like a victim once again. You may be thinking as you read this, “This therapist is just putting me down, just like my boss did. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be in this position. I really was treated badly. I deserved better. Are you telling me to just lie down and be a doormat?”

I think that your thoughts and feelings on this make absolute sense. For a therapist, it’s tricky to validate your right to have a feeling but also suggest there may be some new ways of coping. You think that by focusing on moving forward is like someone saying, “You are making too big a deal of this. Get over it.” It’s almost as if you think that we need to stay with witnessing and recognizing the injury done to you. We can’t fix the problem. We have to fix the blame.

When we think about new ways of coping, you may remember all the things we discussed in Chapter Two—validating what has happened but committing to change. Validating the hurt doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t commit to change. After all, why would you have to solve problems and make things better if you had not been hurt in some way?

Here’s one way of thinking about this. Imagine you cross the street and you get hit by a car running a red light. You are lying there in the street, your legs are twisted, broken and bleeding, screaming out in pain, and you yell, “That bastard who hit me, I am going to sue him for all he’s worth!!!” But then you notice that the greatest surgeon in the world, Dr. Wizard, has come over and she leans down with a magic wand and says, “I know you’re in pain and you have a right to sue and be angry and complain. It’s terrible. But with this magic wand I can fix your legs
and
make them stronger than ever before. You will be able to run and jump like you never did, your pain will be gone and your life will be better. Should I wave my magic wand?” You look up, happy for a moment, “Of course! At once!”

But then Dr. Wizard says, “Oh, but there’s a catch. If I cure you, then you can’t sue them, you can’t complain, you have to get up and walk on into the rest of your life.”

What do you want her to do? Do you want to give up on the complaints, or give up on the magic wand?

I don’t have a magic wand, but I know that if you get too stuck on the unfairness, on being a victim, on seeking retaliation, and you keep complaining, it will be hard for you to accomplish your valued goals. It’s a hard choice, but one that you need to think about.

We all have to deal with unfairness

Let’s be honest with ourselves—we all think like victims sometimes. That’s because we all get treated unfairly. People lie to us, cheat, betray us, stab us in the back, don’t live up to their agreements, make promises they never intend to keep, take the side of people we detest, and violate our rights in a multitude of ways. When I asked a group I was lecturing if anyone had ever been treated unfairly, almost everyone raised their hand. It’s part of life—an unfortunate, unpleasant, and unfair part of life—but it is what life gives us to deal with at times.

Let’s take a tally of some common ways you might be looking at your unemployment experience when you get into the Victim Mode of thinking.

Past orientation:
You focus on what happened to you in the past, rather than on what you can do to make things better now.

Express your feelings:
You are continually talking about how bad you feel, sometimes openly complaining, sometimes pouting passively.

Resist solutions:
You reject advice that might be helpful and refuse to solve the problem because you feel you didn’t cause it, so why should you have to deal with it?

Blame others:
You repeat your complaints that other people have put you in this situation and you blame them for everything that has gone wrong.

Complain about discomfort:
You not only complain about “them” but you complain about your mental and physical discomfort. You complain about feeling sad, frustrated and angry, and then you complain about aches and pains.

Impatience:
You have no patience about things and demand an immediate answer to the problems you face. Without an immediate answer, you conclude that it’s all hopeless, so why try?

I should only do what I want to do:
This is a central feeling of entitlement: thinking that you are entitled to your down feelings and entitled not to have to struggle to make progress. You think you should do things on your terms.

Now, complete the table below and ask yourself if there are some specific examples of how you are thinking like a victim.

EXERCISE: ARE YOU THINKING LIKE A VICTIM?

Write down the various ways that you might be thinking of your unemployment as part of Being a Victim. Some common types of victim thinking are given below—with a few examples to help you get started. Try to notice this way of thinking during the next week. How is it making you feel physically as well as mentally? Is it making you feel tense, tired, agitated. Do you lose sleep, have indigestion, complain of aches and pains? Feeling like a victim can affect your physical well-being, draw down your energy, make you feel both tense and tired. And it can make you angry, depressed, anxious, helpless, regretful, bitter and resentful. It can keep you stuck in your rumination and rob you of your chance to make your life better today. How is it affecting your relationships?

Victim thinking	Examples
Focus on the past	I can’t believe that they fired me
Emphasis on expressing your feelings	I think I have to tell people how bad it is for me—I need them to understand
Resist solutions
Blame others
Complain about discomfort
Impatience
I should only do what I want to do

The anger and resentfulness that accompanies feeling like a victim

Bill realized that he was doing a lot of victim-thinking. He was continually talking about what happened to him in the past, replaying in his mind the memories of getting fired and not being treated fairly at his previous job. He would express his feelings by complaining, shouting, and repeating the stories of how bad it was. When others would suggest some things he could do to move on, such as looking for a job, developing a plan, networking, or doing productive things for himself, he would often get angrier. He felt people were telling him he didn’t have a right to feel angry and sad. He not only blamed his former boss, but he also began to blame his wife, and then he began to blame the businesses that were not offering him a job.

He would complain about how hard it was, sometimes complaining about aches and pains, feeling tired, having indigestion, and difficulty getting going. He was impatient with the job search, but also with his wife and kids, often feeling that talking to them was a burden, a source of friction, and that they were taking too long to “get to the point.” When his wife or friends would suggest some proactive and productive things to do to assist his job search, he would say, “I don’t want to do that,” and “It’s not fair that I am in this position. I worked hard. Why should I have to grovel for a job?”

The result of this way of thinking is that Bill felt angry, resentful, anxious, helpless, and alone. He felt misunderstood. He was stuck in the Victim Role.

I am not saying you don’t have a right to respond this way. But be honest with yourself; look at the list in the exercise above and ask yourself if this actually describes you at times. If it does, you might be
stuck
in the Victim Mode.

3: Empowering yourself: thinking about means and ends

I think of the Victim Mode as the first step in recognizing that something bad and unfair has happened. It’s like saying, “Ouch—that really hurt!! This shouldn’t have happened!” It’s your recognition that your needs and rights are violated and your realization that it was not fair, not right. But once you have recognized this, you can either stay in the Victim Mode or move on to Being Effective. Like the injured person lying in the street deciding if Dr. Wizard should wave her magic wand and fix the problem, you have a choice of whether you will stay with the injury or embrace the cure.

Means–Ends Thinking

So how would you think about things if you were focused on Being Effective? I suggest that you would identify positive goals and think about a plan of how to achieve them. This is what I call “Means–Ends Thinking.” Here are some examples.

Future orientation:
You focus on future events and goals rather than on what has happened in the past. You are more concerned with making the future better than on making sense of the past.

Goal orientation:
In pursuit of the future, you identify goals that you want to achieve that are positive and productive rather than past injuries or justifications for why you feel down.

Problem solving:
You think about problems in terms of possible solutions rather than as burdens that you don’t deserve or cannot overcome. You focus on planning and carrying out plans, on actions that lead to solutions. You view rumination as a waste of time.

Personal responsibility:
You believe that it is up to you to do what has to get done rather than blaming others for what has happened or expecting others to solve the problems for you.

Invest in discomfort:
You are willing to do what is uncomfortable now so that life will be better in the future. You believe that discomfort can be constructive at times—as part of the means to reach your ends.

Delay of gratification:
As part of your investment in discomfort, you are willing to wait for satisfaction and gratification, rather than demand immediate results. You take a longer-term approach. You are willing to persist, stay at it and increase your effort.

Staying in Victim Mode does not help you accomplish goals

As I’ve already said, there are two very important problems for you to solve during this time between jobs. The first problem is finding a job and the second problem is taking care of yourself. You can either be focused on feeling like a victim—and stay in Victim Mode—or you can focus on Being Effective and accomplish valued goals in your life. My experience tells me that when people are trapped in the Victim Mode they have a hard time being as effective as they could be.

Let’s take an example. When we met Bill in Chapter Three, we learned that he found spending more time with his son to be pleasurable and also effective. He had every reason to feel like a victim, however, because he had been treated unfairly at work; his boss didn’t honor his side of the bargain, Bill was marginalized within the company, and he got fired. It was unfair. He had every right to be angry. But that may not be the bigger picture for Bill. When Bill and I met, we discussed this idea that he could have a choice about staying in the Victim Role or Being Effective. But he couldn’t do both.

We looked at the advantages of being in the Victim Role. Bill suggested the advantages were that he was right, that he was standing up for himself, and he couldn’t just “accept” it because that would mean he was weak. He worried that accepting it was saying it was OK, and if he became weak, other people would think they could take advantage of him. These were strong advantages in his mind.