Maintaining Emotional Balance

When we are under stress, we start to experience wide
swings in mood. In a new relationship, for example, we are
ecstatic when the telephone rings, depressed and tearful
when we don’t hear anything for two or three days. When we
are ill, we are elated when tests come back negative,
fearful and exhausted when a problem is identified. Working
under a demanding tyrant, we are upbeat with any hint of
praise and despondent when the inevitable criticism
splashes in our faces.

The pervasiveness of being out of work touches so many
parts of our lives: our finances, our family, our egos, and
our inner sense of self. Because the anxiety of
unemployment reaches to the core of our comfortable
lifestyles, we suffer from a changing array of intense
emotional ups and downs.

Some kind of emotional balance is necessary if we are to
stay healthy, maintain our relationships, and be able to
effectively function in job search. Reaching such a balance
is difficult and made more so by our own inner turmoil. How
do we re-establish that balance that will make us feel like
our old selves, whole, optimistic, and complete?

Here are a couple of strategies to try.

1. Regain a broader perspective.

When we are confronted by a host of problems, we tend to
put on blinders and only see the obstacles that are staring
us in the face. We lose touch with what else is happening
in the greater world we inhabit. Our conversation narrows
to the one subject that dogs us night and day – the need to
find work. Friends become bored with our egocentric outlook
and relationships suffer from our obsession with our
present misfortune. We may become prickly because of the
fear and anger we are experiencing. We may still harbor
anger at being laid off and our bitterness seeps into the
affectionate ties we have with others.

Despite the discomfort and dangers of your present
situation, remember that a whole universe exists out there
that is totally ignorant and indifferent to your fate. Try
to live in both worlds. During the time you have scheduled
for job search, make that your total focus. For the rest of
the day, enlarge your view to see what else is happening
around you.

Read the newspaper, watch the news, keep up with a
changing world. Spend time finding out what is happening in
your children’s lives and how the workday went for your
spouse. Take a walk and visit with neighbors to talk about
local events and community politics. Not only will you be
more welcome when you are no longer totally consumed by
your jobless state, but you will feel more like your old
self, a cog in the real world rather than an isolated alien.

2. Develop your empathy.

We all need to learn, as the old adage says, to “walk a
mile in another’s moccasins.” You are so anxious and
fearful about the future that it is easy to dismiss the
worries of others that seem petty in comparison. Remember
that to someone who has just been diagnosed with a terminal
disease, your layoff may seem trivial. The significance of
our problems is always relative. Because they are so close
to us, and dominate our minds, we tend to feel that OUR
problems are the biggest and that no one really understands
the challenges we face.

To turn our backs on our own concerns, at least
occasionally, and to reach out to understand and help
others with their own difficulties, gives us some distance
from the ballooning fears that threaten to overwhelm us.
Distance confers objectivity and detachment, qualities we
desperately need if we are to develop creative solutions.

Bury yourself for a while in the problems of others and
you start to see that nothing is quite as awful as those
who are involved believe it is. You’ll find that, as a
dispassionate outsider, you can readily see the options and
alternatives available.

Your teenaged daughter’s devastation over her boyfriend’s
rejection may seem like a gross over-reaction. Try to look
at it from her point of view and you’ll notice the
similarity to your own situation – the pain and discomfort
of a personal world turned upside down.

Explore the frustration and anger of your brother-in-law’s
stymied career and you’ll experience the same emotional
dejection at his lack of success as you feel after an
interview that didn’t look promising.

Our problem-solving abilities thrive with practice and
helping others is a marvelous way to develop your own
skills while giving them your much needed support. Start to
personally identify with the victims of natural disasters
who not only have no job, but are also without a roof over
their head and desperately missing loved ones who were lost.

Every time we move a little out of our circumscribed
personal worlds, our vision expands and our problems shrink
in comparison, allowing us to rise above them and deal with
them forcefully as we never can when they loom large and
insurmountable.

 Links For Unemployment/Job Search Sites