Many have lost their jobs. What do we do to get back on top?

My Mental Rebuild: How I got back on the top of my game!

Before I relate to you how I began to heal myself, allow me to bring you back into how I got there. A recession hit the world. Jobs lost, downsizing, companies folding. Talk about littering the landscape with worthless paper, jobless people, long unemployment lines, and suddenly the world and everything in it began to change….for what seemed to be the worse. Got the picture? It’s a mindset, one that doesn’t have to be yours…one that never has to rule your life.

I had personally begun to drink excessively, which was not my typical behavior or my norm. I was barely working, becoming “bankrupt” in my mindset, and going every day to a local bar in downtown NYC to slug down a few so that I could face my family when they came home after their day of work, school, etc. One day I made a friend in the bar, his name is Jason. Jason sat next to me, keeping pace with the number of drinks, and I got a pen from the bartender and took a napkin and began to help Jason crunch numbers. I couldn’t even add, but Jason couldn’t notice, but I did learn from this event and it began to turn me around. It was my low point, my epiphany moment, and this is the story Jason told me:

The Jason Story as related by Jason

Normally I report to work at 8:00, but some memo was circulated yesterday, that carpets were being washed during the night, and they were delaying work by one hour today to allow time for them to dry, and expected us to remain in work one hour later to make up the difference.

So, as a dutiful employee, I walked into work this morning, exactly 10 minutes early, at about 8:50, and was surprisingly greeted by my Manager.

I thought to myself, “That’s odd... with more than 280 people working here on any given day, I didn’t even know she still knew that I work here?” She asked me if I knew what time it was because I am normally scheduled to be there at 8am Monday-Friday. I replied, “No, a cougar attacked me on the way into work this morning. I lost my cell phone in the struggle. Enough about me; how can I be of assistance to you today, Mrs. Jones?”

Needless to say, she didn’t find my explanation very entertaining. After all, I was only joking. She had to have seen the memo, if not author it herself. Who signed that memo anyway? I couldn’t remember.

Next thing I knew, I was directed into the conference room. Thought to myself, “ I wonder what this is all about?” I walked into the room and saw my V.P. and his lovely entourage. They presented me my last two annual reviews and wished to review them in great detail. Naturally, I started laughing because of things I wrote in the past. Didn’t know they actually read them? My boss revisited one of them that I wrote in 2007 where I am supposed to comment in the section of “Employee’s Greatest Accomplishments”. He read it off, “I got the Supervisor/Manager in the company cafeteria to start carrying my favorite candy bars.”

I laughed out loud and asked them to get to the point. That they did, and what came next really surprised me and took my breath away. They had termination papers for me to sign. “Sure.” A couple handshakes and then they asked the security guard, that I had hardly noticed to be there, to supply me with a small box for me to pack my belongings into. Security obliged.

Got back to my cubicle w/one of those white file boxes and packed 12 years worth of “things” into it. For the last time, I sat in my squeaky chair that never fit me right in all the years I’d been there.

Anyhow, back to my packing... found a lot of nothing. It hit me that I never really did “set up shop” like everyone else there at work had. You go into some cubes where the ladies have fuzzy arm sleeves for their chairs, hand-knitted blankets for their lap, a plethora of family/friends photos, personal lamps, small fish bowls, and enough plants sitting around to open up a plant nursery. Me? Well, I found the belongings that I had accumulated over twelve years.

On my trip home, box under my arm; I began to feel the beginnings of what is now officially diagnosed as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. After all, it’s only just the biggest recession this nation has ever hit, in my entire 47 years of life. Finding another job is not exactly easy in the midst of a recession that closed down so many companies and flooded the market with other unemployed persons.

Lets see: according to Jason, he had 2700.00 per month in apartment rent, another 797.00 per month in COBRA to continue his insurance, another 1500.00 or so per month in food and groceries, and with only 460.00 in unemployment insurance benefits, he’s in a helluva pickle, and one that will increase the symptoms that he was just beginning to feel. Thank God he had about 70K in liquid savings that he could tap into to help him along until he found a job, if ever he could find a job before this recession ends.


Sound familiar?

Be it corporate downsizing, or corporate failure, many of us are out of work, and the prospects of finding a job become more bleak day by day. There are so many people vying for the same jobs, and offering to do so at far less pay than normal, it’s getting worse and worse. Jason is getting worse and worse. First thing to go was his relative good health. Second thing to go was his self-confidence, third thing to go was his savings, and it was a very slippery slope downhill for Jason.

Losing Ground: Jobless Stress Can Affect Whole Family

As the economic downturn grinds onward, more people are cutting back on treatment for anxiety, depression and substance abuse. 

 Those who can get care say they worry about the toll that the economy is taking on them. 



Some companies that had lost 33% of workers in February of this year, now (as of June) up to a 40%. This is troubling. And for the recently unemployed, depression and anxiety can make it harder for the them to get back on their feet. Job loss is a wound, and it's a wound on the entire family. 




Where to begin:
Well, this story was Jason’s story, but it is also the story of many others. Does it mean that all hope of finding a job is lost? No. That’s not realistic either. Some people are finding work.

So, what comes next? I’m a mess!

Feeling like you are a mess is a state of mind; a state of hopelessness. There is a sure-fire method of rebuilding these elements so that you can move against the tides and become the top choice in those long lines of job applicants. After all, what are these companies that are hiring looking for? They are looking for motivated, decent employees. They are looking for people that aren’t carrying baggage around on their backs. Why? Because, for the dollar in wages that they have to offer, they don’t want someone who is stuck in that mindset, and believe me, they know how to see into your mind in that interview and find out of that mindset exists and can hinder your ability to be effective in the job they are offering.

Simply put: You must get out of the dumps. Get into sharp, crisp, fresh, and competitive mindset, and get on with the interview and get that job.

I too was just one such person. I didn’t exactly lose my job, as it costs my employer nothing to have me there. I work on commissions only, meaning, for every sale I make, I get commissions. How about this; I lost over 70% of my income. Talk about worthless? I felt washed-up and thrown-away, as the customer I once served, found younger, less skilled, but cheaper alternatives to my services, and migrated toward those people. I watched my clients “go south” on me. I was then living, literally, one paycheck away from homelessness.

Enter FEAR!

Well, being an educated and hard working person, who was on the top 10% of my craft, I am not about to stay “stuck” in this mindset until I am homeless.

I had to give up my health insurance, like so many others. Too high a premium. I was paying Blue Cross/Shield 1,000.00 per month, and that was a big nut to carry. It had to go, and with it went the opportunity to visit a mental health therapist that could help me to focus and get back on top of my game and reinvent myself. Reinvention of self. What a concept? What a necessity in this, the hardest economy of my entire life.

How did I do it? Simply put; I used well-targeted and well-designed self-hypnosis techniques to do the job. It was the cheapest, most direct, most effective tool I had within my reach to get out of the mindset that I was in, the mindset that could ruin me for a long time to come.

You see, not unlike Jason’s’ story, I too was beginning to feel the symptoms of stress related changes upon my mindset and my physical health. My blood pressure was climbing, I couldn’t sleep, and I was becoming an ogre, an angry person. I was officially depressed, and began to drink more alcohol, and at a point in time when I couldn’t afford the liquor. This is NO WAY TO LIVE, and it was a choice that I was beginning to make, governed by a damaged self image and self confidence, and it was going to ruin my marriage, a marriage I had valued for more than 20 years. My friends began to stay away too. I found myself more alone, more desperate, more self-pitying than I had ever imagined, and this person was not me.

This was NOT what I wanted, and it caused me to sober up, look into myself and see what needed to change, before I became an alcoholic and a chronically angry and depressed person.

How did I begin to turn it around?

I began to use the internet, to search out how to balance myself, how to rebuild myself, how to get out there are really compete with the changes that were everywhere. I knew enough about life and mindset to realize that I had to counter the changes that I was suffering, and without traditional therapy, which takes time and patience, I needed a faster fix, a real fix, a real solution. My decision, to use self hypnosis to treat my mind, and then my mind could again function better to help me make intelligent choices, clearly though out and reasoned, so that I could again become a productive member of society.

I found that I had two choices. One choice was self help books. There are a ton of self help book out there, and many of them are designed to focus on exactly what I needed right now, but again, that’s an education, and I know that to re-educate myself would take time. Did this mean that I shouldn’t read? No, but I decided that while I did read, I should also look to another method of faster fix for my problems.

Along came a friend, who just so happens to be a therapist, but as such, and as my friend, cannot treat me. That’s all about “professional ethics.” A licensed therapist will never treat a friend. But, my friend did make a suggestion or two. And one of his suggestions made my hair stand on end. He suggested self-hypnosis for re-education of my emotional makeup, my self confidence, my drive, my values, and my self-image.

I was not convinced by any means, but I was fascinated. Could this be real? Could it be a quick fix for my mind? Could it bring me back? Could it succeed for me? I turned to the Internet, did lots of reading on the topic, and after about 4 days of thinking it over, decided I should give it a try.


What is self-hypnosis? Is it mind control?
Simply put, self-hypnosis, or hypnosis of any kind, is exactly the opposite of mind control. It is self-control personified. Self-hypnosis cannot and does not supplant your intentions with those of another persons. It is a state of deep and intense focus, of hyper concentration, so that information you take in passes from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind. That statement is of the utmost importance for you to understand. Your conscious mind is the gateway that allows information to pass through to your subconscious mind, and YOU are the one in control, not the hypnotist, therapist, guru or entertainer.

What I have now learned is that my mind is not a brick wall. The way that circumstances changed my self impressions, my feelings about me; self hypnosis has reeducated and retrained me back into the person I was before this economy took it’s toll on me. I went back over those same hurdles that led me down the wrong path, and got back to where I needed to be.

End result:
Well, I am no more than an occasional social drinker again. No more excessive alcohol, no more excuses to drink in excess. My friends are back in my life. I’m back. Oh, and the job? Well, I am still there, and increasing my numbers each week, because it’s the new me, and people like me best when I am well grounded, not depressed, not angry.

Self help books:
I continue to read them, and have found some that are really fantastic. I am fascinated by some of the things I have learned, and I am fully convinced that this time, for once in my life, I shall rebuild myself to even greater state of mindset than I ever had before. I am a thinking, feeling, and educated person, and I am the one that is in control of my life, my beliefs, my well being and my success, and I shall posses them all.

What does it mean for my family?
We enjoy more joy every day. Yes, we might still be on a tighter budget, but we are happy again, as the circumstances are changing, moving back to greater financial strength than they were. It’s a move in a proper direction, and I am no longer a “scud missile” to destroy our family.