Ellen Hendrikson

Whereas accepting is, oh, this is what it is.

And so I think rather than trying to eliminate uncertainty, what we can do is we can lean the other way and try to make room for some inevitable uncertainty.

Yeah, so to be specific, we can reflect on how much emotional bandwidth we're willing to put into tolerating the unknown.

And surprise, the answer doesn't really matter.

It just has to be bigger than zero.

For a specific exercise, in your mind's eye, you could picture your uncertainty or the uncertainty of a layoff as a physical object, like a ball, a book, and then you can metaphorically

carry it with you as you do what needs to be done.

So whether that's focusing on your current work, like looking for another job, you don't have to get rid of the uncertainty.

You don't have to throw the book or the ball away.

You don't have to like let it go before you move forward.

You can take it with you as you do what needs to be done.

Yeah, number one is really give yourself a lot of grace.

I think it is unrealistic to expect ourselves to be laid off and to not have negative emotions about it.

I think it's absolutely okay and expected to feel bummed or disappointed or any number of negative emotions about that for, you know, for a while.

I think

It's to give ourselves room to feel what we feel, because I think given our culture of sometimes toxic positivity and the idea of being able to bounce back and move on can sometimes squeeze out room to grieve and mourn and transition.

You know, again, laugh anxiety or being sad about a laugh is a completely reasonable response.

Especially in an uber-capitalist, competitive, money-driven society, it's not reasonable to expect people to address a systems issue or a societal issue with individual solutions.

Like, we can't fix...

existential layoff anxiety or sadness or grief with simply like a breathing exercise or, you know, matcha tea.