7 Stages of Job Loss Grief (cont.)

Stage 7 – Acceptance

I did not arrive at my final stage of grief—acceptance—until I had left Manhattan and moved in with my sister’s family in Larchmont.

I know I had reached the acceptance stage of my financial grief at that time, when I was living in my sister’s basement and sleeping on her couch, because that is when I finally registered for unemployment insurance—a full nine months after I had lost my job.

For nine months, my wife had begged me over and over to register for unemployment insurance, and I had repeatedly told her, “I don’t have time.”

Talk about denial!

A few weeks after I registered for unemployment, I started receiving checks, and the money almost exactly covered my expenses. I then requested from the New York State Department of Labor that they pay me from the time I was initially unemployed, credit for a period during which no valid claim was filed, but my request was denied.

Apparently, I learned the hard way. You can only get unemployment insurance from the time you register.

What had I been thinking? I should have registered the day after I had received my last pay check. I could have used the money to support my children or reduce my credit card debt, yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

When I told the authorities that I had been proud, stubborn and stupid, they were not convinced. I don’t think it would have made any difference if I had told them that I had been in shock and denial. I should have told myself on January 1st, a day after my last paycheck, “Get over it and register for unemployment insurance!”

Reaching the stage of acceptance was also the turning point in my efforts to find a job. That is when I let professional career coach and business strategist Paloma Bowland into my life, started a serious self-evaluation, revised my resume, unified my social networking and marketing efforts, strengthened my brand and started feeling better about myself. That is when my search turned around and leads started solidifying in a manner in which they had not done so before. I soon found a job in my field.

In retrospect, I can clearly see how I passed through the seven stages of grief—shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing and acceptance—and I can clearly see how my personal job-loss grief unambiguously expressed itself in my relationship with money as I was searching for a job.

However, all during my job search, the only notion of which I was fully conscious was that I needed to find a job—and on that I never gave up.

Comments

[Danny Fitzpatrick]

Thank you so much for acknowledging the grief process with regards to the current economic stress - your validation is certain to help others. As a whole health coach, I am seeing this more and more frequently. It's crucial that grievers are able to get out of the blame game and forgive themselves and others.

If you'd like an additional resource to offer people going through this grieving process, please feel free to pass along this complimentary eBook - www.lemonadenetwork.com.

Danny Fitzpatrick, Whole Health Coach
Co-Author of "Emotional Stimulus Package: Your Guide to Re-creating the American Dream"