Sixth Exercise: Integrating Emotion Mind and Reasonable Mind
This next exercise has come at the right time. It asks me to investigate applying Wise Mind to an upcoming decision. Well, I have one. I'm about to leave my job after 26 years, and look for new employment. I've already started looking, and it's made me realise I'll need to toughen up a bit, and get more organised if I'm to succeed. I have some experience of being jobless, and I remember what it felt like, and how bad it was for my health. I'm determined to do it differently this time.
You can also apply this exercise to a decision you've already made, and then look back at the steps taken.
First stage - consider the facts of the situation - what's going to happen (or not), what you want to prevent happening (if you do).
Here are my facts -
1) I've taken voluntary redundancy after a long time working for the same company.
2) I have a maximum of 6 months to find a job I quite like doing, perhaps at a lower salary.
3) I don't necessarily want to take any job I'm offered, but I also don't want the search to go on so long that I start panicking.
4) I also want to manage this financial transition as well as I can. It's an opportunity to straighten out my finances, take stock, and cut back where possible.
Now I need to look at what Emotion Mind has to say for itself. This is its view -
OMG you did what? You left your job? Without having another one to go to? Who does that?
But it was the best option on the table, I reply. This cuts no ice with forceful Emotion Mind.
Even so, circumstances could spin out of control. What if no job comes along? If you fuck this up (we all know how easily you get into scrapes with money), well, you'll lose your flat.
And so on. I'll leave Emotion Mind to fulminate, and I'll turn to Reasonable Mind. Reasonable Mind is calm, not quite alive. Think robotic voice.
So, you left your job. People do this every day. You made a calculated decision based on the evidence in front of you. Statistically, there are jobs in your area, and quite a few people who don't want them. So you stand every chance of finding employment which will roughly meet your requirements, and securing it within the time frame you've specified.
Oh, I do Iike Reasonable Mind. But its words won't be enough to keep me going through the inevitable rough patches of the job search.
So I need Wise Mind to help me formulate a plan, and luckily, Wise Mind has been working on this for the last month. It's been a kind of organic process, albeit with a lot of anxiety underneath, but in that time, I've managed to make a few sensible decisions. Here they are -
1) Pay off all debts.
2) Register with a recruitment agency.
3) Stick to a daily routine, with big doses of exercise and sleep built in.
4) Use this job-seeking break (length of time unknown) to work on my blog, and also maybe look at an abandoned novel I've stuck in a wooden ice chest. No promises on this last bit as Wise Mind tells me it's too ambitious right now.
5) Study something. It might be Excel, German on Duolingo, or project management on LinkedIn Learning. I’ll log my progress, and build a study habit.
6) Try not to panic. Following steps 1 to 5, boring as they seem, will help when panic strikes. I've realised I'm no good at 'just being.' I can't even imagine what my life would have to look like in order for me to 'just be.'
Last comment from Wise Mind - I need to give due attention to my depression, my attachment issues and how isolated I sometimes feel (even though my Hastings life feels way more solid than anything I ever had in London). So although I'm going to try hard not to get into a crisis, I'm also going to start thinking about what a crisis would look like. I'm pretty sure it would be set off by money worries rather than concerns about how to fill my day. So I need to be aware that there's a pothole ahead with a £ road sign next to it. And my job, as the therapists who like to use the 'walking round the hole' metaphor know, is not to fall into it.
And that's my Wise Mind plan for redundancy. I'll update on how it's going in a few months. Diagram below. It looks how I feel.
