By
1. “Wallowing in the mire!”
If you are a nurse who has just been laid off, this can no doubt be a difficult period. Maybe you spent more than five years with your (ex) employer and assumed you would spend the rest of your life at that job. Your closest friends may still be working at your old job. You may have been really happy at your old job and you’re afraid you may not find that again.
Give yourself half a day. Take the afternoon off. Drink, cry, sleep—do whatever you do to grieve. By the evening, do your best to “get back to work.” Start building the rest of your life that very evening and try to feel optimistic, motivated and enthusiastic, just like you would with a patient—only now the patient is you. The rest of your life will be happy and full of good energy—right? You want nothing less. Taking the afternoon off will help you return to the task of job hunting with less anxiety, stress or bad moods. You are your own boss now and it’s time to tell yourself: “This is the drawing board for my future as a nurse and it starts with finding the right job.”
