I've Lost My Job. What Do I Do?

Step 1: Breathe deeply and relax. Count your blessings.
Step 2: Do not take it personally, but take it very personally.
Step 3: Celebrate the next cycle of your life

I can hear you saying “There are bills to be paid. There is an ego that needs massaging. How will I cope until I can find another job during a time of recession? And she says I should relax and celebrate?”

Yes, I am serious about my advice, which comes from first-hand experience.

Many years ago I worked for a company. I was not a good match for them because I had skills that were superior to the skills of others in the company. I did an excellent job, but the frustration of having to negotiate around the limitations that were imposed on me was difficult to manage. I was made redundant. On paper the company put forward a convincing argument about staff reductions. Because I was new to the company, I was top of the list. Everyone knew that this was an unfair decision. I was not in a position of power and had to accept the decision.

At the time I had four degrees and years of excellent experience. I was used to going for interviews and being offered a job because I was inevitably the best candidate. Imagine my surprise when I went for nearly fifty interviews without a single job offer. The even bigger surprise was that I earned more money from short-term work during those few months of “unemployment” than from a salary while being employed. I was well taken care of financially. I slowly realised that there was much more to the situation than met the eye.

I was right. My next job opened doors to an international career. I was put in charge of a project that was ground-breaking in the company and the industry at the time. I had no qualifying previous experience. There was no logical reason to give me the responsibility. I learned much from it and gained skills that I would otherwise not even have considered exploring. The implementation was completed in time and on budget, and everyone was quite satisfied with the outcome. Guess what my reward was: redundancy, because there was no similar project for me to move on to.

This time round I already knew that I would be taken care of. The company broke every law in the book while making me redundant. Somehow it was as if they could not stop themselves. During the day I threatened them with legal action because they were breaking the law, and they offered me more money to pacify me and convince me to leave. At night I relaxed, had a good laugh about all the posturing at work and planned my next steps, with no concern in the world. It was wonderful to be able to detach myself from the situation and become an observer. I received confirmation of my intuition daily and found it so enriching.

I also realised that a magical door was being opened for me. I had the opportunity to move to another country and start a new and exciting career. I did this intuitively and against all the odds, and loved every minute of it.

As soon as I had settled down, the company that employed me changed their strategy. Guess what? I was made redundant again. This time round the company went out of their way to accommodate me. They were surprised that I regarded the whole process of redundancy as an exciting adventure. My attitude made the whole experience easier for everyone.

I had 28 days to either find a new sponsor for my work permit or return to my own country. On day 26 I started work with the new sponsor – and did even better than I could ever imagine career-wise.

These experiences have taught me various things. The most important lesson was that I am always taken care of. I will never be short of anything, because I am never alone. My angels and spirit guides and of course God always look after me. They helped me to turn crisis into opportunity. They helped me to see the bigger picture, which made me excited about these changes.

If I was not made redundant by these companies I would have overstayed my welcome and become a boring, bored, complaining, frustrated employee with no awareness of the bigger picture. I would have missed astonishing opportunities that came my way as a direct result of those redundancies. My life went from ordinary to extraordinary. I have so much gratitude for the experiences that I have had over the past years.

With the first redundancy and the shock of not being able to find another job easily, I experienced many negative emotions about the people that engineered that redundancy. I took it all very personally in the sense that I felt their actions were very unfair and vindictive. Of course that was exactly how they meant it. They did not understand that they were being used as pawns in a game that was too complicated for them to understand.

As a result of my first experience of redundancy, I was able to see that the second redundancy (and the first one in hindsight) was meant personally in a different way. By then I had realised that it was all part of the dance of my life, that the music was changing, and it was time for me to learn new steps and move on.

I understood that redundancy does not just “happen”. The entire experience was part of my life plan – the blueprint of my life that I had planned before I came into this world. I realised that every person involved in the process had a specific role to play. I was able to see the pattern, even though the other players were not aware of the pattern at all.

By the time the third redundancy happened, I was sure of the pattern. I felt gratitude towards the people that were involved in the process, because I realised that they were helping me to move into a direction that I would not necessarily have chosen for myself, but that was perfect in a way that would be revealed to me in time. I was right.

I realised that redundancy is an incredible life change that happens with the assistance of people that I have contracted with. The people that make decisions about whom to make redundant and who to retain often have no idea of the magnificence of their actions and the impact that they have on people’s lives. They often make these decisions about redundancy with a large dollop of self-preservation and do their best to justify their actions in ways that are seldom logical.

Did you notice that there is now a recession and so many people are made redundant? How is it that the recession and redundancies happen at the same time that people are becoming much more aware of an inflow of a new and positive energy into the world?

This is a time of massive change. This is a time of experiencing new energies and new opportunities that open up a different spiritual dimension to all of us.

The media love to blow up fear, negativity and blame. When I hear about people being made redundant, I feel like laughing with relief on their behalf. I want to tell them that it is the best experience that they could have wished for themselves. I want to urge them to go back to the decision makers and thank those people for opening up new horizons that they would not have been aware of had they not been made redundant.

I have been incredibly blessed in that I recognised redundancy as a reason for celebration. I believe that this knowledge and awareness has opened up opportunities for me that can only be described as miracles.

I have for many years felt that I wanted to go back to the various people that took decisions that could only be described as illogical and irrational, and that resulted in my redundancy. I now understand the significance of their roles in my life, and that without them my life would have been much different, and definitely not for the better.

If you have been made redundant recently, I would advise you to take it personally. See it as an opportunity to figure out what direction your life is taking, and grab every opportunity that comes your way, and do it with joy in your heart. Ensure that you remember the names of all of the people that have had any say in the decision to make you redundant. Soon you will want to find them again and thank them sincerely for steering your life in a direction that takes your breath away.

Oh, and remember to relax and keep breathing.