This is the third in a series on coping with unemployment. In this post we’ll give an overview of the importance of stress management, family support, and prayer.
Stress Management
It’s important to recognize that there are two kinds of stress— dis-tress and eu-stress, bad stress and good stress. Unemployment brings a host of distressing experiences. These need to be proactively counterbalanced by energizing experiences: exercise, occasions for laughter, challenging activities, parties, recreation.
Eu-stress nourishes motivation, including the motivation to persevere in job hunting.
Here’s a prayer For the Good Use of Leisure from The Book of Common Prayer, p. 825.
O God, in the course of this busy life, give us times of refreshment and peace; and grant that we may so use our leisure to rebuild our bodies and renew our minds, that our spirits may be opened to the goodness of your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Family Support
Our families can be there for us in ways no one else can be. They can be the source of hope and motivation and inspiration. This is one of the reasons dad kept his soul intact— our family loved him so much, and he knew that he was more than his job.
Even so, two crucial points need to be stressed.
First, families themselves need support. They too are experiencing grief and stress, struggles with self-esteem and identity.
Second, a particular job seeker’s family may be too overwhelmed to give much support. If her family can’t give the kind of support she needs, there’s a danger that she may add to her family’s burden by getting angry or resentful. Instead, she should help her family find the help they need while she seeks out the help that she needs.
Prayer
Different kinds of prayer help in specific areas. Praying the Psalms exposes us to the full range of grief and emotions, and builds our self-esteem as we experience our place in God’s creation. In a subsequent post we will look at the role of Thanksgiving as an antidote to control issues in our lives. Contemplation and centering prayer are useful for stress management.
Finally, here's the answer to the question in this series’ subtitle: God does have an Outplacement Service― the Church, Synagogue, or other worshiping community to which you belong.
.
Business networking isn’t the only networking we need. We need spiritual networking, too. Spiritual networking with God through worship and prayer and service; spiritual networking with the members of our congregation, most of whom only know us as persons in our own right and fellow human beings, and haven’t the foggiest idea what we do for work; and spiritual networking with those who are in need, whether in soup kitchens, or halfway houses, or Career Renewal ministries.
Next: a brief theology of work.
Comments