At this point, it's no secret I've been unemployed for months. How long? "Too long," is what I tell myself. Long enough to experience the five stages of grief ten times over. Acceptance is, I think, the trickiest one. What am I to accept? A sense of inadequacy, albeit false? Am I to accept the circumstances as they are? If so, does that mean I surrender to my perception of failure? Do I accept reality? Can I? Is it a matter of willingness, or a matter of time?
It occurs to me I've always been this way, employment status notwithstanding. I've always found acceptance challenging. Acceptance would stymy growth; acceptance, to me, is the antithesis of moving forward and bettering oneself. So, I've always been a persistent fighter. Working tirelessly on what I can do better. Every single rejection was married to "what can I do to strengthen my candidacy?" In my heart, what that really meant was, "Tell me why I'm not good enough!"
This isn't resilience, and it's certainly not the path to acceptance. That's what I've learned. It's just negative thinking. In all this time, I've finally got it. Strength is not resilience. Persistence is not resilience. I consciously stepped away from Linkedin. Personally, I found it unhelpful...not because I think it's a poor platform for jobseekers (quite the opposite) but because of a certain shame, embarrassment and unwillingness to accept. In that time, I threw my hands up and lived the uncertain day-to-day. Slowly, I stopped questioning my validity and my self worth. My right to exist by sheer virtue of existing. Imperceptibly, acceptance happened. In fact, I didn't even realise until this afternoon.
I volunteer for a mental health organisation in which I coach individuals experiencing mild to moderate depression on how to live more fulfilling lives. I got a message from one of my clients today. This particular person writes beautiful messages each week and approaches the programme with courage and aplomb. Last week, I thanked this client for their honesty, and reminded them them it is a privilege for me to be a part of their wellness journey. ...and, it is. It really is.
The client responded:
"My default thinking is that I'm a failure. It's what I hide behind. It's become so ingrained I don't even see it anymore. I need to change that, to try not to allow it to inform all my reactions. As for why I chose to share all of this with you?I think I needed somebody to 'walk' with me for a bit of this journey and look at it with an objective eye. Your response gives me permission to name it for what it was. Not blaming, simply naming. I couldn't have moved forward without you. Thank you as always."
"My default thinking is that I'm a failure. It's what I hide behind. It's become so ingrained I don't even see it anymore. I need to change that, to try not to allow it to inform all my reactions. As for why I chose to share all of this with you?I think I needed somebody to 'walk' with me for a bit of this journey and look at it with an objective eye. Your response gives me permission to name it for what it was. Not blaming, simply naming. I couldn't have moved forward without you. Thank you as always."
Not sharing this because I think I'm some sort of saint, capable of mending the universe. I'm sharing this because whatever I did for this client, s/he/they also did for me. How did I arrive at acceptance? I took "a walk." I focused on bettering myself, which is arguably what I've done all along. This time, though, the key difference was the motivation behind it: I was never insufficient. I just needed to change the way I was thinking in order to move forward.
It's impossible to be 10/10 all the time. COVID screwed us that way. It set us up; we are conditioned now to think that the gift of time necessitates major change. In my case, I stayed who I was and simply discovered parts that I hadn't seen. So, if you're unemployed or feeling in adequate or somehow didn't become a neurosurgeon or an astronaut in the months since this began, please forgive yourself. Be kind to yourself. Please give yourself the gift of acceptance in whatever form that takes. Wrap it up in a bow with gorgeous paper.
In the absence of a job, I've tended to a garden and built birdhouses. I've baked scones and, based on the evidence here, helped someone else move forward. When the job comes, it'll come. I accept that now. In the meantime, I'm going to get back to the work I've been doing.