How to Make Job Loss Your Opportunity for Growth
Have you lost your job recently?
Was it a shock?
How are you doing?
For most of us, our job is how we keep things together
so we can pay the rent and put food on the table.
If we lose it, we’re plunged into a time of uncertainty and worry.
Our instinct is to get a new job as soon as we can,
so there is no upset in our lifestyle.
In this course we take a different approach and share a roadmap of how to deal with the shock and challenge of job loss.
We begin with taking time to come to terms with what has happened and to care for ourselves as we weather the storm.
We look at the deeper impact of losing our job and how it affects all areas of our lives
We try to see our situation in a larger context and use it to connect with others experiencing the same challenges.
We look at turning this experience into a review of how we are dealing with our working life, and our vision of how we want to live.
Most important of all— the basic premise for the course is that job loss can inspire a re-think and a fresh start, if we can just keep our nerve and allow ourselves to work things through step-by-step
How does the course work?
The course will develop in four phases:
Phase One - Your First 10 Day
This phase covers your first 10 days of unemployment.
Every third day you will receive a new lesson.
- Dealing with the shock
- What’s special about your first 10 days?
- Take some space
- Allow yourself to lean into the shock
- Give Yourself a break
- Check in: how is it going?
- Nourish yourself
- Go into nature
- Let things be just as they are
- Making a daily routine
- Check in: how is it going?
- Structuring your time
- Try something new
Phase Two - Who Am I Now?
When you lose your job it’s not unusual to experience a loss of identity and purpose. This phase is an important one in which you take the time to understand how you are feeling, and the reasons for it. This will help you to get a handle on how to move forward.
Lessons will continue to arrive every third day.
- How stress works
- Check in: how is it going?
- Who am I now?
- How stress works in your body
- How stress works in your mind
- Stress and your emotions
- Coping with feelings of loss
- Check in: how is it going?
- Seeing yourself clearly
- Feeling vulnerable
- Missing social contact
- Facing challenges
- Check in: how is it going?
- Our negativity bias
- How we react
- The blame game
Phase Three - The Way to Recovery
Now it is time for the lessons to arrive once a week. This phase is about looking deeply into how to work with yourself to heal from your job loss, to build resilience and to gently begin to get ready to see what your next steps are.
- Be kind to yourself
- Check in: how is it going?
- What is the way to recovery?
- How self- compassion works
- Your own worst enemy
- Transforming your inner critic into a helpful ally
- It’s not just you
- Check in: how is it going?
- Our human connection
- Seeing other people as just like you
- Give your mind a break
- Check in: how is it going?
- Why meditate?
- Some meditation methods
- Meditation as you go about your day
Phase Four - The Next Phase
The lessons stay on a weekly basis for this phase, in which we look at how to prepare ourselves to get back into the job market in which ever way we have decided to try. That will mean drawing on all the work that we’ve been doing in the course up till now—understanding what is going on for us, building resilience, taking a fresh look at aspects of our lives.
- Remembering what matters to you
- Check in: how is it going?
- Preparing for the next phase
- The flow of life
- The new opportunities hidden in job loss
- Preparing to look for a new job
- Check in: how is it going?
- Checking in with ourselves
- Handling the demons
- Getting an interview
Ongoing
- Coaching opportunities
- Resources from Awareness in Action
Practical points to note
- All sessions of the course are online with easily downloadable reflections, exercises and quotes. As long as you have an internet connection you can access the content anywhere and at any time.This is self-paced course, so you can catch up and review past materials at any time.
- You still have access to the course materials even when the course has concluded.
- You can add comments and ask questions as you go through the materials.
- I will read all your posts and respond to each one
Meet Maureen,
your course facilitator
Hello there
Thanks for checking out this course. We are living in uncertain times and many of us are coping with all kinds of changes and upsets that we did not plan.
This course is designed to offer a respite from the stress and worry of job loss by accompanying participants on a journey of reflection, understanding, review and recovery. We never know the opportunities hidden in the challenges we face until we can find the courage to take a long, clear look at what we’re dealing with and then make the choices that will help us move on.
Hope to see you on the course!
All the very best
Maureen
OPTION 1
Basic course
price €95.00
This includes:
- Lifetime access to content, activities and exercises for all lessons
- One optional coaching session with Maureen after you’ve completed the course.
- A variety of downloadable reflection and meditation exercises in written format
- Unlimited interactive emails with the course facilitator throughout the course
OPTION 2
Course + 4 coaching sessions
pirce € 295
This includes
- Lifetime access to content, activities and exercises for all lessons
- Four weekly coaching sessions with Maureen after you’ve completed the course.
- A variety of downloadable reflection and meditation exercises in written format
- Unlimited interactive emails with the course facilitator throughout the course
What people have said about the course
After unexpectedly leaving a teaching career, I was surprised at what a significant loss of identity and status was bound up with my working life!
Maureen’s course is a real eye-opener – it doesn’t encourage me to rush to look through the job ads straightaway, but day by day, gently helps me to see the importance of nurturing myself as a priority first and foremost and building on that to explore new possibilities. The tools and advice provided for this course are invaluable for anyone suffering the shock and groundlessness of being suddenly out of work.
Rosey Hastings
I would recommend this course to anyone who has lost a job recently. What an opportunity to listen to so many different experts in the video clips in each lesson and to dive into the various practices and reflections recommended here. The word resilience comes up a lot in these lessons and is such a good quality to enhance through the different steps recommended here. Many resources are recommended in each lesson… so much to explore.
I have personal experience of Maureen Cooper and would highly recommend coaching with her as an addition to this course. She is very insightful and so gentle and empathic that learning and growing seems natural in her presence.
Sue Cullen
This course is a really good help to accept your loss of a job and more importantly find yourself again, your inner strength and love for yourself and the world.
Maureen offers a fresh, inspiring and compassionate course.
Rogier Beusekom
Throughout the course Maureen guides with clarity, compassion and wisdom. She touches the nerve of what it feels like to lose a job and the challenges following such a life changing experience. The course offers ways to navigate the rough landscape of job loss with the invitation to come out of this experience wiser, more resilient and compassionate, and with a clarity of the way forward in tune with your inner wishes for yourself in regards of new work ahead. It does so through exercises that invite reflection as well as practical advice to support you through the different faces of job loss, from the first shock to preparing for interviews. It is packed with reference to other relevant websites and feels like a true support and road map in navigating a difficult landscape.
Having lost jobs myself in the past, I found this course relevant and encouraging. Currently working, I feel the course still has a lot to offer. The topics are just as relevant for other challenges facing us. I would highly recommend this online course on job loss.
Kate Bredesen
Job consultant