Moving Toward Empowerment

Saturday, June 19, 2004 | 0

When we experience a loss, a wide and confusing range of emotions follows. As we tell our clients, and ourselves, there is no real order to the process when a loss or change is experienced and emotions often overlap one another.

How an individual copes with the change differs based on who we are, the extent of our loss and the effects on our day-to-day activity. It is helpful to know that others may be undergoing some of the same emotions as you and you are not alone. There are, however, healthy and unhealthy expressions of the following:

SHOCK:
The initial emotion may be a sense of shock and total astonishment. There may be difficulty in fathoming the true impact of what has happened. The body's natural defense mechanism kicks in whenever we undergo a negative state change and there may be a feeling of numbness, lasting a matter of minutes, days or weeks.

DENIAL:
We simply cannot believe what has happened so it can become easy to go on thinking that nothing has happened. Many stay at their desks, absorbing themselves in work, feeling too busy to attend a seminar or consider upgrading skills necessary to retool. For our clients, this could be manifested in proceeding with the normal routine or seeking out ways to numb the pain. When we face the reality, only then are we able to progress in our journey.

ANGER & GUILT:
A reaction of anger arises from feelings of unfairness, abandonment or feeling powerless with the loss. How could this happen to us? How could the injury have occurred? Why did this happen to me? Where is the job I thought I would have? Why in this point in my life do I have to reinvent myself?

Anger is a very powerful emotion and can be manifested in other life areas in an attempt to gain control and certainty.

DEPRESSION:
Feelings of overwhelm and hopelessness by what has occurred. The extent of the loss or what the change may mean may cause withdrawing from social interactions. This can be one of the most difficult phases to undergo.

ACCEPTANCE:
When we begin to accept the loss or change, rather than holding to a tendency to firmly plant our feet and dig in the heels, we become more ready to move on and progress to a new phase of reflection and renewal. This does not mean that the elements of the other grief stages will not resurface, usually at unexpected times. It also does not mean that we will need to accept the nature by which the change has become necessary. But like it or not, change to our industry is inevitable and it does not serve us to take the dig-in-the heels stance. For those we serve, the loss of the job due to the injury is their reality.

EMPOWERMENT:
This is the step we can take beyond acceptance, as we integrate the change or loss as a component of our identity, to enable us to drive forward. It can cultivate a newfound hunger for life, possibilities and open a creative well within us for our careers and what we may have to offer, as individuals and as professionals. We can attend seminars, write articles, meet other colleagues at seminars and create synergy! The cream will rise to the top! We can encourage those we serve to pursue their excellence, through our support and appropriate programs from which they can benefit.

Acceptance can allow us to live a fuller life and learn to take other adversities in stride as they present themselves. This empowerment comes as a gift in terms of clarity of purpose and rejuvenation. Empowerment offers the promise and deliverance of something of greater value than the pain. We are then more ready to abandon the pain and embrace these gifts.

Submitted by Jamie Charter, Newsletter Editor/ Board of Directors, California Association of Rehabilitation & Reemployment Professionals, Keeping California Working since 1975!

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