see what you can do to immediately cut expenses to the bone. Contact your creditors and see if you can defer payments by paying interest for a while. Restructure your social life and choice of entertainment to conserve every cent that you can. It won't entirely remove that nagging fear-of-losing-everything that will dog your footsteps until you're again gainfully employed, but having some sense of control over it will lower the worry to a dull roar rather than downright panic.

Share your fears.

Confess your fears to your spouse, your family, your friends, your pastor - whoever makes you feel comfortable enough to share your personal thought

Unemployment carries a lot of emotional baggage for most of us and fear is a major component. We fear the financial fallout of no longer receiving regular wages. We fear the impact of our lack of productivity on relationships: our marriage, our family, our friends, and our social and community activities. We fear losing the respect of our children when we can no longer give them what they need. We fear approaching acquaintances for help in identifying potential positions. We fear the humiliation of the job hunt and the personal rejection we expect to encounter. And finally we fear the most basic concept we hold within: that we're just not good enough, that we can't cut the mustard, that we're an incurable loser.

The fear seeps into our bones and leaves us awake and restless in the middle of the night. It flashes behind our eyes to telegraph our desperation in interviews. It weighs heavily on our stooped shoulders as we walk into yet another agency and answer the same questions we have been asked for weeks. It hobbles our energy and extinguishes the enthusiasm we try so hard to project.

It becomes our constant, uninvited companion in everything we do. If not quickly contained, it wrests control of our lives.

To manage our fear, "Think positive" is a useless platitude when there is almost nothing positive going on in your current world. You have no job, no income, no prospects, and no real hope. But you still have the most powerful tool ever developed: the human mind. To stop the encroachment of fear, your mind must become your partner and your ally; it is your secret weapon against the fears and anxieties of an untenable situation.

Here are a variety of strategies for you to try:

Early financial planning.

After the initial shock of losing your job ebbs a little, your natural motivation and competitive drive kick in and you feel optimistic that something will open up in a very short time. You may have been out of the labor market for a long time and haven't realized that hiring protocols have changed significantly over the past few years. Except for entry-level jobs, it is unusual to obtain an offer on the first interview. Employers are wary of skeletons lurking in applicants' closets and take their time in checking you out. For the past four years, the average time out of work has drastically increased - it now typically takes six to twelve months to find a new position. That is a long time to go without regular income and how many of us have substantial savings to give us a real safety net?

As soon as you can, sit down with your spouse and your records and see what you can do to immediately cut expenses to the bone. Contact your creditors and see if you can defer payments by paying interest for a while. Restructure your social life and choice of entertainment to conserve every cent that you can. It won't entirely remove that nagging fear-of-losing-everything that will dog your footsteps until you're again gainfully employed, but having some sense of control over it will lower the worry to a dull roar rather than downright panic.

Share your fears.

Confess your fears to your spouse, your family, your friends, your pastor - whoever makes you feel comfortable enough to share your personal thoughts

hat we can't cut the mustard, that we're an incurable loser.

The fear seeps into our bones and leaves us awake and restless in the middle of the night. It flashes behind our eyes to telegraph our desperation in interviews. It weighs heavily on our stooped shoulders as we walk into yet another agency and answer the same questions we have been asked for weeks. It hobbles our energy and extinguishes the enthusiasm we try so hard to project.

It becomes our constant, uninvited companion in everything we do. If not quickly contained, it wrests control of our lives.

To manage our fear, "Think positive" is a useless platitude when there is almost nothing positive going on in your current world. You have no job, no income, no prospects, and no real hope. But you still have the most powerful tool ever developed: the human mind. To stop the encroachment of fear, your mind must become your partner and your ally; it is your secret weapon against the fears and anxieties of an untenable situation.

Here are a variety of strategies for you to try:

Early financial planning.

After the initial shock of losing your job ebbs a little, your natural motivation and competitive drive kick in and you feel optimistic that something will open up in a very short time. You may have been out of the labor market for a long time and haven't realized that hiring protocols have changed significantly over the past few years. Except for entry-level jobs, it is unusual to obtain an offer on the first interview. Employers are wary of skeletons lurking in applicants' closets and take their time in checking you out. For the past four years, the average time out of work has drastically increased - it now typically takes six to twelve months to find a new position. That is a long time to go without regular income and how many of us have substantial savings to give us a real safety net?

As soon as you can, sit down with your spouse and your records and see what you can do to immediately cut expenses to the bone. Contact your creditors and see if you can defer payments by paying interest for a while. Restructure your social life and choice of entertainment to conserve every cent that you can. It won't entirely remove that nagging fear-of-losing-everything that will dog your footsteps until you're again gainfully employed, but having some sense of control over it will lower the worry to a dull roar rather than downright panic.

Share your fears.

Confess your fears to your spouse, your family, your friends, your pastor - whoever makes you feel comfortable enough to share your personal thought

ost nothing positive going on in your current world. You have no job, no income, no prospects, and no real hope. But you still have the most powerful tool ever developed: the human mind. To stop the encroachment of fear, your mind must become your partner and your ally; it is your secret weapon against the fears and anxieties of an untenable situation.

Here are a variety of strategies for you to try:

Early financial planning.

After the initial shock of losing your job ebbs a little, your natural motivation and competitive drive kick in and you feel optimistic that something will open up in a very short time. You may have been out of the labor market for a long time and haven't realized that hiring protocols have changed significantly over the past few years. Except for entry-level jobs, it is unusual to obtain an offer on the first interview. Employers are wary of skeletons lurking in applicants' closets and take their time in checking you out. For the past four years, the average time out of work has drastically increased - it now typically takes six to twelve months to find a new position. That is a long time to go without regular income and how many of us have substantial savings to give us a real safety net?

As soon as you can, sit down with your spouse and your records and see what you can do to immediately cut expenses to the bone. Contact your creditors and see if you can defer payments by paying interest for a while. Restructure your social life and choice of entertainment to conserve every cent that you can. It won't entirely remove that nagging fear-of-losing-everything that will dog your footsteps until you're again gainfully employed, but having some sense of control over it will lower the worry to a dull roar rather than downright panic.

Share your fears.

Confess your fears to your spouse, your family, your friends, your pastor - whoever makes you feel comfortable enough to share your personal thought

e labor market for a long time and haven't realized that hiring protocols have changed significantly over the past few years. Except for entry-level jobs, it is unusual to obtain an offer on the first interview. Employers are wary of skeletons lurking in applicants' closets and take their time in checking you out. For the past four years, the average time out of work has drastically increased - it now typically takes six to twelve months to find a new position. That is a long time to go without regular income and how many of us have substantial savings to give us a real safety net?

As soon as you can, sit down with your spouse and your records and see what you can do to immediately cut expenses to the bone. Contact your creditors and see if you can defer payments by paying interest for a while. Restructure your social life and choice of entertainment to conserve every cent that you can. It won't entirely remove that nagging fear-of-losing-everything that will dog your footsteps until you're again gainfully employed, but having some sense of control over it will lower the worry to a dull roar rather than downright panic.

Share your fears.

Confess your fears to your spouse, your family, your friends, your pastor - whoever makes you feel comfortable enough to share your personal thought

see what you can do to immediately cut expenses to the bone. Contact your creditors and see if you can defer payments by paying interest for a while. Restructure your social life and choice of entertainment to conserve every cent that you can. It won't entirely remove that nagging fear-of-losing-everything that will dog your footsteps until you're again gainfully employed, but having some sense of control over it will lower the worry to a dull roar rather than downright panic.

Share your fears.

Confess your fears to your spouse, your family, your friends, your pastor - whoever makes you feel comfortable enough to share your personal thoughts. If you have a supportive spouse and family, reveal your worry that your present circumstances will impact your relationships with each other and jointly plan how that can be avoided. So many couples withdraw when under stress. The partner without a job feels drained and lost as summoning the high energy required for a successful job search campaign becomes more and more difficult. The partner who is still working feels stressed out from the increased responsibility of being the only breadwinner. Because they do not realize how painful and disheartening are your frequent rejections, they start to think that you're not that interested in finding a position, that you're not looking hard enough. Share your feelings early and become part of a team effort or you may become part of the nasty statistic that shows a high percentage of laid off workers encounter marital strife, separation, and divorce.

Use your friends and acquaintances.

Asking for, and receiving, support from those around you doesn't have to mean exploitation. People who know you, like you, and care about you are happy to help when they can. Don't be embarrassed to ask for their assistance and do it clearly, concisely, and directly. Just "dropping hints" and getting frustrated when no help is forthcoming is self-defeating. Call in the chips from everyone you know and vow that you will return the favor for them when your positions are reversed.

Manage the toxic effects of job search.

Looking for work feels humiliating because you sense an inner air of superiority in the contacts you make. People who have a job possess a sense of identity and security that as an unemployed applicant you temporarily lack. Ask yourself how much of the attitude is coming from the other person and how much is your own projection. While you will undoubtedly run into the occasional boor, many more of your contacts - employers, interviewers, receptionists, human resource specialists, agency staff - empathize with your situation having been there in the past themselves and fully aware that there is a good chance that they'll be there again in the future.

Your misery and pain leads to the feeling that it is you, alone, against the world. Every face in the crowd is threatening and alien. Self-conscious about our non-productivity in a culture that deifies success, we assume that everyone else buys into our own self-critical, guilty, personally faulty image. If, for even a few moments, you can step out of that self-centric view, you may be able to change your self-judgment. Look at yourself with the objectivity of a little distance.