Grieving a Lost Job

Hi, and welcome to Sadness and Loss. So right now is an incredibly difficult time for so many people, and loss means something different to each and every one of us. Whatever you're going through, I hope you have support around you. This particular exercise is designed more for the sadness and loss in terms of our job, our employment, which may very often be intimately entwined with our sense of purpose in life. This particular exercise is designed to allow us the space and time to be with that sadness. This isn't about trying to get rid of it. This is about how do we create the conditions to allow that to sort of be processed, and in doing so, creating more space in our mind, not only for ourselves, but also for those around us. So, visualization exercise. Visualization always takes a little bit of practice, and I'm gonna make some recommendations at the end of today's exercise, additional courses that I think will be really really helpful in dealing with sadness and loss. But we're gonna begin today's exercise. You can do it sitting up, lying down, whatever feels more comfortable to you, but we're gonna start with our eyes open, a nice soft focus, aware of the space around you. And whenever you're ready, just taking some big deep breaths, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. So as you breathe in through the nose, just aware of the body taking in fresh air, the lungs expanding, as you breathe out through the mouth, just noticing how the muscles soften, how the body sinks down into the seat on the floor beneath you. And just take a moment, so at this stage in the exercise, always just taking a moment, just to check in with the body, notice how the body feels. Perhaps a sense of heaviness or lightness. Sometimes you might feel a lot of agitation. Other times, the body might feel quite still. So just becoming more aware of how the body feels. And as you sit there or as you lie there, just becoming more aware of the breath, the movement of the breath in the body. So as that rising and falling sensation, you might feel it in the chest or in the stomach, it doesn't matter where you feel it. But if you can't feel anything, just gently placing your hand on the stomach, feel that rising and falling sensation. So just settling your mind in that way, grounding the mind in that way, breath's always there to come back to, if you feel yourself getting distracted during the exercise. But right now, I'd like you to imagine yourself, sitting somewhere comfortable, relaxing, a place you enjoy. So, in this visualization, you're seeing yourself sat, in your mind's eye in front of you, somewhere comfortable, relaxing, and you're gonna imagine, it's almost like there's a little flicker, a little pinprick of sunlight in the middle of your body...