Coping with the Emotional Fallout of a Layoff (And the Ups and Downs of the Job Search)

BossmakeHer: Career Shifting Secrets for Women in Leadership

If you're dealing with the emotional fall out of a layoff or job search, trust me. You are not alone. That's why over at BossmakeHer we've engagement Melissa Lapides to support our members on the journey. In this episode, I'm talking with Melissa about what women are going through, why, and how they can manage the unspoken issues in today's tumultuous market.

“So many times, achievement is born out of a space of trauma,” explains Melissa Lapides, trauma and psychological and safety attachment expert and founder of the Safe Space Institute. According to Dr. Gabor Mate, she explains, trauma is choosing attachment over authenticity, and many high-achieving women in leadership define themselves by their careers. Consequently, when they are laid off, those feelings of trauma tend to resurface along with an identity crisis.

This is where Melissa comes in. She teaches women to connect with their true selves so that they learn to attach internally, and are able to transition into careers that better reflect who they really are and what they want, so as not to perpetuate the trauma. She helps with professional development, facing the pressure of a job search in a saturated market, and balancing aspirational goals with practical ones.

Part of Melissa’s work is helping shift women’s mindset from one of doing to one of being. Most women carry around a good deal of guilt and shame and the physical consequences are serious. Join the discussion to hear Melissa explain the one question that women at the top aren’t asked often enough.

Quotes

• “So many times that achievement is born out of a space of trauma, of having to constantly get somewhere to the next place without any space to be…Oftentimes, in order to make those achievements, you have to actually repress a lot of your emotions to keep going and getting to the next level.” (5:11 | Melissa)

• “That's what they say is the definition of trauma. Dr. Gabor Mate talks about this: it's when we choose attachment over authenticity.” (10:56 | Melissa)

• “These are the protective mechanisms that have to be on for these women to survive in these environments. Teaching them to take those protector mechanisms off at a pace they're ready for, has been so beautiful. Watching them take this weight off and be able to come forth in their fullness, and really be seen, accepted and supported there, is one of the most beautiful things…because different environments require different levels of armor.” (17:37 | Melissa)

• “You can't settle. I really believe that if you really hold what you value, then you're not going to settle. That's part of that self confidence work and that self worth work is about. Once you're in your authentic self, you have to hold on to that and protect that and be really choosy about what environment you're going to be in because you don't want to end up hurting yourself and your mental health.” (19:05 | Melissa)

• “There's always room for emotional work and it's always necessary. I tell people, it's just as important as going to the gym and eating kale. If you're going to the gym and eating kale and your mental health isn't being attended to, you're still going to end up in a bad place.” (25:43 | Melissa)

• “It's so true that women hold so much guilt and shame, two things that are so collective in women that we need to be working on all the time because those things are killers. They are literally at the root of so much disease in women. And we have to really look at how we are still holding those things inside of us and constantly be processing them.” (28:33 | Melissa)

Links

Connect with Melissa Lapides:

Website: melissalapideslmft.com

Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-lapides-9109a811/

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

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