It's a full time job trying to get a job!

News papers and online jobcentres are full of job offers, so why is it so difficult to find a job when you have recently been made redundant?

Why do you have to apply for up to two hundred jobs to get one?

Firstly of course you have to relate to the emotions it has stirred in you – the feeling of unjust. 'It is not fair' – that state of mind is hard to come to terms with. These painful emotions and then the anger it has stirred as well. On top of everything you may be in despair having lost your house and getting divorced. Whilst containing this ocean of mixed emotions you have to carry on with your life and all the obligations you have to meet.

Feelings of mixed nature

Feel pleased you are not one of my children then, because we have had an unusual journey in life and all they heard from me was that 'The art in life is to cope with frustrations'. They learnt to go for anger walks and behave themselves regardless how difficult their lives were. I told them to rise above the feelings of inadequacy and embarrassment. Having said that it is a normal situation worldwide that your company has to close down or cut costs, so it is not embarrassing that we have to meet a structure change in the world as such. It is a very interesting challenge actually, seen from an environmentally point of view I think.

Updating your skills

When you then eventually sit down to write a CV and discover that you haven't updated your skills for a while – which in some cases can be ten years or more then you know intuitively that you have to do something.

Where do you begin with updating your skills, what would be the best way to go about it? Sometimes a computer course since everything in the world is computerized might be a very good idea. ECDL European Computer Driving Licence - will make you a super user and most companies would appreciate this detail.

Then of course look at what skills/qualifications are important within your trade or for the job you would like to have from now on. Try to spend some time visualising where you want to be with your life.

Where there is a will there is a way so why not try to get to the place you actually always wanted to be. When one of my friends lost his top job during the last recession in 1989 he took a job as a taxi driver because he couldn't make ends meet. He thought if he put a window in the big room in the basement they could have a lodger to help with the bills. Whilst he was hammering the brick stones out because he was fuming with anger and disorientated as to why he lost his job he got an idea. He had just been promoted and three months later he was told the company had to cut 25% of the staff and he was one of them. Because he had been promoted and therefore more expensive for the company it was worth their while getting rid of him. Even if you can understand it literally it can be so difficult to understand emotionally. So whilst he was raging and hammering with that basement window he suddenly remembered that he always actually wanted his own shop. He was trained in the clothes industry – so he put his mind to this thought and within the next year he opened his first shop. He told me he had never been so happy in his life, and he has opened one shop after the other and his chain of shops is now 15 in Copenhagen. It is exciting of course how he will deal with this recession but that remain to be seen.

Anger

One of my friends is a surgeon specialised in arms, hands and hip operations. He told me a little while ago that he had so many patients with broken bones in their hands and he couldn't understand why. When I attended a conflict course run by a specialist police trainer he showed how security guards confronted an angry man and how this guy smashed his hand into the wall because he didn't want to fight with two big body guards so with the anger boiling in his mind he hit something nearby and I could suddenly see what happens.

I am a Reiki II healer and know that anger sits in your feet and therefore if you go for a nice long walk and place your feet – or stamp your feet you release the anger/stress and feel better. In the case with above mentioned man he actually did self harm. Mental pain is sometimes easier to carry if it is physically visible – so you either twist your ankle, break an arm, cut yourself with a knife or similar. Your family or friends mostly cannot see your emotional pain, but if it is manifested physically it is visible and you get a bit more sympathy from your surroundings'.

I strongly believe in anger walks and kick those legs without bruising yourself, but in this way getting rid of anger which is such strong emotions. It is so refreshing to go for a walk on a really windy day as the wind 'brushes away the cob webs' and ill feelings in the body.

It all helps to keep up the good spirits it takes to get a job. It is easy to feel your soul destroyed by going to a lot of job interviews but either getting small jobs that don't match your outgoings or nothing at all.

Internships - Charity

One way of updating your CV is to take on internships – you won't be paid but hopefully the company that gives you a chance will invest time and effort in educating you in agreed tasks for future reference. Perhaps your favourite charity has an unpaid job for you; it does help overcome hurt emotions to help others and will be a bonus for your CV later.

When my bookings failed last year in my case, I didn't get the expected return on a mail shot and soon realised we were heading for another recession I just carried on building my network on various networking sites like LinkedIn and Ecademy. Having said that I also got a part time job to fit in with the workshops I am running and at the moment I have one Internship student working with me and we know it is difficult so take this into consideration and avoid being downhearted because everyone in the world is going through this change and shortness of money at all levels.

Remember your smile is the most beautiful flower on earth.