Independence Day

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

This is not an orginal thought, and my apologies to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, but it occurred to me that in going through the loss of a job, we go through the same stages of coping as dealing with a diagnosis of a life-threatening disease:

1. Disbelief
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

They probably overlap - a lot! - but they're all there. It seems to me that it's important to go through them all in order to come out on the other side with a healthier outlook. If we let ourselves get stuck in any one stage, we're holding ourselves back from growth, growth that we need to have in order to triumph and go on to the next, better stage.