A magnificent two part article has just been released on the Pegasus Communications Blog. Chris Abbey wonderfully articulates his own experience of receiving what he terms a ‘warn letter’. In Australia we might refer to being ‘offered a redundancy’. On that point, I “chose to accept a redundancy” a number of years ago. I often hear people say that they were “made redundant”. When queried, people usually say that, in the end, they chose to take the ‘package’ rather than stay. I then suggest that they were an active participate in the process that they experienced, and while they may not have liked the experience, they were still an active participant, versus being a passive participant who had a redundancy ‘done to them’. While a subtle shift in self-talk, it is my view that the difference can have a massive impact on an individual’s capacity to work their way through the seven stages of grief. (listed below)

1. Shock and denial
2. Pain and guilt
3. Anger and bargaining
4. Depression, reflection, and loneliness
5. The Upward Turn
6. Reconstruction and working through
7. Acceptance and hope

Once again Chris Abbey articulates his experience over two articles (Part One & Part Two). They are worth reading irrespective of the stage of your career and his insights about using the experience to help you to become even better are powerful. He certainly describes what my experience has been!

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