About being told to live in the moment/ be kind to yourself ?

[toucandance]

Have had a crappy 12 months or so in various areas.

One of the things which has not been crap has been having DC and am currently on maternity leave. However, I am finding it really hard to enjoy the maternity leave because of some of the things which have happened. The main one is huge uncertainty over my job. I've worked really hard to build up my career and am the main earner. Because of various changes it now looks like my role will disappear. I won't know the outcome for at least another couple of months. I've tried applying for other jobs but got no where (it's a niche area so I've had to look outside my specialism). I'm finding that this fear is dominating (and ruining) my leave.

I keep getting the above advice - I'd love to do this but no one can actually tell me HOW I get my pain in the ass brain to do this !? Any tips ? Or is this just rubbish advice !!!

It's not very practical advice for you as in you can't live in the moment at this moment, you need to plan a better more stable future.

You should be kind to yourself though.

Make sure each day you've done everything you can do that day towards getting a new job. Put everything else on a list, and mentally park it - remind yourself "I can't do X until Y has happened". Similarly, if you wake in the night thinking "I really should do Z" then get up and either do it (eg draft an email - but don't whatever you do send it until you've checked it in the morning) or add it to your list, then tell your brain firmly that it's dealt with for the night.

Something that has helped me to be more appreciative of the moment is to write in a diary every night at one thing that I've enjoyed that day - if nothing else it encourages me to keep an eye out for things I'm enjoying.

it's not always the right advice by a long stretch!

It is REALLY difficult to just 'live in the moment' when the future feels uncertain! Otherwise my post-uni unemployment phase would have been a total holiday, not an angst fest.

I expect you might have thought of this, but have you thought about contacting recruitment agencies? They could do some of the work for you...

Another option would be to look at temp roles, get into the culture of the new workplace and progress that way.