You started your day feeling good, thinking it’s going to be a great day! Then, you were called into a meeting where you were let go. Your mind and body move into shock, sadness, or anger. You suddenly find yourself without a job and didn’t see it coming.

Losing a job can bring up waves of feelings over the days after that experience. You want to prove that you were valuable. You secretly wish for karma to get whoever you feel was responsible for your job loss. On top of that, fear and anxiety about finding a new source of income can feel overwhelming. It’s easy to get stuck ruminating.

Why Rumination Keeps Us Stuck

Rumination is “to go over in the mind repeatedly and often casually or slowly” by definition. In a psychological sense, this thinking pattern is also connected to thinking negative thoughts repeatedly. It can lead to feeling stuck in them.

Thoughts swirl around your mind.

• “I know he didn’t see the good work I did on that project!”
• “They said there would not be layoffs and I moved to this role to grow!”.
• “It must be me, I keep messing up…” “They are to blame. They are a bunch of narcissists!”
• “I can prove that he lied, it’s all in the emails.”

What can you do to stop negative thoughts from swirling and keeping you focused on things you can’t control?

This article from Psychology Today gives an overview of how to stop ruminating:

How to break the cycle of rumination.

If you’ve experienced this mental spiral, you’re not alone. Here’s a visualization technique that helped me personally shift my mindset and begin to move forward.

The Cruise Ship Visualization Technique

I was laid off from a company. The timing was a surprise. It felt personal. My mind would revisit thoughts of not being good enough. I would wonder what else I could have done to prevent it. Those thoughts became a mental swamp. They were murky, heavy, and hard to escape. Not good for the heart or mind. It was a behavior I would not accept. Here is one thing I would do to help myself:

1. Catch myself having those types of thoughts about the job loss. I’d say to myself, “Ah, I see that I’m thinking about that again.”
2. I’d visualize the people tied to those thoughts. Then, I imagined a helicopter lifting them onto a cruise ship that slowly sailed away.
3. Next, I’d wave and wish them bon voyage. I would do my best to connect to feeling like I was waving to them to have a great trip.
4. Take a deep breath.
5. Focus on something else.

I did this as many times as I noticed myself starting to think about the job loss. I chose to see the cruise ship moving farther away each time. That distance signified that the thoughts were moving away from me over time. Eventually, the ship was so far away I knew I would no longer ruminate about it. It also allowed me to sincerely wish them well. I infused the imagery with thoughts of people having their own experience. This helped me believe in staying as peaceful as possible in the heart. I stayed calm in the mind, even in hard circumstances.

Conclusion

Losing a job can shake your confidence, stir deep emotions, and tempt you to dwell in the past. Ruminating only deepens the pain and distracts from healing. Letting go, genuinely and repeatedly is an act of courage. You might imagine a cruise ship sailing away. Alternatively, use another practice that speaks to you. The goal is the same: to free your energy for the future, not chain it to the past. As the ship drifts farther and farther away, you reclaim your peace, your focus, and your power to move forward. In time, you’ll find that what once felt like an end was really a turning point toward something better.