Job searching in the time of COVID-19

image description: a light-skinned hand throws a black rock in the air against a landscape of mountains surrounding water. the rock is suspended in mid-air.

If you know me, you know that I recently finished graduate school. After deciding not to pursue tenure-track jobs in my field, I’m now on what’s called the #altac (alternate academic) job hunt.

Like all job hunts, this is exhausting shit. The insecurity of not knowing who and how you’ll be employed in a month’s time is draining, time-consuming, and a distraction from more immediate obligations.

Unlike most job hunts, those of us who are seeking jobs right now are doing so in the middle of an international pandemic.

To say nothing of the 35 million low-hour and low-wage jobs at risk due to the coronavirus recession.

There are practical considerations to this: will companies indefinitely freeze hiring? If I find a job, when will be a safe start date? And how do I survive financially until then?

And more broadly: will the government’s stimulus package adequately protect the most vulnerable workers? If not, will we band together to demand rent freezes, a longer stay-at-home order, and better protections for front-line workers?

Material insecurity of any kind has reverberations for our emotional and spiritual well-being.

Material insecurity and fear at a global level takes a really strong mind and heart to move through.

There are absolutely material things we can do to improve the situation: staying at home. Washing your hands. Connecting with local mutual aid groups and offering what we can to the elderly, immunocompromised people, and anyone else who might need it now.

But for me, it’s important to move through this at an emotional level in order to free up the energy to be okay, let alone helpful, during this difficult time.

There are already a number of articles out there about how to cope with anxiety about coronavirus as well as grounding exercises.

To normalize the sometimes earth-shattering levels of fear I’ve felt around job issues and now this, I’ve found it helpful to read about (and tune into) the root chakra (muladhara) in the Hindu chakra system. It’s represented by the color red, lives at the base of the spine, and manages our survival instincts and baseline security and sense of safety. Anodea Judith writes:

“The underlying element of consciousness that forms this foundation is the instinct to survive. This instinct is archaic, fundamental, and unavoidable and runs the baseline maintenance program of our physical existence. When satisfied, it retreats to a dronelike sub-routine, allowing our consciousness to engage in other activities. When threatened, it dominates all other functions of consciousness. Where are your thoughts when you are suddenly chased by a mugger, spinning into a car accident, or facing a life-threatening illness? At these times, all available psychic energy is routed to survival and little is available for anything else.”

It’s not your fault if you’re really stressed out or experiencing strong emotions. (I am!) There’s a strong pressure in our society to keep going, keep working, and Be Okay, despite how deeply coronavirus and job pressure both tap into our basic survival fears. And running on survival mode — or constantly worrying about survival — is exhausting.

If you want to learn more about the root chakra, you can watch this video. You can also check out these four beginner root chakra yoga YouTube videos by people of color, and this one I’ve done several times by a white instructor.

Once you feel grounded enough in your body — able to hold an awareness of stress in your body, but not overwhelmed — it’s really helped me to tune even deeper into my physical body. What sensations am I feeling? What’s wanting to come to the surface?

Right now as I’m doing this exercise, I’m feeling knots in my stomach and a slight constriction in my throat. What’s surfacing is that I want to share this post, but I’m afraid to put myself out there, and afraid that it won’t be useful. (Cue my inner voice: So where does this need to be useful come from? What does it feel like? What would happen if you focused on expressing yourself and trusting in your own honesty, instead?)

The challenge of this exercise is that truly anything can happen. It often surprises me to realize what, at the root, is upsetting me about something. But it can be a huge relief to finally stop avoiding your negative feelings, and get to the bottom of them. To hold them with compassion, validate your feelings, and cradle yourself with love and understanding.

For me, emotions that I don’t honor like this get stuck in my body — draining my vitality and keeping me locked in recurring cycles of anxiety and fear. So even though this is a really fucking hard practice, for me, it’s essential to moving through uncertain times.

I believe in our ability to show up for each other and ourselves through this kind of work, and through collective action that we haven’t yet even dreamed of!

Here’s to taking care.

Photo by averie woodard on Unsplash