Hey there, welcome to Radio Headspace.
I'm Dora, and I'm so glad that you're here.
Recently, a community member reached out to me by email,
describing how they had suddenly lost their job.
She had received an unexpected email from HR,
which led to an abrupt termination of her role due to company restructuring.
In an instant, the job that she had worked so hard for was gone.
She was left feeling stunned, disoriented, and frozen.
Caught between disbelief and uncertainty about the future, she asked simply,
how do I even begin to move through this?
What she was experiencing was shock.
And while the word shock might make us think of trauma or emergency situations like going into medical shock,
I want to talk about another kind of shock.
The emotional and nervous system response to unexpected life events.
Those jarring life moments that knock the wind out of us.
A breakup, a layoff, a loss.
Shock in these moments is not a problem to fix.
It's the body's way of buying time.
It isn't good or bad, it's just human.
It's a temporary pause that gives us the space to catch up with what has just happened.