I got laid off two weeks ago.

At 45, I’ve been kicked in the proverbial nuts a few times. My reaction now is different than it would’ve been at 25. But it still stings. That moment when you get the call. The pit in your stomach. The questions that flood in before you’ve even processed what happened: What now? What did I do wrong? What am I going to tell people?

Let’s throw it out there: Getting laid off sucks. So does sickness. Betrayal. You name it. A lot of bad things can happen to us in our lives. But how we react to those things?

That’s up to us.

That’s what Viktor Frankl was getting at in Man’s Search for Meaning, when he wrote about surviving Nazi concentration camps: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

It’s exactly this liminal space you find yourself in when you get laid off. A space where you’re uncertain. Where the past, present, and future don’t seem to connect. Where you’re not sure what in the hell you want to do — or even need to do.

But that space? It’s also where everything gets decided.

As I’ve processed the situation over the past couple weeks, three ancient traditions keep coming back to me. All of them point in the same direction: stop fighting what’s already happened.

Three Ancient Ideas That Help When Life Falls Apart

Amor Fati

“Amor fati” is Latin for “love of fate.” It’s a Stoic idea — not just accepting what happens, but embracing it. Pain, loss, setbacks — all of it.

Ryan Holiday describes it this way:

Not: “I’m okay with this.”
Not: “I think I feel good about this.”
But: “I feel great about it. Because if it happened, then it was meant to happen, and I am glad that it did when it did. I am going to make the best of it.”

That’s a high bar. But it’s the goal.

Kintsugi

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. Instead of hiding the cracks, you highlight them. The breaks become part of the beauty.

It’s a physical practice built on a deeper philosophy: what’s broken doesn’t have to stay broken. In fact, it can come back stronger — with a story worth telling.

Wabi-Sabi

Wabi-sabi is the Japanese aesthetic that Kintsugi comes from. It’s rooted in three Buddhist teachings: impermanence, suffering, and the absence of self-nature.

Richard Powell put it simply: wabi-sabi “nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”

The Common Thread – What All Three Philosophies Have in Common

All three philosophies point in the same direction.

Stop resisting what’s already happened. Accept what is. Find the meaning in it. Use it to become stronger.

The real question isn’t “why did this happen to me?” It’s “what can I learn from this, and how can I grow because of it?”

That shift — from victim to student — is where healing starts.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

— Viktor Frankl

How to Heal: The Golden Repair Method

Here’s a simple framework I’ve been using to work through this. Maybe it helps you too.

1. Accept the Break

You can’t repair what you refuse to acknowledge.

Before you strategize or “bounce back,” you have to sit with the reality: this happened. Not “this shouldn’t have happened.” Just this happened.

When Viktor Frankl was stripped of everything in the camps, he didn’t pretend it wasn’t happening. He faced it fully. And in that acceptance, he found the space to choose his response.

Do this in 5 minutes: Write one sentence that starts with “This is true:” and finish it with the hard thing you’re facing. No spin. No silver lining. Just the fact.

2. Find the Gold

Kintsugi doesn’t hide the cracks — it highlights them.

The question isn’t “how do I pretend this never happened?” It’s “what can I learn from this that I couldn’t learn any other way?”

Getting laid off forced me to ask: What do I actually want? I wouldn’t have asked that question from a comfortable seat. The break made the question possible.

Do this in 5 minutes: Write down one thing this situation is teaching you that you couldn’t have learned if everything stayed the same.

3. Move Forward Imperfectly

Wabi-sabi reminds us: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect.

You don’t need to have your next move figured out. You don’t need to feel “ready.” You just need to take one imperfect step.

The repaired bowl isn’t the same bowl it was before. It’s something new — stronger, more interesting, with a story worth telling.

Do this in 5 minutes: Identify one small action you can take this week that moves you forward — even if you don’t have the full plan yet. Write it down. Put it on your calendar.

The Cracks Are Part of the Story

I don’t know exactly where this goes yet.

But I know I’m not the same person I was two weeks ago. The layoff forced questions I’d been avoiding. It cleared away some noise. It reminded me what I actually care about — authenticity, growth, helping others figure out their own path forward.

And honestly? I don’t want to go back to who I was before. The cracks are part of the story now.

If you’re in a hard season — whether it’s a layoff, a loss, a setback you didn’t see coming — know this: you don’t have to have it figured out. You just have to take the next step.

Accept the break. Find the gold. Move forward imperfectly. Reinvent yourself.

That’s the only way through.