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Hello. I’m Laney Stenquist. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Therapist at the Alexandria, Virginia location with Thriveworks. I have been asked to answer a question about the pandemic. The question is, “Should I quit my job due to stress during COVID-19?”

First, I think it would be important to ask yourself why you’re looking outside of yourself to find an answer to such a personal question. I would wonder if you have a history of distrusting yourself. I also ask what in your life has taught you that you don’t have the answers to those questions? Creating a relationship of trust with yourself is very important. And I would definitely recommend working through how to create that relationship and how to trust yourself more. It’s also a matter of how to meet your needs. I’d ask yourself, are you aware of your needs?

Are you meeting your needs? How are you struggling to meet your needs or struggling to know what your needs are? But we are all responsible to meet our own needs. And if stress is causing you to make a life decision, like quitting your job, I’d also wonder if maybe there’s some needs that are not being met.

Um the second part of it, when it comes to stress management, I think it’s important to know that during times like a global pandemic, our stress levels are going to go up and our self-care needs need to kind of come up to match it. So I’d also highly recommend looking for more effective self-care routines and rituals, things that can help you to manage your stress because frankly, stress can be managed. If you feel like you don’t know how to manage your stress, I would begin there.

And finding ways to change your daily routine so that stress management is a part of that. It’s important to include physical movement. Some relaxation. We can look to mindfulness or meditation. Yoga can be very reconnecting, but even going for a walk and being out in nature can help. But finding things that work for you to manage your own stress is going to be really important.

If you don’t know how to begin a journey of taking care of yourself, of meeting your needs, trusting yourself, and really connecting with who you are, and having a relationship with yourself, speaking to a therapist could be very, very beneficial for you. And this is a very important part of adulthood so that we know how to take care of ourselves, meet our needs, and really be one with who we are and not needing outside validation or looking to others to help us figure out what we need in life. I hope this helps. Good luck.