Let us look into the case study of a 35-year-old young man who is a divorcee. He has a job and is working in the private sector. This young man was born and brought up in Pandharpur. He later shifted to Pune in order to pursue Mechanical Engineering. Currently, he is working in South India and pursuing M. Tech from Pune. He finds it very difficult to balance his work and personal life due to the tremendous work pressure with absolutely no domestic help as well. He stays alone at the moment and works for almost 15-16 hours due to which he hardly gets enough time to sleep or eat proper meals.
He had some concerns about his way of living, hence he wanted some advice and professional help on how to deal and manage his stress. His current position in his job requires him to follow his boss’s orders and at the same time manages work with very less amount of staff in his office due to layoffs. In this situation, anyone will get worked up and feel anxious about their future. After acknowledging all his current challenges in his work and personal life and appreciating his efforts, I started discussing the importance of prioritizing house chores especially for someone who is living alone.
First of all, I brought to his attention all the positive aspects, namely, how he is lucky to have not to been laid off from his department and that he still had his job. So many people have lost their jobs due to the current situation and due to that, the work has been increasing with each day passing by. I guided him and asked him to focus a little more on the present job-scenario and I also congratulated him for still having his job in hand.
Later we discussed his daily routine! With absolutely no exercise and having unhealthy meals during lunch hours and living off of only junk food, I provided him the knowledge on how this habit will affect him & his health in the long run. With such a hectic schedule he should be having at least 2 full & big meals every day and make efforts to exercise at least 10-15 minutes. He was very much aware of the importance of all this but just needed some guidance on how to manage his way out. After talking for nearly 20 minutes, I made him aware of the present and the future, and he felt much relaxed compared to earlier.
My role here was to understand and acknowledge his feelings, his current anxiety triggers, empathize, and listen to him carefully because he probably just needed someone to listen to and a platform to share his feelings and views.
