Building Mastery
I'm getting good at being laid off.
Building mastery is a therapeutic concept rooted in dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), where it serves as a key emotion regulation skill. It involves engaging in activities—big or small—that foster a sense of competence and control, especially during times of emotional distress or uncertainty. The goal isn’t perfection or productivity for its own sake, but rather intentional action that reinforces personal capability.
This concept is echoed across multiple modalities:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) promotes behavioral activation to counter depressive patterns through meaningful activity.
SMART Recovery offers tools like Urge Surfing and DISARM to help individuals manage cravings and triggers, building confidence and self-efficacy over time.
Occupational therapy uses “just-right challenges” to help individuals build skills and confidence through appropriately scaled tasks.
Somatic therapies focus on body-based regulation through movement, breath, and sensory awareness.
Mindfulness practices cultivate mastery through consistent, present-moment awareness.
Twelve Step Facilitation encourages progress “a day at a time” or “a Step at a time,” reinforcing mastery through steady, intentional effort.
These approaches show that building mastery is a powerful way to rewire our brains, strengthen resilience, and support long-term healing and growth.
Why is building mastery important for remapping neural pathways?
Because every time we choose a new action, especially one that aligns with our values or goals, we reinforce a new neural connection. We’re literally rewiring our brains to respond differently—to stress, to uncertainty, to the stories we tell ourselves. Mastery builds resilience. It gives us evidence that we can do hard things, or even just do things, when everything feels like too much.
Being Laid Off: Familiar Paths and New Trails
Being laid off is like being dropped off in the middle of the woods. I know these woods. I’ve walked them before. Some paths are overgrown but still visible—tempting in their familiarity. These include:
Sleeping in until I feel like getting up
Eating impulsively, based on emotion or habit
Buying things without evaluating their purpose or impact
Ruminating on what happened, trying to reason out if I were to blame
Feeling shame, as if being laid off is a personal failure
These are old neural pathways. They’re well-worn, easy to follow, and they whisper comfort even when they don’t serve me.
But I’m choosing something different.
I’m choosing to look for new neural pathways through this forest. Some spaces are already a little cleared out—paths I’ve started before but didn’t finish. Some will take more work. But I’m not starting from nothing. I have tools. I have experience. I have choice.
Clearing these new paths won’t be easy or instant. But it also won’t be hard. It will take:
Attention: noticing what I’m doing and why
Energy: even just a little, to take the next step
Time: allowing myself to move slowly
Choice: remembering I have agency, even when it doesn’t feel like it
A Longer View: Addiction and Recovery
I can take an even longer view to see the work I’ve done over the past 16 years (and the past four layoffs). There was a time when I welcomed being laid off because I was in the throes of my addiction.
Back in 2009, when we were entering a recession, and I worked in marketing and communications for a luxury architect and builder—whose clients were on the same list as Bernie Madoff’s and lost actual fortunes—I was laid off. And I was thrilled. I could go from drinking at my desk at the office to drinking and smoking at home. Amazing.
In fact, as the unemployment progressed, so did my drinking. That summer, I was able to go up to our family cabin where nobody would be looking for me or expecting anything from me (it was a getaway!) and just drink and eat and smoke. Bliss. Because feeling the feelings I was avoiding would have been so much “worse” to me as an alcoholic.
I got sober that fall, which is another story for another day. But the important part of today’s Term Tuesday is that, thanks to building mastery over handling really hard situations without addictive substances, relapsing is nowhere near my radar. In fact, this is the first time I’ve said (written) that word in reference to myself since I became jobless again. And it’s gratifying for me to be able to see that my victory over addiction and the pathways I needed to remap got me to where I am today.
Past Example: Making My Bed
When I first got sober in 2009, my first act of building mastery was to make my bed. Ever.
It was a small act, but it was mine. I started making it every day. That one choice helped me feel like I could do something—anything—that moved me forward. I kept that habit going until last year, when we moved into a large new house and my time shifted toward other forms of mastery, like cleaning up and organizing.
It reminds me of the movie Under the Tuscan Sun (yes, I’m sure it was a book too, and the book was probably better). Diane Lane’s post-divorce character impulsively moves to Italy and buys an old villa to restore. The place is overwhelmingly dirty and cluttered, full of its past owners’ lives and belongings. So, she takes one space and works to make it her own. She chooses the bedroom—because that’s where she needs rest and respite. She cleans it, arranges the furniture, and takes time to admire the work she’s done. She starts building mastery one room at a time.
Does that sound familiar? I hear there’s something like it in the Twelve Steps (okay, I know there is). A day at a time, a Step at a time. Sometimes, we master an hour at a time or a minute at a time.
But in my case, whenever I woke up, I would take control of my bed and make it look nice. From there, I spread out and tackled more of my apartment. I built and built for the first time, rather than continuing down the path of destruction I was on with my alcoholism.
Current Example: Getting Up at 7:00
A far cry from where I was in 2009, this morning my goal was to get up at 7:00—just like I used to when I was working a regular job.
My first week after being laid off, I knew I didn’t want to backslide too far, so I set my alarm for 8:00. But I realized I missed things—like hanging out with my partner, Dan, and doing Wordle with him—when I slept in. That insight helped me deconstruct my motivations and make the change to go back to a 7:00 wakeup time in my second week of unemployment.
That was a couple weeks ago and I’ve stuck with it. But I did not want to this morning.
Still, I did it.
It’s not a habit yet, but it’s a small victory each time I do it. It’s building mastery.
Wrapping Up: Mastery in Motion
This time, being laid off didn’t unravel me. I’ve weathered it with clarity and steadiness—not because it wasn’t hard, but because I’ve built so many masteries over the years. Mastery over my mornings. Mastery over my habits. Mastery over my recovery. And yes, even mastery over being laid off.
I’ve learned how to navigate the forest of old patterns and choose new paths. I’ve learned how to get up when I say I will, how to do something I planned to do, and how to feel good about it—not because it’s perfect, but because it’s mine.
Exercise: Building Mastery
Worksheet #1: Recognizing Successes
Before we can build new neural pathways—new ways of thinking, responding, and being—we need to remember something essential: we’ve already done it before. This is the first in a series of Building Mastery worksheets designed to help you reconnect with your strengths, skills, and progress. In this exercise, you’ll reflect on past successes—moments when you overcame something difficult, learned something new, or made a meaningful change. These memories are more than just reflections; they’re evidence that you already have what it takes to keep going. Mastery begins with remembering that you’ve done hard things before—and you can do them again. Try this worksheet.