The Test I Didn't See Coming

What an unexpected layoff revealed about the work that was already done

By Iram Mehal

Earlier this week, I was part of a large group of people let go in a reduction in force.

It was unexpected. There is no version of that news that does not land as a shock, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. One moment you are planning your week, and the next you are in a meeting that changes your immediate future.

And yet, almost as soon as I heard the words, something steadier rose up in me. Not denial. Not forced positivity. Just a quiet, grounded thought.

It is what it is.

I felt calm. Clear. And somewhere underneath the surprise, already ready to move.

It took me a moment to understand why that reaction surprised even me. And once I understood it, I knew I had to write this.

The Work Was Already Done

For years, I have taught a framework for moving through hard moments like this one. It is called the MEHAL Method, and it unfolds across five phases: Mindset Mastery, Emotional Elevation, Harness Belief, Action Architecture, and Legacy Leadership.

I have guided others through it many times. What I did not expect was to move through all five phases myself in a single day, without trying.

Here is what that looked like:

Mindset Mastery

It started with my mind.

The first thing I noticed was what I did not think. I did not think ‘this is my fault.’ I did not think ‘I am not good enough.’ I did not spiral into a story about my worth or my performance. In fact, it was made clear to me that the decision was not a reflection of my work, and I believed it, because I had already done the internal work of separating who I am from what happens to me. That is the first phase, mindset mastery. Not the absence of hard news, but the refusal to let hard news rewrite the story you tell about yourself.

Emotional Elevation

The emotions came too, and I let them. I did not pretend I was fine. But I have spent years learning to feel an emotion without being swept away by it, to let it move through me instead of taking the wheel. So the shock came, I acknowledged it, and then I felt my footing return. This is emotional elevation, and it taught me long ago that steady does not mean numb. It means you can feel everything and still stand.

Harness Belief

Underneath the calm was a belief I did not have to manufacture, because I had been building it for years. The belief that I am capable. That I have navigated uncertainty before and come through it. That my value was not decided in a meeting, and never will be. This is harness belief, and when you have truly built it, a setback cannot reach the part of you that knows what you are made of.

Action Architecture 

Then my instincts took over. Before I had even left the building, I was reaching out to people in my network who might point me toward opportunities. As soon as I got to my desk, I updated my profile, refreshed my resume, and began looking. Within hours, I had submitted applications. This is action architecture, and I am not sharing it to perform productivity. I am sharing it because action is what turned a hard moment into a moving one. When you have done the inner work first, action does not feel like climbing out of a hole. It feels like the natural next step.

Legacy Leadership

And then came the realization that led to this post, the final phase, legacy leadership. What happened to me is not an isolated event. Reductions in force are happening to capable, dedicated people all over the country right now. People who did everything right. People sitting in the same shock I felt, quietly wondering what it says about them.

It says nothing about you.

If my story can reach even one person in that position and offer them steadier footing, then sharing it is not just something I can do. It is something I feel responsible to do. That is what legacy leadership means to me. You take what you have lived, and you hand it forward, so someone else has something to stand on.

A Note of Gratitude

I want to be clear about something. I am not bitter.

I am grateful for the chapter that just closed, for the people I worked alongside, and for everything that experience gave me. And I am grateful, in a way I did not expect, for this particular lesson. It showed me that the work I teach is real, because I just watched it hold me up when I needed it most.

Closed doors deserve a thank you too.

What I Want You to Take From This

If you are in the middle of your own unexpected goodbye, I want you to know a few things.

The shock is real, and you are allowed to feel it. But the news does not get to define you. Your worth was never in that role, and it will not be in the next one either. It is in you, and it travels with you.

The steadiness I felt was not luck, and it was not personality. It was the result of work I had done long before I needed it. That is the quiet promise of doing the inner work. You build it in the calm seasons so it is there for you in the hard ones.

And sometimes, in the middle of a closing door, a thought surfaces that you did not expect. For me, it sounded like this. Maybe this is the push I needed. Maybe the thing I had been treating as someday is actually now.

I do not have every answer about what comes next. But I am not afraid of the question. Because I have already lived proof that I can meet the unexpected and keep moving.

So can you.