I handed back the keys to my first business at eight months pregnant.
I'd love to tell you leaving was a bold, considered decision.
It wasn't a decision at all. It was a deadline. Two, actually. The lease was ending. The baby was coming.
And underneath both, a body that had been wrung dry. It had been crying out to stop for a long time, while I kept doing the same things on repeat.
So I stopped. Properly.
I moved town. My daughter arrived, and she would not take her hand out of my top. Anywhere. Except the beach.
I made myself one promise: no work questions. No solving problems. “Don’t talk about work AT ALL”.
It was like a long breath hold. Easy for the first thirty seconds. Then everything in you starts to argue.
So we went to the beach. A lot.
One morning, her hand finally out of my top and nothing to fix, a thought arrived that felt warm. It had energy coming off it. The next one didn't. I felt it drain me.
For years I couldn't tell the difference. Off autopilot, out of my own echo chamber, I could feel it in my body.
Unna Movement started there.
I did not expect to be sharing stages this year with Andrea Clarke, Dr Paul Taylor, Craig Harper and Dr Kristy Goodwin. And here I am.
None of it came from a plan. It came from a maybe I didn't choose.
Andrea has been writing about what's coming. Mass redundancies. Exits. A lot of capable people about to live inside the word "maybe" for a while.
Maybe you're one of them. Maybe you're leading people who are.
Either way, the maybe is already costing you. Sleep. Focus. The ability to see your next move clearly. Here's why it costs more than it should, and what you can do about it this week.
The maybe costs more than the no
In a study at UCL, people played a simple computer game. Turn over a rock. Sometimes there's a snake under it. A snake means a real electric shock.
The odds kept shifting. The researchers tracked sweat, pupil size and how stressed people said they felt.
Stress didn't peak when a shock was certain. It peaked when the odds were closest to a coin toss.
Not knowing was worse than knowing it would hurt.
Another study went further. Given the choice, almost a third of people took a bigger shock now rather than wait for a smaller one later. The waiting cost them more than the extra pain.
Work runs the same experiment in slow motion. In studies that follow people over years, job insecurity carries at least as much risk of depressive symptoms as losing the job. In one UK study, wellbeing kept sliding through a year of ongoing insecurity, with no sign of levelling off. People who had actually lost their jobs started to adapt after about six months.
So if you're in the maybe and feel worse than the facts seem to justify, you're not being dramatic. Your body is doing the maths.
Why a hard time gets harder
Your body asks three questions, all day. Am I safe? Is this predictable? Do I know what to do here?
A restructure takes away the answer to all three. And it doesn't give you a date.
Bottom up, the system braces. Sleep thins out. Breath sits high. Your shoulders hold a meeting that hasn't been booked yet.
Top down, the story narrows. Research on job insecurity shows people start protecting what they have and lose flexibility: the ability to see alternatives and change course. Exactly when they need it most.
Then the quiet part. The things we do on purpose to help ourselves. Refreshing the inbox. Rehearsing the worst-case conversation in the shower. Over-delivering so we look indispensable. Waiting for clarity before we move.
Every one of those feels responsible. Every one of them keeps the body in the maybe.
Sometimes we even stay in a role that's already hurting us, because the body reads known pain as safer than an unknown road. That isn't weakness. It's prediction.
Prepare the body that has to carry the plan
When we try to think like futurists, we read the trends. AI. Restructures. Exits. Then we prepare the CV, the network, the numbers.
All useful. Almost nobody prepares the nervous system that has to run the plan.
That part is trainable. In one randomised trial, 12 weeks of endurance training lowered the body's cortisol and heart-rate response to a high-pressure speaking task. Not every trial finds it, but enough do to take it seriously.
The finding I keep coming back to is newer. In a 2026 experiment, people were put under social pressure while researchers measured their hearts. The most psychologically flexible people weren't calmer. Their bodies were just as stressed. But under high stress, their performance held. Everyone else's dropped.
That's the shift. Not a quieter body. A body you can still act from while it's loud.
It's what a restructure actually asks of you. Not to feel fine. To think clearly in the conversation that decides your next year, with your heart still going.
Where to start this week
The dread research points the way. The people who dreaded most showed it in attention: the parts of the brain tracking where the pain would land ramped up while they waited. They were living the outcome before it arrived.
So catch the moment your attention leaves the room and goes to the meeting that hasn't been booked. Name it: paying early. Notice where it lands in your body. Then come back to what's in front of you.
Each time you do, you get something back. Attention for the conversation you're actually in. For the decision that's actually yours. For the people you go home to.
You'll still be uncertain.
You'll just stop paying twice.
Cheering for you.
Unna
P.S. If you're in a maybe right now and want to stop it running you, that's what Master Me is for. Twelve weeks, one-on-one. unnamovement.com/master-me