3. On grief

And my experience working with a death doula.

“No one talks about work grief.”  

A friend and I were texting back-and-forth last week and while I had recently come to acknowledge the existence of “work grief” on my own, her response was further validation that this was something that was out there and happening, even if we weren’t talking about it.  

I hadn’t really thought about grief as an appropriate response to leaving my job but a few weeks ago I took a pretty life-changing workshop that helped me reach this conclusion. One of my favorite local spots The Hangout does monthly community workshops and on a whim, while I was deep in my depression, I signed up for one called “Grace in Grief.” I wasn’t even really sure what it was but felt called to it in a way that I couldn’t ignore. I don’t think I even realized WHY I needed it at the time, but it was like something in my subconscious told me it would be good for me. I signed up and then promptly forgot about it for a few weeks, sucked back down into the emotional vortex. The day of the workshop my anxiety skyrocketed. I felt on edge all day, the tears bubbling just beneath the surface in a now all too familiar way. I rationally decided the best thing to do would be to release them before the workshop, easily accomplished by playing some of the indie music from my teens during a long hot shower. I was getting scary good and bringing those tears to the forefront.  

Feeling a little better I nervously made my way to the class (I was, of course, 15 minutes early and had to walk to the end of the block and back to kill time). There were about 20 of us in total, a wide range of ages from 20-55 and mostly women, although there were a handful of men as well. Everyone had first day of school jitters. We put on our name tags and made polite conversation about where we lived and/or how long the drive was and the ever-engrossing topic of traffic in LA. The workshop was led by a tiny, tattooed angel named Kelly who is a professional death doula (did you know that was a thing? Because I did not and it’s fascinating. Check her out at Loved To Death). Kelly tenderly held space for our teary-eyed group over the next 90 minutes, leading us through introductions/shares (the scariest part!), a meditation, a lecture on the different types of grief, and a journaling/finger painting exercise. Most people in the group had lost a loved one, myself included, but we also talked about grief as the end of a relationship, the end of a job, and the collective grief we experience living in today’s trauma filled world. Kelly defined grief as “our soul’s emotional response to the death and rebirth cycles of our life experience.”  

My grief finger painting.

Something clicked for me in that conversation that allowed me to view leaving my job through the lens of grief. This was an end of an identity, of a chapter of my life that I valued dearly. It gave me the permission to grieve it properly and not feel like I was being overdramatic. I tried explaining this to another friend who kindly asked, “But is it actually like a part of you died? You’re still the same person.” To which I replied, “Except I’m not, not really.” Work had been a key part of how I defined myself for the past 12 years. I gained a lot of value and self-worth from this identity and once that identity ended, I was left feeling untethered, unmoored. How was I supposed to know what I was worth without numbers on a paycheck to tell me? Yes, it’s a little macabre to say that a part of me died when I left my job, but it doesn’t feel like an exaggeration. Who is Corporate Barbie when she no longer works in corporate?

The workshop also helped me understand why, at the same time, all of these old griefs that I thought I had processed were now coming back up, full force, to pile on top of the intense emotion I was already experiencing. Hardly seems fair, does it? It was like once Pandora’s box was open, they all came flooding out for one big grief reunion party, each one fighting for my attention like, “Me! Me! Over here! Remember me?” Grief is funny like that, it never goes away necessarily, it just gets a little lighter. You might think you’ve forgotten about it completely and then you hear a song or see a particularly pretty sunset on the way home from getting groceries (personal example) and it’s like you’re right back in it. And if you try to ignore it? Oh man, it just gets louder.  

I of course now have a massive girl crush on Kelly (we all lined up to take photos with her after class like giggling super fans) and had a recent one-on-one session with her that I’m still processing, but the biggest thing I took away is that grief is an opportunity for transformation. It’s an opportunity to let go of old patterns and find meaning. I’m still working on viewing this experience as an opportunity. It can be hard to feel that way when you’re deep in it, but I know eventually I’ll look back on this time, this shift, and be grateful for it. Even just thinking about the last week of September (left my job on Monday, started this Substack on Wednesday!) I said to my husband, “I think that may have been one of the most important weeks of my life.” It felt revelatory at the time, and still does. 

The last and perhaps most important point was that grief doesn’t have to be heavy and sad all the time. We can hold grief in one hand and happiness in the other. We are complex emotional beings and we contain multitudes. I can feel overwhelmed with anxiety and still laugh out loud at memes in the group chat. I can wake up happy one day and sad the next (often for no apparent reason!). After I first shared about my mental health on Instagram I felt conflicted. Was I supposed to only post inspirational quotes from now on? Or not post at all? If I shared photos of myself smiling, drinking wine with friends, would it somehow call into question my emotional integrity? Would people pause, confused, like “I thought she was supposed to be depressed?” It took me awhile to accept that both things could be true. That all feelings are valid, and I don’t need to censor any parts of myself.  

Enter this newsletter. A place to be uncensored. To embrace the messiness of emotion. As always, thank you for being here. And Happy World Mental Health Day ❤