When work is bad, it can seep into everything. You can question your own judgment. You can resent colleagues and leaders you used to admire. You disengage to protect yourself, and that can lead to diminished performance — > and further deterioration of the relationships and professional identity that used to be high points for you.
I’m no expert on grief. The encounters I’ve had with it convince me that it is mysterious, powerful, and unpredictable, with enormous variation on how it shows up for different people. But I think it’s helpful to recognize when you’ve lost something that once mattered to you, we’re in the terrain of grief.
A vocabulary distinction might help here. “Mourning” is the public display of grief. It’s a socially acceptable ritual for acknowledging and processing the feelings of loss. If your company is acquired or goes bankrupt or your initiative is reorganized away, or you are part of a reduction in force, you might join with some colleagues and mourn it together.
“Grieving” is private. It’s your own process of moving through the emotions that accompany a loss. Nobody has to know that you’re grieving (and often, nobody does).
Ignoring grief doesn’t seem to help. Giving it room to express itself sometimes does. Here are some questions that might help you find room to acknowledge what you’ve lost and move through the feelings to the other side.
What have you lost? What was joyous? What did you love, and what will you miss? How does losing it feel? Some emotions that might come up are anger, sadness, betrayal, shock, self-doubt, fury, powerlessness, demoralization, wobbliness, disillusionment, defensiveness, bitterness, cynicism, heartbreak, recrimination.
And then… What will you NOT miss? I think it’s always helpful to tell the truth. Let’s not sugarcoat or become overly nostalgic. We can feel a real loss, and also see the silver lining.
Finally, ask yourself how you might participate in the grief to give it a little space. Humans like rituals: burning things, going to special places, stillness, music or poetry, quiet spaces. They are repeated because they work. This is private to you, but maybe there’s a way for you to let yourself grieve what you have lost so you can let it go down, and move into the future more lightly.
