#4 Navigating Grief in Career Transitions with Brandy L. Simula

Welcome to the Women's Career Mastery Podcast, where we challenge the norms and redefine success for women in the workplace. This is Christine and Laura, and we believe that women are capable of achieving greatness without sacrificing their authenticity. In this episode, we'll be addressing a topic that has been overlooked for far too long, the grief and emotional tools that come with losing a job or experiencing a career transition.

Most of us tend to believe that losing a job or switching careers should be viewed as positive opportunities for growth and change. And they are, but the reality is that these experiences can trigger a sense of loss, uncertainty, and anxiety that can be overwhelming.

It’s time we start to acknowledge the complexity of emotions that come with these transitions and validate the grief that we may feel.

You may be currently in the midst of a career transition or have gone through it in the past, this episode will provide you with valuable insights and a fresh perspective. So sit back and get ready to embrace your emotion, challenge your assumptions, and gain a deeper understanding of the power of grief and resilience. Now, Laura, please introduce the guests that we have today.

We are privileged today to have Dr. Brandy Simula. She's an award -winning strategist, consultant, speaker, author, and professional coach coach. She has spent the last decade leveraging her doctoral training in social psychology and behavioral science to help organizations address top workplace culture and organizational development challenges, a very key and important topic today. She's written for Harvard Business Review and been on numerous Forbes expert panels, and the list goes on. We have her full bio and all of her credentials in our show notes at the end of the episode. But we are so happy to have you here with us, Brandy, and so grateful that you are here with us today. Perhaps you can start by sharing a little bit about your why and why you wanted to create this podcast with us.

Thank you so much, Laura and Christine, for having me. I am passionate about the topic of career transitions and myth -busting, I think, because for so many of us, women in particular, career transitions are also laden with identity transitions. Our careers, for many of us, are a really important part of who we are, and in career transitions, we're often expected to be only excited about what's happening. But the reality is that for almost everyone, career transitions are often more complicated than that around the emotions that we experience. And whether we're losing a job or intentionally pursuing a career transition, grief is often a part of the process, but is part of the process that is often silenced. So I'm excited to dive in and talk about grief as part of the process and sort of debunk the myth that grief is not a common experience in career transitions, because we know, in fact, that it often is.

Yeah, again, another really important topic. I mean, when you brought this whole idea to us about grief, I only knew the word grief associated with the death of something, but I didn't relate it to my career. I didn't relate it to things that happened in my career, transitions, good or bad transitions, but it's a real thing. So let's talk some more about it. Do you go through the same process, Brandy, like you would go through when grieving the loss of someone? Is it the same grief process that somebody would go

I think it depends on the particular experience and with the number of clients that I've coached through career transitions, experiences of grief look very different and it looks different. You may be leaving your team but moving to another similar role in your organization, so you're staying in the organization that you know, staying connected to the people that you know, doing similar kind of work, or you may be pursuing an entirely new career path in an entirely new organization where the kind of work you're doing, your professional identity, your entire social network changes. And what we know, so my background is in social psychology and I focus on identity theory, which

We think of ourselves as. And we know from the research that our work and our professional identity is for many of us a really important piece of who we see ourselves as. And so if our professional identity changes, we're saying goodbye to an important part of who we see ourselves as. And we may be excited about the new identity that we're pursuing, but for most of us there's also a process of feeling a sense of loss. I'm no longer this person that I have been and that has been an important part of who I am. And so navigating that loss is an important part of the experience for many of us. And another piece that I think is really important is grief around the loss of teammates or a social network if we're changing teams, if we're changing organizations, if we're changing industries. We may be very excited about moving to a new role or even a new career field, but also sad to be leaving people who have been a meaningful part of our social network, people that we enjoy collaborating with. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that both of those things can be true and can happen at the same time. Very excited to be doing this new work or to be pursuing this new career path or this new organization, but also really feeling sad about leaving behind work that has mattered to us, colleagues that have mattered to us, etc. They can both be true at the same time and usually are.

Also losing the comfort zone, right? Like you're comfortable perhaps in a position, you know all the people, you know the work, but you want to challenge yourself or you've been forced to make a change. You lose that as well, right?

That sense of certainty and routine and comfort and stability, all of those pieces. There's often a lot of losses at the same time as we're gaining a lot of new and exciting things.

My question will be, because you've been coaching a lot of people during their career transitions, what are usually the symptoms of grief that most people, you say it's different, most people experience in the loss of, you know, job or getting a new career?

I think it really depends on the person, the situation, where they are in their career and life journey. And I think it's really important to acknowledge too, there's a significant difference between losing a job, being pushed out of a career field where there aren't enough jobs for the people who are interested in that career field. That's a very different experience, losing a job, experiencing a layoff, which unfortunately we're seeing so many people going through right now versus saying, I like the work I'm currently doing, but I think there's this other work that I would like more. And so I'm pursuing that. And they're very different experiences of grief. One is I've lost something I wanted and there's nothing else that I'm yet pointed toward versus, yes, I have lost something, but I already know what I'm gaining, that I'm giving up something and I know what I'm gaining versus just, I'm experiencing this huge loss and I can't yet see what might be on the other side of that. Those are very different experiences of loss and grief in a career transition.

And I think another thing that I like to know, because it's very interesting, I think as a society, we don't really know how to deal with grief, even grief of losing a loved one and let alone losing a job or changing a career. What is benefits of acknowledging this and how can people accept the grief

Even identify that they're having a grief?

I think identifying it is often difficult because as you mentioned, Christine, as a society, we're often very uncomfortable with grief. There's a lot of silencing and sort of hiding of grief. And especially around career transitions, there's, I think, just a real message that people should only focus on excitement, joy, what's next, sort of the positive emotions. And I think the first thing is just to make space for and normalize that grief is a very common part of career transitions, whether the career transition is of someone's own choosing or not, and that it is just a very normal human experience. And I think the second piece that's important is recognizing that grief often appears as other emotions that are more sort of socially recognized or acceptable. So frustration, uncertainty, anger, those kinds of things are often more easily identifiable when the underlying emotion is often also grief. And so that's an important piece. And I think

It’s important for all of us, whether we're navigating a career transition ourselves or supporting a friend, family member, colleague, etc., going through a career transition, to hold space for people to have the full normal range of human emotions and not just to say or give messages like, you know, how excited are you about what's next on your career path, but instead to hold space for, hey, I know you're pursuing a career transition. How are you feeling about navigating that transition? Asking the question rather than just assuming that everything is positive or someone is only excited. And again, it's really important to say, it's not the case that if you're experiencing a sense of grief or loss, that's the only emotion that you're experiencing. That excitement can be happening alongside of a sense of grief or loss at the same time.

I think it's very interesting what you're saying, because if grief usually shown in the different emotions, like anxiety and uncertainties, it seems like our invitation for it, like you said about giving the space, is to allow, to be OK with having anxiety, to be OK to feel sad, to be OK to feel uncertain, rather than just like, OK, I got to be excited, rather than judging ourselves that we should not feel sad, we should not feel anxiety, anxious, or we should not feel like this. And how do you think someone can kind of do both, like giving a space for that, for the emotions or what we feel uncomfortable, and also to move forward? Is that any way to do both? How do we do both at the same time?

Yeah. And I think it is just that process of recognizing and normalizing for myself,

Feeling excited and sad. And just even being able to name both of those things are happening, both of those things are true, and not rushing to say, well, which one is it really? Because it really is both. And not trying to push through, OK, I'm just going to only focus on feeling excited, or I don't want to force myself to feel excited, so I'm only going to focus on loss, but just allowing ourselves to feel what we're really feeling. Now, of course, in the context of an interview, it's probably more helpful to talk about your excitement for the new role than your grief for a previous role, right? But that's why it's even more important for those of us who are supporting people in career transitions to hold space, so that the only times that they're talking about career transition emotions or feelings aren't in interviews, so that there are spaces where people can talk about grief, loss, uncertainty, and not just feel like the only one.

That they have to talk about their career transition is a space that requires them to act excited, or to talk about the feelings of excitement that they may have.

I want to ask this. I think this is for all of us, because we've done career transitions. We have loss in our career. I would like to start with Brandy, and I want to hear what Laura said, and maybe I can also share a little bit of my experience. So, Brandy, you've been changing career before, like from academic to corporate and back and forth. What is your biggest learning? Like, when do you feel the grief, and what's your biggest learning from your career?

Yeah, I'll say that this is the case for me personally, but it has also been the case for a number of former academics that I have coached, is that when I was navigating my transition out of higher ed into industry, I really thought that my own process would be that I would feel sad for a little while, and then it would stop. But I think more like the process of losing a loved one, I carry the grief for my former career and my former identity as an academic with me. I am very happy in my current career path. If I could make my decisions over again, I would make the same ones. I love the work I'm currently doing, and there are parts of the work that I did previously that I still miss, colleagues that I still miss, parts of that life that I still miss, and I think that will always be true for me. And I think that speaks to the value of the work that I got to do previously, the strength of the relationships that I had with previous colleagues, and for me, I don't, I'm not trying to work to erase that. Certainly, I wish that I didn't always, that maybe the feelings of grief wouldn't persist, but for me, just getting to a place where I can say, yes, I do miss it. There are parts of that work that I will probably always miss, and am very confident with and happy in the career decisions that I've made, and that, you know, I think feeling okay.

There are pieces of our previous work or work lives that we may miss doesn't mean that we made the wrong decision, and I think that's one of the really important pieces is that grief can often lead us to second guess or doubt our career transition decisions, and just the fact that we miss some parts of our previous work or our previous work lives doesn't mean that the decision we made is a wrong one, and I think that's a trap or a myth that people can often fall into.

Laura, what about you?

That's really insightful. Thank you, Brandy. I can relate to some of that, but for me, I think the experience of a layoff was challenging, and, you know, you're feeling like you're doing well in your job. You're like at the top of your game. You're progressing nicely in your career with a company, and all of a sudden, you get this layoff notice, and you have to leave in 30 days or whatever the time frame is. You know, there's a shock. There's a shock that you have to the system, and you just go into this crazy mix of emotions, and, yes, you lean on your support system, whether it's the internal support system, the people you worked with, your favorite friends that you've built, the confidants, and your friends and your family outside of work, and then you start to build up your, you know, your self -esteem again to get over the shock, and you start to feel better and stronger, and then for me, it was, oh, I realized that that had to happen because there's an opportunity for me to live more connected and be more living in my purpose, and the impact that I was making in the company was good, but it wasn't enough for me. Like, I had, there was more work for me to do, and it was going to be outside the walls of the company, and so, you know, there was a gift in it, so I think with the shock, with all of the things that I had in place that allowed me to be successful coming out of that situation, I'm very grateful for it. I worked hard for it. I probably went through it pretty quickly because I know I coach people, and sometimes it takes time to process all those emotions. I really wanted to get through it, and I processed it pretty quickly, and I found my way out the other side, so I think there's always an opportunity, even when there's like that moment of loss and grief that you go through. Honor it. Recognize it. That shock feeling, the anger, the frustration. Know what's happening, and then, you know, pivot to there's an opportunity here for me, right? I can make a change. I could do more, whatever is calling you, whatever is calling you at that moment.

Very insightful. Thank you both. For me, I think my experience is similar to Laura.

Shock. The shock is the difficult thing because, you know, you're going to work. This is more if you spend hours, ten hours, you know, a day at work. You spend most of your waking hour at work, most of your, you know, routine at work, so when suddenly something happens, for me, it's like that shock is really sometimes gets me into a spiral of like what's wrong? Sometimes it's what's wrong with me? What's wrong with that? And I think that's where we need to, for me, it's where I, the way I get off from my grief is to reflect on what is the gift in this situation. I remember in my younger years when, because I used to work in technology and IT, there's a lot of laid off, you know, with the economy and losing some clients, and I always felt excited when I get laid off because it's, wow, I get to choose a new thing with something I don't dare to do. I didn't dare like to just quit, but for some reason, the situation helped me to explore something different. And I think there is a, for me, it's more about something that is comfort, something that is routine, something that is certain, and suddenly it's uncertain. And I felt with our economy right now, that's the biggest school or class that we can experience is when we get laid off, when we move to a different career to learn about from certainty to uncertainty. And of course, going through many of myself, at the end of the day, it's not a big deal. So for me, it's like looking back to my previous experiences. Hey, I survived anyway. Everything is good anyway. And we only can do that if we have, you know, it's on the hindsight. In the middle of it, it's difficult, but on the hindsight, then we can say, yeah, because of, you know, this path that I took, that's different. I get to experience this one and that one. And for me, the grief sometimes comes with anger. And the way sometimes I deal with anger, especially from my last experience, was to change it into purpose.

So, you know, I was angry the way I got treated.

I didn't want any other human to experience the same thing. Then I used that energy into purpose of creating a better workplace, for example. So there's always gift, like what Laura said.

So Brandy, just tell us, like, okay, you know, we just heard in the news, there was layoffs across the board in many big organizations, and people might be listening to this podcast. Is it anger? Is that like the number one feeling that people have? Is it that shock and anger in that moment?

What do they do with this anger?

Yeah, I think it's different for different people, and that that is a really important piece to acknowledge, is that there is no one emotional response to an experience of layoffs. Some people may be feeling excited. I've been wanting to go out on my own. I've been wanting to make a change, and this is going to give me the impetus I need. Some people may just be feeling overwhelming fear, not really a sense of anger. Some people may really be feeling a sense of anger. Some people may just be feeling a real sense of grief or loss, and there's not much anger to it, just a real feeling of sadness. And some people may be feeling a wide mix of emotions, so that there's not one, this is the common emotional response, but that there's such a wide range, and that it can be different across different days, and that that is just also a very common experience, is that we have a wide range of emotions in response to career loss and career transition, and that they can shift very frequently. So one day we might be feeling very excited. I'm really hopeful about my job search and what's next, and the next day wake up feeling overwhelmed, sad, frightened, et cetera, and that that also is just a very normal part of the human experience of a career transition or change.

Allowing it to happen, right? Honor that. You can have a good day, a bad day. You can have multiple emotions at the same time. And what do you recommend for support? Do you go to your immediate friends and family? Like, do you get a career coach? Is that also depends on the person?

Yes. I mean, I would say it depends on the person, but my best advice is use all of the available resources and support available to you and intentionally seek out support. So as you're focusing on what's next, remember that you need support at the same time. So of course, draw on your family and friends. If a career coach is available to you, draw on that. I think one of the things that is most important is that many of us feel like if we're feeling angry, sad, grieving, et cetera, that we can't or shouldn't share that with others. And so isolate. And that is so tough to experience, especially if we're experiencing a job loss or layoff. Navigating it in isolation makes it even harder. If you don't have access to a career coach, a job search support group, you can join one. You can create one if one doesn't exist. Many of us know other folks who are also looking for a new position or experiencing a layoff or job loss. Getting folks together even once a month just to be in conversation for an hour about how's it going for you? What do you need? What are you feeling? Those kinds of things can be just such an invaluable part of navigating a career transition. And again, don't cost money. And I think that piece is really important. For many folks who are navigating a job loss, hiring a career coach is out of reach. Those resources aren't available, but that doesn't that support isn't available. You can join or create your own career transition support group and get that support from a peer

When I got laid off, the company provided a service of career coaching. I went to every meeting virtually and I went to some in person in my local center. And some of the people, it was just the people that were there that I met that became friends. Like we are still all friends today and doing great things. So I think to your point, there's resources out there. Just find them some paid, some not paid that you can take advantage of and get out there with other people.

Yeah. And to not think of the connections that you're making as you're navigating a career transition. Of course, networking to find a new role is important, but also just being in community with other humans who are navigating the process as well, who may or may not be able to connect you with a new opportunity, but who can help you and who you can help navigate that career transition is so important.

I have questions on that. And this is based on my experience. Sometimes it's an opportunity to when in career transition, whether you want it or not wanting it, it's where we have an opportunity to really think and reflect on what’s next, our purpose, what do I really want.

Now, can you give some kind of tips on how to really use the time that people we have in transition sometimes to really get clear on what next? And at the same time also, because there's a fear, right? There's like, oh, worry and how am I going to pay the bill and all this stuff like that. What is the best way to use the time that we have in between transition?

Yeah, I think such a great question, Christine, because it's so tricky and it's really at, I think, the heart of the most challenging piece of career transitions for people who are experiencing an unplanned career transition. And I think just being mindful of committing regular time to sitting down and thinking about what is the work that I'm most passionate about and that sort of intersection of what do I enjoy doing? What am I good at? And what jobs are available? And looking at all three of those pieces is really important. And I think for many of the people that I have coached coming out of higher ed, for example, have never thought about doing anything other than being faculty, being professors. And so that question of what do I want to do? What is my purpose? What is my passion? Many folks have never thought about that outside of the career path that they've been in previously. And so it can feel really challenging and overwhelming. I don't even know what are the other things that I could be doing. Trying to give yourself space to be curious about what could I do? What does the work that I'm passionate about look like in different industries or different career fields? Making time to do that exploration as you're figuring out how to pay the bills is really hard and really important and rewarding.

I guess I want to add something in there because I've been there. And one thing that really helped is like if you do the work that you've done for decades, you know exactly what to do. You know what next week or what is the next steps. In this phase, you know nothing sometimes. And I feel in order and I think the tendency is like wanting to have the right answer. Whatever I have questioned, I need to get the right answer, the correct one. And that's for me is the biggest challenge. And it's really create a self -doubt and kind of feeling stuck. But if we take it from curiosity, like you said, and also from playfulness, like the life is your playground, then there is a space, more space to move, to walk around, to experiment. And yeah, that's I think I just want to add what you're saying there.

And Christine, I heard just in what you shared too, I think common myths or language that we often fall sort of prey to or fall into the trap of using when we're negotiating a career transition. One is the idea that if we don't know what we're going to do next, I know nothing. Right. And even if we don't know exactly what we're going to do next, even if we don't know at all what we're going to do next, that doesn't mean we know nothing. We still know what we like to do and don't like to do. We still have all of the experience we've built throughout our career. So we're never starting from nothing, even when it feels that way. And I think that mental reframe can be so important. And the other piece is feeling like we have to find the best or right job or next step or role or career path, when in fact, what we know from all of the research about existing careers, and we've all talked about in our own career paths and just this conversation is that most of us have many careers different over the course of our lives. And that's just a reality in what careers look like at this point, at least certainly in the United States, is that people do tend to have more than one career over the course of their lives. And so when you're negotiating or navigating a career transition, taking the focus off, I have to find the right or the best job. And instead turning our attention to what is the right thing for me to do next, not what is the perfect be all end all job that would fulfill all of my career aspirations for the next 10, 20, 30, however many years. But at this point in my career in life, what is the work that I want to be doing in what kind of organization or on my own thinking about what is right for me now instead of what is right for me for the next 20 years and really scaling down the timeframe for what's the right thing for me now based on what I'm curious about or interested in doing next rather than the big picture long -term thinking I think is really helpful.

That's really good advice. It's what's that one next step or that one next position or job or it doesn't have to be finite. Simon Sinek always talks about career and life and business. There's finite and there's infinite, right? It can you could be infinite possibilities on what you can be. It's all part of the journey of life, right? One's career.

Yeah, good. Do we have more? Yeah, I have one. Okay.

So we've been talking about this. I think it seems for me, I'm pretty sure all the listeners have this experience as well. This is a shared experience. I guess my question to you, Brandy, how can we allow grief to help us grow and emerge from the experience stronger and more resilient?

Yeah, that's a great question too. I think first and foremost, developing self -compassion helps us be better professionals and better leaders, helps us tend to our own selves as full humans, but also helps us be more compassionate towards our future colleagues as well. And I think whether it's accepting grief, anger, loss, being able to accept our full range of human emotions is a really important skill and a really important part of emotional intelligence, which we know is immensely invaluable as a skillset, regardless of our profession or industry.

And I also think being able to grow from grief or to be able to sit with grief, being able to sit with uncomfortable emotions and experiences also just helps us navigate the world of work, right? Constant change, future layoffs, conflict, et cetera. Being able to say, yes, I'm experiencing grief and I'm applying for a new job. Yes, I'm experiencing a sense of loss and I'm excited about what's in the future. Being able to hold that challenging or unpleasant or uncomfortable emotion and continue to work, be excited, show up for ourselves and our colleagues is important. And while I'm saying that, I also want to say, it's okay to have days where we just say, I am overwhelmed by grief, uncertainty, fear, et cetera. And I am not going to channel excitement or apply for 50 jobs or whatever the case may be. It's okay to say, I'm having a really hard time and I'm going to take today to spend time with my loved ones, walk in nature, whatever is rejuvenating to you and not just expect yourself to say, yes, I'm experiencing grief and I'm going to just push through it all of the time. I don't think that's the right approach. I think making space to sit with grief to say, I need to take time for myself to take care of myself is also an important part of the process of navigating grief in a career transition.

Awesome, Brandy. Laura?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked that question, Christine.

Brandy, thank you so much for that discussion. I hope that it helped all of our listeners as they were following along and we were exploring the emotions of grief and loss when it came to career transitions and that they can now see how to navigate the experience and emerge strong and with resilience. We really hope that that's a takeaway for them. But before we close with you, we want to ask you some of our lightning round questions because it gives us a little insight and helps with some ideas for our own development. So four questions you can answer with one to three words. Try your best. You ready?

Where do you go for inspiration? Books.

What iis one habit you adopted that has greatly improved your career? Do a quarterly North Star alignment audit for myself.

Interesting. What is the one thing that keeps you moving forward each day? Start with a I get to instead of a to do list.

What is the most valuable piece of advice you ever received?

This is not three words, but I'll make it brief. A very senior leader told a group of us that the moment that we felt that we were so swamped and over overwhelmed that we absolutely could not take a break was the moment we absolutely had to.

Great advice. Great advice. I'm going to keep that one.

Okay. This is, again, a pleasure to talk with you. I'm going to turn to you, Christine. Take us home.

Thank you, Brandy, for all your wisdom and experience and your insights. And I hope listeners, we all experience this loss, job loss or transitions. And I think the most important thing is to know that you are not alone. We are not alone. This is shared experience. And for some reason, I always know that we all gone through this and we done it before so we can do it again even better. And thank you for tuning in to our Women's Career Mastery Podcast. If you enjoy this episode, please hit. If you enjoy this episode, please hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform. By subscribing, you are not only supporting our podcast, but you are also joining a community of like minded individuals who are interested in the same topic as you. We appreciate your support and we are looking forward to bringing you more great content in the future.

Thank you, Brandy.