Hey, welcome to Lessons from a Quitter, where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you've spent getting to where you are. If ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams. Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited to have you here. You are in for a treat today. Today's topic is so important. Let me tell you. I currently am in the process of a transition. If you've listened for a while and you know that I decided to close down my membership, I just finished the last launch, I'm super excited to dive in and help everybody in the membership get the results they want over the next seven months.

But I will be closing it down at the end of the year. And that is a decision I'm making myself consciously. No one's making me, it's not forced upon me. It's something that I am ha happy about. Like I feel like this chapter is closed. And yet, and I talked about it earlier, I did talk about the bittersweetness, like the sad part of it, the part that is really for me, something that I will have to grieve. And I only know that I have to do this because I have gone through these transitions so many times at this point that I understand that it is a part of it. And I think so many of us do not understand how much of a part of our transition's grief is, whether we choose to make the transition on our own or whether like a lot of people where we get laid off or fired and it is forced upon us, which makes it almost more traumatic, how important it is to deal with the grief of that change, of that loss, whether the loss is something you want or not.

And so when my guest Laverne McKinnon reached out to me, I can't tell you how quickly I jumped on this. What's so funny is I get pitched a lot for the podcast and I normally don't even respond 'cause I can't, I don't have the time. I get multiple pitches a day. I think at this point. And I will say 90% of them are just mass pitches from PR companies because it has nothing to do with the podcast or my audience. And it's clearly not something that should be pitched for my show. And so I don't even bother responding. But I do get a lot of like thoughtful requests too. And I typically don't bring on a lot of guests. I've, as you've known, I do mostly solo episodes, but I have been thinking about doing an episode on grief for so long. And I don't know that I'm best equipped to deal with that because I don't have special training in how to overcome grief.

And so when Laverne reached out and she does have a specialty, she's a grief recovery specialist, and she talked about this exact topic. I was like, I have to have her on now. Laverne like us has a quitter story. She rose in the ranks in Hollywood. She became senior VP of drama development at CBS and she worked through steady promotion after promotion for a decade. And then she was unexpectedly fired. Like a lot of people who have been on the show before, she found herself with the rug pulled out from under her. And she went on to become the first programming chief at Epics, which ended up producing that very popular Girl boss series on Netflix. She had a lot of success, but even 10 years out she realized that she had never confronted this fallout from her job loss. And so she was carrying around this grief, which so many of us do, really grappling with this unprocessed grief, the mourning of her identity, of her purpose, of her sense of belonging, of how she views herself.

And it wasn't until she gone on this journey of navigating her own grief and becoming an executive and leadership coach, that she now has learned how to help clients navigate these setbacks and these losses and to figure out and how to use those in order to inspire more transformation and impact and figuring out what they want to do. She, like I said, specializes in this type of grief recovery. She also has an upcoming book called Showstopper, which explores how to turn career grief into resilience. And I'm so excited for this conversation 'cause I think it's something that every single person needs. Every one of us has gone through some kind of a loss that we have not processed yet. And I think it's so important to understand how, whether the loss was big or little, how important it is to process that. So without further ado, let's jump in and chat with Laverne. Hello Laverne. Thank you so much for joining me today.

I am so excited to be here. I can't even begin to tell you ,
I'm so excited to have you because as I was telling you right before, like I have been wanting to have this conversation for so long. And so when you reached out and I saw that this is the work you do, I was like, yes, we need this because there's so many people that need to hear your message. So thank you for coming on and sharing with us. The way that we usually start though is like we usually start with a little bit of your story. So if you can tell us what work you were doing, and I know you, you're familiar a little bit with the podcast. We typically have like people that have quit or have left and have started something new. So if you just give us a little bit of a rundown what your kind of journey has been that has gotten you into coaching people on grief on their career transitions, we'd love to hear it.

You're so spot on because my work with career grief started when I was shoved off of the corporate ladder. It was not my choice to really step off of that. I worked in the entertainment industry for many years and moved up the corporate ladder at CBS. I started up in the children's programming department, which doesn't even exist anymore. In over a 10 year period of time, I was promoted every 18 to 24 months. It was really exciting, really heady. I was part of the team that developed the CSI franchise Criminal Minds. Wow. We took the network from last place to first and I reached this amazing pinnacle where I was head of drama development at the network and then I had the rug pulled out from underneath me and I was fired. And it took me over a decade to realize that the feelings that I had been carrying with me that it, and I was honestly, it's like I was filled with so much self-loathing. Yeah. And I just, even though I went on to a lot of fancy pants jobs after that, I just carried this weight of being a failure and it was horrible. And then I started to realize, and I don't have a particular moment, it was like a dawning awakening that yeah, I'm grieving the loss of that job. And so that's what's brought me here today, .

That's, it's so important, and I wanna tackle this from a bunch of different ways. We'll talk about it in a different way. But I love that you started there because we have so many people that we've had on the show too that have had the same situation where they did all the things they were supposed to do and they were successful and they did climb the corporate ladder and they did these amazing things and then they had the rug pulled out under them. I had my mom on the show. She was laid off after 20 years of building this company from four employees to like over a hundred. This is a really huge company. And she was fired at 59, finding herself at almost 60, needing to start over. And this does happen in corporate America. And it does reinforce maybe this illusion that we think that there is security and that we're gonna, where we think that we're gonna be okay.

But I wanna talk about it from that perspective before we talk about even if you choose to leave voluntarily, even if you quit because you want to, and I've talked about this with my situation of leaving law, like I didn't realize till much later too, about how much I had to grieve that identity even though I chose it. But starting from when you don't choose it, because I do think that that is more of a jarring experience because it wasn't your decision and it was, it feels as though you weren't in power in that this decision was made for you. So can you talk a little bit, 'cause I know that a lot of people have gone through that where they do uh, really have tons of really intense negative feelings of shame and embarrassment and guilt and all of these things of like, should I have done something different and what are people gonna think of me and where am I gonna go from here? And so can you tell us how you dealt with it then, but how you help people deal with it now that you have realized that there's a lot of grief involved, what your advice typically is to people?

Yeah. I didn't deal with it well at all. . I went into a cave for about a year because I was like so ashamed and humiliated. I thought for sure no one would ever hire me again. Mm-hmm . And as I learned more about grief, I started to understand my reaction, which is that grief essentially is a reflection of attachment. The depth of attachment that could come from love. It's identifying with a particular title or a sense of belonging. Someone else might be fired and be like, yuhoo awesome. This is fabulous. I'm now free. And they don't feel any sadness or grief, but it's because they weren't attached to that job or what that job represented to them. I was deeply attached to my job because it, it reinforced my identity of being competent and capable. And, and if someone is experiencing right now being pushed out before they're ready, the first thing that I want to ask them is, what were you attached to? What is the loss? Because typically it's not just like the job, the title, the salary, the benefits, which obviously hurts quite a bit, but there are hidden losses underneath that. And that's what we really wanna take a look at to give a proper mourning, which is identity belonging a dream. Mm-hmm. Of belief and self confidence esteem. And that's why it can be so hard to pick oneself back up again after a career setback.

Yeah. I love that you're bringing this up. 'cause I think when you say it, it sounds very obvious. Like obviously you have your identities wrapped up. We all know this stuff, and yet it's never talked about. And most of us don't even realize that this is happening. We do think, okay, well I'm a little embarrassed, gosh, that I was fired, and what are people gonna think? Maybe? But we don't really think about it. The depth with which for so many of us, so much of our life and our personality becomes our jobs. Like there, it takes up so much of our adult life and it, you know, the first thing you talk about at a party is like, what do you do? And what all of this stuff
Exactly. Yeah.

And it be really becomes who you are and where would you start? Let's say this is happening to you and you wanna look at these things like how do you start unraveling? What is all these are these hidden things that I've also lost by losing this job so that I can actually heal them and deal with them and process them. And, but instead of just re like pushing it down and suppressing it and telling myself I'm okay, like how do I start dealing with that?

Yeah. The first thing that I I like to acknowledge is that there are two type of, two types of grievers. There are head grievers and heart grievers. Mm. So I'm a heart griever. Like I love to talk about my feelings. , I journal, you know, it's like I join groups and we, but then there's also like head grievers who may not be as comfortable or like to talk about feelings, write about feelings, be in a conversation with somebody else they like to do. Yeah. And so I just wanted to normalize that right away because there are like these unspoken rules about grief. And the truth is there are no rules to grief. There are tasks to grief, but there are no rules. Mm-hmm . So if you're someone who's a head griever and is like, oh geez, now I have to go talk about my feelings in order to be able to figure this out.

It's like you, you don't Yeah. But through action or through like self-examination, it's like, it's really starting to be with, and I know this sounds so uncomfortable and so painful, which is why I think just like normalizing career grief is so important is like I, I literally have my clients search to make a list of, okay, what are those visible losses? Yeah. And then just sitting with that takes a moment and then we start to unpack. It's like, what was it about that job, that title that felt so important to you? Mm-hmm . So for example, I had one client who was like, why am I so sad? Because I didn't even want that job. It's like my family wanted me to be a lawyer. I didn't really care about that. And then what really came up was the hidden loss of there was so much attachment to his family's perception of him as a successful professional. Totally. And when it didn't work out, that identity of being a successful professional was damaged when he was afraid that he had lost the confidence of his family. Yeah. And the hard truth is he did. Yeah. They were disappointed.
Yeah. So we can't be Pollyanna about this type of stuff.

No. Yeah. I love that you're, you, you say that because I do think that this is something that is so important. Like you said, if you don't deal with it, you're just carrying it around. It's not like it goes away. It's not as though like you're just okay, i I outta sight outta mind and I'm just gonna move on happily with my life. If we could do that, fine. Like we'd all tell you to do that. The problem is that you keep burying it and you said like for you, you didn't really realize until 10 years later. Right? It's, you carry around these deep feelings of shame and these, this unprocessed grief that pops up in a lot of different ways. And when you say this example, it's one that a lot of my clients deal with. It's one that I dealt with where you might be able to push through, you might create the willpower or the motivation to get another job to quit your job to, for me, like quitting being a lawyer and stuff.
But if you're not dealing with the underlying feelings of my family's now disappointed in me, and I don't have that respect that I maybe got instantly by telling people I was a lawyer and I don't have that identity of being this smart, successful, capable, whatever it is that comes along with that title, I'm constantly carrying that around with me. I'm constantly like making myself small or shirking away from things or not going after opportunities because I'm still carrying this kind of hidden wound of maybe I'm not capable anymore. Maybe I'm not this like hot shot anymore. Whatever it might be. And so I think that it's, it's so powerful to deal with it. And I guess my next question is that, is there a way for people to deal with this before they are leaving? Let's say you do wanna quit. You do you know that I don't wanna be a lawyer anymore and I wanna leave, but I know there's gonna be all of these feelings that come up with it, even if I go, even if I'm choosing it. Like how do I prepare myself so that I'm not shocked by all of these feelings that come up afterwards? ,
You and I are so similar. I know Like you, like logic is an important, Yeah. .

I was gonna say, I'm definitely a head griever what you were talking about. Like I grief, I was like, I just intellectualize everything. Like I don't wanna feel anything. Let's just think our way through this
. Yes. Yes. And and I'm so similar because I'm like, just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it so that I don't have to feel pain. Discomfort. Yeah. Sadness, grief. . . And the hard truth is that we, it we can't. Yeah. And, but the way that we can prepare is to be able to understand that we are gonna go through a grieving process and so that we can give ourselves grace and self-compassion and empathy. And uh, because once I figured out, oh my gosh, I'm grieving, I was like, okay, what do I need to do? Yeah. And then I started to beat myself up because I wasn't like moving through my grief quickly enough. Yeah. Which is just like ridiculous. And, and just as a quick aside, not to answer your question directly, but one of the things that's like the really interesting, and Mary Francis O'Connor wrote a book called The Grieving Brain.

Mm-hmm . Which is really fabulous. And it really helps us understand that when we're attached to something and that thing is no longer there, whether it's a person, a place, an idea, our brain needs to catch up with reality. And if it doesn't have a mourning process that helps the brain understand that thing that we are attached to no longer exists, then it's constantly searching for it. Which is why that during grief, we might feel like a lack of groundedness. We might have cognition issues, we might be confused, just oriented. And so for example, like when people die, we have a funeral. We might sit Shiva, there might be a memorial service. Yeah. It teaches our brains that person is no longer there. Mm. And so the brain catches up with career grief. Yeah. We don't have rituals. Yeah. So if you're anticipating, I'm going to be leaving this position, I'm going to be closing my company down, there's going to be a downsizing, I'm going to be laid off. And so there's some time to prepare, which is creating a ritual.

Yeah. I love that. To be able To have a good goodbye. Yeah. And you can do this like in anticipation. And we can also do this. I did it 10 years after I was fired, so it still works.
What did you do for your ritual?
Oh my gosh. This is, so when I was fired, they sent me all my stuff in a couple of bankers boxes, which was horrible and humiliating. Yeah. But as part of it that there were some files in there and there were these old reports that were associated with my job. And I, I kept them and I, I, I don't even, because they represented to me Yeah. The work that I had done and the projects that I had championed and the people that I worked with. And there finally came a day and it wasn't, it was probably, I think 12 years after I was fired where I finally was able to take those files. And it wasn't even like a fancy ritual. I just walked them to the recycling bin. Yeah. And I threw them away. But I remember like my palms were sweaty. Mm. My heart was beating because those files represented like this hope that maybe I could get my job back. And it's like, I'm not getting that job back. I'm not. And so putting them into this recycling bin was a physical manifestation for me of it is time for me to understand that the identity that I had, like this comp being competent and capable, those files weren't, that being competent and capable is something that I have to acknowledge and validate internally, not through an external Yeah. Situation person.

Yeah. I had a similar thing. It's so interesting, like now that I look back and I didn't have this vocabulary at the time, but it really took me, gosh, mm, five, six years, I don't know how, after I left the law and I knew with certainty that I'm never gonna go back. That I'm not gonna be a lawyer anymore. Like that trip sailed. I clearly had created this other business and, but I remember, and it, when you say now, I didn't realize I was doing a ritual, but it really was this ritualistic moment for me where every year I would get, I would have to re-up my dues to keep my license active as a lawyer. And you have to spend all this money and you have to keep up like continuing education credit. So you have to take like classes. And so every couple of years, whatever.

So I would like do these like full day workshops in order to keep up my classes. And every year I would, it would be silly to me and I kept thinking like, why are you keeping this up? Like why are you keeping this active? And it was always this fear of what if and what and what if I might need it at some point. And I knew I could reactivate it, like it would require some work, but like I could reactivate it. But I realized I was just holding on. It was just so hard for me to let go. It was hard for me to like go that last string of if I'm not an active status anymore, then I'm really not a lawyer. And what does that really say? And I, and I didn't realize this until like, it was a couple years where I was like, goy, this is silly.

Like you're not, you're not gonna go back. You're just paying all this money and stuff. And I remember like when it came, it always comes and like January, you have to pay by February. And I just remember like having this thing of like sitting down with myself and like really processing, like breathing through. Like I can trust myself to deactivate this. I can trust myself to know that like this chapter is closed and it was beautiful and we're ready to move on. And I just remember like when I chose that it was, it was such a like simple thing, like I'd already quit everything. I'd already left, but it was, I don't know, it felt very ceremoniously, like the final cutting of the tie for me. Like of this like link that I had to this profession. And I wasn't ready to do it until six years after.

And then when I was ready, it was like, okay, all right. You know, I remember years after that I was like, oh my God, why did I keep paying that due ? Like I was paying like $500 a year for no reason. It's interesting now that you say it as like a ritual, if I had that language, I think like it was a really profound moment. And I was glad that I let myself get to it in a place where I was ready to let go and I wasn't trying to rip off the bandaid or do these things. Like I kept these things that still felt like a little bit of comfort for me until I was ready to be like, okay, I don't need this anymore to make myself feel better or to make myself feel safe or in anything. And I love the idea of even really small rituals of closing that chapter.

Yeah. I'm so curious. So you said it was six years. Mm-hmm . After you'd left. Do you recall what was going on in your life at that six year point?
It's, I don't recall exactly what was happening. Maybe what, I honestly don't even know if it was six years or five years to be exact with you, like what the day was. I think I had just done a lot more, like you said, like feelings work. And I think I had created a lot more groundedness within myself, like self-trust. I had built a lot more like I, and I think my business had taken off and that reinforced this idea of I can figure this out, I can do something else. I don't need to hold onto this as like a baby blanket of like, oh my God, baby one day I have to go back. I think that there was a lot of that. It was just that fear-based kind of what if I need this? Because I wouldn't choose to go back. It was like if the sky fell and I had to become a lawyer again, I have my active status. And I think it was more of like, I had just come to this place of I know I can figure this out and I don't need this anymore.

Yeah. Yeah. I love the reference of the baby blanket. Yeah. I think that's such like a perfect, I always get metaphor and analogy mixed up , but because that, I think that's similar to me where it's those files that they just represented. Yeah. I don't know if like safety is the right word, but, and I just wasn't ready. Yeah. And so I think I just wanted to put a spotlight on that because if listeners are feeling like, oh, I have a talisman from my old job, or it's a business card, a coffee mug or whatever, and it's like I'm hanging onto it, it's like you'll release it when you're ready. Yeah. It's, and it's okay. It could be tomorrow, it could be five years from now. And just like a child developmentally holds onto that baby blanket. Yeah. It's, you know what it's like. It's okay. It's alright. Totally.

I love that. I love this so much because going back to what you were saying earlier too, I think in our society We, I think we're catching up a little bit, we're talking about it a little bit more, but I do think that grief has been so limited to the death of a person or really, I don't even wanna use this word because it like the traumas that maybe objectively everybody could agree is like a really big tragedy or whatnot. And I think that we don't realize how much grief can play a role in really any loss, like you were saying. Yes. Like any loss of something that you had an attachment to. And I think that exactly what you were saying earlier about the self-compassion of just like how much it can help to just know. Of course I feel, of course I feel sad, of course I feel, you know, a little unmoored or not grounded right now. Like of course I've left this big transition in my life.

Like I've started this transition even if I'm choosing it. Like I've had this identity for X number of years and I've now transitioned into something else. And simply, I feel like having the phrase for me, a lot of with my feelings, a lot of like how human of me are of course is like a really big one to just normalize like that. That, like you said, I don't have to be Pollyanna. I don't have to come out and think, oh my God, I hated that job. So it's great that I left and everything is wonderful and I should just be happy all the time. Where it's like, no, there was a lot that I still had wrapped up in this job. There was a lot in my identity, there was a lot in, and we can speak to also, I think there's another type of grief where there was a future I had envisioned yes, for all of us, when we go into a career, and especially if you've been in a career for a while, you've daydreamed about your future and when you're gonna get that promotion or become partner or whatever, and it's when you change course, you are also losing that entire future version of yourself that you had envisioned and you have to now reassess.

And so I think that there is like when you make room for all of these ways that you are grieving and allowing it to just be there, like of course this feels hard. And of course this is sad. And of course there's this process it can make going through it, I think a little bit easier in the sense that you're not also shaming yourself of I should just be happy, I should just move on. I should just be grateful that I can do something else. But actually just like making some space for those feelings.
Yeah. There are two things that pop up from what you just said, which is you and I are not making this stuff up . There's a whole bereavement community that Yeah, there's a label for this type of grief, which is called disenfranchised grief. Mm. And any type of grief that's not openly acknowledged or socially validated or publicly mourned. Mm. And there are a lot of different forms of pub of disenfranchised grief. It's like, obviously we're talking specifically about professional heartbreak, career grief, but it can also be, loss sometimes falls into that type of disenfranchised grief. I just wanna say, this isn't like you and I just being like woowoo, there's like science that that backs this up for sure. Right? Yeah. Right.

So do you work with people like when, when you're working with your clients, is there a type of, do you guys and really work on the grief of like that loss of that future too? That future self or that future that they'd envisioned and now that they have to re-envision that they have to cast a new vision for their future.
Yes. Exactly. And that brings up another point, which is like this duality, which is especially for people who may have been choosing to leave a particular role or exiting to start their own company, which is, I'm excited and I'm sad. Yeah. It's, I am terrified and I'm thrilled to be looking at a new vision. And that dream component is so significant. Yeah. And you articulated it so beautifully is that when we're making these transitions, we are having to say goodbye to our dreams, goals, parts of who we are to make room for something else. But is, and you've talked about this many times on your podcast, but our values change. Yeah. It's like we have new data, we have new experiences. Yeah. And they're, our values aren't chiseled in stone. And, and when there's a big life career event, it's a beautiful, powerful opportunity to pause to say, what are my values now? Mm-hmm . Yeah. And that is a part of the grief work as well.

Yeah. A lot of people that come in through my program too are like, okay, teach me how to do this thought work so I can feel better. And I'm always like, the goal is not to just feel better. It's to learn how to process these emotions. And it's to sit with just your full complexity as a human. Like the fact that you can't, like you said this duality, these feelings of I can be really excited and sad and I can be really like motivated and also a little like listless and a little restless and who knows? Like all, there's just, there's so much going on within all of us all the time and there isn't this like, I am now I'm happy and we're just gonna be happy all the time. Like there's just gonna be all of these feelings. And I love that you were saying like even with the grief part of it is just like allowing it to take as long as it takes or to just be, might even be a part of you.

That sadness, that loss something that is, it sort of, I think changes you in a little way. And so you, you don't maybe ever go back to what you were pre being fired or pre leaving that profession. Like that was a part of identity and now your identity is a little bit different. But I guess if people want to know where do they go to understand this more, where do they go to start really like even digging deeper into like what are the parts of me that I lost when I left that job? Or when I got fired or when I had to deal with this big loss, where would they start?

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that question so much. And there's an exercise that I like to do, which in, and not all of my clients are up for it, but the ones that do it really love it, which is actually choosing three or four people in your life to give you feedback about this is how you occur to me, this is my experience of you. Yeah. And then as you start to receive that feedback, you're gonna start to see yourself from an outside lens and you're gonna have a reaction to it. You're gonna have a response of, oh, that resonates. Or Oh, that feels comfortable. Oh, that's not me. And it's a way to start to generate the, this idea of who am I? Yeah. What is my identity? Because I have found that if you and I are working together and be like goalie, like how do you perceive yourself?
You'd be like, , I don't even know where to start . It's like such a weird question. Yeah. So if you start to get some external feedback, it gets things moving. Mm-hmm . And, and that level of self-awareness, my gosh, it's like you've been doing this for a long time. I've been doing this for a long time and I'm still discovering stuff about who I am. Totally. It's like I'm like, have to like, like really continually exercise that that muscle. It it, I was listening to one of your podcasts and you're talking about how like you really operate with logic and then when you said that, I was like, oh, that's part of my identity too. , I'm, I'm very logic based. Yeah. And then once you start to have that list of, yeah, okay, this is how I'm perceived and then this is how I perceive myself is then, and I know like you talk about body work as well, like people will say to me, oh Laverne, you're so organized.

And then I'm like, okay, how does that feel in my body? And I'm go and my body lights up. It's like, yes, that feels really good. I've had feedback when I've done this exercise where people will say, you are, you're very rigid. Very rigid. And it's, and I can feel myself tightening around that. Yeah. And then I go, I don't like that. But then if I dig a little bit deeper I go, oh, it's like I'm being perceived as rigid because part of what's important to me on my identity is structure. 'cause structure equals control for me. And I don't like being out of control. And so it's a hard truth that part of my identity is that I am, I'm a controlling person. Yeah. . And so when I'm fired, I'm out of control. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't like that. And then I'm like, I'm no longer in control, so what does that say about me?

Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. I think that there's so much that can be gleaned. Like I, I do that exercise a lot for other reasons, but just getting out of your own head of how you perceive yourself and seeing how other perceive, I think for so many of us, like we have such mean inner critics and the way that we think and talk about ourselves, it's so helpful to really go to the people that love you and to see yourself through their eyes to see all of these ways that they would describe you. That I think a lot of people get blown away 'cause they don't really even think about themselves in that way. And then to really start breaking down like these things of like, yeah, well I do have this because I've liked this and I've noticed for myself is I've done these exercises and oftentimes sometimes I do get things that I don't really love people will describe and I'm like, oh, I don't know if that's a good thing , but I do realize that it's something that has protected me.
It's something that was like kind of a defense mechanism. Like you were saying like you might do control. Like for me it's people pleasing. Like I always wanted to be like, and I realized that that's yeah most women, right? I've noticed that like both the people pleasing and my high achieving, I think there are not always great things. They work born out of a need to want validation and to want to be safe and to want to be protected. And so I was like, Hey, if I keep achieving and if I keep doing all the things that everybody else wants me to do, then people will like me. And as I have grown up and I do these exercises, oftentimes I look at that and I would get the kind of constricted like ugh, I don't like necessarily being known as like somebody that needs to achieve in order to feel good about themselves.

But I can look at like how much this has served me to get me to where I am and how do I wanna use this in the future. Like it isn't a strength for me. It is something that keeps me motivated to build my business and to grow and to try new things and to go after big dreams and all that stuff is great. But I also know it's like a double-edged sword, right? Like the flip side of that coin is that I push myself to do things just to get to like get the pat on the head of like, oh my God, look you achieved this thing and I have to reign that in and that's okay. And I learned how to do that. I just learned to like check in to be like, am I doing this because I want other people to validate me or am I doing this because I actually wanna achieve this thing?

And so it's never like an all or nothing thing. You feel like those are parts of me that like I'm never gonna get rid of. I'm not gonna not be a people pleaser, but I can learn to like rein it in a little bit. I can learn like, hey goalie, this is where like you're doing, again, you're abandoning yourself and saying yes to everybody because you want them to like you. Okay, we can work on saying no a little bit. But also knowing I also love helping people and it's sort of this becomes this like balance of what are these parts of me that were these protective mechanisms that I have to reign in a little bit and yet it is what makes me me and it is what has led me to here. And they are beautiful parts. They just also can get me in a little bit of trouble.

Yeah, absolutely. And you used the word safe and safety. Yeah. And it's popped up in our conversation quite a bit today. And that's also like one of the things that grief really pokes at when it specifically with career grief is that sense of safety. Because we're again, either being pushed out or choosing to leave things that are familiar to us and the, you know, something being unfamiliar or uncertain that triggers a lot of big feelings For sure.

I think for anybody that's listening, and I think everyone likely is resonating because all of us have gone through some kind of a grief of some kind of loss, whether that's people, relationships, careers or whatnot. And I think oftentimes it is very hard work. You know, obviously we don't choose to have lives free of grief. But I think part of what is a good reminder is that we all go through this. And the reason I say this is that like from all the people that I've coached, there seems to be this natural progression of you do what everybody told you to do. 'cause that's how we were raised and we didn't, we don't know any better, right? We are, we're told by teachers and parents and we follow whatever path we're we end up following. And in your twenties, maybe early thirties, like you're doing all, you're checking off all the boxes, you're whatever.

It's like you end up creating some kind of a, your persona based on what you think you need to do. And a lot of us in those years, I think do base a lot of our worth on how people perceive us, what we achieve and whatnot. And I think it is a good correction where you lose something and that causes this grief, but it helps you find who you really are. Like whether that's grief, it might be through a career loss, it might be through a career transition. It might be like a relationship that ends, that causes you to have to really reevaluate who am I when I'm not in this relationship or I'm when I'm not with this person. Or it might be like friendship loss or it might be some kind of like event that happens that triggers this type of a grief.

And I think we typically look at it as loss or like the sadness. But I really look at it as like when you go through this rebirth of coming back to like, who am I when I am not this to everybody else, when I'm not putting on this persona for everyone else, like who was I at the core of myself? And I think that it's like a really beautiful, it can be a very beautiful process because in the end, like you were saying underneath all of this, like when I needed validation or whatnot, who is this person that isn't attached to this job? What is my identity when it's not attached to this person? And I think discovering that is not only like empowering, but such a beautiful journey back to yourself. And so I encourage people like to not be afraid of going through this grief process. Like it's actually a very beautiful process.

It's so transformative if we allow it to be. Yeah. And because people talk about I need to get over the grief, I need to get past this. And this is just another hard truth is that the grief will be with you for the rest of your life. It's Mary Francis O'Connor, the author that I referenced from in terms of the grieving brain. She talks about how grief is like a broken bone. So let's say I broke my, my upper arm that if I didn't have it set properly, I might be still be able to function, move. There's gonna be pain, there's gonna be discomfort. Now let's say I did set that bone properly and now I've regained full motion. I've got all my strength back a year later, 10 years later, 50 years later, if we x-ray the up my upper arm, you will see that my arm had been broken. Grief is the same way. And so the mourning process is really teaching us how to integrate that loss into our lives. And it's through that integration, that transformation happens and we become even richer and even more full bodied because the grief comes from this thing that we love, that we are attached to.

That was really important to us. And so of course it deserves to be honored and to have a sacredness and a ritual
That's so beautiful. I love the way that you would just put that. And I, and I look back too, it's like I look at the person I am now, and like you say, the richness when I look back at my younger self and I love her and she was doing the best she could, but it was so fascinating, like how much I thought I knew all the answers and I knew how to live and I knew the right way and I knew all I had my whole life figured out. And I was like checking off boxes and I was like, look at me. And I'm so grateful that I went through this process that I went through this loss, this really huge loss of my identity that had been like the foundation of my whole life was built on this identity of like me being a successful lawyer and the amount that it shaped me into becoming so much more empathetic and understanding of other people and accepting and human and allowed me to like release so much of this perfectionism and these masks and that there's such a richness to me. I feel like now that I look back and I'm like, that would've never happened if I just kept living within my box of, well, I'm just gonna do all the things that I'm supposed to do. And so I love that you say it because I do think there's just such a beautiful transformation that waits for you and it is painful, , listen, it is painful to transform but worth it.

It truly is. And it's such a rite of passage to have this type of grief because I strongly believe that so much of our identity is formed as a way, it's like a reflection of how we survived our childhood. Yeah. It doesn't mean that we had a bad childhood. I had an amazing childhood, but I still had to survive my childhood. So again, like me being competent and capable was the identity that I formed in order to be able to get through my childhood and be safe as an adult. I didn't really need to do that, but I thought I did. And so now my identity is so much more tied into the things that truly reflect what's important to me as a more fully formed human being as an adult. So it's such an incredible opportunity you had to get clear on who you really wanna be.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I could talk to you forever about this because I think it's such a fascinating topic, but I guess before we wrap up, if you could give one piece of advice or parting advice for somebody that maybe is going through this type of a transition. Maybe they have gotten laid off or fire recently, or they're choosing to leave any parting words for them.
Yeah, I feel like the one thing that we touched on, but I just wanna highlight is that there are grief spikes and one could go through aour process come at it, it feeling richer, deeper, more grounded, more clear, which is awesome. But it's highly unusual not to have at some point or several points in one's life, a grief spike where you're driving past the firm that you were working at. Yeah. And you went into an old colleague or like a random commercial or something on Netflix, and all of a sudden like a memory floods back. And I just really wanna be able to say to people, there's nothing wrong with you. You did not do grief wrong. You didn't screw up your mourning process. It's just, if we go back to that broken bone analogy, it's like it rains and sometimes my arm aches.

It's Like Totally. Oh my God. I love that you say that because I've had that many a times and I think that, again, one of the best skills that I've learned is like, again, just accepting that this is just a natural part of it. Like of course I feel this way or that not to make something mean more than it does. And I've had so many times where exactly what you're saying, I might see like an old colleague out somewhere, and then all of a sudden you start getting flooded with these memories and then you start questioning like, should I have never quit? And should I? And then it's like I just let myself like, like of course like, okay, this is coming up because like it's always there, right? And it's like, no, we're safe, we're okay. Like we're happy in our life. So much of this is just for me, is not freaking out about the emotions that come up. Like just letting them be there and getting curious about them and being like, huh, that's still there. Like that sadness, interesting. That's, I guess gonna come along with me. It makes it so much easier to process to have them be there without making it mean something more than it is.

Yeah. I love your expression, how human, yeah,
I love, I use that one literally constantly with myself. I recommend it to everybody. Thank you so much, Lauren. This has been so insightful and so helpful. Where can people find you if they do wanna work more deeper on the grief that they're going through, maybe through their loss of their career, or I don't know if you work on other types of grief, you can let us know how you work with people and where they can find you.
My specialty is definitely in the career grief. Mm-hmm . Realm. And I wanna send people to Substack, oh my name, Laverne McKinnon or Moonshot Mentor, and I post their weekly, but I also host a lot of workshops, trainings, a lot of re free resources for people who are in career transition and also experiencing, you know, a professional heartbreak.

Love that. I will put those in the show notes so that people can find it if they can't write that down. Thank you again, I can't thank you enough. I think this was absolutely needed and I am so grateful to you for not only being here, but for doing this work that is so important.
Thank you for the opportunity.

Hey, if you are looking for more in-depth help with your career, whether that's dealing with all of the stress, worry, and anxiety that's leading to burnout in your current career or figuring out what your dream career is and actually going after it, I want you to join me in the Quitter Club. It is where we quit what is no longer working like perfectionism, people pleasing imposter syndrome, and we start working on what does, and we start taking action towards the career and the life that you actually want. We will take the concepts that we talk about on the podcast and apply them to your life, and you will get the coaching to tools and support that you need to actually make some real change. So go to lessons from a quitter.com/quitter club and get on the wait list. Doors are closed right now, but they will be open soon.