February 18, 2026 • 38 mins
Growth isn’t just about what we’re building, it’s also about what we’re letting go.
In this episode, Indra and Stephanie examine the hidden grief that can accompany promotions, career pivots, restructures, and identity shifts. They talk about grieving what you thought would be, survivor’s guilt in the workplace, and why ignoring emotions doesn’t make them disappear. This conversation offers language, perspective, and practical tools for moving through change without bypassing yourself, or your team.
Takeaways
- Grief can show up in unexpected ways, even during positive changes.
- The 'goo stage' represents the messy transformation process.
- Letting go of past identities is crucial for growth.
- Community plays a significant role in our emotional well-being.
- Grief is not just about loss; it can be about change and transition.
- Acknowledging grief in the workplace is essential for a healthy culture.
- Emotions are energy in motion; they need to be allowed to flow.
- Grief is not linear; it can resurface at any time.
- Building a supportive community can help navigate grief.
- Compassion for oneself is key during times of transition.
Follow Stephanie:
- Stephanie on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniesimpsoncoaching/
- Stephanie’s Website: https://www.stephanie-simpson.com/
- Stephanie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephaniesimpsoncoaching/
More from Indra and The Messy Middle Matters
- Indra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/indrak/
- Indra’s Blog: https://peopleprocessthings.substack.com
- The Messy Middle Matters on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themessymiddlematters/
- Feedback for The Messy Middle Matters: https://messymiddlematters.com/feedback
- The Messy Middle Matters Merch https://messymiddlemerch.com
Keywords
grief, change, transformation, identity, workplace culture, emotional intelligence, goo stage, community, leadership, burnout
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Indra Klavins (00:06):
Hi. I'm Indra, and I'd like to welcome you to
the messy middle matters, wheremy friends and I explore all the
twists, turns and challengesthat arise in the messy middle
of work. Hey, everyone, welcomeback to the messy middle matters
day. You know, we've talked alot over the past episodes about
like change and promotions andhow to reinvent yourself and how
(00:30):
to constantly stay relevant. Butthe one thing that we really
haven't talked about, we'vetouched on. We touched on a
little bit in an episode withMickey, and we touched on it in
a little bit in an episode nottoo long ago, with our guest
today is grief. Grief can showup in the most interesting,
unexpected ways, and sometimesit even shows up when you get
(00:52):
the thing that you wanted. Sobefore we go any further, let me
welcome Stephanie back.Stephanie, thank you so much for
joining me for a second.
Stephanie Simpson (01:00):
Yes, thank you for having me again. I mean,
we could have talked for hourslast hours. I'm glad you're
putting me back on.
Indra Klavins (01:07):
Well, for people who didn't hear you the last
time, maybe they were listeningto things in reverse order, tell
everybody a little bit aboutyourself. Sure.
Stephanie Simpson (01:14):
So I'm based in New York City, and I have my
own coaching and consultingbusiness, working with people in
various industries in a varietyof different ways. So to be more
specific, working with peoplenavigating change and
transition. My background is instress management and
(01:35):
psychology, and really lookingat it from a holistic
perspective. So the first partof my career was actually a
dancer, an artist, performingartist, and while I still play
around in that world as well,how I bring that into my work is
really getting people back intotheir bodies, which I think will
probably come up a few times inour conversation today, and then
(01:58):
working with organizations increating leadership development
programs and team and groupcoaching, as well as like
executive coaching, so thatwe're creating spaces that
people are being supported to dothe work that they're being
asked to do in a sustainableway. So it also connects to like
(02:20):
burnout and workplace culture,and a lot about emotional
intelligence and relationalintelligence and all of the what
we call the soft skills, whichare sometimes actually the
harder to be able to learn anddevelop because we didn't
actually get a lot of trainingin that in school, or things
(02:42):
like that we learn, like how todo the hard skills or the
technical things, and yet all ofthat in air quotes humans is
important and can create a lotof stress and overwhelm that can
be detrimental over time. Sothat's those are the kind of the
spaces in the world in which Iplay.
Indra Klavins (03:00):
Yeah, and you joined, so is episode 46 for
anyone wondering. And we weretalking about the goose stage,
just because I imagine we'regoing to reference it just a
little bit. Can you give, like,the quick top line on what the
goose stage is, and a little bitof of that so that people can
maybe it's a teaser for theformer episode too. A little
bit.
Stephanie Simpson (03:19):
Yeah, so I started using the phrase the
goose age a couple of years ago,because, as I mentioned, I work
with a lot of, like, change andtransition. And really, we're
all going through change andtransition all the time. That's
what growing means, living meansGoodness gracious, exactly. And
(03:39):
what I started realizing, andlike, kind of tapping into, and
talked about this on the otherepisode, is, you know, I really
like butterflies. I always have,and just that metaphor that a
lot of people use is like, youknow, remember, change the
caterpillar had to change to go,to turn into the butterfly. And
I just kind of like, I was like,yes, that's really, like,
(04:00):
hopeful, and yet, what we don'ttalk a lot about is that. And
what's so great about yourpodcast is that messy middle,
right? And what happens from thecaterpillar to the butterfly,
and that is the goo stage, as Icall it, in the chrysalis,
right? Where the caterpillaractually has to, like, fully,
(04:20):
like dissolve its form, it's ingoo right before and over a
period of time, then starts tobuild its wings so that it can
emerge as a butterfly. And forme personally, as somebody who
left my full time career thatwas, you know, on a wonderful
trajectory and all of that, butto also expand what I, you know,
(04:45):
my potential, and follow whatwas calling me, which was to
build my own business. It was aside hustle. At first. The last
four or five years, I havestarted to realize, like, Oh, I
like, I kept saying to friends,like, I just feel like a puddle.
I don't know. Quite what I amyet, like all of that. And I was
like, Oh my gosh, I'm in the goostage. And so, and I, I've
(05:07):
written a lot about this interms of, like, your whole life
doesn't need to be in a goostage, but there might be
aspects of things that are alittle gooier than others, and
and all of that. So that's whatwe mean by the goo stage. Yeah.
Indra Klavins (05:21):
And you know why, how this second episode showed
up is when we were talking aboutthat goose stage, just when
you're when you're in the gooseage, you have to let go of your
identity, identity ascaterpillar. And you might have
loved your shape. You might haveloved the way they even climb up
trees. You might have loved howyou can, like, descend from a
(05:41):
silk depending on what kind ofCaterpillar You are. I don't
know enough about caterpillarsand butterflies to get this
scientifically perfectly, right,but you know, there are so many
things that you you were soproud of that are no longer that
no longer suit, you, no longerfit, no longer are in your
capacity to be able to do like,if I'm thinking about like
(06:01):
people leadership, when you stepinto a people management role,
you were peers with a wholebunch of people, and now you're
at a different level, and youneed to let go of that
relationship that you once had,because they don't, they can't,
and they shouldn't actually seeyou the same way that they did
before, because you have adifferent role, you have
different responsibility, youhave different access. And it's
(06:23):
it's just that, that thatletting go of that previous
identity is like it shows upover and over again in life.
Stephanie Simpson (06:30):
That's a wonderful example, because I
feel like that's so relatable topeople in the sense, there's a
few things, many things that youprobably have to let go in in
that transition, one being theway you relate to people, right?
And that can be veryuncomfortable, right? It Becomes
(06:52):
You also are now in a positionthat's new to you, so you're
learning new things. And there'sa lot that comes up with that
typically. And this is not maybefor everybody, but what you were
doing as maybe an individualcontributor, you're going to end
up doing less when you move intoa people manager role. And so
you're actually letting go ofthe thing that was really that
(07:15):
you were really good at that gotyou to where you are in order to
continue to expand into whereveryou think you might be going.
And so there's a lot of likemessiness there. I don't know
why this came up right now is,and so I'm just going to share
it. But the other image thatcame up to me is the messiness,
or the goo, or like being in themud. I kind of feel like the
(07:37):
messiness muddy. I always remindclients that the lotus flower
actually grows from mud like ithas to be in the muddy waters to
be able to grow. And so beingable to, how do I say this,
being able to be okay in thatuncomfortable, messy middle is
(08:01):
what's going to help you becomethe butterfly or the lotus
flower, whatever, whatevervisual really resonates with
you.
Indra Klavins (08:08):
I love that you brought the lotus flower in
because it is one of those. It'sa, it's a, it's a metaphor, and
it's an imagery that is reallywell known around the globe,
more so in Asia, but it is sobeautiful and so evocative. And
so many teach, so many of myteachers talk about like, you
(08:30):
has to go the seed goes into themud. It goes into the mud at the
bottom, and it doesn't knowwhat's going on, but it's just
reaching. It's reaching. It'sreaching. And it's just like,
hoping to like, it's just trust.It's trusting the process of
like, no, hold on. Like, gottatrust that process and keep
reaching for that sun.
Stephanie Simpson (08:47):
Yeah, and you know what came to mind, as you
were saying, that is in order totrust, you also have to
surrender and let go. So goingback to like the caterpillar,
the caterpillar has to like thecaterpillar doesn't know that
it's going to become abutterfly, doesn't know what it
looks like all of that. It'sjust trusting, right? It's
surrendering and legitimatelyletting go of its form and in
(09:09):
that, like, if we want to bringin the grief part about that,
even something I learned sospeaking from my journey leaving
the full time position that Ihad for many years, I was
choosing to leave there. Therewas no like, hey, we want you to
go. I brought it up and waslike, I am planning to leave
(09:30):
this well, I ended up havingthem as a client afterwards,
doing some of the work that Iwas doing. But I was like, I'm
gonna leave here full time. I'mexpanding my business, all of
that. And what I wasn't preparedfor was, within that first year,
I was like, Why do I feel reallysad about certain things? I knew
(09:52):
that it was going to be achallenge, you know, building a
business as an entrepreneur. Ithink most people know that i. I
felt like I was prepared as muchas I could and knew and knew
enough to be excited and not toomuch to be over, like whelmed
that this could never work. WhatI did not anticipate was the
(10:14):
community that I was leavingthat was built in, and while I
think I was ready to leave thatspecific community. I didn't
realize how much community wasreally important to me. I also
was shifting a lot of what I wasdoing on a daily basis. So in
that previous job, I was ineducation. I was building a
(10:38):
dance program and a coachingprogram at the school. I was
connecting to my creative sidein a very different way than I
do now. And so there was anidentity shift I mentioned. I
said, In my previous career, Istill consider myself a
performing artist and an artist,but I wasn't doing that on a
daily basis the way I wasbefore, and there was a lot that
(11:00):
was a huge loss for me. And itwasn't until I was in therapy,
which I do regularly, that mytherapist was like, well, you're
grieving. And I was like, well,but nothing died like, no one
died like all of that. Becausein my brain, that's what we talk
about grieving, is when you whensomeone dies or passed away or
you lose. I mean, I was alsoalways told, like, you know, a
(11:21):
relationship that dies, like,that's that's a grieving thing.
But I hadn't thought about it inthis way, especially since I
chose to do this. And she waslike, just because you chose to
do something doesn't meanthere's still not emotions that
are connected to that loss. Andthat's when I was like, Oh,
(11:41):
actually, like, a weight kind ofcame off of me. Like, there's
not something wrong with me. Ididn't do something wrong. I
didn't make a mistake, right?Things that were my my inner
Gremlin, my inner critic, wastelling me, Well, you should
have done that. See, look atthis blah blah, and going,
actually, no, this is part ofthe process. And how can I
continue to hold myself in thatso that I'm not getting stuck in
(12:04):
it, so I can continue to moveforward and that both and is it
both things can be true. I couldbe really ready to leave and
expand and not knowing what'sgonna like come of this, but
excited to explore that and feela sense of loss for the
community that I was leaving andthe the work that I was doing,
even though I was very muchready to leave, doing that work
(12:27):
in that sort of way on a dailybasis.
Indra Klavins (12:30):
I love that story because, you know, it highlights
the fact we've been conditionedthat to correlate grief with,
like, obvious, visible loss,right? It's, it's, it's the loss
of a relationship with the lossof a loved one. It's this,
really, it's really evident in,like, in your face and like,
it's a very clear thing. Butwhat you're talking about is the
(12:53):
grief that can happen in thesereally unexpected ways and and
what you're also talking I lovethe way that you were talking
about, how naming it, how thefact that your therapist helped
you name that as grief, shiftedthe whole thing. And it's we've
we've talked about this a littlebit earlier. So over the past
(13:14):
couple of weeks, I've beenreflecting on the word grief,
and it's showing up everywhere.It's like, oh, it's the grief
that I have for the fact thatthat was a hard time. It's the
grief that I have for the factthat I can't stay for the full
happy hour. Using that metaphoragain, of like, you're now a
people manager, your job is topay for happy hour. It is not to
(13:35):
hang out and talk about thingsanymore, right? It's the grief
over these little, tiny, littlethings. But these tiny, these
seemingly tiny things, are someaningful. Like you were
talking about community, yeah,yes, something that came to mind
as you were talking is, I seewith a lot of my clients, the
grief of, well, they wouldn'thave labeled it grief at first,
(13:58):
and then I will ask a question,and they're like, I think that's
what it is.
Stephanie Simpson (14:01):
It think like the where they thought they
would be at this point, right?So wherever are on your journey
in life, we all probably havesome sort of conscious or
unconscious, like idea of wherewe think we should be, myself
included, and I, I'm, like,vividly remembering a client
(14:23):
right now where a lot of whatwas happening is they were
getting stuck in, like, Well, Imean, I feel like I should be
here, and I should be here,blah, blah. And like, I just
feel really heavy. Or, you know,things aren't bad, but like, I
still just don't feel like,motivated, and I just, I just
feel really heavy. And I waslike, it sounds like you're
grieving what you thought wasgoing to be. And I just saw them
(14:47):
shift completely, and they werelike, That's it. That is it like
I had this vision in my head ofwhat this was going to look like
and where I was going to be,whether that's personally,
professionally. Like,romantically, like, whatever
that is, and this isn't quitethat, or I haven't gotten there
yet, or any of that, and that'sfrustrating, and that's sad and
(15:09):
it's overwhelming, and that'sgrief, right? The same way as
when we do lose a lose someone,whether it's, you know, through
them passing or loss of arelationship, there are those
questions of, like, why did thishappen? Like, why is this
happening to me? Why is thishappening to us? What could we
have done differently? Like, allof that. And that's normal, that
is being a human, yeah.
Indra Klavins (15:31):
And I think that the the interesting thing is, is
that the grief in theseexamples, the grief doesn't show
up by itself. Like, the griefmight be showing up in like,
let's say, using the example ofgoing and going independent, not
working for a company anymore,right? There is the excitement
over doing something new. Thereis the fear of not getting it
(15:53):
right, you know, of all thelike, let's say legal filings
and all the other things thatyou have to do. And then there's
the grief and when, when youhave multiple emotions happening
at the same time,differentiating them can be hard
and finding space to to honorthat. Let's say, in this case,
we're talking about grief,finding the space to honor that.
(16:14):
And it could be brief, it couldbe long. Depends on the person
that's this is not a therapysession for everyone, right?
We're, you know, we're justwhere our job here today is to
really talk about it and justsurfaces that people can
explore. But how do you dealwith that? How do you
acknowledge that grief and stillstay excited about the thing, or
still keep the hope that thisgoose stage is going to turn
(16:36):
into something as beautiful as abutterfly like finding that
balance can be really hard.
Stephanie Simpson (16:42):
Yes, yeah, I you know, you said that really
wonderfully. And as you weretalking, I was thinking to
myself, around this time frameof being in February is the time
frame that I would be directingand choreographing a show at my
previous job. And so grief, theother thing about it, and
(17:04):
depending on how many like whatlisteners have, have read or
listened to about grief, isgrief isn't linear, either,
right? So these emotions cancome up whenever, like, we might
not even realize they're comingup, right? Or all of a sudden we
get this, like, wave. And Ialways say emotions are energy
(17:25):
in motion, so, like, allowingthe emotions to actually flow.
So there could be this wave ofthings. And around this time
every year since I've left thatjob, I do get a little bit of,
like, something in my heartcenter going, like, I'd be going
into tech week, you know, soon,and costumes would be coming
together, and my vision forwhatever show we're doing is
(17:47):
starting to come together, or isI'm nervous it won't come
together, you know, whatever itis. And there is a part of me
that each year goes that like Iwant to feel, that I allow
myself to feel it. And, youknow, you said the actually
allowing yourself to feel it andname it, then allows it to move
right, and I'm not bypassing andthis is like the work, the
(18:10):
practice that I'm also trying tocontinue to get better at, is
going, it's okay that I feelthat, how can I show how can I
feel gratitude for it, and Notgo, like, Okay, but what I'm
doing is so much better now,because, like, I don't know if
what I'm doing is actually thatmuch better now, right? Like, I
still
Indra Klavins (18:28):
different, right print
Stephanie Simpson (18:30):
and going, you know, I can, I can still
have a lot of gratitude. I canhave a lot of fond love for
that, and go, and I'm reallyproud of myself for the things
I'm doing now and, and if I everdid want to, like, go back to
something like that, I couldalways do that if I wanted to,
and and find a way to to bringparts of that back, which I also
(18:54):
think grief can be a really goodteacher, right? Like, if we
actually pause and go, What isit that I'm really grieving?
Like, what is it that I'mgrieving? So going back to the
community thing, at one point, Iwas like, Yeah, wow. Why am I
feeling this? Like, what am Iactually feeling? What am i
Great? What am I actuallyfeeling like I lost? And the two
big things for me, as Imentioned before, was community.
(19:18):
And so then that was, gave medata to go okay, so how can I be
more intentional now withbuilding community in my life?
Because here's the other thing,I didn't really build that
community where I was teachingthat it was It happened by
default, because that's where Iwas every day for many, many,
many hours. Not to say thatthat's not legit. It is, but now
(19:42):
I get to be intentional. Who doI want to build community with,
who where do. And that can alsobe scary, right? Like I joined a
Run Club. And let me tell you, Istalked the run Club's Instagram
for three or four months beforeI got the courage and the guts
to actually go to a run. And,yeah. Now, two and a half years
later, a lot of those people arebig parts of my life, right? So
(20:05):
it does take a lot of braverytoo. We don't, you know, the
caterpillar has to be brave.And, I mean, I don't know if
they actually are feelingbravery. I don't know if that's
a thing for caterpillars, but Iimagine that, like, there has to
be this, this bravery andcourage to go. I'm going to do
this thing just the same way asall of us, right? I'm going to
try this thing. I'm going to doit. I have no guarantee of what
(20:25):
it's going to look like, or orany of that, but I'm at least
going to try. So that was datafor me. And the other one was
this identity around, well, thiscould get into a whole nother
conversation around, how muchdoes the thing that we do become
who we think we are. And sobeing that, I was a
(20:47):
choreographer, a dancer, artseducation, arts education, arts
education, a director, you know,a creator, all of that, I to do
a lot of work for myself aroundjust because I'm not doing that
every day doesn't mean I'm notone of those things anymore. It
might look different. I'm doingit in a different costume,
(21:10):
right? As I used as my languageall the time for things, but
that can be really, really hard,at least for me. It was. I've
seen it with other people too,is like, but I'm not doing that
thing. So clearly, I'm not thatanymore, and that's not true.
And so being able to haveempathy for ourselves, like
(21:30):
that's a lot grief, requires usto have a lot of empathy for
ourselves, compassion forourselves, patience and to slow
down. Yeah.
Indra Klavins (21:41):
So you, you spoke about something that was, I
think is important to highlightthe concept of bypassing, right?
And I want to also bring thatconcept into grief when things
are happening with anorganization as a whole, right,
whether it's reorganizationsrestructuring. So bypassing,
I've never been great atdefining it, so I'll do my best.
(22:02):
But bypassing, basically, ispretending like the thing is not
going on and really and just andlike hoping that the feeling
goes away. That's it's notputting the feeling to the side
and knowing you're going to dealwith it feeling later, because
you're dealing with crisis rightnow. Those are two very
different things. Bypassing isreally pretending that it's
going to go away because youignored it. And a lot of in the
(22:24):
years 2025 2026 we have no ideawhat it's, what's, what's really
going to happen in theworkplace, but if 2025 is any
evidence of it, there will beongoing restructurings of
organizations. We will be losingcolleagues to different
organization. We might be theones who leave or asked to leave
because of budget cuts, orwhatever it might be, navigating
(22:48):
grief in a corporate environmentwhere most, many companies, I
won't say most many companies,have this concept of like, oh,
put your feelings at the door asif we're not human beings that
are just literally incapable ofdoing that we can pretend like
we do, but we don't, and helpinghow? Let's talk about navigating
(23:08):
grief in those types ofenvironments where everyone is
navigating it together, and itmay not be acknowledging grief,
it using language like that maynot be encouraged. You bring up
a really great point
Stephanie Simpson (23:24):
when there are any restructuring, right?
Usually, that means some peopleare either getting let go of the
company, or being put on adifferent team,
Indra Klavins (23:35):
or even new people coming right, like
there's a whole influx of newpeople, that's a restructuring
too,
Stephanie Simpson (23:40):
yeah, people coming in, which then changes
roles and responsibilities. Soany sort of change like that is
going to bring up some sort ofgrief for the people involved.
And what I wish companies did alittle more was pay attention to
the fact that, just like yousaid, when a team changes in any
(24:01):
sort of way, but especially whenthere's layoffs and all of that,
the people that are remaining,there's a lot going on with
that. A a colleague just leftthat maybe was your bestie at
work, maybe not even yourbestie. But now they're not
there. You're there. Might befeelings of like, Thank God I
didn't get cut, but oh my gosh.Like, I feel so bad that, like,
(24:24):
[survivors guilt], I get, notget caught, right? Yeah, the
idea that we then are justexpected to go along like
everything's fine, and, and, or,like, yes, so this is where
we're at. And it's like, okay,so what are we doing now? And
it's like, we don't know. Justhang tight. Keep doing what
you're doing, like, we'll figureit out. Like that type of, I
(24:48):
don't even know what to I don'tthink of it as really good,
effective leadership.
Indra Klavins (24:52):
It's not skillful, it's not useful, no,
right?
Stephanie Simpson (24:55):
It is actually, I mean, there's a
little bit of dehumanizing and.It dehumanizing. I can't even
say that word right now. It isdehumanizing, yes, because that
is a loss, and so we areprocessing that into actually
connected to the stress part ofit when you are not
acknowledging your emotions andyou are trying to bypass or
(25:18):
ignore or someone is devaluingthem, or being like, no, no,
like, we don't time for this, orwhatever you're feeling that
doesn't make sense, like, keepmoving forward, that gets stuck
in the body. So again, like Isaid, emotions are energy in
motion when we're not allowingthem to move, it gets stuck in
the body, which then creates theunhealthy parts of stress, and
(25:43):
that, literally, we hold it intension many people in their
shoulders or their back or theirjaw or their stomach, and then
that can cause different things,like, you know, just a lot of
other things that becomeproblematic with that and weaken
our immune system. So now we'renot actually as healthy like in
(26:04):
a in a cellular level, and allof that that then goes into a
lot of other stuff, right? Sonot recognizing that there are
human beings, and thereforeemotions are always part of
being a human, not recognizingand creating a space and
normalizing it is is, to me,like a negligent, sort of
(26:29):
negligent thing that that thenis creating these toxic
environments for people, andbeing able to recognize in a
really sincere way that areorganization is hard and
challenging, and here's howwe're going to move through it
(26:49):
together. And if you're not on aleadership team, thinking about
that languaging before you dothings like I really hope you
do,
Indra Klavins (26:57):
yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about and I'll
share some of my ideas, and thenI would love to hear yours, too,
when there is something thathappens. So I was in an
organization that was they hadthe terrible habit of wanting to
cut the top, low, the lowest 10%of people regularly to make sure
only the best and the brightestwere there, right? And these,
(27:19):
these layoffs, this layoff, withthis one in particular happened
without much warning, so itreally came out of left field
for everyone. Everyone wasshocked, and there are a couple
of different things that we did.So remember, leaders are not all
people managers. Anyone can be aleader, so y'all have this in
your hands, no matter what yourrole is. If you are a people
(27:42):
manager, I highly encourage youhaving an Ask Me Anything in all
hands or whatever. There aredifferent ways. And I could
probably, I'll probably write ablog post about this now that
I'm thinking about it, about howto run one of those really well,
where you are honoring thehumans you're protecting. You're
You're abiding by the law,because there's a lot of legal
(28:04):
things that you would need toworry about, and you're
protecting your own humandignity in the process, because
you're going to be in thecrosshairs during that AMA,
right? So like, but I'll writesomething about that. Maybe
we'll have an episode on that,but stay tuned for that. Maybe
in a couple of weeks, I'llrelease that for everyone.
Follow me on LinkedIn. If youwant that, it'll be in the show
notes. But if you're not apeople leader, same same
(28:27):
example, same thing, I went outand bought a like, dozens of
donuts, and I brought them in,and I was walking around with
them, I said, Would you like toeat your feelings? Would you
like to eat your feelings? Okay,don't it's not the healthiest
example, but what it did, it wasit acknowledged the fact that
this really stinks. I know thisis not great. All I know how to
(28:51):
do is to go and buy donuts rightnow. Would you like to eat your
feelings?
Stephanie Simpson (28:57):
Well, you know what I love that you just
did there? Because this is athis is a tool and a skill that
people can learn, that I hopeeveryone can learn, not only
just for themselves, but foreverybody in their life, is
acknowledging and validating.It's something that when you go
through coach training, and ifyou ever work with a certified
coach, they are trained how tolike, acknowledge and validate.
(29:18):
And so I train all of my leaderson it, and I love that you say
leaders does not mean that youneed to be in a managerial
position. Leadership, the way Idefine it, is having influence,
and I hope that everyone feelslike they're a leader of at
least their own life, and thatthey're influencing their own
life. So even if you're onlyusing this, this tool and skill
(29:38):
on yourself, lovely, wonderful,but acknowledging and validating
what you just example you hadthere was like, I'm
acknowledging that somethinghappened and validating that
you're that emotions are okay.And here's a way that I can help
bring some comfort right now,which is maybe some donuts, and
maybe someone's like, I don'tneed the donuts, but just the
(29:59):
fact that you feel. Thoughtabout acknowledging and
validating that this ischallenging makes me feel 1% a
little better, right? And whatI'm always really clear about is
acknowledging and validatingdoes not mean you agree with the
other person. You do not need toagree with how they're feeling,
or it make even any sense to youabout how why they're feeling
(30:21):
that way, to still be able toacknowledge and validate what
they're feeling. And if peopleare like, I don't understand
what that means. Acknowledgingvalidating is acknowledging that
whatever is happening is true tothat person in this moment,
right? So it is true for them.So you're acknowledging that
something's happening and you'revalidating that it's true for
(30:42):
them in this moment. And whatthat can really help to do is,
instead of continuing to havelike an armor or a wall, which
many of us have in various ways,which makes sense, because it's
the way we've learned to protectourselves, right, the
acknowledging and validatinghelps to soften and release that
armor, that wall, so that therecan actually be connection,
(31:07):
conversation and and be able toprocess what's going on. So I
love, I love that you broughtthat up as an example
Indra Klavins (31:15):
well, and thank you for talking that through.
Because for anyone, don't justgo out and buy the donuts,
because that's if you just buythe donuts and put them on in
the break room or wherever itmight be. People are gonna be
like, Oh my God, is shecelebrating the fact that people
are leaving? Like, is that whatshe's doing is or, as you know,
if we can afford donuts, andwhether it comes out of my
(31:37):
pocket or the company's pocket,people don't care, right? If we
can afford donuts, why do we letgo of people? It has to come
with that. It was, it was avehicle for making, for seeing
people and acknowledging. Thisstinks. This stinks. I don't
have any answers. This stinks.All I'm gonna say is, it stinks.
(31:57):
And I I see that. I see them.Yeah, yeah. Thank you
Stephanie Simpson (32:01):
for for for doing that. Because some people
might think, okay, the action,you know, and so it's, it's,
it's a multiple thing. It's theaction and the actual
acknowledging and validating andwitnessing and seeing. You just
said seeing right, as humans, wewant to feel seen and witnessed
and then acknowledged andvalidated. And that is the
(32:22):
biggest gift that we can giveeach other and ourselves, right?
So all of these tools can alsobe used for ourselves, instead
of what I think happens to a lotof people myself, maybe more my
inner critic, that innerGremlin, is like, Well, no, you
should feel like you shouldn'tbe stuck in this. You shouldn't
(32:43):
keep thinking about this, likeyou should be over this by now.
I think that happens a lot ingrief is like, I should be over
this by now. It's like, well,whose timeline is that? Like,
where was that timeline? Right?It's okay to miss somebody, it's
okay to miss colleagues. It'sokay to miss the thing that you
did. It's okay to I was doing agroup session recently, and we
(33:05):
were talking about having to beadaptable to situations up a
lot. Was people working onprojects that then all of a
sudden they go a differentdirection, or they like, throw
the project out completely. Andwhile you do need to be engaged
enough and care enough to like,be motivated to do the project.
There's also this balance of notgetting so attached to every
(33:29):
project, and grief is part ofthat, too. If you're working on
something and this is your focusfor like, a month, month and a
half, and then all of a suddenyou find out, Nope, we're
scrapping all of this. Yeah, itmakes complete sense to be like,
sad and frustrated and angry andall of that. And there are
multiple stages of grief. Imean, we haven't even talked
about those, and I know all ofthem, but you know, most of them
(33:53):
are like, denial is one of them,right? And then there's there's
the sadness, there's thedespair, there's the frustration
and the anger, um, to then theacceptance part of it, and we
have to go through all thosestages to actually get to
acceptance. We can't just jumpto it that would be bypassing,
(34:15):
right? We have to actuallyexperience all of those. And
anger is a big part of it.Sadness is a big part of it, all
of that, and knowing that it isokay. I mean, we, I think before
we started, you mentioned, my,my, my, did I love your mug?
Anxiety, right? Anxiety is partof grief. And what those movies
(34:36):
teach us is like all of thoseemotions are fully necessary.
And when we're their data, andit's and again, allowing
ourselves to feel it so itdoesn't get stuck.
Indra Klavins (34:47):
And just I we're coming close to time. But I do
want to highlight something yousaid earlier, when you were
talking about a little bitearlier, and bring it into that
grief stages, the stages are notlinear, and so they're they're
not linear. So a. Lot of peoplethink, Oh, I give you this. And
then, no, no, they're notlinear. You have to pass through
them all completely. You mightbe bouncing back and forth and
looping on them. So, so if it'snot, if it's not resolving
(35:12):
itself to the acceptance part,there's, there's some more work
to be done. There's some morework to be done. It'll and it'll
happen when it's supposed tohappen. It'll happen when it's
supposed to happen.
Stephanie Simpson (35:22):
I got the last image I'll give, and this
was, this is from something Icreated. But when doing some
research on grief, there wasthis lovely image of like a
grief ball, right? And when itwhen whatever happens first
happens, the ball feels reallybig, and it's like, this is I'm
just stuck in my grief. And thenonce you start going through the
(35:44):
stages, and you start findingways the ball doesn't actually
get smaller, the life and thestuff you're doing around it
gets so much bigger that theball feels smaller, right? But
it doesn't actually ever fullygo away. And that's okay, too.
It's not about getting, youknow, I think about friendships
(36:05):
or romantic relationships thatended. And, I mean, we could do
a whole episode on like,Friendship Breakups and how we
don't talk enough, and there's aton of grief around that. And
it's, it's, you know, I'll speakagain from an i perspective, the
relationships that have fallenaway in my life. I still hold a
lot of love for many of thosepeople, even if I knew that we
(36:27):
were not supposed to be togetheror as a friend, we really grew
apart. It is possible to stillhave that like, that kind of
little like, Oh, I really domiss them. And you know what,
like, I am building this biggerlife around it. It doesn't fully
go away. That is okay. It'sgoing to feel really big right
away, and just continuing to bewith yourself. And if you're in
(36:50):
a workplace, and you are in aposition, whether you're a
people manager or not, whetheryou know, if you are someone who
is, I mean, I wasn't a managerfor a while in my my workplace,
and yet I was somebody whoeveryone came to the dance
studio, both students and adultsalike, because that was the
space I was creating. Was forpeople to come in and be a human
(37:12):
and get acknowledged andvalidated, right? So we have
influence, no matter where weare in an organization, you have
the influence to be able to bethat person. The very least, be
it for yourself, and just knowthat they can the more that you
acknowledge and validate, themore that you hold space for
yourself and others, the lifewill get bigger around and the
(37:33):
grief will will feel smallerbecause you're building around
it.
Indra Klavins (37:37):
That is such a beautiful image and such a
beautiful place for us to pauseour conversation. Stephanie, I
am so grateful to you for yourfriendship. I'm so grateful to
you for joining me twice. I feellike we'll be you'll might be
visiting us again, and I trustthat anyone who's listened to
(37:57):
this episode has gottensomething out of it, and I hope
that y'all will join us nexttime for another topic, for the
messy middle matters, Bye,everyone.
If you've got some get stuffdone is on your team, or are one
who takes pride in your work. Wejust dropped a brand new I get
(38:17):
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(38:37):
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in helping us spread the wordtill next time you.
Hi. I'm Indra, and I'd like to welcome you to
the messy middle matters, wheremy friends and I explore all the
twists, turns and challengesthat arise in the messy middle
of work. Hey, everyone, welcomeback to the messy middle matters
day. You know, we've talked alot over the past episodes about
like change and promotions andhow to reinvent yourself and how
(00:30):
to constantly stay relevant. Butthe one thing that we really
haven't talked about, we'vetouched on. We touched on a
little bit in an episode withMickey, and we touched on it in
a little bit in an episode nottoo long ago, with our guest
today is grief. Grief can showup in the most interesting,
unexpected ways, and sometimesit even shows up when you get
(00:52):
the thing that you wanted. Sobefore we go any further, let me
welcome Stephanie back.Stephanie, thank you so much for
joining me for a second.
Stephanie Simpson (01:00):
Yes, thank you for having me again. I mean,
we could have talked for hourslast hours. I'm glad you're
putting me back on.
Indra Klavins (01:07):
Well, for people who didn't hear you the last
time, maybe they were listeningto things in reverse order, tell
everybody a little bit aboutyourself. Sure.
Stephanie Simpson (01:14):
So I'm based in New York City, and I have my
own coaching and consultingbusiness, working with people in
various industries in a varietyof different ways. So to be more
specific, working with peoplenavigating change and
transition. My background is instress management and
(01:35):
psychology, and really lookingat it from a holistic
perspective. So the first partof my career was actually a
dancer, an artist, performingartist, and while I still play
around in that world as well,how I bring that into my work is
really getting people back intotheir bodies, which I think will
probably come up a few times inour conversation today, and then
(01:58):
working with organizations increating leadership development
programs and team and groupcoaching, as well as like
executive coaching, so thatwe're creating spaces that
people are being supported to dothe work that they're being
asked to do in a sustainableway. So it also connects to like
(02:20):
burnout and workplace culture,and a lot about emotional
intelligence and relationalintelligence and all of the what
we call the soft skills, whichare sometimes actually the
harder to be able to learn anddevelop because we didn't
actually get a lot of trainingin that in school, or things
(02:42):
like that we learn, like how todo the hard skills or the
technical things, and yet all ofthat in air quotes humans is
important and can create a lotof stress and overwhelm that can
be detrimental over time. Sothat's those are the kind of the
spaces in the world in which Iplay.
Indra Klavins (03:00):
Yeah, and you joined, so is episode 46 for
anyone wondering. And we weretalking about the goose stage,
just because I imagine we'regoing to reference it just a
little bit. Can you give, like,the quick top line on what the
goose stage is, and a little bitof of that so that people can
maybe it's a teaser for theformer episode too. A little
bit.
Stephanie Simpson (03:19):
Yeah, so I started using the phrase the
goose age a couple of years ago,because, as I mentioned, I work
with a lot of, like, change andtransition. And really, we're
all going through change andtransition all the time. That's
what growing means, living meansGoodness gracious, exactly. And
(03:39):
what I started realizing, andlike, kind of tapping into, and
talked about this on the otherepisode, is, you know, I really
like butterflies. I always have,and just that metaphor that a
lot of people use is like, youknow, remember, change the
caterpillar had to change to go,to turn into the butterfly. And
I just kind of like, I was like,yes, that's really, like,
(04:00):
hopeful, and yet, what we don'ttalk a lot about is that. And
what's so great about yourpodcast is that messy middle,
right? And what happens from thecaterpillar to the butterfly,
and that is the goo stage, as Icall it, in the chrysalis,
right? Where the caterpillaractually has to, like, fully,
(04:20):
like dissolve its form, it's ingoo right before and over a
period of time, then starts tobuild its wings so that it can
emerge as a butterfly. And forme personally, as somebody who
left my full time career thatwas, you know, on a wonderful
trajectory and all of that, butto also expand what I, you know,
(04:45):
my potential, and follow whatwas calling me, which was to
build my own business. It was aside hustle. At first. The last
four or five years, I havestarted to realize, like, Oh, I
like, I kept saying to friends,like, I just feel like a puddle.
I don't know. Quite what I amyet, like all of that. And I was
like, Oh my gosh, I'm in the goostage. And so, and I, I've
(05:07):
written a lot about this interms of, like, your whole life
doesn't need to be in a goostage, but there might be
aspects of things that are alittle gooier than others, and
and all of that. So that's whatwe mean by the goo stage. Yeah.
Indra Klavins (05:21):
And you know why, how this second episode showed
up is when we were talking aboutthat goose stage, just when
you're when you're in the gooseage, you have to let go of your
identity, identity ascaterpillar. And you might have
loved your shape. You might haveloved the way they even climb up
trees. You might have loved howyou can, like, descend from a
(05:41):
silk depending on what kind ofCaterpillar You are. I don't
know enough about caterpillarsand butterflies to get this
scientifically perfectly, right,but you know, there are so many
things that you you were soproud of that are no longer that
no longer suit, you, no longerfit, no longer are in your
capacity to be able to do like,if I'm thinking about like
(06:01):
people leadership, when you stepinto a people management role,
you were peers with a wholebunch of people, and now you're
at a different level, and youneed to let go of that
relationship that you once had,because they don't, they can't,
and they shouldn't actually seeyou the same way that they did
before, because you have adifferent role, you have
different responsibility, youhave different access. And it's
(06:23):
it's just that, that thatletting go of that previous
identity is like it shows upover and over again in life.
Stephanie Simpson (06:30):
That's a wonderful example, because I
feel like that's so relatable topeople in the sense, there's a
few things, many things that youprobably have to let go in in
that transition, one being theway you relate to people, right?
And that can be veryuncomfortable, right? It Becomes
(06:52):
You also are now in a positionthat's new to you, so you're
learning new things. And there'sa lot that comes up with that
typically. And this is not maybefor everybody, but what you were
doing as maybe an individualcontributor, you're going to end
up doing less when you move intoa people manager role. And so
you're actually letting go ofthe thing that was really that
(07:15):
you were really good at that gotyou to where you are in order to
continue to expand into whereveryou think you might be going.
And so there's a lot of likemessiness there. I don't know
why this came up right now is,and so I'm just going to share
it. But the other image thatcame up to me is the messiness,
or the goo, or like being in themud. I kind of feel like the
(07:37):
messiness muddy. I always remindclients that the lotus flower
actually grows from mud like ithas to be in the muddy waters to
be able to grow. And so beingable to, how do I say this,
being able to be okay in thatuncomfortable, messy middle is
(08:01):
what's going to help you becomethe butterfly or the lotus
flower, whatever, whatevervisual really resonates with
you.
Indra Klavins (08:08):
I love that you brought the lotus flower in
because it is one of those. It'sa, it's a, it's a metaphor, and
it's an imagery that is reallywell known around the globe,
more so in Asia, but it is sobeautiful and so evocative. And
so many teach, so many of myteachers talk about like, you
(08:30):
has to go the seed goes into themud. It goes into the mud at the
bottom, and it doesn't knowwhat's going on, but it's just
reaching. It's reaching. It'sreaching. And it's just like,
hoping to like, it's just trust.It's trusting the process of
like, no, hold on. Like, gottatrust that process and keep
reaching for that sun.
Stephanie Simpson (08:47):
Yeah, and you know what came to mind, as you
were saying, that is in order totrust, you also have to
surrender and let go. So goingback to like the caterpillar,
the caterpillar has to like thecaterpillar doesn't know that
it's going to become abutterfly, doesn't know what it
looks like all of that. It'sjust trusting, right? It's
surrendering and legitimatelyletting go of its form and in
(09:09):
that, like, if we want to bringin the grief part about that,
even something I learned sospeaking from my journey leaving
the full time position that Ihad for many years, I was
choosing to leave there. Therewas no like, hey, we want you to
go. I brought it up and waslike, I am planning to leave
(09:30):
this well, I ended up havingthem as a client afterwards,
doing some of the work that Iwas doing. But I was like, I'm
gonna leave here full time. I'mexpanding my business, all of
that. And what I wasn't preparedfor was, within that first year,
I was like, Why do I feel reallysad about certain things? I knew
(09:52):
that it was going to be achallenge, you know, building a
business as an entrepreneur. Ithink most people know that i. I
felt like I was prepared as muchas I could and knew and knew
enough to be excited and not toomuch to be over, like whelmed
that this could never work. WhatI did not anticipate was the
(10:14):
community that I was leavingthat was built in, and while I
think I was ready to leave thatspecific community. I didn't
realize how much community wasreally important to me. I also
was shifting a lot of what I wasdoing on a daily basis. So in
that previous job, I was ineducation. I was building a
(10:38):
dance program and a coachingprogram at the school. I was
connecting to my creative sidein a very different way than I
do now. And so there was anidentity shift I mentioned. I
said, In my previous career, Istill consider myself a
performing artist and an artist,but I wasn't doing that on a
daily basis the way I wasbefore, and there was a lot that
(11:00):
was a huge loss for me. And itwasn't until I was in therapy,
which I do regularly, that mytherapist was like, well, you're
grieving. And I was like, well,but nothing died like, no one
died like all of that. Becausein my brain, that's what we talk
about grieving, is when you whensomeone dies or passed away or
you lose. I mean, I was alsoalways told, like, you know, a
(11:21):
relationship that dies, like,that's that's a grieving thing.
But I hadn't thought about it inthis way, especially since I
chose to do this. And she waslike, just because you chose to
do something doesn't meanthere's still not emotions that
are connected to that loss. Andthat's when I was like, Oh,
(11:41):
actually, like, a weight kind ofcame off of me. Like, there's
not something wrong with me. Ididn't do something wrong. I
didn't make a mistake, right?Things that were my my inner
Gremlin, my inner critic, wastelling me, Well, you should
have done that. See, look atthis blah blah, and going,
actually, no, this is part ofthe process. And how can I
continue to hold myself in thatso that I'm not getting stuck in
(12:04):
it, so I can continue to moveforward and that both and is it
both things can be true. I couldbe really ready to leave and
expand and not knowing what'sgonna like come of this, but
excited to explore that and feela sense of loss for the
community that I was leaving andthe the work that I was doing,
even though I was very muchready to leave, doing that work
(12:27):
in that sort of way on a dailybasis.
Indra Klavins (12:30):
I love that story because, you know, it highlights
the fact we've been conditionedthat to correlate grief with,
like, obvious, visible loss,right? It's, it's, it's the loss
of a relationship with the lossof a loved one. It's this,
really, it's really evident in,like, in your face and like,
it's a very clear thing. Butwhat you're talking about is the
(12:53):
grief that can happen in thesereally unexpected ways and and
what you're also talking I lovethe way that you were talking
about, how naming it, how thefact that your therapist helped
you name that as grief, shiftedthe whole thing. And it's we've
we've talked about this a littlebit earlier. So over the past
(13:14):
couple of weeks, I've beenreflecting on the word grief,
and it's showing up everywhere.It's like, oh, it's the grief
that I have for the fact thatthat was a hard time. It's the
grief that I have for the factthat I can't stay for the full
happy hour. Using that metaphoragain, of like, you're now a
people manager, your job is topay for happy hour. It is not to
(13:35):
hang out and talk about thingsanymore, right? It's the grief
over these little, tiny, littlethings. But these tiny, these
seemingly tiny things, are someaningful. Like you were
talking about community, yeah,yes, something that came to mind
as you were talking is, I seewith a lot of my clients, the
grief of, well, they wouldn'thave labeled it grief at first,
(13:58):
and then I will ask a question,and they're like, I think that's
what it is.
Stephanie Simpson (14:01):
It think like the where they thought they
would be at this point, right?So wherever are on your journey
in life, we all probably havesome sort of conscious or
unconscious, like idea of wherewe think we should be, myself
included, and I, I'm, like,vividly remembering a client
(14:23):
right now where a lot of whatwas happening is they were
getting stuck in, like, Well, Imean, I feel like I should be
here, and I should be here,blah, blah. And like, I just
feel really heavy. Or, you know,things aren't bad, but like, I
still just don't feel like,motivated, and I just, I just
feel really heavy. And I waslike, it sounds like you're
grieving what you thought wasgoing to be. And I just saw them
(14:47):
shift completely, and they werelike, That's it. That is it like
I had this vision in my head ofwhat this was going to look like
and where I was going to be,whether that's personally,
professionally. Like,romantically, like, whatever
that is, and this isn't quitethat, or I haven't gotten there
yet, or any of that, and that'sfrustrating, and that's sad and
(15:09):
it's overwhelming, and that'sgrief, right? The same way as
when we do lose a lose someone,whether it's, you know, through
them passing or loss of arelationship, there are those
questions of, like, why did thishappen? Like, why is this
happening to me? Why is thishappening to us? What could we
have done differently? Like, allof that. And that's normal, that
is being a human, yeah.
Indra Klavins (15:31):
And I think that the the interesting thing is, is
that the grief in theseexamples, the grief doesn't show
up by itself. Like, the griefmight be showing up in like,
let's say, using the example ofgoing and going independent, not
working for a company anymore,right? There is the excitement
over doing something new. Thereis the fear of not getting it
(15:53):
right, you know, of all thelike, let's say legal filings
and all the other things thatyou have to do. And then there's
the grief and when, when youhave multiple emotions happening
at the same time,differentiating them can be hard
and finding space to to honorthat. Let's say, in this case,
we're talking about grief,finding the space to honor that.
(16:14):
And it could be brief, it couldbe long. Depends on the person
that's this is not a therapysession for everyone, right?
We're, you know, we're justwhere our job here today is to
really talk about it and justsurfaces that people can
explore. But how do you dealwith that? How do you
acknowledge that grief and stillstay excited about the thing, or
still keep the hope that thisgoose stage is going to turn
(16:36):
into something as beautiful as abutterfly like finding that
balance can be really hard.
Stephanie Simpson (16:42):
Yes, yeah, I you know, you said that really
wonderfully. And as you weretalking, I was thinking to
myself, around this time frameof being in February is the time
frame that I would be directingand choreographing a show at my
previous job. And so grief, theother thing about it, and
(17:04):
depending on how many like whatlisteners have, have read or
listened to about grief, isgrief isn't linear, either,
right? So these emotions cancome up whenever, like, we might
not even realize they're comingup, right? Or all of a sudden we
get this, like, wave. And Ialways say emotions are energy
(17:25):
in motion, so, like, allowingthe emotions to actually flow.
So there could be this wave ofthings. And around this time
every year since I've left thatjob, I do get a little bit of,
like, something in my heartcenter going, like, I'd be going
into tech week, you know, soon,and costumes would be coming
together, and my vision forwhatever show we're doing is
(17:47):
starting to come together, or isI'm nervous it won't come
together, you know, whatever itis. And there is a part of me
that each year goes that like Iwant to feel, that I allow
myself to feel it. And, youknow, you said the actually
allowing yourself to feel it andname it, then allows it to move
right, and I'm not bypassing andthis is like the work, the
(18:10):
practice that I'm also trying tocontinue to get better at, is
going, it's okay that I feelthat, how can I show how can I
feel gratitude for it, and Notgo, like, Okay, but what I'm
doing is so much better now,because, like, I don't know if
what I'm doing is actually thatmuch better now, right? Like, I
still
Indra Klavins (18:28):
different, right print
Stephanie Simpson (18:30):
and going, you know, I can, I can still
have a lot of gratitude. I canhave a lot of fond love for
that, and go, and I'm reallyproud of myself for the things
I'm doing now and, and if I everdid want to, like, go back to
something like that, I couldalways do that if I wanted to,
and and find a way to to bringparts of that back, which I also
(18:54):
think grief can be a really goodteacher, right? Like, if we
actually pause and go, What isit that I'm really grieving?
Like, what is it that I'mgrieving? So going back to the
community thing, at one point, Iwas like, Yeah, wow. Why am I
feeling this? Like, what am Iactually feeling? What am i
Great? What am I actuallyfeeling like I lost? And the two
big things for me, as Imentioned before, was community.
(19:18):
And so then that was, gave medata to go okay, so how can I be
more intentional now withbuilding community in my life?
Because here's the other thing,I didn't really build that
community where I was teachingthat it was It happened by
default, because that's where Iwas every day for many, many,
many hours. Not to say thatthat's not legit. It is, but now
(19:42):
I get to be intentional. Who doI want to build community with,
who where do. And that can alsobe scary, right? Like I joined a
Run Club. And let me tell you, Istalked the run Club's Instagram
for three or four months beforeI got the courage and the guts
to actually go to a run. And,yeah. Now, two and a half years
later, a lot of those people arebig parts of my life, right? So
(20:05):
it does take a lot of braverytoo. We don't, you know, the
caterpillar has to be brave.And, I mean, I don't know if
they actually are feelingbravery. I don't know if that's
a thing for caterpillars, but Iimagine that, like, there has to
be this, this bravery andcourage to go. I'm going to do
this thing just the same way asall of us, right? I'm going to
try this thing. I'm going to doit. I have no guarantee of what
(20:25):
it's going to look like, or orany of that, but I'm at least
going to try. So that was datafor me. And the other one was
this identity around, well, thiscould get into a whole nother
conversation around, how muchdoes the thing that we do become
who we think we are. And sobeing that, I was a
(20:47):
choreographer, a dancer, artseducation, arts education, arts
education, a director, you know,a creator, all of that, I to do
a lot of work for myself aroundjust because I'm not doing that
every day doesn't mean I'm notone of those things anymore. It
might look different. I'm doingit in a different costume,
(21:10):
right? As I used as my languageall the time for things, but
that can be really, really hard,at least for me. It was. I've
seen it with other people too,is like, but I'm not doing that
thing. So clearly, I'm not thatanymore, and that's not true.
And so being able to haveempathy for ourselves, like
(21:30):
that's a lot grief, requires usto have a lot of empathy for
ourselves, compassion forourselves, patience and to slow
down. Yeah.
Indra Klavins (21:41):
So you, you spoke about something that was, I
think is important to highlightthe concept of bypassing, right?
And I want to also bring thatconcept into grief when things
are happening with anorganization as a whole, right,
whether it's reorganizationsrestructuring. So bypassing,
I've never been great atdefining it, so I'll do my best.
(22:02):
But bypassing, basically, ispretending like the thing is not
going on and really and just andlike hoping that the feeling
goes away. That's it's notputting the feeling to the side
and knowing you're going to dealwith it feeling later, because
you're dealing with crisis rightnow. Those are two very
different things. Bypassing isreally pretending that it's
going to go away because youignored it. And a lot of in the
(22:24):
years 2025 2026 we have no ideawhat it's, what's, what's really
going to happen in theworkplace, but if 2025 is any
evidence of it, there will beongoing restructurings of
organizations. We will be losingcolleagues to different
organization. We might be theones who leave or asked to leave
because of budget cuts, orwhatever it might be, navigating
(22:48):
grief in a corporate environmentwhere most, many companies, I
won't say most many companies,have this concept of like, oh,
put your feelings at the door asif we're not human beings that
are just literally incapable ofdoing that we can pretend like
we do, but we don't, and helpinghow? Let's talk about navigating
(23:08):
grief in those types ofenvironments where everyone is
navigating it together, and itmay not be acknowledging grief,
it using language like that maynot be encouraged. You bring up
a really great point
Stephanie Simpson (23:24):
when there are any restructuring, right?
Usually, that means some peopleare either getting let go of the
company, or being put on adifferent team,
Indra Klavins (23:35):
or even new people coming right, like
there's a whole influx of newpeople, that's a restructuring
too,
Stephanie Simpson (23:40):
yeah, people coming in, which then changes
roles and responsibilities. Soany sort of change like that is
going to bring up some sort ofgrief for the people involved.
And what I wish companies did alittle more was pay attention to
the fact that, just like yousaid, when a team changes in any
(24:01):
sort of way, but especially whenthere's layoffs and all of that,
the people that are remaining,there's a lot going on with
that. A a colleague just leftthat maybe was your bestie at
work, maybe not even yourbestie. But now they're not
there. You're there. Might befeelings of like, Thank God I
didn't get cut, but oh my gosh.Like, I feel so bad that, like,
(24:24):
[survivors guilt], I get, notget caught, right? Yeah, the
idea that we then are justexpected to go along like
everything's fine, and, and, or,like, yes, so this is where
we're at. And it's like, okay,so what are we doing now? And
it's like, we don't know. Justhang tight. Keep doing what
you're doing, like, we'll figureit out. Like that type of, I
(24:48):
don't even know what to I don'tthink of it as really good,
effective leadership.
Indra Klavins (24:52):
It's not skillful, it's not useful, no,
right?
Stephanie Simpson (24:55):
It is actually, I mean, there's a
little bit of dehumanizing and.It dehumanizing. I can't even
say that word right now. It isdehumanizing, yes, because that
is a loss, and so we areprocessing that into actually
connected to the stress part ofit when you are not
acknowledging your emotions andyou are trying to bypass or
(25:18):
ignore or someone is devaluingthem, or being like, no, no,
like, we don't time for this, orwhatever you're feeling that
doesn't make sense, like, keepmoving forward, that gets stuck
in the body. So again, like Isaid, emotions are energy in
motion when we're not allowingthem to move, it gets stuck in
the body, which then creates theunhealthy parts of stress, and
(25:43):
that, literally, we hold it intension many people in their
shoulders or their back or theirjaw or their stomach, and then
that can cause different things,like, you know, just a lot of
other things that becomeproblematic with that and weaken
our immune system. So now we'renot actually as healthy like in
(26:04):
a in a cellular level, and allof that that then goes into a
lot of other stuff, right? Sonot recognizing that there are
human beings, and thereforeemotions are always part of
being a human, not recognizingand creating a space and
normalizing it is is, to me,like a negligent, sort of
(26:29):
negligent thing that that thenis creating these toxic
environments for people, andbeing able to recognize in a
really sincere way that areorganization is hard and
challenging, and here's howwe're going to move through it
(26:49):
together. And if you're not on aleadership team, thinking about
that languaging before you dothings like I really hope you
do,
Indra Klavins (26:57):
yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about and I'll
share some of my ideas, and thenI would love to hear yours, too,
when there is something thathappens. So I was in an
organization that was they hadthe terrible habit of wanting to
cut the top, low, the lowest 10%of people regularly to make sure
only the best and the brightestwere there, right? And these,
(27:19):
these layoffs, this layoff, withthis one in particular happened
without much warning, so itreally came out of left field
for everyone. Everyone wasshocked, and there are a couple
of different things that we did.So remember, leaders are not all
people managers. Anyone can be aleader, so y'all have this in
your hands, no matter what yourrole is. If you are a people
(27:42):
manager, I highly encourage youhaving an Ask Me Anything in all
hands or whatever. There aredifferent ways. And I could
probably, I'll probably write ablog post about this now that
I'm thinking about it, about howto run one of those really well,
where you are honoring thehumans you're protecting. You're
You're abiding by the law,because there's a lot of legal
(28:04):
things that you would need toworry about, and you're
protecting your own humandignity in the process, because
you're going to be in thecrosshairs during that AMA,
right? So like, but I'll writesomething about that. Maybe
we'll have an episode on that,but stay tuned for that. Maybe
in a couple of weeks, I'llrelease that for everyone.
Follow me on LinkedIn. If youwant that, it'll be in the show
notes. But if you're not apeople leader, same same
(28:27):
example, same thing, I went outand bought a like, dozens of
donuts, and I brought them in,and I was walking around with
them, I said, Would you like toeat your feelings? Would you
like to eat your feelings? Okay,don't it's not the healthiest
example, but what it did, it wasit acknowledged the fact that
this really stinks. I know thisis not great. All I know how to
(28:51):
do is to go and buy donuts rightnow. Would you like to eat your
feelings?
Stephanie Simpson (28:57):
Well, you know what I love that you just
did there? Because this is athis is a tool and a skill that
people can learn, that I hopeeveryone can learn, not only
just for themselves, but foreverybody in their life, is
acknowledging and validating.It's something that when you go
through coach training, and ifyou ever work with a certified
coach, they are trained how tolike, acknowledge and validate.
(29:18):
And so I train all of my leaderson it, and I love that you say
leaders does not mean that youneed to be in a managerial
position. Leadership, the way Idefine it, is having influence,
and I hope that everyone feelslike they're a leader of at
least their own life, and thatthey're influencing their own
life. So even if you're onlyusing this, this tool and skill
(29:38):
on yourself, lovely, wonderful,but acknowledging and validating
what you just example you hadthere was like, I'm
acknowledging that somethinghappened and validating that
you're that emotions are okay.And here's a way that I can help
bring some comfort right now,which is maybe some donuts, and
maybe someone's like, I don'tneed the donuts, but just the
(29:59):
fact that you feel. Thoughtabout acknowledging and
validating that this ischallenging makes me feel 1% a
little better, right? And whatI'm always really clear about is
acknowledging and validatingdoes not mean you agree with the
other person. You do not need toagree with how they're feeling,
or it make even any sense to youabout how why they're feeling
(30:21):
that way, to still be able toacknowledge and validate what
they're feeling. And if peopleare like, I don't understand
what that means. Acknowledgingvalidating is acknowledging that
whatever is happening is true tothat person in this moment,
right? So it is true for them.So you're acknowledging that
something's happening and you'revalidating that it's true for
(30:42):
them in this moment. And whatthat can really help to do is,
instead of continuing to havelike an armor or a wall, which
many of us have in various ways,which makes sense, because it's
the way we've learned to protectourselves, right, the
acknowledging and validatinghelps to soften and release that
armor, that wall, so that therecan actually be connection,
(31:07):
conversation and and be able toprocess what's going on. So I
love, I love that you broughtthat up as an example
Indra Klavins (31:15):
well, and thank you for talking that through.
Because for anyone, don't justgo out and buy the donuts,
because that's if you just buythe donuts and put them on in
the break room or wherever itmight be. People are gonna be
like, Oh my God, is shecelebrating the fact that people
are leaving? Like, is that whatshe's doing is or, as you know,
if we can afford donuts, andwhether it comes out of my
(31:37):
pocket or the company's pocket,people don't care, right? If we
can afford donuts, why do we letgo of people? It has to come
with that. It was, it was avehicle for making, for seeing
people and acknowledging. Thisstinks. This stinks. I don't
have any answers. This stinks.All I'm gonna say is, it stinks.
(31:57):
And I I see that. I see them.Yeah, yeah. Thank you
Stephanie Simpson (32:01):
for for for doing that. Because some people
might think, okay, the action,you know, and so it's, it's,
it's a multiple thing. It's theaction and the actual
acknowledging and validating andwitnessing and seeing. You just
said seeing right, as humans, wewant to feel seen and witnessed
and then acknowledged andvalidated. And that is the
(32:22):
biggest gift that we can giveeach other and ourselves, right?
So all of these tools can alsobe used for ourselves, instead
of what I think happens to a lotof people myself, maybe more my
inner critic, that innerGremlin, is like, Well, no, you
should feel like you shouldn'tbe stuck in this. You shouldn't
(32:43):
keep thinking about this, likeyou should be over this by now.
I think that happens a lot ingrief is like, I should be over
this by now. It's like, well,whose timeline is that? Like,
where was that timeline? Right?It's okay to miss somebody, it's
okay to miss colleagues. It'sokay to miss the thing that you
did. It's okay to I was doing agroup session recently, and we
(33:05):
were talking about having to beadaptable to situations up a
lot. Was people working onprojects that then all of a
sudden they go a differentdirection, or they like, throw
the project out completely. Andwhile you do need to be engaged
enough and care enough to like,be motivated to do the project.
There's also this balance of notgetting so attached to every
(33:29):
project, and grief is part ofthat, too. If you're working on
something and this is your focusfor like, a month, month and a
half, and then all of a suddenyou find out, Nope, we're
scrapping all of this. Yeah, itmakes complete sense to be like,
sad and frustrated and angry andall of that. And there are
multiple stages of grief. Imean, we haven't even talked
about those, and I know all ofthem, but you know, most of them
(33:53):
are like, denial is one of them,right? And then there's there's
the sadness, there's thedespair, there's the frustration
and the anger, um, to then theacceptance part of it, and we
have to go through all thosestages to actually get to
acceptance. We can't just jumpto it that would be bypassing,
(34:15):
right? We have to actuallyexperience all of those. And
anger is a big part of it.Sadness is a big part of it, all
of that, and knowing that it isokay. I mean, we, I think before
we started, you mentioned, my,my, my, did I love your mug?
Anxiety, right? Anxiety is partof grief. And what those movies
(34:36):
teach us is like all of thoseemotions are fully necessary.
And when we're their data, andit's and again, allowing
ourselves to feel it so itdoesn't get stuck.
Indra Klavins (34:47):
And just I we're coming close to time. But I do
want to highlight something yousaid earlier, when you were
talking about a little bitearlier, and bring it into that
grief stages, the stages are notlinear, and so they're they're
not linear. So a. Lot of peoplethink, Oh, I give you this. And
then, no, no, they're notlinear. You have to pass through
them all completely. You mightbe bouncing back and forth and
looping on them. So, so if it'snot, if it's not resolving
(35:12):
itself to the acceptance part,there's, there's some more work
to be done. There's some morework to be done. It'll and it'll
happen when it's supposed tohappen. It'll happen when it's
supposed to happen.
Stephanie Simpson (35:22):
I got the last image I'll give, and this
was, this is from something Icreated. But when doing some
research on grief, there wasthis lovely image of like a
grief ball, right? And when itwhen whatever happens first
happens, the ball feels reallybig, and it's like, this is I'm
just stuck in my grief. And thenonce you start going through the
(35:44):
stages, and you start findingways the ball doesn't actually
get smaller, the life and thestuff you're doing around it
gets so much bigger that theball feels smaller, right? But
it doesn't actually ever fullygo away. And that's okay, too.
It's not about getting, youknow, I think about friendships
(36:05):
or romantic relationships thatended. And, I mean, we could do
a whole episode on like,Friendship Breakups and how we
don't talk enough, and there's aton of grief around that. And
it's, it's, you know, I'll speakagain from an i perspective, the
relationships that have fallenaway in my life. I still hold a
lot of love for many of thosepeople, even if I knew that we
(36:27):
were not supposed to be togetheror as a friend, we really grew
apart. It is possible to stillhave that like, that kind of
little like, Oh, I really domiss them. And you know what,
like, I am building this biggerlife around it. It doesn't fully
go away. That is okay. It'sgoing to feel really big right
away, and just continuing to bewith yourself. And if you're in
(36:50):
a workplace, and you are in aposition, whether you're a
people manager or not, whetheryou know, if you are someone who
is, I mean, I wasn't a managerfor a while in my my workplace,
and yet I was somebody whoeveryone came to the dance
studio, both students and adultsalike, because that was the
space I was creating. Was forpeople to come in and be a human
(37:12):
and get acknowledged andvalidated, right? So we have
influence, no matter where weare in an organization, you have
the influence to be able to bethat person. The very least, be
it for yourself, and just knowthat they can the more that you
acknowledge and validate, themore that you hold space for
yourself and others, the lifewill get bigger around and the
(37:33):
grief will will feel smallerbecause you're building around
it.
Indra Klavins (37:37):
That is such a beautiful image and such a
beautiful place for us to pauseour conversation. Stephanie, I
am so grateful to you for yourfriendship. I'm so grateful to
you for joining me twice. I feellike we'll be you'll might be
visiting us again, and I trustthat anyone who's listened to
(37:57):
this episode has gottensomething out of it, and I hope
that y'all will join us nexttime for another topic, for the
messy middle matters, Bye,everyone.
If you've got some get stuffdone is on your team, or are one
who takes pride in your work. Wejust dropped a brand new I get
(38:17):
stuff done collection in themessy middle merch shop, you'll
also find the classics. Don'tmake me regret trying to be
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And yes, we even have giftcards. And if something's
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yet. Download. You can hand themin the meantime, check
(38:37):
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