
Moonshot Mentor with Laverne McKinnon What If Work Hands You Divorce Papers? đ
âMy industry wants a divorce, but I donât.â - Anonymous
First off, Iâm so sorry youâre being dumped. That really really sucks, no two ways about it. If we were best friends, I would rally to your side with a couple of pints of Talenti dark chocolate gelato, a cashmere throw, a bottle of your favorite wine, these very cute slippers from Nordic Peace and a list of fabulous tv series to binge and escape from the brutality of what youâre experiencing.
It truly feels like the break-up bug is everywhere. Hollywood might be the dramatic spouse in this storyâLos Angeles unemployment is sitting closer to 6.5% while the national rate is just over 4%âbut itâs hardly alone. Hotels and restaurants are ghosting their workers, with jobless rates around 6.4%. Gaming had a full-on messy split last year when one in ten developers got cut. And manufacturing and construction? Theyâve been quietly packing their bags for months. Wherever you look, industries are walking out the door and leaving their people to pick up the pieces.
So how do you mourn the loss of your career when you donât want to stop working but the work is no longer available to you?
Step One: Say Ouch
The first step after any break-upâpersonal or professionalâis to admit it hurts. Say âouch.â Literally. Thereâs science behind it: in one study , people who dunked their hands in icy water lasted longer if they said âowâ out loud, and researchers found pain tolerance jumped about 20% just by vocalizing. Turns out giving your pain a voice creates enough distraction that your body can cope.
But in Hollywood culture, and really, in a lot of industries, we donât say âouch.â Weâre taught to keep it moving, to jump straight to âWhatâs next?â The trouble is, if you skip over the pain, it lingers. Itâs like pretending youâre fine after the divorce papers land on your doorstep, when what you really need to do first is cry, scream, or curl up with that pint of gelato.
Saying âouchâ is your way of signaling to the universe: this hurts, something is wrong here. Only once youâve acknowledged that can you figure out what comes next.
Step Two: Sadness or Grief?
After youâve said âouch,â the next step is to figure out what youâre actually dealing with ⊠because sadness and grief arenât the same thing.
Sadness is a temporary emotion. Itâs the slump you feel when you get a pass on a pitch, miss out on a client, or get sidelined on a project. You bounce back.
Grief runs deeper and is complex. It includes sadness, but you may also feel shock, anger, distress, confusion, or numbness. Grief is the natural response to a severed attachmentâthe same way heartbreak lingers long after divorce papers are delivered.
Career grief is especially heavy because it doesnât just touch your jobâit impacts how you see yourself, where you belong, and what purpose you serve. Itâs not âjustâ about the paycheck or the title. Itâs about the story you told yourself about who you were and where you were headed. Thatâs why grief feels harder to shake.
And hereâs where it connects back to the central question: How do you mourn the loss of a career you didnât want to end? Distinguish whether youâre sad or grieving. If itâs sadness, immerse in self-care until the ouch passes. If itâs grief, give yourself permission to mourn. Acknowledge the shock and distress of divorce papers being served, regardless of whether the divorce actually goes through.
Step Three: Do You Wait or Do You Leave?
Once youâve said âouchâ, clarified whether youâre sitting with sadness or grief (and given yourself permission to mourn), itâs time to ask: Do I wait for âreconciliationâ, or do I pivot my career?
This is the limbo of career grief. You donât want the split. Youâd happily keep working if the work was there. But what happens when the other partyâthe industry, the company, the fieldâsteps away? Do you hold out hope, or do you begin to imagine what comes after?
Thereâs no universal answer. Without a crystal ball, youâre left to lean on what matters most: your values.
What value am I honoring if I stay and wait?What value am I honoring if I decide to leave?
Psychotherapist Esther Perel reminds us that separation isnât always failure. Sometimes itâs a reorganization into something different, healthier, or more honest. That wisdom applies here too. Even if you didnât want this âdivorce,â it may be asking you to look at deeper truths: What needs werenât being met? How has your identity shifted? What kind of relationship with work do you want going forward?
And hereâs where the mourning deepens. Itâs not just about grieving whatâs ended, but also the imagined future that may never come. Thatâs why the question of moving on versus moving forward matters so much.
Step Four: Moving Forward, Not Moving On
âMoving onâ feels like: get over it, forget about it, it never really mattered. For those who donât want to move on, of course that feels unbearable.
In grief, we donât move on. We move forward. The love you had for your role or your industry remains, but it transforms. Moving forward means the history, talent, and experiences you built are not erasedâthey come with you as you begin to shape whatâs next.
So, how do you mourn the loss of a career you didnât want to end? You give yourself permission to move forwardâhonoring what was, carrying its meaning with you, and allowing space for something new to take shape.
Bottom Line
At the beginning, I said if we were best friends, Iâd show up with gelato, a cashmere throw, wine, and cozy slippers. And while I canât actually deliver those, I can remind you of this: mourning a career loss is messy, tender, and deeply human.
Sometimes the industry files for divorce and youâre left holding the papers. You may not have wanted it, but here you are. Saying ouch, distinguishing sadness from grief, sitting in the uncertainty, and choosing to move forward â these are the ways you honor the loss and yourself.
Gelato melts, jobs come and go, industries reorganize. But your values, your self-respect, and your capacity to reimagine? Those stay with you. Thatâs how you begin to move forward â even when the ending wasnât yours to choose.
Related Content
* The 3 Things to Do After You Lose Your Job
* Why Does My Career Setback Still Bother Me?
* How Do You Rewrite Your Career Story?
Perks for Paid Subscribers
Moonshot Mentor paid subscribers get weekly journal prompts to spark personal and professional growth, guided meditations to help them center, reflect, and reset, plus exclusive career development and career grief workshops that build clarity, resilience, and momentum.
Here are four journal prompts for paid Moonshot Mentor subscribers. These questions are designed to help you reflect on the âdivorce papersâ your career may have handed you â and what mourning and moving forward might look like.
