Grief doesn’t care that you “moved on”

And it’s been quietly keeping you stuck this whole time.

THE IDEA THAT YOU HAVE ONE PURPOSE IN LIFE IS KEEPING YOU STUCK.

That is just one of many bold statements I was ready to shout into the wind about what’s truly and secretly keeping you stuck in your 20s.

I had a rehearsed draft in my head for everything I wanted to say that I had carefully scripted while in the shower; and mentally prepared myself to solo march against the army of self-help books and podcasts and doctrines that urge you to find a purpose NOW, that make you feel like you’re doing humanity wrong if you don’t know exactly what you’re here to do at the incredibly unripe age of 24.

And then Ela, my family’s dog, died. I woke up half-dazed, half-alive at 6:29 am to a frantic call from my mother on a Tuesday. Between her sobs I could faintly make out that Ela was dead. In the background, I could hear my brother wailing as my dad told him the news. I jumped out of bed, not even bothering to change out of my pajamas, and got in the car.

As I drove to their place, I could barely make out the road before me from the tears clouding my vision. Ela hadn’t been just a dog. She had been family. She had brought a type of happiness and stress relief I’d never seen in my parents. She kept my brother company when he felt alone. She made my sister laugh when she felt down. Her presence alone had profoundly changed my family for the better, and now she was gone. Not even 4 years old and she had passed away unexpectedly in the middle of the night. My mom woke up to find her dead at her feet. Probably from a heart attack, the vet would later tell us.

Ela, you were light in our lives. We will never forget you.

I spent the whole day keeping my family company. Holding my mom together as she sobbed, the bouts of tears coming and going sporadically throughout the day. Kissing my dad’s forehead as he shook. Hugging my siblings as we tried to make sense of this huge loss and to understand what this new normal would be like. And all the while a gaping hole in my chest throbbed, reminding me that yes, it was still here. That it had never quite left. And that it wasn’t going anywhere.

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So no, I’m not here to talk about purpose, but about something much quieter. Something people rarely talk about because it might feel like too much to hold. Or because it might make them look weak. Or vulnerable. Or dumb for feeling it in the first place. But it is one of the things secretly, insidiously, keeping you stuck in your 20s.

And that thing is grief.

There’s the “normal” grief we typically acknowledge. The death of someone we care about. Being laid off. Losing our health to an illness. Breaking off a long-term relationship.

And then there is the grief that gets glossed over because society has deemed it not loud enough. That we expect to just deal with and get over because it’s “not that deep”. Because “that’s just how life is”.

The way your gut dips after the first couple weeks on your first 9-5 that makes you defeatedly question if this is all life will ever be.

The dream you had to leave your country and finally see the world, but the $ amount on your bank account suggests tonight will be another night of eating instant ramen.

The college best friend you thought would be forever, until she starts responding to your texts every 10 business days, then every 6 months, then not at all, until you eventually find out she got married and you were not invited.

The awful news that slaps you in the face the moment you open Instagram, but you keep scrolling anyways because you feel so powerless that the only thing you can do is dissociate.

The list goes on. And regardless of the type of grief you’re experiencing maybe you do take some time to process it. You put your life on pause for a little bit. Talk it out with your therapist a couple times. Journal about it. Get familiar with this new normal. Or you sweep it under the rug along with the dust and pretend it was never there. Honestly? Sometimes you don’t even know it’s there to begin with. But you checked the boxes. You tell yourself that you overcame this. That you fixed it. You pushed through. You moved on.

Until you want to pivot careers to something that actually lights you up and the possibility of making the wrong decision crushes the breath out of your lungs.

Until you want to get into a relationship that means something to you and fear paralyzes you worse than a straitjacket.

Until you decide to set boundaries with your family and spend nights wide awake replaying conversations like a broken record.

The moment you decide you want to do something that you actually care about, you crash out. You get stuck. A wall inexplicably forms in front of you and no matter how many times you butt your head against it, it just won’t budge.

Because grief doesn’t distinguish between being loud or quiet. It doesn’t care that you checked all the boxes and “moved on”. It digs a hole in your chest and makes its home there. Left unchecked, it takes away your focus, your capacity, and your confidence.

And it’s not going anywhere.

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For the longest time I’ve hated this gaping hole in my chest. In the last two years, I’ve had no shortage of things to grieve about, both loud and quiet. Whenever I feel like I’m finally getting it together, something else comes to punch me in the face and bring me down. Many times I’ve questioned if I can get back up.

My US visa expiring and having to uproot an entire life I had built over 7 years.
Moving back to my home country, Costa Rica — something I never thought would happen — to live with my parents.
Losing my dream of doing a Master’s in the US, like I always thought I would.
A friendship breakup with my best friend.
The sudden death of my grandpa.
Moving places several times.
Not having the financial stability I used to.
Genocide, and war, and shady politics I feel impotent to change.
And now, Ela’s death.

The thing about grief is that it rarely arrives alone. Most of the time, it comes accompanied by its cousin, the shame goblin, who takes up residence in your head and refuses to pay rent. Oh, but it loves to let you know it’s there.

It does that by whispering in shoulds.

I should be more productive. It’s been six months since my grandma passed away, I should get over it already.
I should be grateful. It’s no big deal I got passed over for that promotion. At least I still have a job.
I should be further along with my business. That bitch was toxic AF anyways, I shouldn’t be losing focus over her.

The shame goblin loves to beat you up, especially when you’re already down. And the worst part is, its voice sounds exactly the same as yours. Most of the time, you can’t tell the difference.

And the more the shame goblin speaks, the more you lose your ability to stay in touch with your grief and be compassionate with yourself. So, grief burrows deeper into her hole, quietly eating you away without being noticed. That wall in front of you gets impossibly taller, inexplicably thicker. And you keep pushing, head-butting it, questioning if you should give up, asking yourself if you’re the problem.

I’m going to say this with all the love that I have for you and for myself:

It’s no wonder you’re stuck. It’s no wonder you’re tired. It’s no wonder you’re angry, and overthinking, and spiraling. This is the normal, human response after years of accumulated grief and shame that have gone unchecked. Actually, if you were just waltzing through life after all of this, that would probably make you a psychopath.

The problem is not you. The problem is that you’ve been taught to follow a script that says: you need to overcome this grief, you need to move on quickly, you need to fix yourself ASAP to keep going through this life. And that quieter grief? Those dreams left unlived? Those desires that never came true? They are inconsequential. This is just how life is. Keep pushing forward.

It is time to let that script go.

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Grief is not something to move on from. It is not a setback, here to push you into the floor and sit on you, like a kindergarten playground bully with sticky fingers. It is not a sign from God or the Universe that you’re going in the wrong direction.

Grief is just a part of life. The longer you walk the path of adulthood, the more you will encounter it along the way. And it’s going to walk that path with you until the moment it ends, no matter how many detours you take in hopes it gets lost.

Once you encounter grief, it stays in that home it made in your chest. It is felt in waves. It echoes across years and decades. It is not going to leave. It is not supposed to. Because there is nothing to fix. There is nothing broken in you. Everything is working exactly as it was designed to, because this is what it means to be alive and human. And the more we understand this, the more grief becomes something we can hold instead of something we try to escape.

I don’t know everything. I’m not a therapist. I’m still figuring my own grief out. But here is what has helped me lower that infinite wall in front of me I kept trying to head-butt my way through, until it turned into a door I could just open.

Start charging the shame goblin rent

The shame goblin sounds like you, but it is not you. And thus, it needs to pay rent. Because unfortunately, no matter how many times you tell it to fuck off, it’s also not going to. What the shame goblin needs to be tamed is not force, but subtlety.

So, give it a name. Anything you want. Just a name that is not yours. For example: George.

Now that it has been baptized, become aware of it. When it whispers in your voice, notice it is George, not you. Tell George you know it’s him speaking. This will startle him and get him to shut up for a moment.

And then, you meet George with compassion. Imagine if your bestie was going through the grief you’re going through. Would you talk to them like George talks to you? No. If anyone talked to your bestie like George talks to you, you would punch them in the throat. And then, you’d turn around and tell your bestie that babe you’re amazing. You’re going through so much. Please be kind to yourself. I love you.

Go tell yourself the words you would say to your bestie. Extend yourself the same compassion. And as you do so, breathe deeply, expanding and contracting your tummy (if you want, try this coherent breathing exercise, which will do wonders for your nervous system). It is all it takes to make George hand you the bills and retreat back to his den in the corner of your head.

Pat yourself on the back. You just tamed the shame goblin. At least for now.

Sit at the edge of that hole in your chest and let your feet dangle

The shame goblin retreated. Now you finally have the bandwidth to turn your awareness to that hole in your chest where grief has made a home.

Take a seat by the edge of the hole. Let your feet sway. Invite grief to come out of the depths and join you. Give her some time — she might not come out immediately. Keep doing your coherent breathing exercise, or at least keep breathing deeply.

When she joins you, stay there, even if it feels uncomfortable. Especially if it feels uncomfortable. Breathe slowly and deeply, sharing that space with grief. Don’t attach stories as to why she is here. Because she doesn’t want a nod in her direction. She doesn’t want your explanations. Grief demands your whole presence. She wants all of your attention, even if it is only for a moment. Not to make you suffer. Not to depress you. She wants you to witness all the love that was left behind so that you don’t forget it.

Grief is here because you cared. It is a measure of all you have lived and all you have loved. She just wants to remind you of everything that ever shaped you, because it meant something to you. She put up that wall not to keep you stuck from moving forward, but so you had no choice but to turn around and witness those things that have made you you, even if they’re not here anymore.

Cry. Wail. Laugh. Scream “WHY ME?!” at the top of your lungs. Whatever wants to come out, let it.

That hole in your chest is not an open wound. It is the place that stores all you once loved. You can come here whenever you want to remember. The door is always open.

Own your story

I don’t know about you but 2026 has NOT been my year so far. I have fucked up so many times. A lot of things with Off-Script Club haven’t really happened the way I wanted. My heart does a somersault every time I look at my bank account. The hole in my chest has been heavy with grief I’d been so sure I had moved on from. And the world has been a terrifying place.

In fact, I don’t think I know anyone who has told me that “this was my year” since 2019.

My whole life I thought that I couldn’t go on and do the things I wanted when I was grieving something. My world would stop, and my life would crash. Which meant that I needed to get over that grief ASAP. It’s okay if it was brutal, as long as it was quick, please and thank you. And because things were generally going well in other parts of my life — or other parts of my life needed me — then it meant that my grief was negligible.

I lost my job, apartment, friends, and a whole life I had built in the US due to visa issues, BUT because I had a gap year to look forward to, then I shouldn’t feel bad about it.

I didn’t get to return to the US to do a Master’s like I always dreamed of, BUT because I got the opportunity to build my own business and that makes me happy, then I shouldn’t feel disappointed.

I lost my grandfather unexpectedly to a stroke, BUT because my family needed me, then I should get over my pain fast and be there for them.

See how George the shame goblin always shows up so sneakily, whispering in shoulds?

It was only after Ela died that I had a reckoning with myself. To charge the shame goblin rent. To meet grief at that hole in my chest. To show myself compassion for this loss, and all the others that have happened in the last 2 years.

I understood then that grief and other things can coexist. Joy. Anger. Desire. Sadness. Curiosity. It’s not a zero-sum-game; they don’t cancel each other out. I can grieve AND continue with my life.

You can grieve the versions of yourself that never came to pass AND enjoy your life.

You can grieve all the ways life hasn’t worked out the way you wanted AND keep striving for the things you want.

You can grieve the loss of a loved one AND show up for the things you care about.

You can grieve the injustice in the world AND work towards a better one.

I’m not saying that you can’t give your life a pause and you have to white-knuckle your way through the pain. Quite the opposite. I’m saying grief doesn’t stop after some arbitrary, predefined period. It doesn’t stop after the 3 business days your boss approved for your PTO. It doesn’t stop because other good things are happening for you.

And just because it doesn’t stop, that doesn’t make you weak, or dumb, or incapable. It makes you human. And humans aren’t made in binary code — a collection of ones and zeros. You contain multitudes. You can hold entire universes inside you.

When you can accept that you can grieve AND [fill in the blank]. When you can hold this paradox. When you can own up to all the fuckups, and the things that didn’t go your way, and the losses you have endured, that’s when the wall in front of you becomes a door.

That’s when you can simply walk right through it, and continue writing your story, so it becomes exactly what you want it to be.

Ride the waves

And if that’s all it took, that would be nice, right? But your life doesn’t change and your brain doesn’t rearrange itself because you did something once.

The shame goblin will keep coming out of its spot. The grief will keep burrowing deeper into her hole. The wall will keep coming up. You’re gonna forget all the compassion you just gave yourself and default to your autopilot.

And that is normal.

Grief is felt in waves. And not every wave is the same. On some days the shame goblin will be so loud and the grief will feel so heavy, all you’ll do is lie in bed and wish you could melt into the floorboards. On other days, one look from you will send the shame goblin scurrying into hiding.

And that is normal.

Because just like waves, your capacity also fluctuates. On the days when it feels shallow, give yourself some extra compassion. Forgive yourself for forgetting. Take a pause and just float. All you can do is ride the wave that is in front of you.

The more you ride it, the more you’ll know what to do, regardless of its size.

Immerse yourself in wonder

When the grief feels truly heavy and sitting with her in that hole feels like more than you can handle, find something that fills you with wonder.

Go somewhere with a view and admire the way the clouds roll over the mountains. Cherish a sunrise. Witness the way the moon makes her way across the sky. And if you can’t be out in nature, find somewhere to people watch. Wonder at how every living being flowing around you has a conscience, and a life, and a million things happening to them that you will never know about. Turn on a documentary and learn about the hundreds of fish you didn’t know existed that thrive at the depths of the ocean.

The sublime is everywhere, if you choose to notice. And when you notice, not only with your eyes but with the force of your entire existence, the grief becomes lighter. Wonder does not diminish your grief. It does not help you dissociate. It gets you to zoom out and reconnect with yourself and the world around you.

The fact that we’re all here, standing and breathing on this earth is already a mathematical anomaly. We’re just a sack of meat and bones on a rock that’s floating in space and we get to feel pain, and anger, and joy, and love, and grief, and shame, and excitement. We get to have our hearts splintered open and healed again. We get to take a step forward in a new direction.

Isn’t that crazy? Isn’t that wonderful?

The day that Ela died we were graced with the most jaw-dropping sunset. Swashes of pink, orange, and yellow blurred together in softness, cushioned by clouds. And in the middle, one whole rainbow, bridging the sky and the earth together.

My mom and I stood at the edge of her backyard, awestruck. It was only minutes, but it felt like time stood still. I felt empty and full all at once. I felt like Ela herself was smiling at us from wherever she was.

I let the tears roll as I understood. That we would be okay. Not in spite of this loss but because of it. That life could go on, and that was okay.

That I could grieve and take one small step forward.

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If you want to take that step forward but feel unsure of what direction to step into, here is your invitation to The Main Character Challenge. We will start by practicing taming the shame goblin, sitting with your grief, and owning your fuckups, so you can leave the baggage at the door and start writing your story on your own terms. Cesca Centini from The Modern Renaissance and I, your co-facilitators, will be right in the middle of it with you.

After we’ve set you on your way to ride the waves of grief like a pro, we’ll turn to one of the other things keeping you stuck. That’s right, purpose. Or what I prefer to call it, discovering what you actually freaking want to do with your life. And spoiler — it doesn’t have to be just one thing. So, whether you’re someone who draws a blank when asked what they actually want to do, or someone who has too many desires and can’t fit them neatly in a single box, this challenge will disrupt your autopilot, stop you from spiraling about “what do I actually want”, and help you start finding out.

Over 4 weeks you also will:

• Revisit your inner child, that version of you who knew things your adult self has since buried under layers of should and practical and what-will-people-think.

• Build your archetype — the version of you who has already overcome your current struggle — then method-act as them.

• Review everything that surfaced and run it through the one filter that matters: do you want to do this, or do you just like the idea of it?

• Design and go on your own quests to put your desires in action, instead of just spiraling about them.

• Attend live Circle calls to integrate the work as a collective, and show-up calls for quiet co-working with the community.

• Get matched with your own Ally for accountability.

• Access to the community, curated resources, and a workbook with all challenge activities.

Cesca and I believe that there is no such thing as making the “right” decision. There’s only trusting yourself enough to navigate whatever comes after. You will leave this challenge becoming this person. That’s real main character energy.

You can find more info on the Main Character Challenge and apply here.

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