A career transition can be exciting. It can also feel a lot like grief. In this episode of _At Work, Under Pressure_, Jessi Beyer sits down with Christine McHugh to talk about identity, career transitions, loss, belonging, rituals, and what happens when a job that has shaped your routines, relationships, language, and sense of self suddenly disappears. Christine shares how leaving Starbucks after 27 years forced her to confront how deeply work had become woven into her identity. That experience eventually led her to research identity shifts more broadly and begin writing _Identity in Motion_, a book focused on what happens when major life transitions disrupt the way we understand ourselves. Jessi and Christine discuss: • Why telling people “don’t make your job your identity” can be both true and deeply unhelpful • How career transitions affect routines, relationships, future plans, energy, and sense of self • Why people around us also have to adjust when our identity changes • How rituals can help acknowledge transitions that otherwise have no clear ceremony or container • Why contradictory emotions like grief and excitement can be true at the same time • How giving yourself space can make transitions easier to process • What organizations and leaders can do to preserve dignity when someone is leaving Christine also points to a major gap in how organizations handle layoffs and separations: companies may offer severance, benefits, or outplacement support while doing almost nothing to address the emotional and identity disruption that can follow. This episode is for leaders, HR professionals, coaches, people navigating career changes, and anyone who has ever looked at a suddenly empty calendar and wondered who they are now. Because leaving a job is not always just leaving a job. Sometimes it means rebuilding the story you tell yourself about who you are.