{"id":40286,"date":"2025-12-07T12:32:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T12:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/when-both-of-my-parents-died-i-ran-from-grief-by-burying-myself-in-work-i-had-to-learn-work-life-balance-all-over-again\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T12:32:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T12:32:11","slug":"when-both-of-my-parents-died-i-ran-from-grief-by-burying-myself-in-work-i-had-to-learn-work-life-balance-all-over-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/when-both-of-my-parents-died-i-ran-from-grief-by-burying-myself-in-work-i-had-to-learn-work-life-balance-all-over-again\/","title":{"rendered":"When both of my parents died, I ran from grief by burying myself in work. I had to learn work-life balance all over again."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/692f7e9371107c9f34573861?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Matthew Lovell and his parents\"\/><figcaption>The author struggled after the death of both of his parents.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Matthew Lovell<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>My mom&#039;s death sent me into a pattern of overcommitting at work just so I could hide from the grief.<\/li>\n<li>Five years later, my father&#039;s death made my whole work life fall apart; I took a leave of absence.<\/li>\n<li>Throughout the journey, I discovered a new way to balance my work and life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My life was immeasurably changed in December of 2018 when my mom died from a fast-moving cancer. It was the week of Christmas, so I recall the feeling of guilt that I had when I sent an email to my team letting them know that I would be out for a little while. I didn&#039;t want to burden their holiday season with my sad news.<\/p>\n<p>A few weeks later, my return to work was a two-day trip to Chicago to represent my department in some sales meetings. My boss and I had decided it would be an easy re-entry because there was relatively little output that was required on my part.<\/p>\n<p>After the day of meetings, dinner, socializing, and after-dinner drinks, I found myself in the hotel room. On the surface, the day had been a nice departure from the stress of the prior weeks. But it was quiet, I was alone, exhausted, and felt numb. I stepped into the shower and, without warning, the floodgates of emotion burst forth, and I cried harder than I had cried in the weeks and months prior.<\/p>\n<p>I realized that the change of scenery had allowed me to feel all the things I&#039;d been holding on to for the months leading up to and after my mother&#039;s death.<\/p>\n<p>From there, I buried myself in work to hide from the avalanche of emotions.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I distracted myself with work<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In the weeks that followed, it didn&#039;t take me long to realize that my perspective on work had changed entirely. It started as apathy. I wanted to care about the things I was doing, but I didn&#039;t have anything in the emotional tank left to give.<\/p>\n<p>But at the same time, I overcommitted to projects and travel assignments. I took on anything that would distract me from the hurt I was feeling deep inside. In 2019, I spent around 150 nights in hotel rooms and took over 100 flights. I was happy on the surface, but beneath the layers, the grief still simmered.<\/p>\n<p>I thought if I just kept my head down at work, then I wouldn&#039;t find myself crying in the shower anymore.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Everything crumbled when my father died<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>After a couple of years, things finally started to feel good again. Then, in 2023, the first domino fell, and again changed the trajectory of my life. I received a phone call that my mother&#039;s older brother had died. I still remember the feeling in my gut as the flicker of all the emotions I&#039;d put there started to roar back to life.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/692f81427ecd1d1da662d026?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Matthew Lovell&#039;s mom and dad\"\/><figcaption>The author&#039;s parents.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Matthew Lovell<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But it didn&#039;t stop there. Between February and December 2023, I would end up losing five family members, one of whom was my dad.<\/p>\n<p>Any semblance of normalcy, work-life balance, or coping with deep emotions was totally broken by the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>I tried to bury myself in work again, but I couldn&#039;t get rid of the weight of the anxiety, depression, and grief that was making every day an emotional gauntlet. <\/p>\n<p>By early 2024, I realized that it was no longer sustainable, and I knew I needed to step away from work and give myself space to heal.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The journey forward with a new perspective<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I took a 10-week leave of absence, during which I wasn&#039;t filling my days with work or distractions to avoid the pain I was feeling. I was able to focus on family estate matters, spend time outside, and allow myself to ride the roller coaster of emotions as they bubbled up.<\/p>\n<p>I ventured back into work this time knowing that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to take a more sustainable approach. Ironically, my return to work this time also came with a travel assignment. This time around, however, I knew that I&#039;d need to be more intentional with my time and my commitments, and leave space for myself to recharge.<\/p>\n<p>And it worked. I enjoyed the trip, and also enjoyed the downtime we got to share as a team. I was more present with myself and with them.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I&#039;m now trying to face my emotions instead of drowning in work<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The following years have brought on their own set of challenges. But now I knew that balancing work and life doesn&#039;t mean using work as an escape from life. It also means setting realistic goals and boundaries for my work commitments.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I succeeded, and other times I didn&#039;t, but healing isn&#039;t linear, as they say.<\/p>\n<p>Now, occasionally, I&#039;ll have days when those raw feelings resurface, but I&#039;m grateful that I&#039;m not spending my time at work to avoid them. On this journey, that&#039;s about as close to balanced as you get.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The author struggled after the death of both of his parents. Courtesy of Matthew Lovell My mom&#039;s death sent me into a pattern of overcommitting at work just so I could hide from the grief. Five years later, my father&#039;s death made my whole work life fall apart; I took a leave of absence. Throughout [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}