"Why Do You Weep?” Reconstructing Vocational Grief through Wonder and Transcendental Openness: A Dialogical Process

By Ashley E. Schumacher, MS, LAPC

This article is adapted from an original academic paper authored by Ashley E. Schumacher in March 2024.

There are losses that change more than our circumstances. They change the way we understand ourselves.

The loss of one's vocation can lead to profound grief and moral injury. When core aspects of one's identity and purpose are unexpectedly lost, complicated grief can occur. Yet even amidst this loss, something remains: the capacity for wonder, relationship, and transcendental openness.

Vocational loss is not always easily recognized as loss. A person may continue living, working, praying, and participating in the ordinary rhythms of life while carrying the grief of something that can no longer be lived. When a vocation has been disrupted, denied, or severed, the experience can reach beyond the loss of a role. It can touch the core of identity, purpose, relationships, and the meaning one has made of one's life.

From a Catholic perspective, vocation is not simply a career or a position. It is bound up with the person’s way of giving and receiving love. It is part of the way a person comes to understand who they are and how their particular gifts are meant to be offered in relationship with God and others.

This is why vocational loss can hurt so deeply.

Yet grief does not have to become the final interpretation of what has happened. Through transcendental openness, wonder, and dialogue, healing is possible. Through receptivity to new possibilities and entering into reflective dialogue with oneself, God, and others, grief can become a path toward restoration.

Vocation Is Relational

The Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Human Person (CCMMP) presents a theological anthropology rooted in the belief that human persons are created in the image of God for the purpose of relationship (Titus et al., 2020). Relationship grounds identity and becomes the context for meaning-making. Core aspects of identity formation occur in relation to God, others, self, and creation (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2000).

Vatican II (1964) emphasized the universal call to holiness, which invites all to the path of virtue and sanctification, not simply those in consecrated religious life. Every baptized person receives a universal vocation to love in the context of community. Within this universal call to holiness is a particular calling that facilitates the journey of sanctification.

The particular callings explored here are second-level states-in-life callings, including marriage, religious life, priesthood, and consecrated single life (Titus et al., 2020).

The CCMMP understands vocation as unfolding across interconnected levels. First-level vocation is the foundational call to relationship with God and holiness. Second-level vocation refers to one's state in life, such as marriage, priesthood, religious life, or consecrated single life. Third-level vocation concerns the particular ways a person gives of their gifts in service and participation with others. These levels are not separate or competing callings. Rather, the particular state and expressions of one's vocation are grounded in the deeper call to communion with God. 

A personal vocation represents the unique invitation and gift given to each individual as part of God’s creative plan. Vocational states facilitate the flowering of personal talents and deepest desires toward service of the divine will and the human family. Proper vocational discernment is contingent upon the development of self-awareness and prayerful listening to the call of the Spirit. Since grace builds upon nature (Aquinas, 1273/1981), supernatural vocation ought to align with personality traits and inclinations.

In this way, self-actualization can be achieved through vocational self-gift resulting in great joy and deep contentment. When circumstances prevent or sever the living out of one’s vocation, the loss can reverberate to the very core of identity and purpose.

Because vocation is relational, vocational loss is relational as well. What has been lost may include particular relationships, communities, forms of service, ways of belonging, and ways of encountering God. The grief therefore cannot always be resolved simply by finding another role. Something deeper has been disrupted.

What Is Vocational Loss?

For the purposes of this article, vocational loss or denial refers to situations where institutional policies, cultural forces, or personal limitations constrain or sever one from the activities, relationships, and modes of service which allow full expression of giftedness and purpose.

Either suddenly or through a process of erosion, the external structures or internal capacity to live out vocation are removed. No longer able to operate in one’s proper sphere of moral excellence, isolation, disorientation, and grief can take hold.

The loss or disruption of one’s vocation can lead to profound grief and injury to an individual’s moral identity. This loss may be volitionally but reluctantly chosen under adverse circumstances or may be the result of others’ actions against one’s own desires and will. Both of these catalysts can result in a development of moral injury and complex grief.

When core aspects of purpose and meaning are suddenly withdrawn or denied, the pain goes beyond mere sadness to the core of one’s identity and self-image. This experience of vocational grief and moral pain cries out for response. Yet frequently, such grief remains unresolved, morphing into complicated mourning or moral injury.

Dominant cultural narratives lack adequate frameworks to understand and facilitate healing within vocational suffering, often resulting in disenfranchised grief (Cesur-Soysal & Arı, 2022). When vocational loss is understood as the loss of self-transcendent purpose and violation of sacred dignity, however, the way forward can transition from mere coping to moral redemption.

This is where another way of seeing becomes possible.

When Grief Becomes Moral Injury

Just as the death of a loved one can lead to prolonged and disabling grief, so too can the loss of oneself and concomitant relationships lead to deep mourning and “chronic sorrow” for what was but is no more (Hawton, 2007; Weingarten, 2012).

Complicated grief involves persistent anguish, emotional turmoil, shattered worldviews, and a lost sense of purpose following the experience of loss (Neimeyer, 2000). Key aspects of identity vanish and assumptions about self and reality are compromised. The way forward seems unclear and the past irretrievable. Traumatic loss shatters the continuity of self (Maccallum & Bryant, 2008; Stroebe et al., 2001).

Where loss involves perceived moral transgressions, moral injury can also occur. Moral injury represents an assault on moral conscience and values resulting in profound inner conflict, shaken moral identity, and loss of trust (Brock & Lettini, 2012; Harris et al., 2015; Jinkerson, 2016). Transgressions may be perpetrated, witnessed, or felt at a personal and societal level (Drescher et al., 2011).

Inability to live out moral purpose damages spiritual wholeness. This can precipitate self-condemnation, withdrawal, and despair (Borges et al., 2022). Such an inability to resolve the difference between one’s idealized values and one’s lived experiences within the context of personal vocation can lead to the “choiceless” decision to leave or walk away from it (Larson & Zust, 2017).

A disintegration of the self may occur as a result of this internal and external loss of identity. This is perpetuated by a more rigid conceptualization of vocation as limited to specific states that are hierarchically ordered in terms of their dignity and ascribed importance.

The effects of this from a religious, vocational perspective are profound. Individuals may experience disconnection from their faith, values, or beliefs, often accompanied by feelings of doubt, confusion, emptiness, or a perceived loss of meaning (Koenig et al., 2018; Volk & Koenig, 2019; Drescher et al., 2011; Leo et al., 2021).

Struggles may arise concerning practices that were previously sources of tranquility, fulfillment, or grounding, such as prayer, meditation, or ritual engagement. Additionally, fluctuations in spiritual enthusiasm may manifest, alternating between periods of inspiration and episodes of apathy or anger (Reed, 2021; Reed & Haugan, 2021).

Furthermore, behaviors incongruent with one's religious or moral principles may emerge. Individuals may also report a diminished sense of the divine presence in their lives, feeling forsaken or abandoned by the one they hoped to be fully committed to. There may also be a heightened disillusionment with religious institutions and their leadership, further exacerbating the felt sense of alienation.

In extreme cases, individuals may resort to drastic measures in attempts to restore spiritual equilibrium, often vacillating between rigid adherence to dogma and intense skepticism. Decision-making during such periods may be marked by impulsivity or recklessness (Leo et al., 2021).

Psychological distress may also manifest in the form of anxiety, restlessness, mood fluctuations, depression, or apathy. Collectively, these signs indicate a misalignment between an individual's internal experience and their external religious expressions, illustrating the disruption of harmony within their spiritual ecosystem.

What Happens When the Old Story No Longer Holds?

Re-establishing equilibrium necessitates a process of developing resilience and post-traumatic growth through rediscovering personal and transcendental meaning as informed by newfound insights and restorative spiritual practices in the wake of the experience of loss.

True healing from such grief and injury requires more than typical processes of adjustment. When the bereaved cannot integrate loss into the ongoing narrative of self-identity and purpose, complicated mourning can persist (Neimeyer, 2001). Meaning itself requires reconstruction after the collapse of guiding assumptions and frameworks of purpose (Neimeyer, 2000).

Bereavement challenges bring opportunity for reflection upon the profound questions of existence (Balk, 1999). Through the experience of spiritual disequilibrium, loss contains potential for a renewed faith and an opportunity to reconstruct personal narratives at the most fundamental relational level, that is, between God and the self (Balk, 1999; Bray, 2013).

For this potential to be realized, a catalyzing environment of emotional safety, validation, and fresh perspective proves necessary.

This is important because healing does not mean pretending that the loss did not matter. It does not require forcing gratitude, finding a lesson too quickly, or replacing what was lost with something that merely looks similar.

Sometimes healing begins more quietly.

It begins when there is enough safety to remain present to what has happened, enough relationship to no longer carry it alone, and enough openness to wonder whether reality may hold more than can presently be seen.

Wonder: Learning to Behold Again

Wonder makes it possible to encounter reality beyond the narrowed field of perception created by loss. It is a relational way of seeing that allows reality to become larger again. Wonder moves the heart, mind, and spirit beyond the moral emotion of awe to behold reality afresh.

Encounters with moral beauty, virtue, and human goodness can evoke self-transcendent emotions that draw attention beyond the isolated self and toward something perceived as greater and more meaningful (Haidt, 2000; Haidt & Morris, 2009). Awe similarly involves a shift in perspective in response to experiences that challenge ordinary frameworks of understanding and invite a sense of connection with something larger than the self (Keltner & Haidt, 2003).

This movement beyond the narrowed self is important in the aftermath of vocational loss. When grief has constricted perception around what was lost, wonder creates room to encounter what remains and what may yet emerge. Rather than demanding that the person reinterpret the loss as good, wonder allows reality to be received again without prematurely determining what it must mean.

Beauty, goodness, virtue, relationship, and possibility can become visible where grief had made them difficult to perceive. Self-transcendence can move a person beyond isolated ego-concerns toward relational participation, creating possibilities for renewed connection and integration (Keyes & Haidt, 2003; Keltner & Haidt, 2003).

In this sense, wonder is not simply an emotional response to something beautiful. It is a way of becoming receptive to reality again. It can soften rigid assumptions without erasing the truth of what has been lost.

The reflective, relational environment of therapy allows for this experience through the facilitation of reconstructed narratives in the wake of freshly experienced wonder. Novel conceptualizations can help reconstruct restrictive assumptive worlds burdened by complicated grief. The therapeutic relationship provides a secure base for risking new perspectives. Through dialogue, the client can begin to ask not only what has been lost, but what remains possible.

Healing Through Dialogue

Humans are created for relationships (Aristotle, 350 B.C.E./1941). Alienation impedes the journey to authentic human flourishing (Titus et al., 2020). Vocational grief and moral pain fragment identity and trust, straining connection. Restoration relies upon re-establishing relationships of validation, understanding, and compassion.

As proposed by Kellogg and Garcia Torres (2021), chairwork psychotherapy provides a framework for intrapersonal and interpersonal dialogue. Through Gestalt techniques, aspects of self literally dialogue to foster reintegration.

Dialogue with the divine facilitates spiritual processing and access to divine accompaniment that can restore vocational meaning, not necessarily through resolution but through acceptance and hope in the possibility of redemptive suffering and renewed purpose.

This relational dimension matters because vocational grief is often accompanied by alienation. The person may feel separated from a former community, from a former understanding of self, from trusted relationships, or even from God. Healing therefore cannot be reduced to an individual act of cognitive reframing. It involves relationship.

Existential meaning-making should occur in a relational context (Neimeyer, 2001). Empathic relationship provides the environment for reconstructing self-narrative interrupted by loss. The emergence of Innovative Moments, that is, thoughts, feelings, or actions which depart from grief-dominant narratives, during therapy predicts better adaptation to the new reality (Alves et al., 2014).

This requires a degree of acceptance with the understanding that life is changed, not ended. Thus, while bereavement forever colors life experience (Balk, 1999), the possibility of redemptive suffering contains the seeds of healing when integrated in the relational context.

Perhaps this is one reason the question, “Why do you weep?” can be so different from a demand to stop grieving.

The question makes room for relationship.

It does not deny the sorrow. It turns toward the person within it.

Walking With Someone Toward What Is Still Possible

Vocational loss can require more than adjustment to changed life circumstances. It can require meaning reconstruction and adaptation within the healing context of dialogical relationship.

Clinically, this points to the importance of providing a safe, validating therapeutic environment where complicated grief and moral pain can be explored openly. The counselor should help the client process the various emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and behavioral impacts of vocational loss in a judgment-free way.

Interventions should aim to help the client accept the irreversibility of loss while also remaining open to new possibilities and meaning, creating greater psychological flexibility.

Understanding the value of evoking wonder and transcendence lifts the client outside of ego-concerns. Counselors can help facilitate this through exploring sources of awe, beauty, hope, and virtue. Yet this exploration is not about directing the client toward a predetermined answer. It is about creating space for the client to encounter what is true, good, beautiful, and meaningful in a way that can open new possibilities.

Additionally, the use of dialogical techniques like Gestalt chairwork may assist integration of fragmented aspects of self and relationships with the divine and others. Promoting post-traumatic growth involves helping the client articulate an adapted life narrative that incorporates lessons from the loss.

A key emphasis should be placed on healing through dialogical therapeutic approaches that focus on the relationship between God, the self, and others.

By providing an empathic relationship and engaging the client's capacity for wonder, the counselor can walk with them through profound grief toward renewed purpose and hope. The counselor does not need to have the answer to what comes next. There is room for the client to discover it through the process of relationship, reflection, encounter, and discernment.

The pain may never fully disappear, but through moral redemption, openness to new possibilities, and reconstructed relationships, healing becomes possible.

When There Is More to Behold

Vocational grief and moral pain strike at the core of identity and purpose when a self-transcendent vocation rooted in one’s religious beliefs and worldview is severed or disrupted. Yet the capacity for transcendental wonder remains.

Through interpersonal dialogical processing, complicated grief and injury find pathways to reintegration. Where alienation once defined the individual experience of loss, the possibility of redemptive suffering can ignite restorative hope, helping the individual heal their first-level calling of relationship with God.

Restoration of trust, meaning, and purpose are thereby possible. New vocational understandings and narratives can assist individuals to respond to third-level vocational callings that bring them back into greater communion with others in the dialogical process of redefining and responding to state-in-life discernment.

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