We Made It Through: Ambiguous Loss and Resilient Leadership
- Chinyere Oparah
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago
As we close out a grueling year, Chinyere Oparah reflects on grief, ambiguous loss, and the quiet resilience required to keep leading with integrity and heart.
As the year comes to a close, I’ve been sitting with the weight of what this year has asked of us.
I suspect I'm not alone in feeling like 2025 was one of the hardest years I've lived through. Many of us are ending the year holding immense grief – sharp and visceral, or stifled and unnamed, because there was no time to feel it. We have much to mourn. We’ve witnessed the upending of long-held commitments to equity, education and the public good. We’ve seen institutions we thought invulnerable reeling from political attacks, job losses, budget cuts, and compromise. For some, there has been the loss of a role, a professional home, or the freedom to speak openly about work that has defined a lifetime. For others, the loss has been more existential: a sense of safety, belonging, or faith in what is possible in this country, especially for immigrants and those already living at the margins.
Understanding Ambiguous Loss
What has felt particularly present for me this year is a form of grief that is often overlooked: ambiguous loss. Psychologist Pauline Boss coined this term to describe the kind of loss that isn’t clearly defined or fully resolved, like when someone is physically present but psychologically absent, as in dementia, or physically absent but psychologically present, as in a disappearance. The grief doesn’t end; it lingers in a kind of frozen uncertainty.
We can apply this idea to the changes we are living through in higher education. Core organizing principles like DEI, gender justice, racial equity are being stripped, reworded, or rendered invisible in many workplaces. The work itself hasn’t vanished; in many cases it continues under different names like belonging or student success. Because the work continues, it can feel inappropriate to grieve what has been lost. And yet something essential – a bold sense of purpose, shared language and support – has shifted, leaving many of us with a sense of loss that’s hard to name.
Similarly, some of us still have our jobs and feel pressure to be grateful in a landscape of widespread layoffs and precarity. And yet the spark that once animated our work may feel dimmer. The mission alignment may feel compromised. The sense of safety or integrity we once relied on may no longer be there. This too is loss, even though we are still “functioning.”
Ambiguous loss has a way of freezing grief. When loss isn’t fully named or socially acknowledged, it can linger in the body as fatigue, irritability, numbness, or quiet despair. It can make us question ourselves: Am I allowed to feel this way? Shouldn’t I just keep going? Naming it matters, not to become hopeless or depressed, but to soften its hold, to let us move with more awareness and compassion.
Resilience Amidst Heartbreak
And still, somehow, we made it through.
What has stayed with me most this year in my work at the Center for Liberated Leadership (C4LL) is the depth of resilience I’ve witnessed in the leaders I work with. Even in the midst of exhaustion and heartbreak, I have seen you continue to show up with integrity. I’ve seen you tend to students, staff, patients, and communities while navigating your own fear and uncertainty. I’ve seen you draw on inner reserves you didn’t know you had, recalibrate what matters, and insist, quietly and sometimes fiercely, on joy alongside the tears.
That insistence matters. Joy, in this context, is not denial. It is not a feeling. It is a form of resistance. It is how we remember ourselves when systems push us toward numbness, urgency, or despair.
I am deeply grateful to each of you who trusted me and C4LL with your stories, your doubts, your hopes, and your courage this year. I'm grateful to my coaching clients, collaborators, partners, and community members who continue to believe that leadership can be humane, sustainable, and liberatory even in dark times. Because of you, C4LL continues to grow not just in reach, but in depth and purpose.
An Invitation to Retreat
As we turn toward the close of the year, I want to offer a gentle invitation. Over the winter break, take at least one retreat day: a real pause. Step away from the constant firefighting and urgency. Let go of the demands of the holiday season for a moment. Create space to let feelings surface that may have been kept in check in order to keep functioning. Name the losses you’ve been carrying, especially the ambiguous ones, especially the ones you don't feel justified mourning. Hold your grief tenderly, without rushing to focus on the positive.
You might sit with questions like these:
What visible or ambiguous losses have shaped this year for me?
Where have I been asking myself to “just push through” something that actually deserves space to breathe?
What inner strengths did I discover this year that I want to carry forward?
Where did I choose integrity, courage, or joy, even when it was hard?
What additional sources of support do I deserve as I enter 2026?
As you step toward whatever comes next, I invite you to pause, not to fix, but simply to notice. To name the losses you’ve been carrying, including the ones that don’t have clean edges or easy explanations. To hold your grief with tenderness, without rushing yourself back into doing.
You made it through. And the way you did – by choosing purpose, integrity, connection, and moments of joy alongside the sorrow – matters. May the next season meet you with more gentleness than the last, and may your leadership continue to be rooted not in urgency and overfunctioning, but in the deep wisdom of a heart that makes space for the fullness of our humanity.
If this reflection resonates, you don’t have to carry it alone. At the Center for Liberated Leadership, we work with leaders who are navigating grief, transition, and change while still being asked to show up with clarity and care. Coaching offers a protected space to slow down, name what’s been lost, reconnect with purpose, and design leadership practices that are sustainable and humane. If you’re feeling called to explore what support might look like in this season, you’re warmly invited to connect.
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Chinyere Oparah is an executive coach, strategist and educator. She has served in senior leadership roles in the nonprofit and higher education sectors, including dean, provost and vice president for academic affairs for over three decades and is the founder and CEO of the Center for Liberated Leadership. Sign up for a free leadership consultation with her here.
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About the Center for Liberated Leadership
The Center for Liberated Leadership connects and supports BIPOC, women, LGBTQ and transformational leaders so that they can lead with authenticity, purpose and joy. The Center's executive coaches help leaders navigate uncertain contexts and relentless workloads, beat burnout and maintain sustainable work practices.