The Psychology of your 20s - 435. The pain of outgrowing your old life

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

There comes a point in all of our lives where we realise we've outgrown who we used to be. Sometimes it happens all at once, due to a breakup, a move, a loss, or a major life change. Other times (most of the time), it's much quieter.  As painful as that can feel, it's also one of the clearest signs that you're evolving. In this episode, we explore the psychology of outgrowing your old life, why change can feel so much like grief, and how to let go of the past without fearing the future. We explore: The psychology of liminality and the space between who you were and who you're becoming The seven stages of outgrowing your old life Why we cling to the past through nostalgia, the endowment effect and status quo bias When you know a chapter is over How to embrace change and build a future you're excited to grow into Happy listening! Watch on Netflix: HERE Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast Subscribe on Substack: @thepsychologyofyour20s For business: [e-mail] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show.

Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here. You specifically, of course, back for another episode as we break down. the psychology of our 20s. Quick reminder, before we start, this episode you are currently listening to is also on Netflix worldwide, as are actually all of our other episodes in video form. So if you are someone who prefers to watch your podcasts or to have me kind of talking your way in the background whilst you're cleaning at the gym, working from home,

whatever it is, go and check out the link in the description and you can watch a full Netflix episode. Let's get into it. We're going to begin this episode with a, Hear Me Out. Hear me out. The best part of being in your 20s is realizing you are not the person that you once were. The worst part is realizing once more that you can never be those people again, no matter how hard you try or how much you want to go back. It is probably the most bittersweet feeling of this decade, the pain of outgrowing your old life. Sweet because you're evolving you're stepping into probably a more mature, concrete, self-aware version of you, bitter because part of growing up is having to say goodbye over and over again to certain things that

represented who you once were and just kind of hoping that the next chapter is better. This happens, this feeling this phenomenon occurs at some very critical points in our 20s. Like when we graduate college or university, I remember graduating and there being this like deep, sadness that, you know, I'm never going to live next door to my friends ever again. I'm never going to have those same moments and nights where you're like getting to know people for the first time and like everything is shiny and new and not that serious and like your whole job is just to study. Like I'd never get to relive this exactly as it was. That's a big one for many people. It can also happen when we break up with somebody, you know, you're grieving this old version of

you, you're grieving the life you thought you'd have and it kind of disintegrates very quickly. Same with when we quit jobs, when we leave cities, when we lose friends, even loved ones. But the pain of outgrowing your old life also happens a lot more quietly as we kind of realize like, hey, wait a second, I'm not who I was six months ago or two years ago or five years ago. Is that a good thing or is that a bad thing? Today we are going to explore that feeling for a second, the pain about growing your old life, why it hurts psychologically, why the pain is perhaps a good thing in a strange way, and how to just lean into this constant evolution of the self that we're going to experience time and time again. And I guess not cling

on too, too tightly to the past and miss out what will hopefully be an absolutely incredible, amazing future for you. So yeah, there's so much to cover. There's a lot of psychology. There's a a lot of concepts in this as well. So as always, let's get into it. Let's start with this. What are some clear signs, or maybe actually less than clear now that I think about it, but signs nonetheless that the life you used to have and love and feel safe in is now one that you've outgrown. Firstly, there is the very obvious fact that you know you've outgrown your old life because there has been a notable change, transition, major life event that has rapidly shifted timelines for you. We mentioned a few at the beginning, but some other big ones that we experience in our 20s are

like things like grief, losing your job, having a big, maybe quite scary health change, health scare, even positive things like a new job, starting a new relationship, getting married. There's a feeling that everything's changed and there's a recognition of like, okay, I've crossed over a certain threshold that now I cannot go back on. Even if I were to go back, it wouldn't be the same. This may sound strange, but this happened to me a few weeks ago when my childhood dog passed away. Like I said, for me, it was a very clear moment in time that marked like a before and after. You know, I had him in my life since I was 10 years old from primary school to high school, to university, then when I moved to Sydney, then when I had my first full-time job,

when I quit that job, literally he lasted from when I was a child to when I moved to London. And his death was like this moment of realization of like my old life, my childhood is officially over. Like there's no going back. So that was a big moment for me. Shout out to Yo-Yo. This episode is dedicated to Yo-Yo, the best dog ever. And it definitely, yeah, again, inspired this feeling in me of like this huge recognition of like I am no longer that person and I can never be that person again. So that took a sad turn. But yes, sometimes there is kind of an intense timeline shift that brings perspective also signifies the end of something. More subtly though, sometimes it's less of like an intense rupture and more of a slow recognition. It's more subtle.

It's small changes in your routines, in your relationships. You may suddenly realize like, oh, I don't really see the people that I used to. My nights look very different now. Like a lot of my hobbies have changed. Even how I dress has changed. My idea of fun is different. Basically, there has been some personal evolution in terms of your values or your lifestyle that has slowly filtered into your habits and patterns over time. This can create some tension. I think if your environment remains the same, but you, no longer fit in it when there's a disalignment between you and the people you're around or the life that you're in you may also start to feel out of place where you are now bit bored

bit stuck bit restless i don't know if there's a psychology term for this but right before your life is about to change remarkably you will experience what i call next in line jitters this is this weird waiting room sensation where part of you instinctively knows you're about out to experience like a deep psychological, soulful, emotional transformation, but it's just not your turn yet. I don't, like, it's a hard feeling to describe. The best way I can describe it is the hour before a long haul flight lands. And you like, you know you're about to land. You know what's coming, but like you have to last the longest period of your life where like you can't really get comfortable, you can't really do anything. And it just feels very, very strange.

That's what next in line June is really feels like. Maybe my metaphor doesn't make sense, but I think the closest psychological term for it is developmental disequilibrium. It's actually a child psychology term that comes from the Yale-Gessel Institute of Child Development. And I think it definitely can also apply to adults, and especially people in their 20s as well. Basically what this term or this theory says is, right as you're on the verge of like a major growth spurt,

your behavior starts to almost regress. So we experience what feels like a drawback in our behavior, in our lifestyle, in our attitudes before we are kind of shot forward. And that strange feeling of displacement is a good thing. It's a sign that change is coming. You're just not quite there yet. But it's also, as much as it is a good thing, it's often accompanied by a lot of grief as well as we spoke about. And I think this is the biggest sign that you're outgrowing your old life. You know, it's painful. even if it's beautiful. Often the greatest sign that you're going through this right now

is that you just feel it, right? You feel a little bit off, you feel sad. Maybe you don't have the exact kind of box to place it in or a way to categorize it, but you definitely don't feel like yourself. We've spoken about this before a lot of times, but the human brain has a natural aversion to large-scale change. It likes novelty.

It likes a little bit of a challenge for sure, but that rapid uncertainty of outgrowing a life that you felt comfortable in creates so many unknowns all at once that our mind can't really piece together the story of who we are right now. In the words of Harvard researchers, if your brain has one major vice, it is control. And there is very little of it. There is very little control right now in this period of change. and that combined with the loss of what once was and just the fact you can't have it anymore does create a very real emotional and psychological pain that can be felt like real pain. I think the pain is best described by this quote,

the process of transformation consists mostly of decay. This is from Rebecca Solnit's book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, and what she's basically describing is a phenomenon known in psychology and sociology as liminality. the threshold between who you were and who you are becoming that requires almost a full death of the old self before the new self can emerge. The very, very famous psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, who we speak about in basically every single episode, he of course had things to say about this and he spoke about it as the death and rebirth archetype where we basically have to constantly experience small deaths within us to bring

about newness and growth. Without those deaths, we cannot have that. And he claimed that this process was incredibly important for an individuation. Individuation is essentially the lifelong, psychological journey of discovering your authentic identity. This is what the pain is. This pain that you're experiencing right now. It is the decay that is required for the new growth. Now, something especially interesting to know, particularly if you're going through this right now and you're just kind of like floating flotsam like you really don't have an anchor. Something interesting to know is that the pain about growing your old life often occurs in stages and it does have an end point. The biggest theory on this is Arnold Van Genep's

threefold model of the rites of passage. But I like to think of it as having seven stages in particular. We're going to start with his theory. He's the expert. Basically, Van Genep, He was a French ethnographer and folklorist. So he liked to understand humanity by looking at stories and the way that cultures functioned. And throughout his work, he kind of noticed that in almost all societies and cultures, as people transitioned into new seasons of life or new roles, the same three things almost always happened. There was separation, there was transition or the liminal space we speak about,

and then there was incorporation. The example that suits this best is, like, graduation, for example. There's the separation that is seen through, you know, the formality of the graduation ceremony. You receive a diploma, probably also a big fat bill. Even, like, the separation is signified even by the turning of the tassels on the hats, like showing that you've separated, you've exited this institution. Then there is the period of transition, maybe before you start work or before you know, what's going to come next where you've lost all the structure that you relied upon in the past

and that you've become accustomed to and you don't really have anything else to rely on in the future. You're kind of left with a lot of confusion, thoughts, questions about is this going to work out or not? What am I going to do? And then he says there's slowly this reintegration. You kind of piece things together. You reintegrate. You get a sense of like where you are now. He also spoke about marriage being like this as well or a wedding being.

like this, joining the military being like this. Remember, he was kind of like riding around the time of like the early 1900s. So a huge part of culture at that time, like he lived through some very significant wars. So people going to the army was probably the most obvious example for him. So that was his theory of the rights of passage, separation, transition, reintegration. As I've said, I see this as occurring in a few more stages. I think it's probably a little bit less concrete and simple than three steps. I think the pain of outgrowing your old life happens in seven. The first stage and the first sign that you are entering into this period of transformation is stage one, which is increased nostalgia. So you begin to realize you're really missing what

used to feel normal. You're beginning to remember things kind of as they were, not as they are. and with that becomes the acknowledgement of the passing of time and just kind of the deeper understanding that like, oh my gosh, if I'm feeling nostalgic, it means that I don't have this anymore. Things have changed. That's a bit of sweet feeling. This is followed though by stage two, which is the grief. Nostalgia is something you can kind of dip in and out of I've found.

There's so many studies on this, including one from 2023 titled, Locating Nostalgia Among the Emotions, A Bridge from Lost to Love. And in it, the author talks about how, nostalgia is one of those rare emotions that's neither positive or negative. It kind of exists in its own space. Grief, though, at least in its early stages, it's just like a big brick wall of sadness and loss. This is like when shit kind of gets real. Like nostalgia was like, oh, I feel sad, but I'm kind of happy. The grief stage is like, oh, I'm really coming to terms with the fact that life is never going to be the same. It's probably also some panic.

that as well. And that is when we enter stage three, which is the vacuum stage, also the liminal space that we spoke about before. This stage is where we feel our just absolute worst. And it is likely where you are right now, if I'm being honest. There is very little to hold on to. It feels like, I think the best way to describe it is that you've only lost and you've gained very little. You're just losing up into this point. You don't have what you had in the past. You also don't know what is in the future yet. You just have the sense that you lack possession over your current state. Your life maybe doesn't feel like it's yours anymore. How long you stay in this state is like the million dollar question. It has a very ambiguous answer, which is that it really depends on how

well you can adjust to the next stage, which is the responsibility stage or the acceptance stage. in this period, you really begin to come to terms with the facts of the situation. Like at some stage, you have to just, you have to just accept like, no, I can never be that person again. No, I cannot go back there. No, there's no change in the past. Yes, that is sad. Yes, it is okay to grieve that. Now, what am I going to do about it? What am I going to change? Because you can't stay in that liminal space forever. Trust me, I think there are some people who do, and those are the people who seem least happy with their lives because they're just so fixated on the past and they're just so unable to see their own role and their agency over the future.

Some examples of this are like the dude from your hometown who just wants to relive high school, the person who like can't get over their bitter divorce. It's not like they want to be that way. It's just that the grief and the nostalgia of the first two stages are too strong, that they're unable to get to stage three, which is the responsibility. acceptance stage. It's an uncomfortable reality. At some point, you either let go or you get dragged behind. The shift between one or the other is realizing that you have self-efficacy, you have agency, in making what comes next as good as it was before. So what happens after this? What are the three

final stages you may be thinking? We have to take a short break here, but when we come back, we're going to talk about all of that and so much more. Stay with us. Experience. You end up how with weekend gold tickets to Lassau Montreal. Thomas Rett. Mumford and Suss.

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and $1,000 cash. Download the free Iheart radio app, listen to Pure Country for 10 minutes, and enter to win. Lasso, Montreal. All, every day you listen is another chance to win. Once you've accepted your reality and you've accepted your responsibility and shaping your reality, what we call in psychology accepting your own self-efficacy, this is when you start to really

begin to be able to shape your new situation. So basically, this is when you can start seeking out new opportunities, new routines, new friends, you start setting new goals for yourself, you're happy about it. You really start to have a vision, a bit of optimism, you make a plan. And then nothing really happens for a while. Stage 5 is what we call the discomfort of growth stage, where you're truly making sacrifices now. You know things need to go.

You know you need a clean slate. You know what needs to be done to bring about the future that you want. And it takes a while. It's just, it's hard. Sounds like a bummer after what you've already been through and what you probably already feel. But do not fear. It does pass.

And it is followed slowly by stage 6, which is the return of reward. Slow at first, but you begin to start to notice things shifting. Like you're feeling lighter, you're not as pessimistic. You found a bit more of a groove. The slow reward stage is the best because you kind of made it through and you've proven, like, I'm really capable of evolving. And life may not be better or worse, but it's different.

And that difference is its own reward. And there are things that I genuinely enjoy about this new version of me and that I'm looking forward to. Definitely you still feel pangs of nostalgia, but I think yearning is just to sign you're human and that you've deeply embodied your past experiences. Now you are just doing that for the present as well. You're starting to really enjoy what you have now.

This is when we arrive at the final stage, stage seven, which is the new normal. In the words of Fleetwood Mac, you've climbed the mountain, you've turned around. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's just the best way to describe it. it's subtle at first. I found this with moving to London and moving overseas, right? Like at first, I really hated it and I hated it and I hated it and then slowly I thought about it less and I put in more effort to make it feel normal and to make it feel worth it. And then kind of like a breakup, like, you know, one day you just wake up and you feel okay, that's what it was like. One day,

it just felt like the new normal. And you just kind of realize I just like where I am now. I'm happy. as Carl Jung said, we have to bring him up again, of course. He said this cycle is going to occur over and over again throughout your life. The people who handle this the best, though, are those who just submit to the flow of it. Nothing stays the same forever, but you probably wouldn't want it to anyway. I think this pain, as well, if nothing else, is just proof that, hey, like, I have something worth missing. I had something worth missing. It shows you conclusively that you have had a life that you've loved or parts of it that you've loved.

You've had people that you've loved. And therefore there is another version of a life you can love out there as well. Like it's proof in itself that life is valuable. I think it's also important to not focus on what you've lost by letting go and moving on, but what you would have lost by holding on too tight to a life that didn't fit you anymore. You know, what do you lose in that situation? Firstly, you lose access to a future version of you who is probably more authentic. You lose access to new opportunities that are just waiting for you to be available for them.

Same thing with relationships. You lose access to friends and people you love if you made space and time for them. You lose access to new lessons and new experiences if you stayed the same. You would almost certainly lose the ability or lose life's ability to surprise you. And I think you also just lose access to the possibility for a genuine, perhaps even pure happiness than you've ever experienced. This may be hard to imagine, and it probably is given how much you like what you have, but we often make the cognitive error of believing that all we've ever experienced must be the ceiling for all that we will ever experience. Basically, it's as good as it ever was. Like, this is as good as it gets.

and we become very fixated on what we're losing, that we forget to consider the opportunity cost of holding on too tight. We can clearly see the life we're leaving behind. We can clearly see what we liked about it. We can't see the life waiting for us on the other side because it hasn't happened yet. Psychologists and even economists have a few terms they use to try and explain what this does to our behavior. One term they use is the endowment effect. It may also be known as the status quo bias. Basically, we value what we already have because we're familiar with it. And that means that we don't consider alternatives that may be better. We struggle to value those alternatives, you know, the future that's coming for you because it doesn't feel as real

as what already was. Holding on, though, costs you something. Even if in the moment you feel like you're losing less because you're staying the same, what you're really losing, is that opportunity for self-expansion. I think the best metaphor for what this limitation does to us psychologically and developmentally is the fishbow metaphor. I'm sure we've all heard this idea that a goldfish will grow to the size of its tank. I think equally people can only grow to the size of their discomfort. That's where their limit is.

if you don't allow yourself to sit in that space, experience that pain, and if you only, and you always just go back to what you had and try and relive it, you are putting yourself in a small fishbowl. You are containing yourself. There was an amazing study done in 2022 by researchers, Woolie and Fishbarsh, and it was published in the Journal of Psychological Sciences, where they measured whether actively seeking discomfort as a signal for growth could increase motivation.

They did like five experiments with like 2,000, I think even more adults in total. And what they found was that when people run towards discomfort because they mentally see it as a sign of growth and a way to improve themselves, their level of goal achievement was much, much higher. when they accept discomfort as perhaps being a good thing and they voluntarily want more of it in their life, they do better. And this is what I really want for you guys. And if I'm being honest, what I want for myself, the ability to shift our understanding of discomfort and the pain of outgrowing people, places, moments in time to be something that is actually at its core a gift. It's transformational. It's not punishment. It's not sadness. It is literally the whole point of life

is to keep growing. So with that in mind, as we kind of wrap up the episode, let's talk about three easy concrete ways to keep positive about our evolution whilst also honoring who we were before and our past. Firstly, as you outgrow your old life, make sure you notice specifically what is different and why that difference is important. It reminds me of a quote I saw the other day, I can't remember who said it, but it essentially said each chapter is painful because it is different, but it is important specifically because of those differences. Basically, each period of your life has something uniquely special to offer that no other part of your life can. Whether you are 19, 35, 70, 90, there is always going to be an experience you are having for the first time

ever that is testing you and expanding you. For the period you are in right now, what is that experience? I think an even more concrete way to tap into this is to write down what lesson do you think life is trying to teach you right now? What specific seminar, course, module is life putting you through and one is the learning outcome that you are hoping to see at the other end or that you think is being delivered to you? This is really really. effective, this, you know, coming back to a lesson trying to identify what the pattern is is really important because it creates meaning from our loss. There is this idea that loss hurts the most and is the most profound when it seemingly has no reason or purpose. So by adding

meaning back in, you know, this is the lesson I'm taking from this, we create a narrative to our pain and to our grief and that makes it easier to integrate and easier to tolerate. So that's one way to do it. Secondly, as you feel yourself transitioning and leaving your old life behind, and specifically, I think, as you feel the urge and the desire to just like hold on, perhaps too tightly, remember who you are doing this for? Who is this discomfort going to serve? The thing is, it's you, it's your future self. You are willingly subjecting yourself to this change for better or for worse because you know that the rule, that the rule, reward for future you is going to be spectacular. The reward of new opportunities, new growth,

new relationships, new experiences. You may not be able to feel it right now, but you know it's going to be good. The more you can visualize your future, even like the tiniest details and the life that your future self will be enjoying, the more you can picture the other side of this and the fruits of this change, the more it will feel less like a punishment, less like a sadness, and more like, I don't know the right word, maybe a devotion, maybe a beautiful sacrifice, maybe even exciting if you can get to that point. I spoke about this actually on Instagram the other day, but one of the single greatest predictors of success in almost everything we do is our ability for what we call reverse delay discounting, also called delay gratification, the ability to value

rewards that come later more than rewards that come right now. This is essential for choosing to grow out of your old life because, as we said, there is going to be a mental and emotional trench period where it's like you are just giving pieces of your life away for free. But then something always comes in to fill its place. Always. I know that sounds ridiculous. Maybe very woo-woo.

But I have seen it happen in so many people's lives. People older than me, people younger than me, people my age, they leave space. They sacrifice parts of their life. Something better comes in. and fills it up. They leave a relationship they knew they shouldn't be in. And suddenly there is this space open for those soulmate level friendships they always wanted. They decide to quit the job, they hated and go back to school. There's a hard period and then there's space to do something that actually gives them meaning. I guess the important thing is to imagine the future as much

as you are imagining the past. As much as you are fixating on what you have lost, fixate equally on what you have to gain. And finally, where you feel sadness, leave equal space for gratitude. Sometimes when I talk about gratitude, I feel like I need to make this caveat. Gratitude isn't meant to drown out all the other emotions. It's just meant to sit alongside them. Like, I'm sad. I'm never going to be 21 again. But I'm so grateful I had those times. I'm anxious that I'm never going to be as happy as I was. in that job, with that person, in that place. But I'm so grateful I know that a happiness of that kind exists when so many people don't.

If you can do this, you accomplish one of the greatest indicators of human emotional intelligence, which is the ability to hold two parallel, perhaps contradictory truths and emotions at one time and not need to cancel them out. That's kind of what life is. Like that's literally what life is. Holding the good, holding the bad, seeing them and seeing that they can exist, they can co-exist, they don't need to be, or life doesn't need to be one or the other.

On top of that, we also know from countless neuro and psychological studies that gratitude has a physical impact on your brain. Just last year, the American Brain Foundation put out this massive report showing all the ways and all the research that gratitude shows up in brain imaging scan. in emotional regulation, in life satisfaction, those are all things we probably need when we are outgrowing the places that we've been. I also think this makes for a great journaling exercise. Even just a mental exercise, every time you miss something, every time you're confronted by the sadness of growing up, write down something you're equally excited for, something that you're

equally happy that you are going to get to experience. My final thing to say about the pain of outgrowing your old life is it can be very lonely. it can be very off-putting, but don't for a second think life can't get good again and perhaps even better than it was before. I have been so obsessed with these questionnaires and studies and even personal accounts I've been seeing at the moment where people ask those in their 80s and 90s, you know, when were you the happiest? The amount of them who say 50, 60, 70, and the amount of them who so rarely say 20 is so comforting to me. You think it's as good as it's going to get, it probably isn't.

I also just always remind myself when I feel like I didn't get enough time with a certain chapter in my life, would I have wanted to stay there forever? Probably not. Would I want that to be my only reality? No. And that means that sometimes I don't get the chance to decide or I don't get to choose when a new chapter begins. I just have to lean into it and just kind of have this blind hope that it is what's meant to be and that some part of you knows intuitively and instinctively that this life, this situation isn't working.

Trust that gut instinct. Trust that discomfort that we've kind of been trained to ignore and have enough courage to be like, I actually want more for myself. even if that means going through a period of liminality, of emptiness, of pain, I really want what's on the other side. And so I'm willing to go through that. And I can. I can absolutely get through it. So that is our episode on the pain about growing your old life. I hope that it was helpful, especially if you are going through this right now. This has been like the entire last six months for me. and I do feel like I'm kind of at the new normal, on the new normal side of it all. And so it's kind of nice looking back and being like, wow, that was really worth it,

even though it really sucked in many, many ways. So I'm hoping that you get a similar revelation or a similar epiphany very, very soon. I'm absolutely certain you're going to make it through. If you have made it this far and you are listening on Spotify, leave a little comment down below, what stage of the seven stage process are you in right now? I'm hoping it's near the end, but if it's near the beginning, that's all right. You've got a ways to go, but it's going to change.

It's going to get better for you. As always, as a reminder, you can watch episodes just like this one on Netflix if you want to go and check it out and support me and the podcast. It is a big thing for Netflix to do and to especially entrust us with the psychology of your 20s listeners. So, yeah, it would really mean the world if you would check out an episode. You can also get in touch and. get involved in so many other ways. We have a substack. We have an Instagram that you can

reach out to me through so many things, all in the description. But again, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.