190. We Didn’t Plan For This: What Grief Sounds Like on Vacation

We thought we were just taking a beach trip. 
Instead, the drive, the music, and a quiet morning on the water reminded us that grief doesn’t stay home when you leave town.

This isn’t an episode about moving on.

It’s about learning there’s room for both.

If you’ve ever wondered why grief catches you off guard—or questioned whether it’s okay to laugh while you’re still mourning—this conversation is for you.

We Didn't Plan For This Special Series

This series exists because so many of you reached out and said, “I didn’t plan for this either.”

If you’ve gone through a diagnosis, a loss, a life change, a career shift, a divorce, becoming a caregiver, moving, starting over — we want to hear your story.

EMAIL US: WDPFTPodcast@gmail.com

You don’t have to have it figured out. You just have to be willing to share honestly.

How Yoga Changed My Life a Podcast

Send Us Your Stories!

If you have a story about how yoga, meditation, breath work, journaling, or movement changed your life, we want to hear from you! 

These podcasts are really about the same thing — how people move through the seasons of life they didn’t plan for, and what helps them along the way.

If you’d like to be on the show or share your story:  Fill out our guest form or email us at yogachanged@gmail.com 

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For th...

Transcript

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Welcome to We Didn't Plan for This, a special series from how yoga changed my life. Normally on the podcast, we talk about practices like movement, breath work, and meditation and how they've changed people's lives. But this series, it's different. It's about the moments that shift everything. The seasons you didn't see coming. And how we keep showing up anyway. And if something here resonates with you, follow our show, share it with someone who might need it, or send us a message. Because the truth is, we didn't plan for this. But we're here. Hi, this is Adrian. Welcome to another episode of We Didn't Plan for This. I'm sitting on the dock behind a little condo in Corpus Christi. I wasn't planning on recording an episode this weekend, but life has a way of handing you stories when you least expect it. Mallory just gotten home from a mission trip to Oklahoma with her church, where she spent the week helping build homes kind of like Habitat for humanity. She was on a bus for eight hours. I picked her up, and instead of unpacking and chilling out with her at home, we packed up the car and headed to the beach. On the drive, we did as we always do. We turned up the music. We listened to all our favorite songs. It brought back so many memories from when Brian and I worked at course. They sponsored artists like Brooks and Dunn, Rascal Flats, and Luke Bryan. So we got to experience some incredible concerts and events. Brian and I even got to sit on the side of the stage during a Brooks and Dunn concert. Those weren't just concerts, though. They were chapters of our life together. So there we were, driving to the beach, listening to our favorite songs. Then Don't Take the Girl came on. One minute I'm singing, the next minute I'm crying. When you've been married to someone for over 20 years, music stops being music. It becomes memories. Sometimes grief arrives because of a three-minute country song. Grief is a motherfucker. It's this heaviness that lives inside you. Sometimes the present moment is enough to keep it quiet. Other times your feet get swept out from under you, and before you know it, it's sitting on your chest, reminding you it's still there. Sometimes it shows up in the middle of a country song you've heard a hundred times before. We're staying at this peaceful condo on the Packery Channel. We arrived just in time for the sunset. Mallory, who's been away from her phone for a week, curled up in the bed, scrolling through what went on while she was away. I sat on the dock and FaceTime Campbell. She wasn't there physically. She's off building a life of her own now. But there I was sitting on a dock in Corpus Christi with one daughter curled up inside the condo and the other one smiling back at me through a phone screen. For a few moments, we were all together. It's just a different kind of family vacation now. Not worse. Just different. They reminded me of the blue angels, so precise, so graceful, as they skimmed the water with their bills looking for a snack. It was almost like they were professional ice skaters gliding across the ice. I found myself completely invested in whether that little bird was going to make it. As fish launched themselves completely out of the water right in front of me. The fish were jumping so high, they looked like they were celebrating something. I found that when I can quiet my thoughts and just be still in the moment, my senses can actually absorb more than the environment. It's amazing what you notice when you finally slow down. When I finally stop replaying the past or worrying about what's next, I start noticing what's right in front of me. The birds, the fish, the breeze, my girls. None of it takes the grief away. But it reminds me that life is still happening. I can miss him deeply and still laugh at fish. I can cry because of a country song and still be excited to paddle board tomorrow. Maybe healing isn't about choosing between grief and joy. Maybe it's learning there's room for both. And this weekend, they both came with us. And before you go, take a breath. Take a second. You don't have to have everything figured out right now. We didn't plan for this. But we're here.