Exploration of Life, Love, and Grief
46:48 Share

Hey, it's Britt. I have a little bit of a different bonus episode today. I got to go on Sarah Kavanaugh's podcast, Peaceful Exit, and we had an amazing conversation about grief. Sarah's show is all about destigmatizing death, dying, and grief. My favorite recent episode of hers is one with neuroscientist Mary Frances O'Connor, and she talks about the brain science behind grief, and it was so fascinating to me.

Sarah and I talked a lot about my grief around my sister's death and granny's. Here's my conversation with Sarah. Hi, I'm Sarah Kavanagh, and this is Peaceful Exit. Every episode, we explore death, dying, and grief through stories by authors familiar with the topic. Writers are our translators. They take what is inexpressible, impossible to explain, and they translate it into words on a page.

My guest today is Brittany Ard. She has a podcast called You Probably Think This Story's About You. I met Britt right here at the Large Media Studio because they also produce this podcast. Britt's show is an incredibly well-told story over eight episodes that takes you on this very intense journey. It all starts when she falls deeply in love with a man she's calling Kanan.

As the podcast unfolds, you learn he's not the man she believed he was, and the story really isn't about him in the first place. The reason I'm talking to Britt today is that her show actually includes a lot of loss and grief as well. So if you haven't listened to her show, this conversation does include some spoilers. Welcome to Peaceful Exit. Thank you so much for having me.

So what inspired you to do this podcast? Well, a lot of it was based around the relationship that I had had with Kanan and wanting to dive into how to spot people like him that are manipulators and liars so that other women, especially in my age bracket and doing online dating, had something to relate to and could find some support.

red flags or set boundaries and be safer in how they date. And then it just sort of evolved into this story about my history and the stuff that I've gone through because a lot of why I ended up with Canaan came from that grief and abandonment and some of that loss that I had had. So it turned into this huge self-reflection.

Do you feel like telling the story on the podcast was therapeutic for you? It was so cathartic. My therapist and I talked about how I was doing double therapy. I would come into the studio and then I would go see him. And the best days were when I would see him after my studio session so that I could sort of talk about it because none of the stories that I told in the podcast happened.

It wasn't the first time I had told them, but getting it out to the public, it doesn't feel like it's mine anymore. It doesn't feel as heavy. And I've had hundreds of messages a day from women that are writing in talking about how they feel less alone or they feel like they can relate to maybe the dating side. Some of them are around grief. A lot of them are about relationships with parents and addiction issues.

And so then I feel less alone. The really sad part for me is that I have some empathy for Kanan. And if I could know anything, I'd want to know what happened to him as a kid.

Like what happened in his life that caused him to detach and to be this person? Because it had to have been horrific. Well, what I see in you is curiosity and empathy toward him. You've done a lot of work on yourself. Well, it's... That's the only way you can feel compassion. Yeah. And, you know, therapy over the years, I started after my sister passed. And the changes in how...

I've reflected on how those things have sort of shaped who I am is, you know, with age and experience and these sorts of situations and more kids and divorces and all of that. But it's so important to understand the why you sort of end up in situations. And that's what I'm trying to do now. Will you talk a little bit about the name of the podcast? You know, you probably think the story is about you.

It hits with the Canaan aspect of it. Him thinking that this podcast is going to be about him, which there is some parts that are telling how he affected us. But it really is about myself and other women that came forward and

how they've navigated life before and after sort of dealing with him. So a lot of people have responded and said, I think the story is about me and I've related to it in this way. And my response is always, the story is about you. If that's how you hear it and if you relate or connect or feel less alone, then that's

This story is about you. So there's so many different ways that the title works. And there was definitely an aha moment when we came up with it. I think it encompasses the full spectrum of what I want my story to say to people. So you have six children, five boys and a girl.

And your daughter, Brianna, who you had quite young at 19, is almost like a peer to you. You two are very close. And that comes out. That comes out in the show. Tell me about you as a mom. I wanted to raise adults and kids that could count on me but didn't depend on me. They're all really amazing kids.

I adopted two boys and they lost both their parents. One when they were five and nine, they lost their mom and then they lost their dad when they were 13 and 17. And they are so resilient and amazing and have really...

This huge community of people that stepped up when that happened. And we got to go through a lot of that grief together. And them knowing that I had also experienced that. It was a way for us to sort of bond and understand that, you know, it's that club that nobody wants to be in when you know that horrific loss. Yeah.

Your adopted sons are Max and Ninoa. In the podcast, you talk about how your grandmother started Sunday dinner and the boys were a big part of that. Yeah, Granny had met their parents when the boys were really young and they just became a staple at Sunday dinner. They didn't have family nearby. And so they were at Sunday dinner every week. I have tons of pictures of the boys playing games

with my biological kids when they were five, six years old. And so that part is really amazing because we have so much history and photographs and stuff together. And when the boys lost their dad, their family's in Hawaii. And so...

them moving while they're trying to grieve this loss and changing schools and all of these things. And their family in Hawaii is amazing. Huge family. They're like us here. They do big dinners and just wonderful people. And initially, it was just that they were going to live with us for a little while while we figured out what to do. And

Six weeks after their dad passed is when my grandma passed. And that was huge for me. And so Nainoa and I, especially, he was 13 at the time, we spent that whole summer driving around in my Jeep listening to just music and trying to, you know, I guess sing and ignore or

avoid maybe some of the hard parts and focus on some of the joys that we could find. And it wasn't until probably four or five months later that we talked to Nainoa about staying and adopting him. And that process is complicated, the adoption process.

Um, so I remember on the day that we made it legal with NINOA, it was really hard. We had about 70 people in the courtroom, like huge community of people just all showed up to support the boys. But when the judge said from here on out, this is your mom and dad, he lost it. And we

talked about it afterwards and he said, I don't know that I can call you mom and dad. And I was like, you can call me whatever you want to. Like, we're not here to replace your parents. We're here to support you as best we can because they can't. And it was really awful and beautiful. Jan and Mike were such amazing parents to those kids and it was a huge loss to everyone. So the fact that I've

Been blessed with the ability to step in and help in any way has been huge. You know, grief is so messy and there's really good days and then there's days that are just brutal. So we sort of got to do all that together, which I wouldn't recommend, but it worked out for all of us.

What did they end up calling you? It was Brit for years. When they would talk to other people, they would say, you know, my mom's doing this or my mom will pick us up, you know, and I think they wanted to feel normal. They don't want to be known as the kids that lost their parents. Now, I know it calls me maw.

And he just texted me this morning and said, hey, mama, I love you. So every once in a while, I get that. Max more and more calls me mom. It just sort of depends on the situation. But being a bonus mom is just as powerful as being a mom when you step in and sort of, you know, do your best. How do they feel about your podcast and telling your story? They've all been really supportive.

Brianna has been great. She was obviously on it and she sort of knows all the stories and she remembers my sister. The boys were not born before my sister passed. And so a few of the boys have listened to the episodes about my sister and Sunday dinner, but have skipped the dating ones. I was just with my son last night, one of them, and he's like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not ready to listen. Let's talk about your mom. Your relationship with your mom was complicated.

And she died last year. Yeah. So I think I had seen my mom probably less than 10 times in the last 24 years. She lived close to my grandparents and I'm very close with them. And so it would be if I was visiting them, I would usually end up seeing her. It was a very complicated relationship. A lot of it was she struggled with addiction her whole life and

She would have bouts of sobriety, but when I would come to visit, I would usually break that because she was, I think, stressed out about me coming and how that was going to go. So it always sort of created this dive, and then it just sort of perpetuated the problem. I had told her when Brianna was about a year old that I didn't want my kids around her if she wasn't sober.

And because of that, she only saw Brianna, I think, three times. And she didn't meet my boys until they were 12 and 13 and just the once. So it's interesting because I found out that she had cancer when I was with Kanan. And I remember calling him and telling him that I had found out. And it was a complicated feeling to process because...

I wasn't sad that I was going to lose my mom because I had already grieved her loss in my, you know, early 20s, just as being in my life and having that mother person. I sort of gave up on that relationship. So when I found out about the cancer, I didn't know what I was going to do. What I would normally do is fly up immediately and take care of that person. And

I didn't want to. She ended up passing 10 months after she was diagnosed. She, I think, had three different forms of cancer. It was very aggressive. And I went to visit three days before she passed. I talked to my therapist a lot about this. I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there. And I didn't know how she was going to react to me. I didn't know if it was going to be a positive thing or negative.

You know, she liked to bring up old stuff to sort of justify her stance in our relationship. And I didn't know if that was going to happen. And she was very close to death when I got there on a lot of drugs just for pain management.

And very tiny, probably 80 pounds. I mean, it was really sad. She always was full of life. And my grandfather didn't tell her I was coming. And so when I got there and sat down, she recognized me. And all she said was, you came. And I sat and held her hand and told her that I loved her.

and that it was okay and she didn't have to be in pain anymore. And I left and she passed a couple days later. So in the end, I felt really good about how it ended, which is her knowing that even though we didn't have our relationship,

I think she did the best she could. You know, she had her own thing. It turns out when you have kids, you don't get instantly smart and you don't fix all of your traumas. It doesn't always work out that you can be the parent that, you know, maybe you wanted to be. So, you know, I remember when I was sitting holding her hand that the one thing that I was angry about was that she was going to get to see my sister first. And I didn't really think that was fair.

It makes sense. But that part was a little rough. Yeah. Especially because I don't even know if I believe that there's an afterlife. But that thought crossed my mind. And I was like, I think that's the part that I'm angry about. Do you talk to either one of them, your mom or your sister? No, my mom not. It crosses my mind a lot, especially in this last year and with this podcast, that her loss hasn't changed my daily life because we didn't have our relationship. So...

There's not a lot of grief around that, which is unfortunate. With my sister and especially my grandma, I would say that's been the presence that I feel the most. And it's more in knowing that I think they're supporting the stuff that I'm doing and how they impacted my life shows up in how I show up every day and how

To me, that's how they live on, I guess, especially in our family with Sunday dinner and those sorts of things and keeping on those traditions. So Granny was kind of a character in your story, and she played an enormous role in your life. As we mentioned earlier, she started the tradition of Sunday dinners that you still do to this day.

She was a powerhouse. She came to Seattle 30 plus years ago, all of her belongings in her car and with her younger daughter, my aunt, and left this life in Idaho that she had known and tried something new and did it with passion.

such like reckless abandon for joy always. She never seemed stressed out, which was interesting because she probably was. But it was all about creating memories and good times. And she'd call us and she'd have set up a slip and slide in her backyard, a slip and slide that was 25 feet wide and 50 feet long. And she would get a bunch of Dawn soap and

and turn the sprinklers on and then call us and be like, slip and slides up, I got four boxes of popsicles. And all of a sudden, 20 kids from the neighborhood and all of our kids are just back there, you know, and she just sit there like casual, like no big deal that this is sort of the joy that she creates in so many people. And she just had this amazing energy about her.

And she was hilarious and totally inappropriate half the time. But she always knew her audience. And so she played it really well. She was really successful in business and in love and with her family. And it radiated out of her. It sounds like she was such a tremendous person in your life. It was a really hard loss for me.

because we talked all the time. You know, it wasn't just Sunday dinner. It was our whole lives. I know laughter and humor, it's a big part of how you live your life. And you're a funny person. You're hilarious on Instagram. How do you use humor and laughter to cope? It's been the biggest comfort.

When I am most uncomfortable is when I am the funniest and when I usually try and throw a joke out or make light of something because I'd rather laugh than cry. And I think you can do both, but I find so much more just comfort in laughing with people kind of when you're not supposed to. And it's the hardest times because

that I want to feel the most connected with people. And I do that more with laughter than in tears. Crying has always been something I avoided, especially publicly until recently, because I never liked crying when somebody would come up and give you a hug and say, it's going to be okay, because I know it's going to be okay.

But, you know, sometimes you just got to leak out of your face and get it out of there. And I just, the patting on the back and the, you know, it's uncomfortable. And people don't know what to say and they don't know what to do. And I think people do their best to comfort, but it's hard. With my sister's death, the hardest part was people asking what happened afterwards.

and not really having a good answer. And everybody wants to know how somebody died. It seems to be like, oh, what happened? Especially when someone dies, you know, at 20. And they sort of want to know the details. They're fascinated with it. And I get the curiosity, but in some of those situations, it's really complicated to answer. I just avoided talking to people a lot during that time. So...

I'm curious if there's a connection. I know with Granny's death, it probably made you want to live with more vulnerability and let more people in. Or maybe it was that you were vulnerable in your grief. Is that what made you sort of attracted to Kayden? So the interesting part is that it took about two and a half years after Granny died for me to get to a spot where I did want to be vulnerable in my grief.

Right after she passed, I did what I normally do, which is lock down. I didn't cry. I, you know, plan the funeral, sort of all of the steps that you take. But a couple of weeks after she passed, my body physically shut down and said, yeah, we're going to deal with this. And that's when I started realizing I'm going to need to address this loss. I can't just push through it.

But I still had a lot of kids and they were home. And I had new kids that were also grieving in the house. And so trying to maintain that household. And I remember a few times reaching out to my then husband in subtle ways, but hoping that if I maybe needed a little help or felt a little lost or, I don't know, wanted to sit and cry,

it would be received and I'd get that care and I didn't. So I really leaned on friends and family and stuff, but it was really harsh to feel like I was broken, which I was broken, but

you're going to get fixed at some point. It's really time that helps with that loss. But I think it was two and a half years before I really accepted that, accepted how much of a loss that was for me. Then in deciding to get divorced, and there were a lot of other factors to that, but it really was that emotional connection and care. And when I went into dating, I did it with such a

determination to not present myself as somebody that was bulletproof. I do have bad days, you know, and it's probably going to be okay. And so I was an easy target for Kanan because he just saw that I was open and willing to share and be vulnerable and

The hardest part after Canaan was not closing up again and approaching my subsequent relationships with friends, family, and in dating, staying vulnerable. How'd you do that? A lot of grit, I think. A lot of understanding that even if it didn't work out, I'd be okay. It might take some time. I might have to rebuild a little, but...

So far, every time I've rebuilt, it's been a little stronger. Yeah, yeah. Well, something a little lighter, like Granny started Sunday dinner. How do you keep it going? You know, it's funny because for me, it started when I was in my early teens. And it's just what we do. It's not a, are you coming to Sunday dinner this week? You just show up. And we've all...

had a chance to host Sunday dinner. Since Granny passed, it's all been in her house. My family as a whole spent a lot of effort to make sure that we keep that house. Does anyone live there now? Yeah. So my aunt lives there now, which is great. And we're going to try and keep the house. But regardless, we have to keep Sunday dinner going.

Yeah, it's such a gift. And, you know, to have that many generations hanging out, you know, we're just sitting around laughing and talking and we flip each other's shit. None of us are huggers, so you don't show up and hug everybody, but...

our conversation is how we connect. There's so much honesty in how we connect because we don't avoid this stuff. My son walked in and it was like, why are you back early from the festival? And he's like, oh, just left early. And I'm like, really? Why'd you leave early in front of everybody? And he's like, well, I got kicked out. And so we had to talk about it. And it wasn't

It wasn't a big deal. It was just, okay, there's a lesson you can learn there, but we're not going to hide it. But we're also not going to judge each other for being human and doing those things. And my dad said a lot in the podcast, we all grew up together. When Brianna was born, we had five generations alive.

And it's that having kids young part, which is complicated, but also really incredible when you do come together and have some understanding that your parents are doing the best that they can as well. And we're all trying to figure this out. So it's great to have that support. That's for sure.

Only on Netflix, October 18, rated R.

Making everyone happy on vacation isn't easy, but you know what is? Going to Aruba. All you have to do is walk out your door to find pristine pools, relaxing white sand beaches, and an island teeming with outdoor activities that'll put a smile on any face. You won't just feel great, you'll all feel great, filled with a calmer, more peaceful vibe that radiates Aruba's warmth. And the best part is, it never fades. That's the Aruba effect. Plan your family trip at aruba.com.

This episode is brought to you by Lifetime. Imagine a mother so consumed by love, she's driven to the extreme. In this Lifetime original movie, an overbearing mother's quest to save her daughter's innocence takes a sinister turn from bribery to murder for hire. This is a story of obsession and dark family loyalty. Inspired by true events, watch Nobody Dumps My Daughter, premiering tonight at 8. Part of truly unbelievable movies, only on Lifetime.

When you've been through grief as much as you and I have, and we've both had so much loss, and here we are speaking publicly on podcasts about it. Did you share your grief with others right from the start? No, for a long time, it was usually me just crying in the shower. But I hid it a lot until the last few years. I was looking at one of the videos from the podcast, and I'm crying on the video. And

Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine crying in public on video and sharing it with anybody that wants to watch. And it's been really liberating to do that. But I just never really established a good way, which is why I think I've only recently started addressing that loss around my sister's death.

We learned in your podcast that your sister died tragically at the hands of her boyfriend. And at the time, that grief was very different for you. Yeah, for sure. I didn't have a choice with granny. It broke me. Her loss gave me the greatest gift, which was understanding that I get to be human and feel that weight and it's okay.

And so I really got to sort of grieve losing two of the most important women in my life, which is my sister and grandma. And it was really hard and so worth it in the end, unfortunately. Yeah. A lot of conversations I've had with people when they have that kind of traumatic loss, it opens up everything else. Yeah.

It just cracks you open. I used to tell my therapist that I have all my stuff in bins. I try not to carry it around, drag it around as baggage, but bins. And then I just put it all in there and stand on top of it. And so I would get a little taller and a little stronger. And each traumatic thing just made me better. And he's like, yeah, but we could...

Yeah, we could open those bins a little. And I always told him, I'm like, I'm afraid if I crack that bin, it's not going to stop. And how do you stop grieving once you've really let yourself do that? And he convinced me eventually that we should crack them open and open.

It's true, though, because I'll cry all the time now. And I told him, I'm like, you turned me into a crier. Like, I feel feelings and then I express them. And it's really complicated sometimes. And he's like, do you want to go back to standing on your bins? And I was like, no. I kind of like being at the level where people can care for me and hug me and even tell me it's OK.

And it doesn't feel like it has to be okay right then. Yeah. Or tell you it's okay not to be okay. Right, right. You know, you can. You cannot be okay. You cannot be okay. You say in your podcast that your grief was like a physical pain when your sister died. I remember we were at my dad's house.

It would have been probably two days. That whole week is a blur, but probably two days after and family had started coming in. So there were people kind of everywhere. And I had gone upstairs to get away because I kind of knew I was going to lose my shit. And I had gone upstairs and right after I got to the top of the landing site,

I crumbled. I mean, it's like my body just gave out. And it was so crushing to know that, you know, I'm never going to see my sister again. And there's just...

Nothing I can do about it. And I like to keep control of stuff in my life. And there was just no control. I mean, it felt like my heart was physically breaking. It's such a lonely feeling because there's no fix for it. You just have to sit in that pain and loss. And eventually it gets a little less painful. But it really felt like it was just,

broken, all of it inside to my bones. There's nothing you can do but understand that, you know, that person is gone. And it's, it's really hard to recover from. I don't know if you ever do, but it gets easier.

Most days. Well, I had a recent episode with brain scientist Mary Frances O'Connor. I listened to that episode and it was amazing. And she talks about how you don't get over it. Yeah. But your brain figures out how to exist without that person. Yeah. But it's like, that's why you think they're going to walk around the corner in your living room or appear somewhere, you know, when you're out.

The brain is kind of trying to figure it out. And keep you going. Yeah. You know, that first week after, I don't remember a lot. I did a lot, but the shock. And I don't know if, well, I assume it's a really good thing because your body is like, okay, we got to get through this.

And so that shock just sort of keeps you going. But it's powerful how your brain is doing its best. To protect you. Yeah, to help you through that. To help you, yeah. And the chemistry behind that is... It's amazing. Yeah. You and your father were builders. And I know by listening to your podcast that your father owned that building where your sister Braylee was killed. And you didn't go into the apartment where she was...

found for a whole year. Yeah. So my dad owned the building and so we didn't have to. Yeah. I mean, we were losing rental income obviously on it, but we didn't have to go in there. And so we just, we didn't. And one day turns into a couple of days and then a week and then a month. And then it's like, we need to do this. And it's

it's really hard to go through some of these things. Yeah. When my mother died, my dad put everything out within two weeks because he couldn't even look at her things. Yeah. So hard. Yeah. I can see why you didn't want to look at it. And I would imagine if we would have been living with Braylee or, you know, if we had to see her stuff every day, we would have done the same thing. But when it's in this other place, it's so easy to just sort of

okay, we'll do it tomorrow. I don't want to deal with this today. And all of a sudden it was a year later. Yeah. So are there any stones in your grief about Rayleigh that haven't been turned over yet? Do you feel like you're still exploring it? I think because we won't ever have a sort of conclusion or resolution to her death. It's always out there and it just sort of looms.

in this weird way. And so that part, I think, is never going to change. And there's really nothing I can do about it other than assume that things worked out the way they were supposed to in some weird way. But

The celebrations always are the hardest. Like birthdays? Birthdays and not just hers, but because we get together as a family, we don't just do it for Sunday dinner. It's birthdays and holidays and we spend all that time together. Today's my birthday. Happy birthday. Thank you.

And so, you know, my family's coming over tonight to barbecue and it's... Oh, thank you for having this conversation on your birthday. Yeah. And so, but it is, it's that, you know, the fact that we all still get together is great, but it's also, you know, you miss her. And one thing I'll say is in today's age, everybody has so many videos and photos of people, just so many, constant. You're almost bombarded with all of these

videos of your kids and parents. We didn't have that much. And two years ago, my grandpa took all of his home videos and had them put electronically. And they didn't tell me. I got an email that was like, here you go. And I opened up this email and hit play on one of the videos. And it was my sister.

And she would have been about 18 in the video. And it was the first time I had heard her voice in probably 10 years. And I didn't realize I had forgotten what she sounded like. And it was so crushing to just all of a sudden, because I felt so guilty that I had forgotten what she sounded like. Those sneak attacks...

are the ones that I think that I'm doing really well. And then something like that happens. And it's like, oh, okay. Like, I immediately responded back. And I was like, hey, next time heads up. Just, you know, we're sending a bunch of videos of you as a child, you know, just so I can prepare. But in my grandpa's eyes, he was doing something amazing, which it was. But I'm sure a lot of people have said there's songs that

And different things or different places or smells. And all of a sudden, you're just going about your day. And then it's like you're right back in that first day finding out. Yeah. You're not alone. I had the same experience. I saw a video of my mother giving a speech.

It was like 20 years later. Yeah. And it felt like you were back on the day that she died. Just instantly. And, you know, I was there when my dad found my sister. And so I watched her go out on a gurney in a black bag. And I was actually pregnant at the time. I was three months pregnant. And I

fairly positive that that kid is probably why I am doing as well as I am, because I really think that I could have ended up in the bottom of a bottle if I didn't have some pressing reason to stay as 100% sober as, you know, it's so easy to, I mean, I have a glass of wine and it's going to make it feel better. But

It really doesn't. I mean, it just compounds that grief. And I didn't have the option. And I'm real grateful for that. Yeah. That's why he's my favorite kid. So... And you just said it on... They all know. He's everybody's favorite. He's the youngest. So he's everybody's favorite. And his middle initial is B, which was for Braley. But, you know...

It's my little culture bee. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you have any regrets in your life? And what do you think about the concept of regret? You know, there's choices that I probably could have made differently, but I don't believe in regret much. I think that when you make a choice...

Even if it ends up being the wrong one, in the moment, you did the best you could with the information you had and the life experiences that sort of put you in that moment to choose. So what you learn from that, even if it's the wrong choice, is the powerful part. And I will say that my last interaction with my sister changed how I try and interact with people, especially when parting.

So I don't know if it's a regret, but it was definitely a lesson that I took and learned as much as I could from. In that, if this is the last time you're going to talk to somebody, how did your voice sound when they last heard you? Because you don't, you really never know. And whether or not I always do a good job of it, probably not, but I try.

And so that's probably a regret. But just in sadness that the last time she heard my voice, I was frustrated with her. But she was my little sister, so it probably happened a lot. I truly believe everyone's doing the best they can with the tools they have. Absolutely. And there's some, well, there's a lot of grace in that. And I think it's something that we need to give back.

people more. And it also allows you to feel empathy for Kanan. Yeah. Somebody recently asked on social media if he came back and apologized and said all the right things and did all the right things, would I take him back? That something in my voice still cared for him. And I think that something in my voice is the empathy for him never being able to right his wrongs.

And it's sad to me that somebody can live a whole life without true connection and joy. What does a peaceful exit mean to you? I think for me, it's not having those regrets and just sort of knowing that I did the best I could. Any time is probably okay.

I have a disease, and so my time is more limited and finite than some others. And not even that that's what's going to take me out. You never really know. But it only kind of fuels my fire to want to do more in the time that I have. And I don't know what's on the other side, but it doesn't seem scary. And it doesn't really feel like an exit, maybe a detour. ♪

I love that. A peaceful detour. Yeah. And you don't know. You don't know which way it's going to go. So I'm just here for the ride. Thanks. You're awesome. And thank you for coming in today. No, this is great. On your birthday. No, this is so good. It totally works out. That's right. Exactly. Thank you for listening to Peaceful Exit. I'm your host, Sarah Kavanaugh. You can learn more about this podcast at peacefulexit.net.

And you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram at A Peaceful Exit. If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know. You can rate and review this show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This episode was produced by the amazing team at Large Media. You can find them at larjmedia.com.

The Peaceful Exit team includes my producer, Katie Klein, and editor, Corrine Kiltow. Our sound engineer is Sean Simmons. Tina Noll is our senior producer, and Sid Gladue provides additional production and social media support. Special thanks to Ricardo Russell for the original music throughout this podcast. As always, thanks for listening. I'm Sarah Kavanaugh, and this is Peaceful Exit.