Why Yoga & Therapy Aren't Enough (The Missing Piece)
Relief Isn't Real Change. Here's What Actually Shifts.
You know the feeling: relief. What you get from your yoga class, your therapy session, your vacation, your retreat. In those moments, you feel better. Clearer. More Alive.
Then you come home. And your life hasn't actually changed.
This is a familiar pattern. And in this episode, I'm talking about that gap. The one between shifting your state in a “container” and actually transforming your life. We'll break down the cycle—survive, escape, feel relief, survive again—and what's actually missing.
What We’ll Cover:
The difference between relief and real, lasting change
Why you're stuck in survival mode (and how you got there)
What "integration" means and how it actually works
My Bali story: the epiphany that changed everything
How small intentional actions create bigger shifts than you'd expect
How to build a life you want to live in, not escape from
This is for you if: You've invested in your wellness—therapy, yoga, retreats—but something still feels off. You're tired of vacations being the only time you feel relaxed. You're ready to stop escaping and start building.
After you listen, scroll down to share your thoughts in the comments. Your story matters.
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Listen to the Episode on A Little More You Podcast
Now, I'd love to hear from you. Where are you right now?
Are you in escape mode—counting down to your next yoga class, your next vacation, your next pressure valve? Are you in survival mode—exhausted and wondering what's wrong with you? Or are you recognizing right now that relief has been your strategy your whole life, and nothing has actually changed?
This matters because the people who come here are asking these same questions. Your experience, your realization, your attempt to break the pattern—that's the roadmap for someone else who needs it.
So what's your escape container? What would it feel like if you didn't need to escape from life?
Thank you for being here and for adding your truth to this space. You make this community one of the most real and supportive places I know.
With endless gratitude, Kendra 💜
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Truth After Loss. I'm Kendra Merrell, and this is a space that you can explore the truths that grief shows you and the life that you build from it. Because grief doesn't lie. It reveals to us what matters and what never did. So settle in, and let's build a life around that truth
[00:00:25] Tell me if this sounds familiar. I'll be okay if I can just get to the weekend. If I can just get through the week, I'll be okay. Or if I can just get to my next yoga class, I'll be okay. If I can just get t- through the weeks to my next therapy session, I'll be okay. If I can just get through the next few months until our next vacation, I'll be okay.
[00:00:48] I say this because I lived it for years and years, probably a lot of my life, but really the last 12 years after going through multiple experiences in our lives where we went through loss. Loss of jobs, loss of family members, loss of a daughter who was stillborn, my dad, my hus- my husband's dad, all kinds of things.
[00:01:09] But what I wanna focus on in this conversation today is this feeling of living a life where we feel like we have to escape it in order to find release and relief. So we create these containers, the yoga class, the therapy session, the weekend away, or the retreats. I, I'll have something to say here about the wellness industry and my thoughts on what we are creating is basically, and paying for it, because we live in a capitalist consumerism type environment in the US, we're creating escape containers from our own lives, and we're paying for them because our own lives feel so depleting, exhausting, unbearable that we are seeking, and in many, as many ways as possible, containers so that we can go find some relief.
[00:02:14] And I'm not saying that as a bad thing. I'm saying that is the position we're in right now. Life feels hard, especially if you've gone through some sort of a loss recently or in the last five years. Life can feel hard. It can feel, uncomfortable, and so we look for these places where we can go to relieve some of that pressure.
[00:02:37] My husband and I used to talk about it a lot, about, like re-relieving a pressure valve. the stress of everyday life right now in our current ecosystem in the world, there's... it feels very pressurized, and so we look for these containers to go to release the pressure.
[00:02:59] And maybe within these containers, maybe, I'm not saying these containers aren't valuable.
[00:03:04] The way our lives are structured now, they're valuable. And these containers that we've created, the vacation, the therapy, the, the yoga classes, all the things where we can find relief maybe you do experience in these moments breakthroughs or release in those moments. But then you come back to, and this is, like I said, a, a conversation my husband and I have had so much over the last 12 years.
[00:03:30] You come back to Monday and your life looks exactly the same. Nothing has changed in your life. Y- maybe you feel like you can manage it a little bit better because you found some relief and some relaxation and you're a little bit more revived, but no real change has happened in your actual life.
[00:03:52] There's been no real integration of that work into your real life. So the, the crux of this whole conversation today and the podcast today is really just a conversation about relief isn't the same as real change. There's a big difference between us shifting our states in a room, in a container within the vacation or within the retreat than actually taking that work that we do in those moments that the wellness industry has created for us, which are somewhat beautiful.
[00:04:32] again, I have thoughts on the wellness industry. I l- I, think it's super valuable, but I also think there's lots we can do on our own without the cost of some of these massive retreats and excursions and... That's a sidebar. I won't go there right now. Let me come back to the fact that relief isn't the same as real change.
[00:04:52] So what do I mean by that? If we have a life that we are trying to survive in and just get through it, and we have these containers that we go to relieve the pressure, right? Within these containers, we relieve the pressure, but then we come back to our real life and nothing's really changed. What I wanna talk about today is what happens in these containers, in these rooms, in these moments is sometimes can be really beautiful, but it's not being integrated into your life.
[00:05:30] Nothing's changing in your real life. so we're in this vicious cycle, right? We're in this cycle of, go to the retreat, go to the event, go to the yoga class, and then go back to your real life the next day. And maybe you have a little bit more capacity to get through your day. Maybe you have a little bit more expansion, but nothing in your life has really changed
[00:05:52] And so the missing piece is integration. Taking what surfaces in those spaces and connecting it to real change that makes your life feel like something you don't have to escape from.
[00:06:10] So that's why I do what I do is as a somatic life coach and specifically a somatic life coach for people who've gone through some sort of loss, any kind of loss, divorce, loss of a child, loss of a parent, loss of the identity of what you thought your life would look like, or, maybe you're in perimenopause and it's loss of who you were as a kid and you're growing up and becoming this wise, beautiful woman, and it's like there's still a loss there.
[00:06:38] there's growth, but there's loss in it too. So the reason I do what I do is because I lived for 12 years, really all of my life, but intensely for 12 years in our American hustle productivity culture in corporate America, while also going through one loss after another in my family, plus COVID, we all did.
[00:07:01] It was very, difficult timeframe for me as a human being because it's relentless. we go through these experiences, and then we're supposed to just get back up. And last week or last podcast, I talked about resilience and what I believe true resilience is, which is not this pushing through thing. So if that resonates with you, go back and watch that one.
[00:07:24] But my years in the corporate environment, the just push through, just get to... I feel like a shake when I say this still. Just get to the Tuesday when you have PTO on Wednesday and you're going on a trip and you just can't wait. I remember writing, a blog years and years ago that was like something like, you know you need a vacation when laundry feels like an overwhelming task.
[00:07:54] Life feels exhausting. It's overwhelming. You feel disconnected. You feel like you're sleepwalking, especially if you've gone through a loss and you have h- not had time to really process it, and our losses were happening in my family one after another, and so there wasn't any time. It was like compounding interest on our grief.
[00:08:15] So because the messages that we receive in the world are You know, you should be able to just get over it, which again, I have a podcast about that too. We don't get over it, we carry it. you keep asking yourself, "What's wrong with me?" "Why is this so hard? Why does it feel so hard?" until you take a moment to step back and realize that there's really nothing wrong with you.
[00:08:40] You're just living inside of systems that are designed to drain you from your essence. they really are. They're designed to keep you disconnected. They're designed to keep you so busy that you don't have time to go within and notice and witness what's happening inside of you. So let me go back to this whole idea of, a life that feels like you're in survival l- mode all the time.
[00:09:06] You've got these containers that you are using to revive and refresh and reinvigorate yourself so that you can go back to the daily life that you don't really love. And then you come back into your life and you might have some epiphanies, let's say, while you're away in yoga class or whatever it is, and you come back into your real life and you're like, "I need to make a change."
[00:09:35] So let's get back to the reason I do this work. The reason I do this work is because I spent 12 years living in that churn, in that vicious cycle of survive, survive until I can get to the next valve release. And in that 12-year period, I learned a lot about how to make small incremental changes to get me to a place where my life didn't feel like it was a pressure cooker anymore, which I'm there now.
[00:10:07] I'm finding my way through. It's not easy to let go of the productivity culture. It's kinda, soaked into your bones over years, but it's something I'm learning how to release. I'm learning how to let go of those stories in my head that say you should be productive every day, because that's not the way I was designed.
[00:10:30] So let me give you a real example of what I'm talking about, like small incremental changes and what can happen.
[00:10:36] Yes, you may need to have some of these containers for relief to zoom out and look at your life and pause, but the question is, what happens when you come back to your real life? Do you integrate any of that? And if you do, how does that go? Do you find, like most people, like you create a New Year's resolution and a month later it's gone?
[00:11:00] . You're trying something and maybe it's not sticking. So that's why I do what I do I work with people to help them overcome that, So I'll give you a real example of what I mean and why I do what I do. After... And I have to give you a little bit of background and context before I tell this whole story, but if you've been here for a minute, you know these things. Bear with me for just one second. My husband and I had a daughter who was stillborn in .
[00:11:27] . 2015. And we went through infertility, we went through the loss of, my dad, we went through a, a lot of change in the years after that As we went through the fertility journey, we came to a crossroads where I was having to make a decision as to whether or not we were going to continue and move into IVF or not.
[00:11:50] And I said, "I need a minute." And so I booked a 22-hour flight to Bali. I live in Austin, Texas, so it was a long one, but it was me all by myself with my journal and my computer and all my thoughts, and it was beautiful and wonderful, and the whole trip was gorgeous. And while I was there, the epiphany I had...
[00:12:10] So that's a beautiful example of me escaping li- my life. literally I got on a plane and flew halfway around the world to escape my life for a minute, and that's why I said sometimes these moments are beautiful and gorgeous and necessary, and I am not knocking them. What I am saying is what happened next.
[00:12:28] What happened there in Bali was, what shifted for me while I was there was an opportunity f- to forgive myself for the guilt and the shame that I had around... And I'm getting emotional about it just talking about it here. Around m- not, I'm not emotional because I still carry it. I'm emotional because I have so much compassion for myself and the fact that I was able to go do this work and then make changes in my life afterwards.
[00:12:59] So when I was in Bali, my big change, my big shift, my big epiphany was forgiving myself, letting go of the guilt and the shame for having carried Adeline for 40 weeks and five days and not being able to deliver her. We lost her during labor, and not being able to deliver her into this world with breath.
[00:13:21] So when I got home from Bali, I told my husband and my therapist that I was done living my life like this. It was time to make some changes. And so I started letting go of
[00:13:37] working harder than I should, -- making a conscious effort to end my work when it was good enough and walk away. I started making a conscious effort to, this is gonna sound funny, but not care so much at work, because I was killing myself to create things that I thought were perfect and meaningful, and they didn't need to be.
[00:13:59] And I'm not even a perfectionist, . I'm not even a ... every thing has to be I dotted and T crossed. It's not that. It was just like, it's kind of the idea, have you ever heard that if you have three hours to work on something, you'll work on it for three hours, and if you have 15 minutes, you'll work on it for 15 minutes, and it'll be done, and it'll be good enough.
[00:14:22] So I was working on things for three hours that didn't need to be worked on for three hours. So that was like a big shift in my life, and the ways that I did that were timing myself, putting things on the calendar and saying you have an hour to work on it and then move on. There's still things I work with, but
[00:14:38] I started implementing little changes in my life, small intentional actions that I would implement that were aligned with the way I wanted to live my life. Because I was tired of feeling so drained and exhausted and not taking care of myself and putting in so much energy and effort to everyone else around me in the world, that I just started taking small intentional actions.
[00:15:03] That was an example of one of them. And as soon as I did, and I'm not kidding you, as soon as I did, my husband and I had been looking for a house for three years, and we hadn't... none of my o- none of our offers had been accepted. Four weeks later, we put in an offer, accepted. the house went on the market that day.
[00:15:21] We just happened to be out. It's kind of a long story. I won't go into all of it right now. But then we moved into our house, and like a week or two later, we found out we were pregnant, totally naturally, after years of infertility. and then as the course of the next year came about, I continued to implement new, small intentional actions towards what I wanted.
[00:15:45] And what I really wanted in my life was to stay home with my baby, the one that I was pregnant with, and I didn't think that was going to be possible. I extended my, leave as far as I could, which was about four months, which is wonderful that I had that opportunity. but also I wanted to stay home with him a lot longer.
[00:16:07] It was really hard to go back to work after having one child that had been stillborn, and I hadn't had an opportunity to be with her. And then having one that I did have at home, and I wanted to be with him a lot. And so over the course of that year of being pregnant or nine months of being pregnant, I just started pulling back from the work a little bit.
[00:16:31] I started taking care of myself more, doing things that matter for me more than matter for the world around me. And funny story, I went back to work after having my son, and about two months later, I got laid off with severance. So I got to stay home with my kid for really the first Let's just say, 14 months of his life, I got to stay home with him.
[00:16:59] I got what I wanted, which sounds, strange to say that I wanted to get laid off, but I've never been laid off any other time in my entire life, ever. That was the only time, after having my son, I got laid off. That's the only time I've ever been laid off. Because I... So here's the circle.
[00:17:19] Here's the cycle. Stay with me here. We're living in a life of survival. We go find these relief containers. We have these epiphanies, and we come back to our s- life that we're trying to survive, and if we don't make any intentional changes in that life, nothing is going to change for us, and we're gonna continue to be on this revolving cycle of, "I need a pressure valve.
[00:17:46] I need a pressure valve. I need a pressure valve. I need a break. I need a break. I need a break." If we are able to, and again, this is my gift, if we are able to, my gift to the world, if we are able to take what we l-
[00:18:00] Gain from these relief valves and then make in- small intentional changes that are aligned in our daily lives and stick to them. And when I say stick to them, so I have to caveat this. I cannot stand habits. I cannot stand consistency. These words make my skin crawl. So let's talk about what I mean when I say stick.
[00:18:24] Integrate into your life so you're not having to try. Integrate into your life so it is just normal and natural. And when you do, these synchronicities start happening in your life. Like for example, my getting laid off. That's a universe giving me what I was asking for because I was making the small intentional changes to prepare for that gift,
[00:18:52] And it really was a gift So that's the cycle is survival mode, container, go back to survival mode and either stay in that loop or start taking small intentional actions, and that's what I help people with. How do you take small, aligned, intentional actions that, that don't blow up your entire life, but give you the opportunity to start aligning your life more to the truths that you found during your containers during your excursions from your real life?
[00:19:30] Like, how do you integrate? That's what I do. That's what I help people do because it's I'm so passionate about helping people change their lives because we spend a lot of time in our lives not changing because we're terrified to change. We hold onto things because we've always done it. We've hold on, we hold onto things because what would people think if we made a big change?
[00:19:55] Like for example, I quit my job. What would people think if she quit her job? What would my mom think who is, and was and still is, terrified of has, has money stories that she taught me that quitting your job, is a terrible idea? So other people's perceptions keep us from change.
[00:20:14] Our own fears of the unknown keep us from changing. what happens if I do this and it doesn't work out? what happens if you do this and it does work out? these are the things that I help people with. Not, it's not about creating new habits. Yes, okay, some of it might be. However, it is more about addressing these underlying things that keep us from moving forward into the lives that we know we actually want, and that we are learning about and craving when we go to these containers for relief.
[00:20:50] We're actually looking for reconnection with ourselves. We're looking for reconnection to our truth. We're looking for reconnection to our essence. And when we find it, and we go back into our regular lives, and we don't make any changes, w- we're doing ourselves a disservice. And I'm here to help you do a service to yourself, which is honor what you learned, what you experienced, and integrate.
[00:21:18] Integrate into your life what is your truth
[00:21:23] So what I'll just say a- as we close up this podcast today is that I'll go back to this idea that relief isn't the same as real change in your life.
[00:21:35] That living a life in survival mode that you're just trying to get through is hard. And God, I understand it, and I don't wanna ever tell you that it's not okay because everything is always okay. It's that I want something more for you. I want you to live a full life and not have to escape from it.
[00:21:57] Vacation becomes something you get to do for the enjoyment of vacation. My vacation for 10 years was like go and sit on a beach or by a pool because I was so tired. I didn't get to go explore the world as much as I would have liked to. We went to, I'll tell you one little story here. We went to Europe shortly after my, daughter was stillborn.
[00:22:22] And when we go to Europe, we like to explore because we don't live on that continent, and so we don't get to see all the things. I had plantar fasciitis in both of my feet, and we were in London, and then we went to Scotland, and I couldn't walk. I literally would get home after being out for a while for a few hours and cry taking my shoes off.
[00:22:46] this is what I'm talking about when I talk about, somatics and our bodies and it holding things and storing things. I've never had plantar fasciitis again ever in my entire life. I know there are physical reasons why my body did have that. However, I also think it's, again, very interesting that I had plantar fasciitis in both of my feet after my daughter was stillborn and I couldn't get up and move much.
[00:23:09] So we went on this vacation to go explore and I couldn't explore. My vacations were all about rest instead of expansion, which is what I needed at the time and it was fine. However, this is what I'm talking about, if we stay in that season forever, that means all of my life I would have wanted to go explore more and expand my worldview, and I couldn't because all I needed to do was rest on my vacations when I vacationed.
[00:23:38] So I'm rambling a little bit here, but the point is that if we can create lives that we don't have to escape from, our vacations then become more expansive rather than just survival. Like, how do I survive?
[00:23:54] And I also wanna wrap back to this idea of the wellness culture in America especially right now, but all over the world I think, that, if you invest in the right container, you will eventually feel better. I'm not sure that's true without integration. I think that's my big message for today If you feel like you're living in survival mode, if you feel like you're designing your life for how can I get some relief, if you are just looking to get to the next pressure valve release, and then you have our wellness industry telling you, if you invest in this container, in this experience, it'll make your real life feel better."
[00:24:43] And while I think there is a smidgen of truth in that, it cannot make your real life feel better unless there is integration. And integration is how do we create change in our lives that's in a way that's tolerable, in a way that's sustainable, in a way that's meaningful, that's not forced.
[00:25:03] It is not about fixing yourself. It's about being with where you are right now. And so what if instead of focusing on finding more places to escape to, you built a life you didn't have to escape from? What if... I wanna say that again. What if instead of finding more places to escape to, more retreats, more therapy, more yoga classes, more this, more that, you built a life you don't have to escape from?
[00:25:35] If you're feeling this inner pull, this persistent quiet pull towards building this life that you love to live in, And let's connect.
[00:25:45] if you feel like this is, resonating with you, there's, two things you can do, and I will put both in the, captions here. I have a 10-day reset.
[00:25:54] It's available to you anytime. It's totally free. It's audio. It's a few minutes a day that will help you just recenter and reset on what matters most to you. It's a great place to start. If you are in the survival mode and you already know you need to make some changes, I will put a link to a call.
[00:26:12] I would love to talk to you a little bit about what is going on for you. No pressure. If you wanna just chat about what you're going through and whether or not my work would be supportive for you.
[00:26:24] . I work with people who've been through loss and wanna make changes in their life. They're wondering, "Who am I now that everything's changed?"
[00:26:33] And that's what my programs are all designed around. And because I'm a , somatic life coach, We use your body to tap into your internal knowing. I don't tell you how to do this. Your internal knowing, your essence, your soul tells you what the right direction is.
[00:26:48] I just guide you towards that. So if it's interesting to you, links below, and I will see you in the next episode
[00:26:57]
Hi there, I’m Kendra.
I’m a woman forever changed by loss and by the quiet clarity that followed. I walked away from the life I was “supposed” to want and began creating one that felt like home.
Now I work with women who are ready to reclaim their identity, their relational sovereignty, and their soulful leadership. The ones who are done shrinking and ready to start living in their truth.