The Beach Mindset Vacation Your Marriage Actually Needs 🏝️

Maybe you don't need to work on your marriage right now.

Maybe you need to rest, play, and relax more together.

This creates a lush space for connection to naturally flourish.

In this episode, Sarah explores why so many couples feel emotionally exhausted. They're in the daily grind, slowly drifting apart as they handle the real-world responsibilities of work, kids, household, and social commitments. Even Church commitments can add to this! 

What they need is not more work, but more play.

More delight.

Drawing from favorite memories of tropical vacations, quiet walks in the countryside, and the meaning of authentic leisure, Sarah shares how couples can step out of survival mode and cultivate the atmosphere where friendship, affection, and intimacy can thrive.

You'll discover:

• Why vacations often help couples reconnect
• The surprising importance of play, laughter, and leisure in marriage
• How the beach vacay essentials of sun, sand, and waves can become a simple framework for strengthening your relationship
• Practical ways to bring vacation-like joy into your everyday life—without buying a plane ticket! ✈️

Whether you're longing for a special getaway or just hoping to find connection again after an intense season, this episode offers encouragement and practical ideas to help you rediscover the delight of being together.

Mentioned in this episode:
🏝️ Join our free Summer Marriage Getaway for Catholic couples at CanaFeast.com/Getaway, 

You get our short, fun online sessions designed to help you slow down, laugh together, and renew your friendship as husband and wife. Hawaiian Island vibes are infused throughout!🍍🌈🌺

🌸 free online Catholic marriage workshop: the Little Way of Marriage 

Learn how to do little marriage-building skills with great love, inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and her holy parents, Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin!

Transcript

0:06

I'm here to talk about taking your marriage on a vacation. Maybe what you need in your marriage isn't more work on your marriage. Maybe you need to play for your marriage. Maybe you need to rest, to have more relaxation. I think so many of us are really yearning for that without realizing it, because we're living in what philosopher, Catholic philosopher Joseph Pieper referred to as the world of total work. And when we're not working, we're distracted with our devices. So real authentic leisure where we truly rest, truly play, truly relax, I think that could be the key that provides a space for authentic connection to spontaneously spring up from in your marriage. So this episode is all about taking your marriage on vacation. What is it about vacation that is so special? Nathan and I are pretty spoiled in some respects because both of our parents have taken us on several tropical vacations over the years of our married life, our 26 years together. Nathan's parents lived in Asia as expats for quite a while, and they had some restrictions on how much time they could spend in the United States and then not pay income tax twice, So in order to get together with us and spend vacation time together as our kids were young, a couple different times they brought us to a vacation, destination between where we were in North America and where they were in Asia, and that was in along the Pacific Ocean, tropical locations. And then we're here on the West Coast, and my dad has been semi-retired for quite a while, and now is fully retired, and he lives on Maui in Hawaii for at least half the year. He's looking at actually maybe spending more time there, and he's super generously brought us all out there a couple times as well. And growing up with my family, that is We'd go to Hawaii for vacation, not infrequently. Like, we I definitely remember a handful of times of going to Hawaii, so it's familiar to me, and I just love it. Nathan and I have also gone to Cozumel together in Mexico as part of a Catholic couple getaway that a different marriage ministry was organizing. So we have that tropical experience there. and I have to say, of all of those, Hawaii's my favorite. I just love things like hiking in the bamboo and fern forests. just the, the way the air feels. There's this quality to the air on those trade wind breezes. The way the flowers smell, the plumeria in the air. It's lush, it's warm. There's a gentleness. I love that orangy-browned, brown warm sand on the beach. The natural beauty is just stunning, and it's lush- inland as well. Not all tropical places are like that. Like, some of them are really, like dense jungle inland, or kind of boggy, or like really arid inland. And I just feel like Hawaii is lovely anywhere you go on the island, whether it's along the beach or inland more. I love that aqua color to the waves. It's just my favorite. And I remember a particular time when Nathan and I were out there with our kids visiting my dad and his wife. so anyway, they, my dad and, stepmom were watching our kiddos so that Nathan and I could go out to dinner. So we went to dinner at a resort next door to where my dad lives. And so we got to eat out on the patio lit by tiki torches. You could hear the waves not too far away, and we had such a great conversation. But really the special part of it was having that space to think and dream together, 'cause I remember we talked about, like, if we come back here next year, what do we want to be different about our lives at that point? So that really gave us a chance to think about our dreams, think about what was most in our heart. We were just starting our Cana Face marriage ministry at that time. and in fact, you know, if you wanna take a look at our website, you'll see, photos that we took on that vacation. like one of the last days we were there, I was like, "Hey, oh, my gosh. We should take branding photos," 'cause here we are at this beautiful location. So we rounded up a photographer and got ourselves some, clothes beyond just, like the, the T-shirts and shorts that we had packed, and took that branding shoot that you can see the photos of on our website. but yeah. W- so we had some goals for how we wanted to lean in to creating new things to serve Catholic couples in our business, and just, like, where we wanted to be with our kids and our relationship. And then another time we got away, it was actually local to us. We live here in the Pacific Northwest in the state of Washington, and On my maternal grandparents' side, there is a family farm in a town that's probably about an hour and 10 minutes drive from where we are. This farm is not a working farm, it's a property that different relatives go hang out at, and it has a really sweet historic farmhouse and about 40 acres on it. And we went there with our kids just for a day trip to get away. I'm pretty sure we had a kid in the stroller, and Nathan and I took a long walk along a country road. Our bigger kids were hanging out in the farmhouse. So it was just Nathan and I and the child in a stroller. And as we just walked and walked along this country road with fields opening out on either side, we had the chance to have a really good conversation about our life and our goals and dreams and what we were hoping for in the year ahead. And at that time, I remember I said, "You know what? One thing I'd really love to do with our family is go to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland," because I remember when I was in high school here in Washington State, there was a high school trip organized to do that, and I really enjoyed that. we've read a lot of Shakespeare to them and with them in the context of that, and just, 'cause we're nerds, and as bedtime stories as our kids get older. And I thought that would be really fun to go do that and then we thought, you know what? Let's invite Nathan's parents to go with us as well. 'Cause up till that point in our marriage, most of the vacationing with parents had been at the parents' initiation. Like, they would have an idea and invite us along to it. And we thought, let's this time be the ones to invite his parents, and we'll rent the Airbnb that they can stay at with us. We'll get one big enough for everybody and make sure it's nice, and we planned some hiking in the local mountains. And we did it, and it was such a fun time, and we were kind of proud of ourselves 'cause it was the first time, we were the ones to initiate and plan that all out and have the dream. And Nathan's parents had a great time. They did a road trip through wine country in southern Oregon and I think the Napa Valley on their way up to meet us there. And that was just really special. So that's the sort of thing that can happen when we step out of the ordinary. You get a bigger picture. You sort of get out of survival mode, and you can think bigger thoughts, deeper thoughts, broader thoughts. You get more perspective and think about where do you wanna go? Where are we now? How do we wanna be intentional about our life and the choices that we make to shape it? What's going well? What needs more attention? When we're in our daily grind, we focus a lot on logistics, bills, taking care of the household, kids' needs and activities, work, our social commitments, even our church commitments, which are good, but, you know, they can sometimes, if, if we let them, like, get out of hand, they can be one more thing keeping us apart from each other. Nathan and I have definitely had couples who have reached out to us for help that are almost like strangers to each other even though they're strong, faithful Catholics, super active in the church. I remember one couple in particular where he was super involved in the Knights of Columbus and doing lots of activities with them. She was very involved in adoration and pro-life activities, and they hardly ever saw each other. They were a retirement-age couple, a senior couple, but their marriage was hanging on by a thread because they literally never connected with each other and never built up their emotional connection and their marital friendship. And that's what's so important. We forget that we're friends and lovers. We forget delight, joy, relaxation. That is fertile ground for breeding connection. And when we starve our marriage of that, that's how we can just slowly drift apart. The thing is, you don't need to go on vacation to do this. You don't need to have relatives invite you to a faraway tropical location. y- the thing is, you could go on vacation and still be bickering, still be tense. a lot of times being out of our regular routine, you know, where you're not sleeping and eating and having your activities during the day the way that you normally do at home, that can actually be pretty dysregulating and triggering. And it's not uncommon to snip at each other, to be irritable at each other, to have unmet assumptions and expectations that you then get disappointed or frustrated about, while on vacation. So we don't want that for you. The important part is the inner work because when you have that in place, whether you're at home or on vacation, then you can do that connecting, that emotional closeness nurturing that can help you enjoy your life wherever you are. So it's just a mindset shift to step out of survival mode, and you can do that in your own home. You don't have to actually change the setting, and it's a lot less expensive to do that mindset shift at home. But let's think about what is it about a beach vacation that are real hallmarks of that experience, and then how can you bring that home? I would say whether you're in Hawaii or any other sort of beach vacation, there's three essentials. There's the sun. Like, you probably don't go on a beach vacation hoping and expecting it to be cloudy, So there's the sun, and there's sand, and there's waves So how can we incorporate this into our positive mindset for an emotional connection? Well, let's look at the sun in terms of warmth, and I've talked before on this podcast about awe, affection, warmth, and encouragement. So this is like this kindness, this attitude of building each other up, of leaning into gratitude, and that really just warms up the emotional tone of your relationship. Sand. What do we do in the sand? We build sandcastles. You can wiggle your toes in it. You can bury your feet or your whole self up, up to your neck in the sand. The sand is for play, laughter, and silliness, and this is important for your friendship. John Gottman, a marriage expert researcher, actually from here in Washington State, he writes again and again about the importance of friendship as an important part of your marriage, and play is an important part of friendship. And then what about the waves? Those are the ups and downs. The ins and outs, and that's part of our experience in married life. We go through different seasons. There's, like, some seasons of intensity, and then hopefully some seasons of, like, things are less intense. there can be some hard times, but then working on resilience to get through the hard times and keep connection through it, keeping that big overall picture that you and I as husband and wife, we are connected. We're the ones who are gonna be together when we get through whatever we're going through now. And so yeah, just the waves to help ride the ups and downs of life. Through all that, this key overarching piece is an appreciation of Sabbath, what I alluded to in the beginning with authentic leisure, this idea of rest and delight. God didn't create only work. He created time for Sabbath as well. We see in the gospel times of weddings, feasts. We see all throughout the scriptures references to gardens, in, you know, when God is talking about the goodness of His creation through the Holy Spirit in the scriptures. That's in the Song of Songs. That's in the Garden of Eden. there's just this idea of flowering. I love this imagery in the Book of Isaiah as well. There's wine, like at the wedding at Cana, and that's, that's a symbol of celebrating, of connecting, of rejoicing, and friendship, right? You don't drink wine alone. You don't have a feast alone. That's so sad. No, there's this joy in friendship as well, and that- Is so important in your marriage. And it doesn't take much. It doesn't take getting in an airplane, going through security, traveling th- you know, on a jet for hours, landing in another place, being jet-lagged, gonna say, you know, all the, all that comes with travel. getting a hotel or a place to stay. you know, paying for a week vacation somewhere. It can be something as simple and as little as taking a 20-minute walk together with no agenda, just be available to chat with each other. it can be going out for an ice cream cone. Maybe that's the little thing your marriage needs to have, like, a little sense of play and vacation and friendship in your week right now. Maybe it's just spending time together in an evening reminiscing about a favor- favorite vacation you've had, or dreaming together. If you could go anywhere in the world for a weekend, if you could just slip away together, where would you go to? If money were no object, time, logistics were no object, childcare, all of that, work, where would you go? It's so fun to hear, like, and think about that for yourself. Where would you go? What would your husband choose? And you don't have to judge each other's dreams. Just listen and appreciate the inner sharing that that is, the gift of that, sharing the dream with each other. And you can just let the dream be. It's not necessarily a call to action, and you don't have to be like, "Well, we could never do that." That really kills the whole purpose of this exercise. The right response is like, "Wow, that sounds really neat. Okay, well," and then what Like, just ask more open-ended questions to learn more about what is inside your husband or your wife as they're sharing this So if this resonates at all, if this mindset vacation for your marriage sounds good to you, like something you would like to do, totally encourage you to lean into this. And if you'd like support with it, Nathan and I actually created a virtual Catholic marriage getaway, Hawaii-themed and inspired, and it's happening this week. It's free, and you can sign up at canafeast.com/getaway. there are three s- four sessions, just a half hour, so little and doable in your week. And yes, the replays are available, but only if you register, which, as I said, is free. Then you get access to all the replays in the Beach Club, which is the online community part. I love that Nathan, named it that. we're going all in with the Hawaii theme because it's really appealing to us and inspiring to us, and we're gonna have fun with this. So whether you guys come or not, we're gonna be having a party. if you wanna come be part of it, join us. And we... Yeah, we're gonna have fun with the theme, we're gonna have fun activities, and also we're gonna share some solid, legitimate, very useful and transformative skills for your marriage. So hope that can be a blessing for you, and I hope that you can look for how to share the joy of love today. God bless, and see you in the next episode.