You sent an email announcing the launch of something. Two hours later, the phone rang, and the life you were living an hour before that stopped being available to you. Daniela calls it a what-now moment, the kind that shows up as grief, or shock, or a diagnosis, and leaves you standing in a life you didn’t plan for.
That’s where this episode opens. Daniela’s dad died suddenly, on the same morning she publicly announced Manual Not Included, and what followed was six months of learning that grief doesn’t care about your calendar. In this episode, Daniela walks through the two-week plan she made in the first days after his death (hint: it took three and a half months) and what she’s carrying with her now, six months later.
Here’s what’s covered:
- Why we reach for a grief timeline in the first place, and what that says about how we’re wired to handle pain we can’t control
- The gap between what grief looks like from the outside (a funeral, some flowers, a week off) and what it really demands in the weeks and months after everyone else’s life moves on
- Why “I’ve done this before” is a trap, even when you’ve lost a parent once already
- How shoulds (I should be back to work, I should know how grief works, I’m a therapist after all) can quietly make grief harder to move through
- The difference between healing and going back to who you were before, and why chasing the old version of yourself can keep you stuck
Â
If you’ve ever made a plan for how long your grief should take and then felt like you were failing when it didn’t stick to the schedule. If you’ve lost a parent, or anyone, and you’re waiting to feel like yourself again. If you’ve ever quietly wondered why grief doesn’t work the way everyone told you it would, this episode is for you.Â
"Grief isn't something we take time off to get through. It's something we eventually learn how to carry back into our lives."
If you know someone standing in their own what the hell do I do now moment, this episode might be the thing that tells them they don’t have to have it figured out either.
Connect with DanielaÂ
Â
This podcast is brought to you in partnership with Leah Bryant Co.
The unedited transcript for this episode of Manual Not Included
Daniela Tempesta [00:00:01 - 00:00:41]:
Life can change in an instant. We all know this, and yet most of us still move through the world assuming that the life that we're living today will look roughly the same tomorrow. Even though we know nothing is guaranteed, we don't actually expect our day-to-day reality to suddenly look different. And most of the time it doesn't. So we keep plugging along, expecting more of the same until life changes without asking our permission. And something happens that we didn't see coming. Suddenly you're left standing there thinking, what now? That's what today's episode is about. It's about my lived experience of finding myself in one of those moments when there was quite literally no manual included for what came next.
The Day Everything Changed
Daniela Tempesta [00:00:42 - 00:01:19]: On Thursday, April 2nd, 2026, I sent an email to my subscriber list announcing the launch of this podcast. I had been quietly working on Manual Not Included for 6 months. I had recorded the first 3 episodes. I'd done all the prep work, and after months of talking about doing this thing, planning this thing, recording this thing, and occasionally wondering why the heck I decided to do this thing, I was finally ready to publicly announce it. So the email went out at 10:00 AM. 2 hours later, I saw a call coming in from Stanford Hospital. I assumed it was the wrong number, so I didn't answer, but a few moments later I got a text. Hi, this is Stanford Emergency Department.
Receiving the News
Daniela Tempesta [00:01:19 - 00:01:56]: Can you please call back? And I can still feel the anxiety that started to rise in my stomach in that moment. My father works at Stanford, the emergency department? Ugh, I knew this couldn't be good. So I called and the doctor told me that my dad had been found unconscious in his classroom that morning by some of his students. He'd been taken to the emergency room where they tried to revive him, but they were not able to. He didn't make it, the doctor said. What? I screamed as I literally dropped to the ground. My brain simply could not make those words make sense. I had gotten a text from him that morning.
Grappling with Sudden Loss
Daniela Tempesta [00:01:56 - 00:02:43]: I had spoken to him on the phone the night before. I had eaten dinner with him 6 days earlier. How could someone exist 6 days ago, 12 hours ago, this morning, and suddenly not exist anymore? It just didn't seem possible. And as I tried to make sense of what was happening, I ping-ponged between being a complete mess who could barely stand up on her own and this weird emotionally shut down crisis manager who was just taking care of business. The truth was I had absolutely no idea how to navigate what had just happened. I mean, who does? There's no manual for grief. There's no manual for suddenly finding yourself without parents at the age of 45. There's no manual for getting a phone call in the middle of an otherwise completely ordinary Thursday that divides your life into before and after.
When There's No Manual
Daniela Tempesta [00:02:44 - 00:03:27]: And what the heck do we do when there's no instructions for what comes next? Well, I can tell you what this Type A recovering perfectionist did when faced with a completely uncontrollable situation. I tried to control it anyway by making a plan. And the plan went something like this: I'll take a few weeks to get my bearings and then I'll get back to business. All right, let me try to walk you through my delusional thinking here. I'd lost my mom 12 years earlier, and losing my mom had absolutely flattened me. But my relationship with my dad was different from my relationship with my mom. My mom had been my person, and losing her felt like losing a part of myself. I loved my dad deeply and we were very close, but our relationship was also complicated.
Believing Grief is a Skill
Daniela Tempesta [00:03:28 - 00:03:57]: So I convinced myself that somehow this round of grief would be different. After all, I'd done this before, which in retrospect is an absolutely bananas thing to think about losing a parent. Like apparently I thought grief was some sort of skill that I had acquired. Oh, parent dies. I'm familiar with this one. I've completed the training module. What? No, that's not how life works, but that's the delusion I was living in. So my planning brain did some very efficient emotional math.
Assuming Grief Has a Timeline
Daniela Tempesta [00:03:57 - 00:04:26]: It said, this will be terrible, but it will probably be less terrible than losing my mom. And that was probably the first of many assumptions I made about how all of this was going to go because I had a lot of shoulds. This should be easier 'cause I've done it before. I should know how grief works. I'm a therapist after all. I should be able to handle this. I should be able to get back to work soon. And grief, it turns out, had absolutely no interest in any of my shoulds.
The "Shoulds" of Grief
Daniela Tempesta [00:04:27 - 00:04:55]: It refused to play ball. It refused to follow a timeline. It refused to be easier because I'd lost a parent before, but I didn't know that yet. So after assessing the damage, I told my psychotherapy clients that I would take 2 weeks off. And then I sent a message to my subscribers letting them know that the podcast launch would be delayed by one week. One freaking week. Looking back at that now, it is truly remarkable. Comical almost.
Denial and Trying to Set a Schedule for Grief
Daniela Tempesta [00:04:56 - 00:05:34]: I mean, my father had suddenly died and apparently I thought I just needed 2 weeks off from clients plus 7 additional business days before returning to our regularly scheduled programming. Ah. But denial's a hell of a drug, a top-shelf shock absorber for the soul. So my brain got drunk on denial and tried to give grief something it fundamentally doesn't have, a timeline. In that moment, I seem to forget something I tell my clients all the time. Feelings don't operate on a calendar. Sure would be nice if they did, right? That would make the part of me that likes to plan really happy. I mean, imagine how convenient that would be.
The Impossibility of Scheduling Pain
Daniela Tempesta [00:05:35 - 00:06:16]: Breakup? Oh, that'll take approximately 12 weeks to get over. Job loss? Mm, 3 to 4 weeks and you'll be back to normal. Existential crisis? Hmm, 5 to 7 business days, longer if it falls over a holiday weekend. But of course, grief, anxiety, sadness, they're not the same as a broken leg. There's no x-ray showing you exactly where the injury is and no doctor saying, ah, give it a few weeks and you should be good to go. But when something hurts, we want a timeline because we want to know when it will end and when life will start to feel manageable again. It's so human, but feelings don't give us that kind of certainty. And the problem is life still requires us to make decisions anyway.
Trying to Carry On Too Soon
Daniela Tempesta [00:06:16 - 00:06:53]: So I made the questionable decision to go back to seeing psychotherapy clients after 2 weeks. To be fair to myself, I was making that decision with a brain that was not exactly operating at full capacity. Loss is an enormous thing for a brain to comprehend. And in those first days and weeks, my brain felt absolutely scrambled. Concentration was difficult. My memory was terrible. Simple decisions like what to order at a restaurant felt weirdly overwhelming. I could have a completely normal conversation with somebody and then suddenly have this moment of being mugged by grief and remembering, oh right, my dad is dead.
The Messiness of Returning to Work
Daniela Tempesta [00:06:54 - 00:07:43]: And just like that, I'd be a hot mess all over again. And yet, as promised, a few weeks after my dad died, I tried to go back to work and it felt impossible. Trying to hold space for other people's pain while mine was spilling out everywhere felt like trying to carry my neighbor's groceries for them while my own house was on fire. I couldn't do it. So after a few messy attempts at client sessions, I ended up taking 3 and a half months off. And recording a podcast? Yeah, not a freaking chance. I couldn't sit behind a microphone and thoughtfully explain how to navigate the human experience when I could barely figure out how to get through a Tuesday. And for someone who has spent a significant portion of her life being productive, competent, and extremely good at pushing through things, that was not an easy decision to make.
The Complexity of Grieving Someone Others Idealized
Daniela Tempesta [00:07:44 - 00:08:25]: There was another part of this that I also wasn't prepared for. My dad was incredibly beloved. He taught at Stanford for more than 30 years, and after he died, I heard from what felt like an endless stream of former students, colleagues, friends, and people whose lives he had touched. People truly adored him. I mean, they told me how charismatic he was, what an extraordinary teacher he was, and how he had changed their lives forever. And all of that was true. I knew that version of my dad, but it was also strangely difficult for me to hear over and over again. Because the person everyone else was grieving wasn't exactly the same person I was grieving.
Holding Contradictory Truths
Daniela Tempesta [00:08:26 - 00:09:07]: They knew Professor Tempesta. I knew my dad, and being his daughter was, well, more complicated. I loved him deeply, and there was so much about being his daughter that was amazing. He was brilliant, funny, generous, and he was larger than life in so many ways. I mean, he could turn like an ordinary dinner party into a full-blown Italian production, somehow making you feel like you'd been transported from a suburban dining room to a trattoria in Rome. And, you know, he never missed an opportunity to tell me how much he loved me or how proud of me he was. But there were also ways he had disappointed me. There were important days in my life that somehow became about him.
Living with the Dualities of Grief
Daniela Tempesta [00:09:08 - 00:09:58]: There were times when he used guilt or blame to get his way. And there were parts of our relationship that had hurt me, things I was still trying to understand and make peace with. And then he died. And suddenly I was inundated with these beautiful glowing stories about this man who meant so much to so many people. And I found myself having 2 very different reactions to them at the exact same time, because I was genuinely grateful to hear all of those stories, and they were also hard to hear. Grief is definitely one of those experiences that reminds us that life is often a practice of holding 2 Seemingly contradictory truths at the same time. Someone can die and still have disappointed you. You can miss someone terribly and still be upset with them.
Letting All the Truths Exist
Daniela Tempesta [00:09:59 - 00:10:44]: You can be incredibly grateful for what someone gave you and grieve what they couldn't. You can hear someone describe your parent as one of the most extraordinary people they've ever known and think, yes, I know that man. And I knew another one too. Neither version has to be wrong. For me, part of grief was learning to let all of those truths exist at the same time without forcing them into a one clean story, because grief is not clean. At least mine hasn't been. And the more that I experienced that messiness firsthand, the more I started thinking about how little room we actually make for it. I mean, let's be real, the way we culturally respond to grief Is kind of bullshit.
Cultural Expectations Around Grief
Daniela Tempesta [00:10:45 - 00:11:23]: We treat grief like it's an acute event. Someone dies, you take a few days off, people send flowers and cards, there's a funeral, everyone, you know, tells you they're sending prayers and wishes and to take care of yourself, and then back to work as though grief were some sort of jury duty. You know, you've been excused from your regularly scheduled responsibilities for 3 to 5 business days. Thank you for your participation. But like those first few days aren't even necessarily when the grief has hit. You're in shock. You're calling funeral homes, you're notifying people, you're making decisions you cannot believe you're being asked to make. You're figuring out what to do with somebody's belongings and accounts.
When the Real Grief Begins
Daniela Tempesta [00:11:24 - 00:12:05]: And then the funeral happens and people go home, the texts slow down, and everybody else's life moves on. And that's when you begin to realize, oh shit, this is my life now. And culturally, that's the exact moment when we're expected to be getting back to normal. I think that's part of why my 2-week plan initially didn't seem as absurd to me as it does now. Yeah. I mean, some of it was denial. Some of it was my own tendency to cope by making a plan, but we also live in a culture that treats grief as something you have to take time off for and then return from. Except I didn't return from it.
Carrying Grief Forward
Daniela Tempesta [00:12:06 - 00:12:38]: I eventually returned to work with it, 'cause grief is not something you overcome. It's something you carry. And even though I learned that when my mom passed, I had to learn it all over again with my dad. I mean, for months I kept waiting to feel like myself again. I kept looking for signs that the old me was coming back. I missed the part of me that was always making ridiculous jokes. The part that could have an interesting conversation with somebody and immediately think, oh my God, I need to go write a blog about this. I missed wanting to plan parties and fill my house with people.
Missing the Person You Used to Be
Daniela Tempesta [00:12:39 - 00:13:10]: Guess I just missed my enthusiasm for my own life. And slowly some of that did start to come back, but I still didn't feel like the person I had been before my dad died. And eventually I started wondering why that was even the goal, because the version of me I was trying to get back to Had a father. She hadn't gotten that phone call. She hadn't walked through the weeks and months that followed it. There are experiences in life that divide things into before and after. Death can do that. Divorce can do that.
Letting Go of "Getting Back to Normal"
Daniela Tempesta [00:13:11 - 00:13:51]: Illness, betrayal, becoming a parent. And yet so much of our language about difficult experiences is about getting back, getting back on track, Getting my bearings back, getting back to yourself. But sometimes there isn't a back, there's only forward, and forward looks different. I had to relearn that healing isn't about getting back to yourself, but rather about discovering the person you are becoming, scars and all. And I am definitely still meeting her. I don't totally know who she is yet. I know some things feel different. I know losing both of my parents has changed how I experience myself in the world.
Adapting to a New Reality
Daniela Tempesta [00:13:52 - 00:14:31]: I know that there are things that seemed incredibly important to me before April 2nd that suddenly just don't feel quite as important. So rather than asking, when am I gonna feel normal again? I'm trying to ask, how do I wanna live the life that's actually here instead of the one I thought I was going to have? And looking back, I think so much of those first few months was just one expectation after another colliding with the reality of grief. I thought losing my dad would be easier than losing my mom. It wasn't. I thought I would need 2 weeks off. I needed 3 and a half months. I thought being able to function in those early days meant I was coping. It didn't.
Challenging Expectations and Accepting Messiness
Daniela Tempesta [00:14:32 - 00:15:10]: I thought eventually I'd get back to myself, but the version of myself I was trying to get back to didn't exist anymore. Grief just kept refusing to fit the story I had about how any of this was supposed to go, because grief doesn't fit into a clean storyline. Grief is a reminder that in life, there isn't one correct way through something this complicated. I can love my dad and be frustrated with parts of him. I can be functioning and also not be okay. I can return to my life without having finished grieving. Grief isn't something we take time off to get through. It's something we eventually learn how to carry back into our lives.
Returning, But Not "Finished"
Daniela Tempesta [00:15:11 - 00:15:43]: I didn't return to this microphone because I finished grieving. I returned with grief, and I'm still figuring out what it means to be a person whose dad died. I'm still figuring out what parts of my relationship with him I wanna hold onto. I'm still figuring out who I am without either of my parents here, and I'm trying to let all of that be unfinished. Which for a recovering perfectionist is not an easy feat. I want certainty. I want a finished product. 6 months ago, I thought I knew exactly where this podcast was going.
When Life Blows Up the Plan
Daniela Tempesta [00:15:43 - 00:16:52]: I had a launch date, I had an episode schedule, I had a plan, and then life happened and the plan became irrelevant. So here I am back behind the microphone, not because I've got it figured out, but because figuring it out Isn't actually a prerequisite for moving forward. And I think that's probably one of the biggest things I'm taking with me from these last 6 months. When life blows up the plan, maybe we don't have to immediately figure out what the new plan is. Maybe we can just give ourselves a little grace to be confused and messy and figure it out as we go. And if figuring it all out isn't a prerequisite for moving forward, then maybe the question becomes, What are you waiting to feel ready for? What's one place in your life where you could take a step forward now, even if you don't know exactly where it's going to lead? And I'd actually love to hear your answers, so feel free to send me an email or a message. Deets on how to contact me are in the show notes. Tell me where life has blown up the plan for you, or tell me about the thing you've been waiting to feel ready for, because I know I am not the only one figuring this shit out as I go.