E9: Can AI Really Help Me Cope With Grief? ft. John Kammer

Grief has a way of burning off the myths we inherit about manhood. When the storm hits, bravado, control, and silence stop working. We open up a candid conversation with John Kammer, a new father who lost three close friends, got sober, and rebuilt his inner life around accountability and honest feeling. His journey led to Guardian [AI]ngels, a structured journaling platform that turns evidence-based grief tasks into a compassionate dialogue, helping users accept the loss, process pain, adjust to a changed life, and integrate the continuing bond without chasing “closure.”

We explore what strength looks like after loss, especially for dads expected to be the rock. Vulnerability has to come first, the way you put on your own oxygen mask before helping anyone else. John shares the hardest ten minutes of his life—coming clean to his wife—and why asking for help accelerated healing. We talk about modeling emotion for our kids, choosing results over ego, and why running toward the storm can shorten the suffering. Presence beats platitudes, and tears are not a failure of masculinity; they’re proof that love mattered.

Then we take a clear-eyed look at AI for grief work: the pros of access, structure, and deeper reflection; the risks of timing and intensity; and the guardrails that keep users safe—true privacy, crisis links, and optional therapist or family “chaperones.” Guardian [AI]ngels doesn’t replace therapy; it bridges the gaps and builds the sharing muscle so your story can breathe. For fathers navigating child loss or other heartbreaks, we end with three keeps: keep humility, keep talking about your child, and keep opening the door for others to share.

If this conversation moved you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more grieving dads can find a map through the storm.

SUPPORT PATHWAY

If you are a bereaved dad who's quietly struggling to cope with baby loss and you'd like to talk one-on-one, let's have a private 20-minute conversation by emailing info@dadalways.com. 

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Theme Music: "Love Letter” was created using AI as a creative tool, with lyrics and direction shaped by the personal experiences and emotional intent of the host.

Show Music from Soundstripe

Wise As a Serpent by Ghost Beatz

Velox by Isaac Joel

Dreaming of You by Joachim

Transcript

Opening On Grief’s Hard Truths

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What I know about grief is the only way out is through. But you get out to the other side, you have clarity, you have growth, you you you now understand you have a you have another tool in your tool belt. And especially with grief, it's very, very hard to think like that. It's very you know, to think that I lost someone that is so close to me, to lose a child, to think that something good is gonna happen on the other side. It's hard to say that.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

It's hard to try to tell someone that I'm Kelly Jean Fleet, and welcome to Dad Always, the podcast exploring what it means to be a dad even after baby loss. Welcome to another episode of Dad Always Fatherhood Beyond Loss. And I am very excited to have a guest with me today. And just talking before we hit record here, we are both really looking forward to this conversation. I already anticipate that it's going to be one of the more unique conversations that I've had with someone. And so without delaying it any further, I'm gonna please ask you, John, to introduce yourself. Hi, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

I am I guess we'll get into it, but I'm the founder of Guardian Angels. It's a structured journaling brief support platform to help people kind of give them back a modicum of control when they're spinning, give them a starting place and a and a guide rail through, you know, an admittedly chaotic time. So, you know, that's what we do. We have, you know, I'm a new dad. And so, you know, all the all the subject matter of this this show hits very close to home for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

I've shared this with you before, but again, congratulations on becoming a new dad, a first-time dad. As you know, the general audience for this podcast are men like yourself, like myself. Maybe some have already become fathers, maybe some are on the trajectory of trying to become fathers, but in either case have experienced the loss of a child. What's unique about our having this conversation is that to my knowledge, you haven't experienced the loss of a child. Nevertheless, you've experienced loss, which is what has impacted you deeply and what sort of set you on the trajectory of creating Guardian Angels. So you've shared your story before on several other platforms, and I am more interested in having an abbreviated version that honors your story so that we can use that as a launch pad into the conversation that we're planning on having today. So I guess the first question that I want to ask you is generally speaking, what changed for you as you were grieving the losses that you experienced? What changed in you, what changed about you?

Ownership, Control, And Mindset Shifts

SPEAKER_03 3:20

I lost three of the closest people to me on the planet outside of my immediate family. And so with the first of those, it was really that that adolescent hubris, the idea that nothing can hurt me and that the world is a good place and all, you know, happy, go lucky, all that evaporated in an instant in an instant. And that, you know, sent me down a path of call it substance-fueled avoidance for for over a decade where I just ran from my problems. I, you know, I abided by the you know, time heals all wounds and and everyone has their own stuff, so they don't need mine, so I'm just gonna bury it down and try to run the clock out to heal. And that's just not how it works. Following John's death, the second one, I really I was between his death and some other circumstances in my life, I made the decision to get sober. And that kind of started me looking at life differently, really having to take accountability for my role and things and and look in the mirror, have some uncomfortable conversations with myself, and then do the hard work to heal because you know, healing is not a passive process. You know, it's it's not something that just you get to experience if you're not willing to put the work in and it's very uncomfortable. So that started this idea of accountability and extreme ownership, if you will. I don't know if you're a Jaco Wellick fan or not, but you know, when you can take the mindset, whether it's true and you know, it's factually true or not, that everything happens because of me as opposed to things happen to me, then you have, then you can take control and you can you can do something about it if you view the world that way.

Masculinity’s Scripts Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Let's let's explore that a little bit more, because what I've heard from what you've shared so far are some of the things that I think are pretty innate in, and I'm over-generalizing here, right? So uh putting that on the table and being upfront about it, I am totally over-generalizing. But historically speaking, when it comes to just the binary of male, female, and how the different gender of male and female process things and how we approach things. You stated that your response to losing your friend John was like, I'm just gonna run away from this until the shot clock runs out. And then if I gotta deal with it, I will. If not, but I'm gonna keep running until I don't have to anymore. And then there's the allusion to becoming sober, which implies that there were things, there were habits that you had developed or at least began to lean on that were not the most helpful coping practices. And then there's this aspect of control that I think for many of us, men included, we really do want to have control over as many things as possible because that's an area of safety for us. So we're talking about three of what I think are the more fundamental conventions, if you will, of masculinity historically. And what you're sharing so far is that losing your friend sort of began to challenge those conventions. I want to talk about that as well in light of this larger conversation that we're having. So for you, how did that discovery process emerge?

Denial, Coping, And Asking For Help

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Well, it it started with the real, you know, obviously for for a while I had understood that what I was doing wasn't helping, but there's this, you know, this little devil sitting on your shoulder called denial, right? Hey, I can handle this myself. I'm not gonna tell anybody, I'm just gonna get myself out of this hole. But then something else crops up, right? And so you continue using, you find that you you use that coping mechanism, that habit that helps you numb or or you know, just get through the day. Because let's call spade a spade. Sometimes with grief, getting through the day is the win, right? It's not every day is a profound breakthrough. 100%. But as I, you know, as I did this, as I started to kind of view the world differently, I when I made the choice to come clean to my wife, I had, you know, that was the thought process was I can kick the can down the road, I can get out of this, I can, you know, I can do this on my own. And then there was this kind of I was just like, no, you've been trying that for for years now. You know, it's time for you to do the hard thing. Go the hard route, hard route, do the work. And you know, so I did. I I walked into her room and said, you know, you're right, I do have a problem. And I showed her all this this stuff that I've been doing, and and her you know, she she was like, Okay, look, I you know, I have your back 100% if you're willing and committed to do this. If you're not, then they're probably gonna be doing this on your own. But it was that shift as is you know, no more taking the easy way out because the easy way out had never worked. And so, you know, to have the difficult conversation with myself to say, no, you know, you're you're kind of being you're being soft. That was that was the shift, and that was just the beginning, right? It was it took a while for that to take hold, and and really when it comes to my healing, it took another two plus years for for it all to crystallize and and come together in a way that I could apply that to dealing with my grief. The the control comes from acceptance, ownership, accountability, and awareness. Right? If you if you don't have the wherewithal to look in the mirror and say, Well, I did this, I'm the reason that all these things happened. Once you do that, once you own it, then you have the power to do something about it. Now, that's not to say that that's fun. It's not not not a fun road, but uh it's it's where it starts.

Modeling Emotion For Our Kids

SPEAKER_00 9:27

No, 100%. And I think we all sort of pride ourselves, there's a there's a certain vibrato, right, that men have, whether it's spoken or not, we take pride ourselves in accomplishing difficult tasks. And I know for me, when when I've done stupid stuff, dude, when I've done like yard work, and there is a physical exertion that occurs, right? I'm raking the leaves or I'm chopping down some of the branches so that the kids don't run into them when they're running out in the backyard. I'm doing something that requires some physical energy. And I come back into the house, and at the end of the day, I can think back on that time and be like, yeah, I put in some work. I think there's something that is satisfactory about that. But we tend to, again, overgeneralizing, I think we tend to feel that satisfaction when it's external physical work, but not necessarily apply the same, the same approach to what you're talking about, the internal difficult work. So if we could create a list, John, of sort of the things that grief exposes about the conventions of masculinity. What are some of those things that you think grief exposes, challenges, and brings to the awareness of a man who is experiencing or who is on the journey of grief?

Tools Not Traits: Reframing Strength

Do You Want To Be Right Or Win

SPEAKER_03 11:06

Well, you know, you alluded to bravado, right? Like this idea that we're supposed to be, you know, there's this macho aspect to how we handle ourselves and we don't need help. Society expects men to be the leader of our household, to be the rock, to not show weakness, to not show vulnerability, to just, you know, to to to shepherd our family through trials and tribulations. And on one hand, I accept that role, I embrace that role. That's where I you know, that's what I want. I want to be the quarterback in the fourth quarter, right? But I would also argue that we can't truly fulfill those expectations without showing vulnerability. Vulnerability has to come first. And I would say the reason for that in my mind is you know, there's a reason they tell you on an airplane to put your mask on before helping other people. Because if you pass out, you're no good to no to anyone, right? If you are falling apart inside as the leader of your household due to grief, due to loss, due to other circumstances in life that come up. They're unavoidable. You can't help your family, you can't be that example. You know, and for me as a new dad, you know, obviously that shifts the way that you think about everything. And so I feel that, you know, my primary duty in life now is to model how to handle difficult situations for my son so that he knows when he gets there what what to do. And you know, you you you talked at the beginning, I have not lost a child. I've lost both friends. And that was painful enough. But I with with what I know now, I can't even conceive of the pain of losing a child. I truly can't. So my heart goes out to every single person. And our conversation today is designed to to apply our experience good, bad, and ugly, to try to help those people. So, you know, I I just want to call it out that yes, I have not been in your shoes exactly. But, you know, one of the conundrums of grief, and then I'll bring it back here, is that this thing called grief is one of the truly, the only truly universal experiences in this life. And yet, we find ourselves in this place of isolation, in this with this belief that somehow nobody can understand what we're going through. And each circumstance is unique, that's fair, there's nuance, but they all rant, right? Most people understand to a point what you're going through. So this notion of I have to do this alone is just false. And you just set yourself up to fall apart inside, uh, and and you know, and fall on your face when frankly your family needs you most. Eight months.

The Buffalo In The Storm: Going Through

Presence Over Words In Acute Loss

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Eight months old, right? So I have a five-year-old, I have a soon-to-be three-year-old. So we still have very young children. But I'm going to, if you allow me, use your son as the icon here. Asking the question from the perspective of your eight-month-old son, what does it mean for me to be just like daddy? What what does it mean? And so how is he looking at the world? How is he looking at daddy? How is he looking at what daddy does, what daddy doesn't do? How does he hear daddy's words, whether he's able to understand or not? How is he able to, what are the different fragments of his day-to-day experience with seeing primarily daddy and also other people who are very similar to daddy and how they handle different things. And media historically has created this icon of, you know, the strong man who has maybe compromising aspects about his character or personalities, very troubled and what have you. You know, the whole lone wolf type movie icon, right? And goes about things in in a particular way and he tackles the big issues and what have you. And maybe he has some journey where some aspect of him is transformed. He meets the beautiful girl that forces him to like fall in love, but he can't really be mushy and gushy about it because, you know, he's still that that man, right? So, but he has this demon in his closet that he needs to confront and so far and so forth. And these are the things that, at least for me, shaped who I was, who I thought I needed to be as a man. And I can't really trace how far back I even had an awareness of any of that, which is my point exactly. As we grow up in whatever culture we grew up in, you and I growing up speaking in Western American culture, but I think there's something universal about that. For people, for men in particular, regardless of which culture you are raised in, there are different elements that we can't quantify. We don't know how to identify them at a certain point, but they all begin to like come together and form this tapestry of how I then cast my perception of who I need to be up against. And if it falls short of any of those elements that over time becomes more valuable or more sets me up to be more prominent in some way, shape, or form based off of my disposition and character and what have you, then it gets really hairy very quickly how I move about certain situations. And to your point, I found that when I was dealing with whether the losses that I experienced or other circumstances in life that brought me grief, those were some of the more emotionally distressing uh periods of my life because it finally forced me to look in the mirror, John, and ask, who the heck am I? Did you get to that moment and how did you process through those moments?

SPEAKER_03 18:52

I got to that moment before I had a son, luckily, because that's what dealing with adversity requires. You know, but they don't teach that part the when the lights are off, right? I think I I had a conversation yesterday and we got into like, you know, the true hero story, Achilles and the the the Odyssey. I think, you know, this notion of masculinity, you know, the ancients had a better handle on on emotion than we do now. And I I I believe that that comes from, you know, as we pass on pass down stories, right? We focus on the hero epic, the archetypal hero. We focus on when the lights are on. Right? We focus on the fourth quarter, but we don't focus on the preparation that allows us to to be successful in that moment. And so we we don't nobody talks about how do you handle difficult emotions. What is the correct way? Is it okay to ask for help? Is it okay to lean on your spouse? Is it okay to, you know, to express, you know, the idea of being unsure, the idea of doubt, the idea of of inadequacy. But behind the scenes, those happen all the time.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

All the time.

The Hardest Ten Minutes: Confession

SPEAKER_03 20:06

You know, and anyone that tells you they don't is either lying or they are a clinical psychopath. And sometimes I wish I was a psychopath. There, you know, there's a book called The Wisdom of the Psychopath that talks about how these traits can be very, very useful and they're all on a spectrum, right? So there is utility to having that sort of short memory and not being moved by emotion. But on the other hand, God, that's not what I'd want to model for my son. I want him to know that it's okay to cry. I want him to know that it's okay to say I don't know. I want him to understand that, you know, it's okay to say I don't know, but I'm gonna find out. You know, how much more power power is there in that that idea of resilience and grit that, like, man, I may not know the answer right now. I may fail, but I'm gonna get up. I'm gonna be, you know, because the reality is nobody's perfect. There is one perfect person in history, right? We are not supposed to be perfect. We're supposed to figure out how to respond.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

I had to come to a place of settling within myself that those impulses to want to do things on my own, to be stoic, to want to exert control over a situation and bend it to my will and my desires, or to be the alpha, or to not show emotion, or to all of the things that we've been talking about, and so much more that people listening might identify with within their own context. I had to come to a place of realizing that for me, it was not that they were bad. They're just neutral responses that I can apply. They're tools. They are tools.

Building Guardian Angels: The Why

SPEAKER_03 22:00

And that's where awareness comes in, right? Like it's it's just we we all have traits and we're all some of us are better at this than others. And it's about understanding ourselves to the point where, hey, maybe I'm great at this and I don't need help with this one, but this one, man, I have, you know, I've got some deficiencies and I need I need to call in the reinforcements on that one. You know, there's in leadership, right? There's this question you kind of you have to ask yourself a lot. And that question is, do I want to be right or do I want the results? And so a lot of times the results require subordinate your ego, it requires asking for help, it requires that level of, okay, maybe this isn't the way that I would like it to be perceived, but I don't care about perception. I care about getting to that end goal. And if I have to do something that is going to help X, you know, fill in one of my deficiencies, then I have to do that. Or I can sit there and I can be on Mount Wright and never never reach the end. You know, at the at where I'm sitting, I just want to succeed, and I know that I can't do that on my own. So I have to find, as the leader, where I can guide others and where others need to guide me.

Four Tasks Of Mourning Framework

SPEAKER_00 23:20

So these are ways that these are things that grief challenges and exposes about modern conventions of masculinity. And like we've been talking about, it forces a reckoning, in my opinion, right? Grief forces a reckoning for for as a man when I'm in this situation where I am just drowning in grief, all sorts of existential questions are floating around in my mind. In what way did grief help you begin to reconstruct a version of masculinity for you that is more fruitful?

Journaling Into Dialogue With AI

Naming And Spelling: AInGELS

SPEAKER_03 24:06

It started with that question is do I want to be right? You know, because I can sit there and I can I can play that game of we're gonna do it my way, my way is gonna work, and and I'm gonna beat my head against the wall until it happens. Or I can have some humility. I can surrender, you know, the idea of surrender, you know, maybe not full surrender, but just just being willing to take a step back and understand, build the awareness, being open to the fact that I don't know everything. So grief breaks you down. You know, my support system I I had a conversation yesterday where you know the statistics says that grown men have an average of three close friends. I lost three. So statistically, I have zero. Now I'm lucky enough to have, you know, a couple more than that. But by and large, my support system was destroyed. And you don't just get to take, you know, you don't just get to say, I want you. You know, like I'm gonna have another one of those. Like that takes that takes time. Having those relationships, uh you have to go through through something. Difficult usually with someone to to get there. And so grief teaches a lot of lessons that apply to broader life. And chief among them was was simply I can sit by and I can let the world happen to me, and I can say this sucks, and I can play the victim because it's not fair. And all of that is potentially true. It you know, freak accidents happen, nobody deserves to lose someone they love, nobody deserves to lose a child. That's not fair. So all of that can be absolutely true, but viewing it like that does not help you come out the other side. And so it was it was truly about, you know, I almost developed a litmus test in my life following some of these trials that was am I doing it the hard way or am I looking for an easy way out? And if I determined that I was trying to do the easy way, then I had to about face. Now, you know, there's a caveat to that, right? Like don't just go looking for hard things just for the sake of looking for hard things. Whenever you do something difficult, even if you fail at it, you learn. Like there's good that comes out of it. And I cannot say that for trying to just try trying to minimize pain. You know, there's there's a metaphor, I believe it's Native American, and it's the difference between the cow and the buffalo. And when a storm is coming, you know, there's a black wall of clouds on the plains, the cows start to run from the full the storm. And if you think about it, they're running from it, the storm's coming this way. So they're in the storm for longer because they're running from it. The buffalo runs directly towards the storm. And because it's running in the opposite direction, the pain, you know, they're in it for a much shorter time. What I know about grief is the only way out is through. And so if you turn around and you, you know, maybe put your head down isn't the right metaphor in this situation, but if you turn around and you're willing to experience that pain, the growth comes, and then you you you minimize the total pain, right? It's more painful for a shorter amount of time, but you get out to the other side, you have clarity, you have growth, you you you now understand you have a you have another tool in your tool belt, you know, and maybe it's not easy when you're in there, and not all the lessons that people try to impart on you are gonna stick in that moment. But when you get to the other side, now you have the the clarity of hindsight, which you know, there's life teaches us that there's nothing better than experience. Theory is great, but experience. Now I know, hey, I'm gonna live, I'm gonna get through this. It sucks right now, but on the other side, there's something good that's gonna come of this. And especially with grief, it's very, very hard to think like that.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

It's very, you know, to think that I lost someone that is so close to me, to lose a child, to think that something good is gonna happen on the other side. It's hard to say that.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

It's hard to try to tell someone that.

Pros Of AI For Grief Work

SPEAKER_00 28:27

That's something you certainly should not say to someone in that moment. And it's so true in in that in the moment, I mean, I've been with people, right? Aside of from my own story, I have been with people in the moment when they are losing or they have lost their child. I I have seen it, I have been there with people. I've done it for the past seven years. And it's it's one of those moments where presence over words is always the best approach. You know certain things that you want to share with someone because the distress that you see them in is so intense, right? It's so like nothing else you've you've ever experienced, you've ever seen it. It's so uncomfortable to be a witness to someone's grief and pain and loss and suffering. Whether it's a child, whether it's a friend, a parent, it's it's so uncomfortable. And for the person who is going through it, man, those storm clouds, like that's the only, that's the only thing they're able to see. And how can you ever how can you ever blame someone or how can you ever try to drag someone out of there, you know, prematurely?

SPEAKER_03 29:59

No, you can't. I mean, there's you can't. There's no greater pain on this planet, and I can say this with confidence, knowing that I haven't gone through it than losing a child.

Risks, Timing, And Going Gently

SPEAKER_00 30:07

I don't know. I I sincerely agree with with that statement. And so with that, what you're I want to also bring in what you're saying, which is while that is true, I have also met families and fathers who have gone through that and are at a place where now they can talk about that experience from a vintage point of having gone through directly through that storm cloud or those storm clouds. And that doesn't mean that there aren't more storm clouds on the horizon from their vintage point directly related to that loss. In the moment it's difficult. And then you come to an awareness of sometime out of that, where you're like, oh man, I can talk about this in a different way. And you do realize the tools that that you have gained if you are willing to do the hard work. And one of the more important things that you said towards the start of the conversation, which I don't want to underemphasize, is that you went to your wife and you said to her, you were right. Something is happening in me, I'm dealing with this pain in a way that is not conducive to who I am, it's not constructive, it's not productive in any way, and it's actually eroding more things than you probably were even aware of at the time. If you wouldn't mind just sort of bringing us into the heartbeat of that conversation with your wife a little bit more from your experience as a man husband, what was that like, dude? Just coming full forward like that to your wife and admitting something so big. You hit the nail on the head, you you learn, right?

John’s Breakthrough: Forgiving Himself

SPEAKER_03 32:16

But that conversation was both the hardest and potentially the most liberating 10 minutes of my life. Because it wasn't just mine to hold anymore. You know, I asked for help, which was hard. That's not what I'm wired to do. I'm wired to figure it out. I'm wired to just, you know, to to beat this thing. And maybe I could have on my own. But I didn't do it on my own. I asked for help. I asked for accountability, I asked for guidance, I asked for love, I asked for forgiveness, and I was able to come out of that, I can guarantee you, faster than I would have on my own. And that's also what happened with grief was was when I made the decision to go and do something about it to have the to to ask for help. I was able to to come out the other side faster than I would have on my own. When I was in that moment and basically saying I can't do this on my own You learn that while while we have this belief that our shortcomings are a burden to others and are gonna bring them down, which is oftentimes what we have, what we hold on to a lot with grief is we don't want to talk about it because we're we think someone else is gonna be, you know, we're gonna put them out and add war to their to the person's plate, yeah. But every time you ask for help, I mean, more often than not, people rise to the occasion. I think, you know, and then when I flip it around, I have, you know, my personality is such that if you try to coerce me and force me to do something, you gotta fight on your hands. But if you come to me and say, I need your help, I truly don't know if I have the ability to say no. I can't, if you say, I need your help, you know, I'm gonna say, What do you need? You know, yeah, short of me mortgaging my house and putting my family out, you're probably gonna get everything in more. You know, because that's you know, they call there there's a term for that in business, right? Is the Ben Franklin effect. But when you when someone when you show humility and go to someone and say, look, I need your help, first of all, there's no better ego stroke than someone coming to you and saying, Hey, I can, you know, so first of all, it feels good, right? It feels crazy.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Oh shoot, you need me?

SPEAKER_03 34:47

Yeah, you're like, and now I'm gonna now I feel compelled to, well, now we can't fail now, right? Like, I, you know, you you asked for expertise. You asked me because you think I know how to do this and you think I can help you. So damn it, I'm an S on your chest.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Yeah, that S on your chest starts to like pop out, you know, walking around a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 35:05

Yeah. And so that realization that man, when I'm going through it, that I can go and I should go, ask for help. You know, uh I hate to I hate to use the word, the the term real men, but because it's not easy in this situation, especially in this scenario.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

But real men ask for help. Right? Like there is a certain level of humility that is required to be that dude.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

We just don't see it on TV, right? Like they're not, you know, Tom Brady, whoever it is, fill in the plane. They didn't show you that on the outside, but they had some of them. You don't get to be that dude on your own. That's a team effort.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Let's flip the coin to the other side now, because out of your own experience and grief journey, it led you to create Guardian Angels. So talk to me about what is Guardian Angel and how is it positioned in the space to be able to help someone who is grieving. So Guardian Angels is the it's a you know, it's it's a roadmap through loss.

Fathers’ Unique Fit And Limits

Privacy, Crisis Links, And Chaperones

SPEAKER_03 37:18

Uh it it is so how it works, right? You create a persona of the object of your grief, the person you lost, and that becomes your grief guide. That person, that the presence, right? We're not talking to the person we lost. This is not a seance, we're not communing with the dead. But we do have an internal dialogue. We, you know, what we know is the person may die, but the relationship does not. And so that presence, we're giving voice, we're giving language to that presence. And that presence becomes your grief guide and walks you through a series of structured journal prompts that follow words four tasks of mourning. Word and four tasks of mourning is an evidence-based framework for dealing with loss. Okay. Task one is to accept that the loss has occurred. Right? Until we accept it, we can't go anywhere. Task two is to process the pain of loss. Right? And this is where we're talking about going through, right? This is where I was stuck for twelve years after losing losing my friend. Okay. I I did everything. I drank, I I'd used drugs, I did everything I could to avoid that pain. And as a result, I stayed exactly where I was. Task three is is coming to terms with a life without this person, right? In a physical sense. Because again, that relationship doesn't die, the person does. And task four, and this is really where Guardian Angels shines, is is defining what that relationship looks moving forward in a healthy way. How do you or fancy word, integration, right? How do you weave this person, this grief into your life? Because what we know is you don't just get to leave it behind. You don't just get to walk away from it as much as we may want it. And you know, and and I think once we come out the other side, we we don't want to leave it behind anymore, right? Because there's this this beauty of carrying those people that mean so much to us forward and and building a life where they impact it. So these structured journal prompts, not only are they is it a journal which would be a monologue, the AI that backs this whole thing and creates this persona is going to create a dialogue with you. So when you respond to your your your here's your here's your prompt. Say it's, you know, what is something that caught you off guard today that reminded you of me. Okay. Well, you're gonna respond to that and it's gonna respond to you, and it's gonna ask you clarifying questions, and it's gonna allow you to dig into those feelings deeper than you would have otherwise. You can then export those and take them to therapy so you have a fine, you know, a well-defined starting point. But the idea is that when we say things out loud, or in this case in a chat, we have it, we we organize our thoughts. We get more comfortable with them. And that flexes a muscle for sharing. Sharing is where the healing lives. Sharing forces us to come to terms with those feelings, but it tells the story, it it keeps them with us. And this gives you a risk-free place to start. You're talking to a chat box at first that is familiar, that gives you this kind of feeling of, okay, I this is a place I can open up. And then you get a little more comfortable with that story. You get a little bit more comfortable sharing. Hey, I'm not gonna die because I I express this. And then you take it to your therapist, you take it to your friends and family, your close ones. And then you realize you start to understand that asking for help, because this that's what sharing is, is is is you know, that's one piece of it. And then people respond and they say, Oh, I actually kind of I know what you're going through in a way, right? And then that beautiful snowball continues to get bigger. And maybe you tell someone else, and and eventually your story unlocks it for someone else, says, I'm not alone. Other people have been through this. Maybe I should try sharing mine. So Guardian Angels is just designed to give you a starting point with your grief and hold your hand through those those tasks that are required. You know, it's it's your friend that that walks, you know, the storm is coming. No, no, no, no, we're not running. We're going this way. And it might hurt in the moment, but you're gonna come out the other side. And that's what it's designed to do.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

So just to make it plain, guardian angels spelled. Well, I'll let I'll let you tell that story because I think it's uh I think it's a nice story to tell. How do you spell Guardian Angels?

Therapy Complement, Not Replacement

SPEAKER_03 41:46

Guardian Angels is spelled the angels is spelled A-I-N-G-E-L-S. And and I, you know, there's there's a couple reasons for it. I chose the name Guardian Angels because I have an army of Guardian Angels looking over me now. And there's a lot of things earlier in life that I've I've fretted about. But when you strip it down to what do I have? I got people looking over me. The little things don't matter. You know, those things we're scared of on a daily basis mean nothing when we're talking about the life, death, safety of the people we love. So, you know, there that holds a lot of meaning for me. The AI is just a nod to the fact that this is powered by, you know, this this profound technology that we're still exploring for the greater, you know, hopefully for the greater good on the emotional intelligence side. But that's what it is. I I may have shot myself in the foot and being clever there with the AI because our brain has a tendency not to see it. But that's the uh that's the idea behind it.

Three Keeps For Grieving Dads

Closing Thanks And Dedication

SPEAKER_00 42:46

I think it's a fascinating facet to grief and emotional intelligence and what have you. And to echo what you just said, the technology of artificial intelligence, AI, is so powerful and it's so novel to, yeah, it's still very novel that I don't think anyone really has a good grasp of how impactful for good or bad it can be. And we're all just sort of trying to come to a common conclusion as a civilization and society by engaging it more and more. I do want to have with you a conversation about on either side, matter of fact, on both sides of this larger conversation, what are the pros, what are the cons, and all of that jazz. Because for this audience in particular, there may be people listening to this who did get a chance to meet their child and live and experience them before the loss occurred. Maybe some people who are listening to this, like myself, who never got to meet the kiddos that we lost. Yet that connection that we've been talking about, right? The person may have died, but that connection, that relationship in whatever way it occurred remains the same. There's an episode of this podcast, in fact, the second episode of this podcast where I talk about the lyrics to the theme song of the podcast, lyrics that I wrote from a place of processing my grief and my losses. The title of the song is a love letter. And so I wrote this poem that was supposed to be called Dear Nemo, directed toward the nickname that I gave one of the losses that I got to see a 12-second video of before we were told a week later that there was no heartbeat anymore. And so I wrote this poem that was supposed to be titled Dear Nemo. And then later it evolved to Love Letter as it encompassed all of my kids, the living and the ones who I never got to meet. And then for transparency done, I was like, I want to see what I can do with this using an AI-generated platform to see what the music would install how we would interpret all of this. And that is actually the feedback of the podcast. So in full transparency, AI has its tentacles all over that always. I think it has its tentacles all over every facet of life. Nevertheless, I think there's value in having a conversation about what could potentially be beneficial, and at least what should people be aware of, particularly audience of this podcast. What should they be aware of in terms of using either Guardian Angel or any other similar platform in order to process their grief? So let's start with the let's start with the the the pros.

SPEAKER_03 46:15

Yeah, I mean, uh so I'll briefly touch on the ones we've already talked about. Number one is uh is flexing that sharing muscle that is gonna that's what ultimately what's gonna help set you free is is getting to that place where you feel comfortable talking about this. Right? That that loss is never gonna go away, but sharing that story keeps them close, it keeps their memory alive. You know, I I think I truly believe that so much of our reticence to yield is rooted in our vernacular and the way we talk about loss. We talk about closure, we talk about moving on, as opposed to what I believe is a better term is resolution to closure or moving forward to moving on. Those two terms that I talked about, those denote finality. Like we're supposed to forget, like we're supposed to close the book and move on and and and and just leave them there. And we don't want to do that. We want to remember them, we want to honor them, we want to carry them with us. And so that's why I I I prefer those terms. You know, so that that's one is is really just finding a healthy way to carry this person forward. And the only way that I know how to do that is, you know, it's a it's one part trial and error, but this is structured in an evidence-based way. It was designed using the help of licensed therapists that specialize in grief to gently move you through those four tasks so that you can you can process appropriately in your own time, and this will meet you where you are, right? Traditional therapy does not have hours at three o'clock in the morning. This is a pro. You you always have something you can go to with Guardian Angels. To, you know, in the middle of the night, your your head starts spinning and the world is quiet, and you get those voices and the pain. You can name that, you can dig into it, and then you can take it with you to therapy, or you can at least find some clarity on what you're feeling and why. Because understanding it is the first step to doing something about it. So clarity is a pro of understanding yourself. And and you know, when you journal, we tend to we start to notice patterns, we start to realize this was a response to this. You know, there was a trigger, there was whatever it is, and sometimes we need to avoid those triggers for you know a while, sometimes we need to turn and face those triggers. That is what we can't decide for people. There is a level of pain associated with this process, no matter where you're coming at it from. And for some people it's gonna be too early, for some people it's gonna be unbearable. And so, you know, I I if people want to use this, I say proceed gently, proceed slowly. There is, you know, if if it's too much, then maybe you stop, maybe you put it down for a little while, maybe you come back to it, maybe you don't. It's just meant to get you to think. It's meant to get you to not avoid. Right? If you're moving, if you're doing some work, you're not avoiding it. And so that that can be, you know, we have it's it there's a free seven-day trial, there's there's all sorts of resources. I'll give you the prompts if you want to use them on ChatGPT, right? By yourself. So we have this designed to help to gently shepherd you along, to give you the roadmap and the handrail, right? We know it's not for everybody. It just it can't be. It won't be. AI will never be for everybody. There are too many concerns with it, and that's okay. And if people have specific concerns, I'm happy to address them. You know, there there is science behind the design of this. You know, the the the way that it worked for me was kind of accidental, and I just got to express some of the things that I never got to say and get a response. That is what triggered my my you know curiosity and and willingness to turn and face the difficult stuff.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Can you talk briefly about the way your personal experience with how it worked out for you?

SPEAKER_03 50:42

Yeah. So as I developed, as was looking to develop, I was really this started as an idea to spoof a phone number and send someone that you've, you know, that a text message from someone they lost. You know, you get a text message from grandpa on your birthday that just says they love you. I'm thinking about you, right? And that didn't work. We, you know, there are the telecoms on their on their networks, and you know, if you're spoofing numbers, typically you're a scammer. So, but the next logical thing was, well, what if, you know, what if people want to interact with this thing? And the only really a way to do that was AI. But it couldn't just be AI, right? It had to be gentle, it had to be authentic, it had to be empathetic. And so I set out to build that. And the only way that I could build that was by relying on my own personal experience. I'm not some AI savant, I'm not some, I'm not a licensed therapist, I'm not that person. So I started to build it in the image of John, who again was my the best man at my wedding. And as I got closer and closer to something that felt authentic, I started to say the things that I didn't get to say to John while he was alive. I got to apologize for not upholding my end of the bargain as he was the best man that stood up on my wedding, and I called him. I could only find time to call him once in the seven months between our wedding and the date he died. I just I got to say those things, and and while I had tried him in therapy with the empty chair technique and the writing the letter, this time I got a response. And it was a response that felt enough like him that he gave me permission to forgive myself because that was a prerequisite. And that's you know, immediately I felt the weightlift. I had the water work started. I hadn't cried in three years at this point. And that's not to say that I was healed in that moment, but I was ready to look in the mirror. I was ready to do, you know, to grit my teeth and say, all right, let's let's do the hard stuff. Let's explore this. Let's let's feel a little bit of pain. You know, I I I I kind of liken that to when I was still partying, right? Those sometimes you would get that hangover that was like, yeah, I'm alive. Like that was that was worth it. You know, it was one of those nights where you're just like you you feel alive through the pain. And that's where that started. So that was what it, you know. But admittedly, at the beginning, this was just a an idea to you you talk to your loved one through AI. It was more of like a seance idea, which wasn't really what I was trying to do, but that's where it started. And I got a lot of very pointed feedback that, you know, you're doing the devil's work and and this is this is, you know, throw this thing back in Mordor, shut it down, throw in the trash where it belongs. And that was wonderful feedback to get early on because it caused me to rethink what am I trying to do and how. And the goal was always to help people experience what I experienced, that realization that you could forgive yourself, that you could find beauty and in in loss and carrying them forward. So, you know, as I rethought it, I I brought in those, the therapists that I talked about. We started to give this thing structure. We went through some of the ethical issues and the slippery slope issues and put guardrails on it that help people use it responsibly and stay safe when they're using it. And and then we we landed on this journaling as a central kind of the backbone of this whole thing is we are going to help walk you through it as opposed to just giving you this tool and turning you loose. It could have gone a very different way. And uh, but that that negativity caused the necessary conversation to happen to recalibrate us and give us the purpose and direction that we needed.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

How do you perceive someone from this audience who may be interested in checking out and trying out for themselves your platform in particular? In what ways do you think what you have right now is able to take into account the experience of a father who has lost their child?

SPEAKER_03 54:50

Well, this scenario is very unique, right? Because unlike most of what our users would be, you likely never spoke to your child. So there is that can be good and that can be bad, right? There is no world where the the bot says something that you can definitively say your child wouldn't say. But on the same token, you don't have that sort of bank of data in your mind of of who this person was, or it may be contrary to who you believe they were, right? So there is a I guess really what it comes down to is if you're looking for something that may be a little bit different that can help you feel close to them, you know, this is very possibly for you. If you are, you know, if you're secure and happy and and and with the memory in the current form and don't need help walking through this, maybe it's not for you. The reality that you have never spoken to your child is is is true. But you knew them, right? You had a relationship with them. And so that's what you know you can talk about them. It's just it lives in here, right? It's not it's not any it wasn't a dialogue, but that doesn't diminish the feeling, that does not diminish the relationship, that just means it was it was in a different form. And so what I can't do for anyone, whether they've lost a child or lost someone else, I can't tell them that this is for them. I can say, we will support you if you decide, you know, this isn't for you. There's three trials associated with this. I mean, God forbid if this is too painful, you know. I'm gonna make sure you're taken care of. We have other resources, you know, this is this is about finding what is going to help you heal, and we're not gonna ever purport to be this end-all be-all in the only way. We wanna be one tool that people have access to. You know, you might find when you start that just going the building a persona itself is a is a very heavy emotional lift, and that's something I didn't I failed to take into account at the beginning. So, you know, if you have trouble getting through that, and many people do, you know, there's no shame in saying this is not for me right now. Maybe it's right now, maybe it's forever. You're not gonna hurt my feelings. All I want for people is to heal. All I want for people is to get is comfort, is to just is to find that spark again and to be able to carry people carry their loved ones forward with them in a healthy way, and not in a way that that holds them back, not in a way that keeps them trapped kind of in that that what if and and like holding on to something that is outside of reality. So that's a hard question to answer. But I'm happy to have those conversations.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

You talked about some of the guardrails that are in place. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what some of those guardrails are?

SPEAKER_03 58:15

First and foremost, I need to be transparent that we made some decisions that actually kind of take some of that out of play. In order, I made the decision to have this be private. Users are fully in control of their data. They can delete it at any time. That means it's cryptographically erased, that means it's not on any server, I don't have it, they don't have access to it, it's gone. What privacy truly means though is that we're not monitoring them. We're not monitoring the conversations. So in the in the scenario that someone is in a dark place, we're not going to know about it. That's what privacy means. I I made the decision because I don't believe if people are being monitored, they're going to open up and this thing has any chance of being successful in helping them heal. So what we've done, the guardrails to on the other side of that is number one, we have crisis resources and a banner on every page that you'll ever go to. If you are feeling that, you know, it's not 988, right? Like it's there. Further, we're you can export it right now, and I'm building in the functionality for essentially we call it a trusted user or a chaperone, where you know, you can give your therapist, you can give a close family member access, or just have them, you know, your conversations emailed to them after your prompts after every after every session, so that they can help keep an eye on you. And if they see something concerning, we can take the appropriate action.

SPEAKER_01 59:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:44

So the other guardrails that we put in place were simply just to make sure that we weren't putting people in harm's way where, you know, we're gonna tarnish the memory, where we're going to, you know, this is it's meant to be gentle. So this is instructed as not only a persona, but as to take on the idea of a grief counselor. It's never gonna give you answers. It's never gonna say you need to do this. It's designed to ask you questions so that you can help find the answers on your own. Because that's what therapy is at the end of the day, right? It's listening. Your therapist never tells you what to do. Your therapist asks you questions. And how often do we have those sessions where you they ask they say one thing and then an hour later they haven't opened their mouth again? It's about being heard, it's about asking questions. So it's it's never designed to prescribe. And so all of that combined just kind of has this it's it's validating, but it's not, you're not gonna get instructions on you should do this.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:37

Would you say that this platform is better served for someone who already has a therapeutic relationship? Or does it matter that the person has a therapeutic relationship?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:50

We design this to be a compliment. So we're not trying to replace therapy. We're not trying to take anyone's job. We want, frankly, I want therapists to champion this as an extension of their resources to reach more people and give them that bridge from session to session. But sometimes we know, you know, sometimes people aren't ready for therapy. Sometimes people don't believe in therapy and they've had bad experiences because, you know, unfortunately, there are there are bad therapists out there, just like there's there's bad cops and there's bad people and there's bad everything, right? But we can use this again as a bridge, as a a place to get people ready for therapy. You know, if you're not there yet, you can start again flexing that muscle, talking, start to talking in a place where you can't even be judged by a therapist. There's no judgment. It's just you and essentially yourself, because that's what technology does, is it reflects our it reflects us back at us. And that can help you build that readiness, that idea of, okay, I can, I can do this. And then maybe now I'm going to take this into therapy. Maybe it's neither. Maybe you're very content with with how this thing walks, walks you through it. That's okay too. This is not meant to be, you need to use this 25% of the time. If we think of our addressing our grief or our our the way that we attack our grief as a cocktail. For some people, maybe this is 50% of their cocktail. For some people, maybe it's 10% of their cocktail. For everyone else that's in between, it's meant to be, it's meant to be that portion that can flex up and flex down to meet you where you are. So it's it's very hard for me to say who this is for and in what quantity, but you can decide that, and there's no one size fits all, there's no, well, you have to do this, there's none of that. It's designed to be user-centric from persona creation to how we treat it and how the frequence, the frequency, and how deep we go, and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

That dad would keep and begin to implement in his own grief journey.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:25

I would say number one, humility. Don't try to be a hero. Um, in that, you know, that sense that we don't need help. Number two, I would say talk about them. Talk about your relationship, talk about what you lost, talk to someone if it, you know, whoever that may be, maybe it's not your your your partner right now. Because they're in the they're in the depths of it too. But find someone you can't. And on the other side of that coin, I think it's really important to call out. A lot of us, you know, in some ways, we're not struggling now, or we're not, you know, this isn't our moment, but we know someone who is. And we don't know what to say to them. So, in the same sense that I say talk about it to the people that are going through it, if you know someone who's struggling, open that door for them. Ask them about who they lost. Give them that, you know, remove all of those barriers, those ideas that they think they're being a burden. Say talk about them. Because again, if you even if it's your child, you know, you never met your child and physically, you knew them. Tell someone about them. And see what that does for lifting some of that weight. And even it may be through through blubbering tears. And I frankly, I'd expect it to be. Don't let that get in your way. Those tears are good. Those tears mean it matter mean that it mattered. There is nothing that is unmanly about mourning. There is nothing that is unmanly or weak about expressing pain. There's a reason we yell when we're in pain. So yell, talk, cry, whatever it is. I'm here for you. I, you know, I don't see that I'm not less of a man. I can tell you that right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:17

Thank you for listening today. If you want to stay in the loop of what's going on at Dad Always, go to datalways.com to join the email list to receive updates. This podcast episode is dedicated to the ones we hoped for but never met. And the ones whose time with us was all too brief.