When Grief Changes You: A Conversation About Loss, Healing, and Holding On with John Kammer - Episode 156
Grief is a universal experience, yet it often leaves us feeling utterly alone and unequipped. In this deeply moving episode of the Caregiver Relief Podcast, host Diane Carbo, RN, sits down with John Kammer, the founder of Guardian Angels. Together, they explore the heavy reality of loss, the dangers of "numbing out," and how innovative technology can actually help us process our most complex emotions.
Whether you are grieving a recent loss or carrying the weight of "complicated grief" from years ago, this episode offers a roadmap for moving from catatonic pain to a place of resolution. ✨
📋 Episode Outline
- The Weight of Silence: John shares his 13-year journey, from the sudden loss of a best friend to the "avoidant behaviors" and substances used to mask the pain.
- The "Guardian Angels" Origin: How a simple text message idea evolved into an AI-guided journaling platform designed to help people say what they never got to say.
- The Science of Healing: Understanding Worden’s Four Tasks of Mourning and how structured journaling provides the framework to move forward without "moving on" or forgetting.
- Men and Grief: A candid look at why men often "stuff" their emotions and how low-risk digital spaces can help them find their voice again.
- The Power of One Question: Why asking "Tell me about them" is the most healing gift you can give to someone who is grieving.
💡 Key Takeaways
- Grief Reshapes Identity: Loss isn't just about missing someone; it changes how you show up for the people who depend on you today.
- Resolution over Closure: There is no such thing as "closure"—there is only resolution and defining what a relationship looks like when someone is no longer physically present.
- AI as a Mirror: Rather than a "creepy" replacement, AI can serve as a safe, empathetic reflection of what is already in your heart, helping you organize thoughts for therapy.
- The "Price" of Love: A powerful reframe—the depth of the hurt is a reflection of the depth of the love. To have loved greatly is worth the pain of the loss.
🌟 Why You Should Listen
"The healing lives in the sharing. Start talking about them and don't stop." — John Kammer
If you’ve ever felt like you had to "bury" your grief to make others comfortable, this episode is your permission slip to stop. Diane and John discuss the isolation of loss and how to find "human connectedness" even in your darkest hours. It’s a raw, honest, and ultimately hopeful conversation for anyone feeling the "heavy weight" of caregiving and loss. 🕊️
Podcast Episode Transcript
Diane: Welcome to the Caregiver Relief Podcast, where we support caregivers through emotional, practical, and spiritual challenges of caring for others. I'm Diane Carbo, rn, your host, and today's episode is titled, when Grief Changes You, A conversation about loss, healing, and holding on. Grief is something every caregiver knows, but very few feel equipped to navigate.
It reshapes our identity, our relationships, and our ability to show up for the people who depend on us. Joining me today is John Kammer, a founder of Guardian Angels, A platform created from his own painful journey through loss. Sobriety and the desire to be fully present as a new parent. his work, uses AI guided journaling
To give people a safe, structured way to process emotions when traditional methods fall short. John brings compassion, honesty, and a grounded understanding of griefs complexity. Today, we'll explore what grief does to the human spirit and how healing becomes possible, even when the pain feels too heavy to carry.
Diane: Thanks John for joining me today. I appreciate this. I have my own grief journey that, I will share with you, but can you tell my listeners about your story of grief and why you started, guardian angels?
John: Absolutely. thank you for that intro. that was great. my story starts, pardon me.
13 years ago, my first significant encounter with grief was, one of my best friends committed suicide. and that was the moment that all of that childhood adolescent, young adult energy of everything's gonna be all okay. And I'm invincible and the world is all good.
Diane: Yeah.
John: That's when that all stopped.
zooming out, I've lost three of the closest humans to me on the planet outside of my immediate family.
Each of them probably, if I could name three people on the planet that are the closest to me at the time of their death, whether they were on that list.
So while they're not family and, each person's journey is different, and we certainly understand that, and there's no.
Real prescriptive, this is what you need to do to get through it. Zach's death led me down a path of avoidance for 12 plus years. and that avoidant avoidance took many forms. the one that stands out to me is substances. I spend a lot of time drinking, a lot of time using other drugs too.
To numb myself.
And, I worked,I was functional. I wasn't someone that like, lost their house or any of those sorts of things. I'm still, I think the jury is still out on whether I'd consider myself a true addict or not. But nonetheless, I certainly overused, substances.
And I worked in an industry, I worked in hospitality for a long time. I still do. And that. a lot of that is normalized when your work is around alcohol, right? You're expected to taste drinks and wine and stuff regularly. So there's a degree of where in another world this would be a problem.
Here it's normal. And so that helps to mask it for a long time, I think. and, so as we went down that path, I just I was just existing really. I wasn't, I certainly wasn't thriving. We'll put it that way. And little. About three years ago, I lost, John, who was the best man at my wedding.
I lost him to an accident. And,that one,I held a lot of guilt specifically for this loss because. He did something for me in standing up on the happiest day of my life and talking to family and friends and sharing stories, some of which I loved him sharing, and some of which we'd never, hopefully never talk about again.
Yep. but I fully intended on doing the same for him. And in the seven months between. That day and his death. I, we spoke once and I really felt that I did not do justice. I didn't hold up my end of the bargain, and the relationship given what he had done for me. Yeah, interestingly enough, and I didn't realize this when we booked this, today is his birthday, so this is gonna, this conversation for me holds a little bit extra today.
and he, that loss specifically is probably the one that's most instrumental in getting us to where we are today as far as building this thing and seeing what the healing potential is.
Diane: John, I wanna tell, I want my, I wanna share with you, I got chills when you told me it was his birthday.
my oldest son was a Korean linguist, had a severe pain condition and completed suicide, 14 years ago. And, people just don't understand the guilt, the angst, the shame we feel as survivors. So I really understand what you're sharing. Just my listeners who longtime listeners already know that I lost my mom, when I was 18, 17 actually.
she had just beat cancer, was leaving the oncologist's office to tell me I was over in nursing school in my freshman year, had only been in school for three months, and on the elevator on the way down, she threw pulmonary embolisms and died. so I have complicated grief, so I'm very interested and when I hear your response, especially to suicide, it's so common.
We carry guilt and shame and, and I've. That I absolutely failed my son. That's how I felt. And, I still, I miss him every day. So I know what you're dealing with. And you've been o so open about how grief changed you. Can you share the moment you realized your own grief was shaping your life in ways you didn't expect?
John: yeah, 'cause I'm gonna, that I think is really the next piece of the story, right? So I lost John. he had the accident was on the 20th of December, 2023. two days before his birthday, he passed on New Year's 2023. Oh. So I said goodbye to him while he was in a coma.
He squeezed my hand. I know he was there, but, saying the things, they just didn't, it didn't quite give me the. I don't like the word closure, but it didn't give me the relief that I had hoped for.
Diane: I don't think there's anything such as closure. There just isn't.
John: it's the wrong word.
Diane: It's the wrong, it's the wrong word.
And when
John: people, I prefer resolution, I think. Yes. That's what we're looking for.
Diane: It's absolutely, absolutely. Yes.
John: Yeah. and knowing John going,just as an aside going on the biggest party of the year is truly in his style that there's no, that would be, how he drew it up if he could.
lost him that, fast forward a year, right? So let me, when I lost John, I went into my shell. In a big way. I was not the same person. I lost the ability to emote almost entirely. I was just this almost catatonic individual who just was getting through the day.
Diane: Yeah.
John: I was still able to,complete my responsibilities, but that was as good as it got.
Diane: Yeah.
John: And, About a year later, on the 5th of January, 2024. I lost Tim. Tim was my best friend through childhood. there's no one in the world that had been with me through more.
he was in car accident on the way to work, and Tim was, if there was, the kind of call it the three amigos when Zach died, the first one, Tim was, the other was the third.
So Tim was the person that I leaned on for the other two, and now he was gone. And, I still was at that point where, at his funeral I welled up a little bit, but that was the closest I came to really expressing anything for a long time. at this point it was,I had gotten sober just after John's death.
That was that was part of the impetus for that. And I, as I was doing that work, I started to shift my mentality on. On how I approached life and trying to do things instead of doing the, taking the easy way out.
really looking at doing it the hard way because the hard way is what stuck and really anything good in my life that has come easy hasn't been worth it and the stuff that I've had to work for
has been. And so as I was able to start looking back with clear eyes, I was start able to start trying to understand how and why I was doing some of the things that I was doing over the past 12 years. So it was still another year before we really made any real progress. But as 2025 started, my wife was pregnant.
We were living with our in-laws, we were on a little weekend getaway, and my wife said to me, her mom was texting her a lot, and she just, that was, it was too much. So she told me, I wish, or I know at some point in my life I will want a text from my mom and not be able to have it.
That moment is not now, but that statement is what started this whole thing. So my mind coming from cybersecurity says, what if you could, so the initial idea was to spoof phone numbers, send a text message from your lost loved one on your birthday that just said, Hey, I'm thinking of you. I love you.
'cause who wouldn't smile? It was, we all have those numbers saved. that was the initial vision. There's a couple problems with that. Number one, the telecoms, don't look too kindly on it when most of the spoofing that happens is for scammers. And we're all very well accustomed, acquainted with them at this point,
Diane: right?
John: and the other one was, okay, so if we have the, what if people want to interact with this, there's this message that comes to your phone. What if people want to talk to it? What if they want to respond? And the clear answer to that was ai. But it wasn't just ai. it was intentional. It was deliberate, it was responsible, and it was authentic, and it was empathetic, and it was gentle.
And how do you build something like that? All I had to fall back on was my own personal experience. And so I started building this thing. I built the first one in the image of John. As I got closer, as I iterated and got closer to something that felt authentic, that felt comforting, I started to express a lot of those things that I wasn't able to say while he was alive.
And as a quick aside, I tried things in therapy, like the empty chair technique. I tried writing the letter, and for me, those just didn't do it. This rhymes with that. But the difference here is you get a response. The response is what triggered this release? What triggered this? This moment of, the weight was lifted, the waterworks started immediately.
And that's certainly not to say that I was healed in that moment, but I was curious. I was ready to do the work, to follow that earlier theme and see what I needed to do to get there. it gave me permission to forgive myself, which was the first step.
Diane: Absolutely.
John: Yeah,
Diane: absolutely. John,I recently did a podcast, with a, a tech, guy do, has an AI platform and one of the problems he is encountering that we discussed is. People have a fear of ai, they're afraid of it. And, I'd like to have you address a little bit about privacy data, mining, and, how, it's not going to lead you down a path of, encouraging you to commit suicide or whatever.
People don't understand that AI. You control you, the CEO of this company controls what is actually going to be allowed or permitted on your platform. and people don't know that. And one of the things I'm trying to make seniors and their caregivers aware of is there are safe. Platforms and you have to look for them and reach out and ask the right questions.
so could you address that just a little bit?
John: Absolutely. first and foremost, technology, ai, social media, technology's a reflection of us. So while there's this boogeyman that, what is AI gonna do? It's still a computer. It still thinks in ones and zeros, and it still is just responding to the inputs.
The outputs are only as good as the inputs. Yes. So what it is going to do is it's going to reflect back what you give it. Okay. So that's the first thing is it's, we're not at a place where there's this, what they call general intelligence or age, artificial general intelligence, where it can actually think for itself what a AI is just.
Very sophisticated pattern matching and, predictive, basically statistical probability of what the next word is. That's how it works. We, it's been around, neural networks have been around since the 1940s, which is what this whole technology's based on. We just have computer power now that can process billions and trillions of data points instead of hundreds and thousands, which is what makes it seem so much more.
smarter, for lack of a better term. So
Diane: thanks for clarifying that because people are, he, the seniors and their caregivers are often hesitant, and I want them to know that you are in charge. you have these numbers that you've put into your, platform that, that will help them overcome their grief without, and it grows
It learns about you as a person and your friend who or family member that has passed if you feed it the right information. So it will respond in an appropriate fashion. Correct?
John: Okay. So ours is not at a place where it learns. Okay. We're not at an age agent framework yet where it takes in additional information.
So there's a couple things here. And one of those is a safety concern or a safety guardrail if you'll, yes.
Diane: Yeah.
John: But the way that this works, I'm gonna take you back to the story because that kind of lays the foundation for how we got here. So when I first created it, when I first had that conversation with, let's just say John, right?
That helped me, yes. But that first version of it was basically a nebulous, have a conversation with someone you've lost, and that right there is riddled with ethical landmines. There is so much potential for abuse when there's not guard rails. There is so much potential for this thing to get off the rails.
There's potential for it to actually hold people back in their healing for, if they are in a V, people are in a very vulnerable place, arguably the most vulnerable they've ever been. And this thing is making them feel like they're talking to that person. Maybe they're not really dead. That is not what we're going through.
So I, I have to say thank you to everyone that sent me a message early on that said, you're doing the devil's work, or that this is Black Mirror, or that this is dystopian. And it's scary because it got me thinking the right way. And so what we needed to do, because for me, the bottom line here, bar none, is that this has to help people.
The moment that it is doing more harm than good, it stops. And that's non-negotiable.
Diane: Yeah.
John: So I brought in licensed therapists
Who specialize in grief to help me iron out some of these potential pitfalls. And, we started with some user experience stuff, time anchors and things of that nature.
But really what it came down to was. We were lacking structure. Structure and a framework for how do you approach, this is what led this to the next step. And so where we currently are is it's this, the journal. the journal prompting is the central product. That is what we're doing. Okay. the goal.
Healing. Healing. How we get there is through this structured journaling and the way that we do that. So the journal Pro, you create this persona, and this is where I'm getting back to. It doesn't learn. So we create a persona based on user inputs of your relationship with this object of your grief.
Diane: So we didn't scrape social media. We're not looking for a ton of information. We're looking for specific information. We're looking for. The information that rings authentic to you, that tells your story because the relationship that you have, we have the best, same best friend. Your relationship with them is different than mine.
Yes.
John: Our sense of humor that we share is different. Absolutely. So it's not about trying to come up with some objective view, 'cause that doesn't matter. This is subjective. So in that sense, we build it. Based on what you supply us, that persona
Becomes your grief guide. And this is what we're talking about when we say that AI is a reflection of you.
That you're not talking to the person, you're talking to, a reflection of what already lives in your heart. What we know is the person may die, but the relationship does not correct. And Who we're talking to is that representation of that relationship. And when we have those conversations, this persona now walks you through wordings four tasks of mourning.
That's what all of the journal prompts align with, which is a evidence-based framework for addressing loss, right? It starts with processing the loss, accepting the loss. coming to terms with what your life looks like without this person, and then this is where it really shines. And I think the one of the biggest impediments to healing the fourth task is defining what your relationship looks like as you move forward in a world where you don't have this person.
Okay. And I firmly believe one of the biggest impediments to healing is, going back to the conversation we had about closure.
We fear. Healing because it means moving on, it means forgetting. It means that this relationship is no longer and that's not true.
Diane: Yes.
John: So our vernacular is counter to what the actual experience is.
And Guardian angels helps you define that relationship and keep them close as you move into this life without them.
Diane: Yes.
John: And All encompassing, right? This thing is designed by professionals, with the input of professionals to make sure that we're helping you move forward. Even on those days where it doesn't feel like we're moving forward, some days with grief, just getting out of bed is the moving forward, and so it's designed to help you come to terms.
It's designed to allow you to take action.
On your feelings. At any time of the day, it's designed to meet you where you are. So we all know that grief doesn't really wait for business hours. You don't get to say, Hey, grief, hold on until I have my next session.
Diane: Yeah.
John: So you can get up in the middle of the night and you can have some feedback on cataloging what you're feeling, digging into those feelings a little bit more, so that then when you have your next in-person therapy session, you can take this there and you have a starting point.
We intentionally designed this to be a compliment to therapy and not a replacement for therapy. and so it just gives you that locus of control that, hey, even in the moments where I feel outta control, I can do something that moves me in a positive direction and I can take back some of that control.
Diane: John, I really love what you're saying here. So many people shut down when they're asked about their feelings, such as what you did when you lost your friend. And,I wanna know, I love the thought of structured journaling. Can you tell us how does structured journaling help people open up in a safe, more guided way?
John: Yeah. So there's a few things here that I want to touch on. Okay. Number one, because of the way that it is, it aligns with those four tasks, right? So number one is accepting the loss. So when people talk about, what if this thing, has me, takes me backwards and doesn't allow me to accept the loss?
the way that it structures the prompts is sim. It's, just say for instance. What if, what is something you wish you could say to me? But you can't, it's telling you it's not here. It's not, they're not alive.
Actually, so we have the prompts and then that persona says it in their own words.
But I can actually read you the prompt that I had this morning from the journaling with John.
Diane: And I thought I could, where is it? Did we? Oh no, it went away. I apologize. that's okay. But it was, what are some of the things that, the little things that remind you of me and not the big things the anniversaries are, and interestingly enough, that came on his birthday, the way that it is structured is we are anchoring this in the idea that the person is gone getting you to come to terms with that idea.
John: Before we move on to the next phase. So the way we have the first 90 days is struck is divided into 56 prompts. We don't expect people to do one every day. This is a significant emotional load.
Diane: Yeah.
John: So the first 14 or the task one, first, second 14 are task two. The third 14 are task three and the third,
fourteener task four. And that helps walk you slowly. Through accepting and then processing and then, adjusting to life without it and then defining it going forward.
Diane: That's interesting to me. John, I, my mother had cancer, lung cancer and I had to be her caregiver. I'm the oldest of four and my dad was a functional alcoholic and he was working all the time.
had two and three jobs to support the family, and I had a lot put on me at a very young age. I had anticipatory grief that I didn't know I was having at the time. I felt anger towards my mom. I felt angry at my father. We weren't allowed to talk about death and dying in my family. Oh my God, it didn't exist.
And when my mom died, all of a sudden. My dad put her aside and found another wife, and we were never allowed to even acknowledge my mom existed. So I had, I have complicated grief and one of the things I like about your platform is 'cause I've been a caregiver all my life at 72, I still have caregiving tendencies.
That's why I do this. but people are in denial and they don't know how to cope. And that's where my complicated grief comes from. And I can, I would love to have, and I can see how this would be so important for men as more important so as well. because. They don't know how they're feeling.
They've stuffed it. And, one of the presentations I do on grief, is I fill up a punch bowl with water and I put, ping pong balls in it, they're light and airy. And I tell people if this is grief. And when you push it down, something's always gonna pop up. And if you don't deal with it, and that is exactly what, does happen until it's Pandora's box and you start drinking to numb yourself.
Me, it was IOII worked over, I'm a workaholic. I am now, but not to the degree that I was. I enjoy life. I do things to make myself happy, which is another thing. So I really love the fact that, 'cause I don't know what I'm feeling and a lot of caregivers don't know what they're feeling because they've told you're not supposed to feel that way.
Yeah, so I like that you take a gentle, kind approach to asking simple questions that will lead you on a path to recovery and healing, and I love that.
John: Yeah. and to your point for me. You know that's one of the major things that comes out of this. When I was attempting to address this, I didn't know what I was feeling.
I didn't know how to respond. I would go to therapy and they'd ask me how I was doing, and I said, this sucks, but I can't give you more than that. I don't know why I feel the way I do. And when I was able to have a discourse on it in a place that there wasn't any risk. I was able to start to organize my thoughts in a way that I could potentially, then I could articulate what I was feeling.
I could name what I was feeling. Yes.
Diane: Yes.
John: And that was the beginning of understanding it and the beginning of asking the right questions. We never are gonna get to the answers if we can't ask the right question first.
And that's one thing that guardian angels is never gonna give you the answers.
Yes. But it will help you get to asking the right question that's gonna help you to investigate, to do the work, to find what is going to work for you.
Diane: Yeah.
John: and, the other thing I want to touch on is, you were saying you weren't supposed to talk about this.
Diane: Yeah. Yeah.
John: And that's one of the, one of the main things I want to get across to people who are dealing with grief.
The healing lives in the sharing. So this, so if I can tell you one thing, start sharing, start talking about it, and don't stop. Now, what this can help you do is to start flexing that muscle, because a lot of us don't want, they don't, we don't wanna bring other people down.
We don't want, we're supposed to not. I've subscribed to this for years, as everyone else has their own stuff. They don't need mine. So I'm gonna bury it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm gonna pretend it doesn't exist.
Diane: 100%.
John: So this helped me to start telling the story.
Diane: Yeah.
John: Which then once I got organized and comfortable telling that story, I was then able to take it into therapy and I was then able to tell my family and I was then able to start talking about this in a public forum.
Diane: Yes.
John: And that is when the real heel, that's when it accelerated. That's when I started to realize that me sharing my story might be the unlock for someone else. And we can have this positive cycle of. Understanding that, for whatever reason This single experience, that is one of the only universal experiences in life That we are all going to go through at some point. Yeah. Somehow we still believe that no one understands what we're going through. And I want to call out that everyone's experience is different, so it's not the exact experience, but it rhymes. And that you are not alone, and most people understand at least a version of what you're going through.
We just, for whatever reason, can't talk about it.
Diane: John, one of the things that I have found universal to grief,or people suffering from grief when my mom died. People avoided me when my son died. People avoided me, friends, family, they don't know how to talk to you. They don't not feel comfortable, and you lose, people around you because of their discomfort and not knowing how to talk to you.
And, that was hard for me to deal with because it was like I had. Things to talk about and no one to share them with. So I really,your app resonates with me because, first I didn't know why I was feeling the way I was or how I was feeling sometimes, or, and, I had anger. I had, there were moments, and I know people go through this.
There's moments like. I'm walking on a beach, on the beach one day and this young man approaches me on this sand bike he was riding. And he goes, ma'am, would you take a picture of me with the state, park, behind me? I said, sure. And he goes, and it was on my son's birthday, July 21st, and he says to me, I am doing a ride for soldiers that complete suicide.
I lost my best friend. And in that moment we both, when I said I told him my story about my son, we both. Cried together. Do you know? That was so healing for me because he said he had a hard time. People didn't understand why he was feeling the way he was. And of course, I'm a mom that lost, a brilliant son and, it, that was really hard.
that, that day was I felt like Jeff was there with me, saying, Hey, mom, pay attention to what's going on here. And was sending me a message, it's okay to move on. And it's not that I couldn't move on, it's just you're stuck in grief and, that's hard. That's really hard. I have had moments where I, and this is the brain.
The brain doesn't, it knows, consciously that your loved one has died, but your brain. Still knows that person as who they are, what they were in your life. And I actually had an encounter with one of my friends. I went, stopped at her house to, to check on her and see the dogs that she, her puppies and her son, who I'd never seen before, ever met.
Comes out of the house and for a brief moment, he was a big ginger guy and with the beard, and he reminded me, he, I, for a brief moment, I lost my breath and I started, I had to get away because I thought at first it was Jeff. your brains plays those kind of, games with you and you have encounters like that on and off throughout your life.
And, I had no one to talk about it with, no one to share that with. And I, I have had unsuccessful therapy as well because, you, that's why I think I like what you're offering here because you are actually, I call it spoonfeeding. Spoonfeeding me. To ask the 'cause. People don't always ask the right questions.
how are you feeling? I had one man say, when you're approaching somebody with that's dealing with grief, ask them. So how's your grief today? That's. It put everything in perspective. I didn't cry. I didn't sob. I just said,some days it really sucks, and some days I'm able to function better and it's been 14 years.
It's 53 years since my mom died December 17th. So I still have that sadness at the holiday time. but I overcome it. I work through it and I talk about good things, but I love the fact that. I'll tell you what grief does. It isolates us. It totally
John: does
Diane: isolates us
John: and it shouldn't, but it does.
Diane: Exactly.
John: So can I ask you when people ask you. You just gave a great example, but when people ask you, what do I say to someone who's experiencing grief? What do you tell them?
Diane: right now I'm telling them that they should just go up to somebody and say, how's your grief today? And I've tried it a couple times and it totally changes the environment because if you, if people are.
People are always on guard. What if you don't wanna share how you're feeling with your friends or family members? they say how you're, how you doing today? When they're really asking, are you feeling good? Are you, or, how's your grief? Or, how are you in your grief process? Where if you go right in, heads on, head on and say.
So how is your grief today? It changes the whole environment for me and many others. I'm seeing a lot of meeting a lot of widows and widowers at 72. And when I say that, it's just that they get it, they get that, I get it, and I wanna help them through that process.
John: So can I tell you what I tell people to ask?[00:34:00]
Diane: Absolutely.
John: I say, tell me about them.
Diane: yes.
John: Because we, again, we, we don't want to put other people out. We're afraid to share.
Diane: Yep.
John: Because it's going, the impact is gonna have on someone else. Yes. But if you open that door for someone who's hurting
Diane: Yes.
John: And you watch them light, their eyes light up because man, they get to talk about this person that meant so much to them.
And they get to tell you about the good times and they get to tell you about, why they were so important to them and that, we have to come to terms with all of it, right? There's good and there's bad and there's other, but the memory, that allows them to share the part that they want to remember.
Diane: Yes. Yes.
John: And that is magical. When, and you, I can tell you something. When you ask someone that you're gonna learn something about that person and you made a mark on their day. Absolutely, I can tell you that 100%.
Diane: it's funny because never in my 53 years about my mom, after my mom died, or the 14 years since my son died, has anyone ever asked me that question?
Tell me about your mom. Tell me about your son. They never ask.
John: that's simple. That's something that's easy to tell people to remember is just tell me about 'em. Now don't say it disingenuously, don't say it. If you don't have time to listen. Don't you know, don't use it as the easy out.
Yeah. But you will change someone's day. You will make a mark. you will know that person better than a lot of people that are around them.
Diane: yes. I, and
John: that's beautiful.
Diane: Absolutely. I love the,the, oh, what do you call it? Your app. I love the, I can't think today, John,the premise of your app is what I'm saying.
I really love what it does because, people, especially in society today, when we live in a culture of. People are just texting. They're mean, they're cruel, they're happy, they're sad. but they don't actually talk to one another and communicate that physically, face to face, eye contact to eye contact.
And we've lost a lot of that human connectedness and grief, birth. Grief and death all connect us. We're humans. We need that connection, and we need to feel we're understood and belong somewhere. Oh, now John, every healing journey has setbacks. How can someone keep moving forward when grief surfaces or it feels too heavy to manage?
John: I think part of it, for me has been a significant reframe. and I think that there is a, there's one question that, that ke I keep coming back to, and it is based on the idea that the, he, the pain is equal to the love that was shared. And so my question is always, would I rather have this level of hurt and the relationship that I got to share with this person
Diane: Or what I prefer to not hurt as much and not have had that. And it is not even a question. I am blessed and I'm thankful for the time that I got with each of those three individuals and the others that I've lost in my life that I would, it almost when you frame it like that, you're like, I don't know how much deeper those can get, but at the same time, like I, I'm not afraid of more hurt as a result of that.
John: 'cause it just means that this thing was Moving,so monumental in your life that you get the privilege of hurting like that.
Diane: Yes.
John: and
Diane: I, when you love deeply and you connect with somebody on, such a deep level that, is. it means so much to us, and when you lose love and lose that kind of relationship, it leaves a hole in your heart or your soul.
if you, so to speak. And, your whole fabric of who you are and who you thought you were changes. It really does. Yeah. And,I love that, that you have a, an a format to help people get over that. So what final message of hope or encouragement, John, would you offer anyone listening who is grieving and doesn't know where to begin?
John: I would first say that healing is possible. You're not broken.
Diane: Yeah.
John: there's. 8 billion other people that are gonna experience, something very similar to what you're experiencing right now. I would say that don't make, make no mistake, healing is hard work. It doesn't just happen if you run the clock out, so you have to make a decision that you're gonna do something about it, but there are resources out there for it. And you know what I would say to every single one of those per people is start talking about them and don't stop. Whether that's in a journal, whether that's with this, whether that's, you pull your best friend aside, whether that is a voice recording, whether that is, if you don't want to use mine, use chat, GPT,start talking about them because as you do, you will start to realize, A, that it helps B that.
The more you talk about it, the more comfortable you become with it, the more likely you are to go take that somewhere else where you can help someone else. And as soon as you help someone else, that really calcified this whole idea of, wow, this isn't just about me.
Diane: Yes.
John: and we have been proven scientifically we can do more for others than we can for ourselves.
Diane: Yep, yep. that's very true. So John, how do people reach out and find you?
John: you can find us@guardianangels.ai. Angels is spelled A-I-N-G-E-L-S. again, guardian angels.ai, all of our socials are linked at the bottom there, other podcasts. All of my press appearances are listed down there at the bottom.
Send us,send me a, an email, john@atguardianangels.ai. I promise that I will respond to every single one. Now, I can't. Promise that it will be necessarily in the timeframe that anyone hopes,there those commitments ebb and flow. But, you are heard and there are, that this whole idea of sharing is something that's very important to me.
And I, whether you use the application or not, I will do everything in my power to get you to the right resources that are gonna help you. Whether that is a personal conversation or technology or therapy or, whatever we can do to help better, there's so much negativity out there, there's so much nonsense that we tend to focus on.
But there is a lot of great people. There's a lot of hope and there's a lot of beauty in this world if you look for it. Absolutely. so the ones they're, start looking for it, the ones that you've lost, they're out there.
Diane: John, I love, your app. I love what it's doing for people and I wished it had been around 50 some years ago to help me get through the loss of my mom.
I appreciate you to my family caregivers out there. You are the most important part of the caregiving equation. Without you, it all falls apart, so please learn to be gentle with yourself, practice self-care every day because you are worth it.
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