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Bryce Giron Mathern: Welcome to the Man For Real podcast. We are here to celebrate men as well as talk about how all men can do better and lead our world to a healthier place. Get ready to get real. Hey everyone. Today I’m talking to John Kammer who has developed a AI application called Guardian Angels that helps support people in grief. Today we’re going to be talking about his journey through grief, addiction and personal transformation. John Cameron, welcome to the podcast. Great to be here. Really looking forward to it, Bryce. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it’s a pleasure. So, I’d kind of like to start just with a little bit about your journey, you know, how you’ve come to bring what you’re bringing to the world, this product, this service, and just a little bit of what happened in your life that sort of led you to this point. Yeah. So, you know, the product is very much a pain to purpose story, right? I lost three of my closest friends in the world outside of my immediate family. The first of those was 13 years ago to suicide. And that was very much the moment that all of that happy-go-lucky energy, the, you know, nothing can hurt me, the adolescent arrogance evaporated in a moment. And, you know, that was, it was life altering is what it was. It sent me down a path of frankly, what it was was substance-fueled avoidance. You know, I’d been known to throw a few back and, you know, I fancied myself a good time Charlie at that point in my life, but that was when that all shifted. You know, the partying was a mask. was medicinal instead of fun anymore. You know, it just kind of, was my habit. It’s how I coped and that would persist for 12 years. And so, you know, I definitely subscribed to the, you know, time heals all wounds mantra. And I just figured if I could run. far enough and fast enough that eventually that clock would hit zero and I would magically be healed and I wouldn’t have to face the demons that came as a result of losing such an integral part of my life in that way. know, a lifetime later, it seems like, you know, that was my 20s, right? And so I get to my 30s in December of 2023, excuse me, December of 2022, I lost my the best man for my wedding. This was another kind of accident. an opportunity to prepare. This one for me held a ton of guilt for the simple fact that, you know, he did this thing for me. And in the seven months between my wedding and the day he died, I spoke to him once. So I really just didn’t feel that I upheld my end of the bargain and being that, you know, that rock that good friend, that best friend, right? And that one really sent me into my shell even more than, you know, this one was before it was just kind of hiding in plain sight and now it was full retreat. So I lost the ability to emote. I was really just existing and my wife will be the first to tell you she had no idea how to help. A couple of months after that, we made the decision based on John’s death and some other circumstances in my life. was, it was time for me to get sober. And that was really a turning point in the sense that I easily could have continued to kick the can down the road knowing that I had a problem and trying to hide it. And, you know, I was very much trying to have my cake and eat it too and continue to use and feel good and medicate myself, you know, manufacture dopamine while maintaining my relationship, even though I knew that those two could not coexist. My wife made that very clear from the jump, right? So it caused me to look at myself and say, all right, The easy way has never worked. You got to do this the hard way. And that meant coming clean and getting on my knees for lack of, you know, a better term and just saying, you know, will you help me? And, and I need your support. And, and that was the beginning of this shift in, in the idea of how do you deal with things and really accountability, owning my own role in my own suffering. And so that was just the beginning of that. Another year goes by and I lose Tim, who was my best friend from childhood. He was there for Zach’s death. He was the one that I’d been through more than anything else with in my life, you know, the person I leaned on for everything. And now he was gone. So effectively my support system is no more. And that was as dark as it got. You know, I, at that point, you know, it’s not rational, but you have those thoughts of, seriously considered looking at ways to distance myself from my wife. because people that I was close to were dying. you know, again, that’s not a rational thought. That’s not, this was a series of unfortunate events. But, you know, that was, I distinctly remember having a conversation with my friend Chris, was the only, who was the fourth person I put in that bucket with those three individuals and just saying, please take care of yourself because I don’t have anyone else. And so that all, you know, that was, The next year was spent just digging deep, trying to understand this, Man’s Search for Meaning, trying to find why and a reason to go on really. I was never at the point where I was going to do anything drastic, but I also certainly wasn’t living a fulfilled life. And so how do we square that? And that all brought me to, I guess a year ago, roughly, when I had a conversation with my wife that sparked an idea that turned into what Guardian Angels currently is in a way. to approach grief with accountability and technology to give you an opportunity to say things that you couldn’t say and help lift that weight. And here we are. So, you know, the grief has very much shaped my life. And now I’m, you I see myself as, you know, you never get rid of grief, you never walk away from it. But on the other side where I’ve been able to reframe it, and I really kind of find beauty in the idea of getting to further the legacy of the people that have been in my life and do meaningful work in helping people, helping other people do the same. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for sharing all that. I’m curious if you could just say a little bit about what Guardian Angels is, just so people would have a sense of what we’re talking about. Guardian Angels is a great support platform and reflective journaling, right? So it’s, think of it as the journal that talks back is really kind of what this is. And so it’s AI powered on the back end. that helps you, you know, turns journaling from a monologue, right? We’re all used to putting words on a piece of paper and then thinking about them. This turns it into a dialogue. So when you respond to a journal prompt, you are going to then get a response that helps ask clarifying questions and dig deeper into what you’re feeling so that you can start to give language and name the emotions that you’re experiencing, leading to better understanding of yourself and your own experience, as well as having a something concrete to potentially take into therapy or any other work that you’re doing, something to fall back on that says, this is how I was feeling at this time, so we can start here. And then it walks you through an evidence-based framework for dealing with grief called Worden’s Four Tasks for Morning. So each prompt is designed to move you gently in the direction of working through those such that eventually you get to the point where you have Worden’s Four Tasks or accept that the loss has occurred. Number two is processing the pain of the loss, which was really where I was stuck for years. Number three is coming to terms with the idea that your loved one is gone in a physical sense. then task four is finding an enduring connection and while moving forward or integration, right? So how do we weave grief into our life in a productive way? Yeah. I think your story is actually, it’s unfamiliar, not to say in my own life, but I feel like there’s this way in which a lot of men get stuck. And I think it’s at that pain point. think for a lot of men, think pain is the thing that we often try to avoid. Absolutely. It’s like a thing that we’re really uncomfortable with. And we just find all kinds of coping mechanisms not to deal with the pain. And some of that pain could be trauma. Some of that could be like loss, grief, all that stuff. I’m curious as you went through that process, were you aware that you were trying to keep away from all that? Do you have a sense of that? No, you know, that was what getting sober brought to, you know, brought clarity to. It wasn’t until I was able to look back clear, objectively and look at and say, why was I doing these things? You know, in the moment, if you had talked to me in those moments, it was just like, yeah, I like to party. do these things. You know, my, it’s funny. We talk about the idea of what men think, right? And my, I guess, naive view of the world in my twenties was I’m a man because I wake up and I may party and I may do whatever the hell I want to do. on a Tuesday even, but I wake up and I do what I’m supposed to do. I go to work. It doesn’t impact my life. And I’m going to put impact in quotes, right? That was what I conceived of as a man and doing, doing what I thought a man would do. And so, you know, clearly avoiding it in hindsight was, was it didn’t get me anywhere, you know, and I’m very blessed with where I’m at now and the opportunities that I have in front of me to do this sort of work, to have these conversations, these meaningful conversations with people very regularly. But I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t done the thought exercise of if I had had this tool 13 years ago and I had started to process my grief in a healthy, productive way 13 years ago, where would I be? You know, I don’t know. It’s a futile exercise. because it just leads you down that path of what if, which means nothing. know, what if is second to should in the terms that we need to just read our vocabulary of, but it’s hard not to. Yeah, I agree. And I think, well, I think what’s helpful about it is it’s like, well, now you have the opportunity to provide it for people way earlier in the process, give them back those years. Exactly. And you know, I’m a big fan of the idea of bless the broken road, right? Like all of the things, all of the missteps, all the good, bad and the ugly is what led me here. And for better, for worse, you know, my life is as good as it’s ever been minus the three people that are missing from it. You know, I’ve got a beautiful son, beautiful eight month old son, a beautiful family. I have meaningful work. I have purpose. have all of these things that, you know, some people never get right. And I don’t know which fork in the road that I took maybe a wrong turn at that led to it, but I’m thankful for all of it. Yeah. That’s great. I’m facing, so there was a point where I think up to your second friend passed that your wife’s and you decided you had to come sober. was like, well, I’m curious what was happening in that moment where, know, it’s like, there’s this moment where your coping mechanisms are just not going to keep working or something, or there’s some awareness of like, can’t keep doing this. It really came to, it’s funny the reason that that whole conversation happened, right? So we were out one night with friends, you know, I’d had a drink or two. wasn’t anything crazy. I had been pretty good in that respect for a while, but I, you know, against the wishes of my wife was using those Zin pouches, those nicotine. And that was a deal breaker from day one. You know, I used to be a smoker, nicotine was a no-go. And I was hiding those and she caught me hiding those. so the got it, we, you know, they turned into this big argument and she had said, you know, you are an addict, you you, you act like an addict, do this. And she had no idea the other stuff I was doing. You know, I was Kratom, you know, to be perfectly candid, which was what I was using daily and had been for a couple of years. And I knew, you know, when I, when I would cease it, I’d have withdrawal symptoms. would, you know, there was depression that was involved involved with it. I was very clear. I needed to get off of it. But, know, going cold Turkey on my own was, you know, that was, that was rough. Yeah. And so. It was that night where, you know, she said that and I’m sitting there on the couch trying to go to sleep because like, yeah, obviously I’m not sleeping in bed that night. And I looked at myself in the mirror and said, you know, she’s right. Now I need to get off this stuff. Can I do it on my own? Has I’ve been quote unquote trying to do for well over a year now? No. And then, and I had that internal monologue and said, no, that’s the easy way out. And every time you’ve tried to take the easy way out, it hasn’t worked. It’s time to do something different. Do it the hard way. And so I walked into a room, I threw it on her bed, on our bed. I showed her, said, this is, you’re right. I am, you know, since then there’s been some nuance to, know, what I would consider an addict and whether or not I fall into that category per se. But the point was accountability, right? Point was I got myself into this mess and it’s time for me to get myself out. ⁓ Could you say what kratom is? mean, it’s a kind of a new thing that not everybody is aware of. curious. Yeah. It is a derivative of a South Asian plant that acts on the same receptors as opioids and has a similar euphoric feel in lower doses. It can be energizing and in higher doses, it has that depressive effect that opiates have as well. you know, for me early on, it was like this thing is I can go harder in the gym. can focus more. was like this miracle thing. And of course there’s like, you know, there’s no such thing. It was just too good to be true. There’s always the shoe, other shoes going to drop. And that was when I, you know, I was, I was passed the point of no return at that point when I realized, okay, well there, here’s the other side of it. When I don’t take it for a day, you know, what, what starts to happen to me. Yeah. So, okay. So once you decided to, did you get cold turkey at that point or did you sort of, I weaned myself off with the, you know, with the support of my wife. was, you know, I was taking capsules. So I literally just started taking one less every day. Okay. To the point where I was eventually it was zero and I haven’t looked back since. And it was really interesting because, you know, as far as the grief journey goes, day John’s funeral was, was kind of delayed. They, they held off until the weather got nice and they could do something for him in his hometown on Kit Kat. And At the time of his funeral, I was two weeks completely sober. So this was like this huge test, know, all he would, you he and I, we would tie one on regularly. And that was my friends in that group were all, you know, they’re all big drinkers. So I got to go face, you know, this, that was the first huge test, right? It was, can I do this? Can I face this feeling that I’ve, you know, and realistically I’ve been hiding from, from Zach’s death for 13 years. Can I do this? And can I do it without my main crush that I’ve had for the last 13 years? Turns out I could. And that was the beginning of some very positive momentum, but the timing was curious. Yeah. had this group of friends still. mean, obviously, Big Glass is among them. Were you able to get support from those guys as well? Yes, but they are all in a different state. You know, they all were supportive of what I was doing and impressed that, you know, I there was nothing but love and support from them, but there’s only so much you can do from afar. Sure. And also understanding that we were in different places in our lives and that I had to make choices that were kind of going against what our routine would have been. You know, we haven’t certainly haven’t lost touch, but there’s just a, there’s a, a realistic distance there because I’m, you know, I’m just a different person than I was in those days. Yeah. So this journey of grief that you’ve gone through. I’m curious like for you, if you have any insights for the listeners around what it’s like for men to have grief. I have thoughts too. I’m curious what you think about that. Just specifically around being a man and dealing with grief. Well, you know, I think that first and foremost as men were taught, we’re not supposed to show vulnerability. We’re not supposed to show weakness. We’re supposed to be this like leader of the family, this rock, this unimpeachable strength. And from what I’ve learned, I think that those things are in opposition. I don’t think you can be, you can be that example of strength without showing vulnerability. I don’t think you can separate those two. You know, I kind of liken it to the, the idea of on an airplane, there’s a reason they tell you, you have to put your mask on before helping someone else. And that’s very simply, if you’re falling apart inside because you have not done the work, the emotional work and to deal with your own stuff, the adversity that life throws us and you’re just burying that stuff down and avoiding it like I was, you’re not going to be able to help your family. You’re not going to be able to set an example. You know, I can’t set an example for my son. How am I supposed to show him and look him in the eyes and say, this is how you deal with difficulty, emotions and difficulty in life when I can’t do it myself? And so there’s this, you know, I think we really need to take a hard look at how we define masculinity because strength requires vulnerability. Now there’s context around that. There’s nuance around that. There’s times to show vulnerability and there’s times to show strength and there’s times to put on a face that is a strong face, even when you know you’re hurting or you’re not all there, you know, because we don’t get to choose those moments. But, you know, there’s relationships are we’re supposed to lean on each other. That’s why relationships work. That’s why the family dynamic works. It’s not supposed to be one person. And I think that what we’ve done societally, you know, I had a conversation with the guy the other day about some of the, you know, the great hero stories of the ancients, right, of the Odyssey and things like that, where they understood this, this idea of vulnerability. And I think what we’ve done in this… modern age of hero stories is we’ve just forgotten to talk about or shed any light on what happens when the lights aren’t on. You know, yeah, the hero is a hero when they are in battle, but outside of battle, is there no moment where they’re vulnerable? Is there no moment when they’re doubting themselves? And of course there is. That’s what makes them a hero. They’re overcoming something. That’s beautiful. Yeah, I really appreciate that. Yeah. It’s like, it’s interesting how I think There’s something about, like I think as you’re describing it, this hero sense of like facing in the battle where like, yeah, I can step up. I can face somebody in the battle, but then the demon of our own pain, the demon of our own grief. ⁓ no, no, no, no, no. I’m not going to face that. And I think it’s interesting because I think for most people and you know, obviously there’s different places around the world have different struggles, but for most of us, we’re not facing. like actual day-to-day violence. I know there’s some people there, but we don’t really have to face that, you know, like, or like tragedy or I don’t have to run into a burning, you know, house and save my family. It’s not going to happen. Or if it does, it’s going to happen once. So those kinds of moments are actually pretty infrequent. And yet the facing of my own fear or my own feeling incapable, feeling not able to do what I need to do, like all those moments where I have to face like the pain. of not feeling like I can do it. Those happen all the time. And yet that’s the thing that I I think I’m agreeing with you that men are really not trained or not. We don’t get some kind of way of really understanding how to do that in an effective way. And that is where I think, you know, that’s why I this podcast. That’s why I do what I do, which is to help men to face their pain, to face their… their vulnerability, as you say, in all the different ways that that happens. And yet it seems as though masculinity is this idea that that’s weak. And that is the fundamental, I think that’s the fundamental flaw in all of it. It’s cause to me, like facing down my flaws, facing down my mistakes, like when I do things wrong or I treat my wife poorly or yell at my kids, those are the moments that are the most painful. And that takes them. It takes the most courage. takes the most courage. yeah, the mirror, looking in the mirror and looking in the mirror, honestly, is hard. Yeah. You know, there’s tons of science on how we can do more for other people than we can for ourselves. Right. They’re just, you know, for whatever reason, part of the reason in AA, you have to find the higher power. And like, there’s these, this idea that we can’t do it alone. And I think that a lot of that has to do with the idea that we’re not okay with forgiving ourselves. I think that’s what it comes down to. The seminal moment in me healing was when I had built this thing that I wasn’t trying to build. It was in service of really just trying to build a sensitive AI that I could use for having people’s conversation. People could have conversations, right? And I started to say things to it. built it in the image of John, and I started to say things to it that I didn’t get to say to him. It was a lie. And while I had tried some of the stuff in therapy, I tried the empty chair technique and the writing the letter, I never got a response. What happened when I got the response from this thing that felt like him was now I had the, it finally gave me permission to forgive myself. And that was what catalyzed this whole thing. That was where, you know, the water were started immediately. That was when I was like, okay, I, you know, I can do this, but it wasn’t until I had that realization that you know, that I had to and I could, and I gave myself grace. And I think we don’t, we, we fail to understand within ourselves that when something turns out poorly, somehow it’s, it truly is our fault. We didn’t do enough, even though we had no ill intent. And we’re very quick to point that out with others like, no, it wasn’t your fault. But for us, you know, when we look at ourselves, we have this mentality that it is you know, we’re unimpeachable. This was our fault. This is absolutely our fault. And we should have done more. And because we didn’t do more, then we’re a bad person. We’re not bad or we’re not worthy of our own love. Right. And really, if we can’t love ourselves, then no one else can. Yeah. I think that’s actually a really good point, because I agree with you. I sometimes think, though, that like one of the other things I really appreciate what we said earlier is that sense of taking accountability. You know, like, OK, I’m an addict. went to your wife, admitted it. How am going to take accountability of this? I think those moments though, when men are kind of sort of eating themselves up for some sort of failure or something that didn’t go well, I actually don’t think it’s accountability. I think it’s this sort of internal mechanism of shaming ourselves that we might’ve learned at some other point. And I don’t think it’s actually like, to me, accountability, I just want to make this distinction because I think it might be helpful. It’s like, to me, accountability is like, I am fully… responsible for my life and for who I am and I’m going to do this, but it’s not shame. Like I’m not beating myself up. Whereas I think those moments where stuff gets messed up and I’m beating myself up, I’m actually kind of avoiding the accountability. It’s almost like I’m just saying, yeah, poor me. I’m such a shit. I’m so stupid. I’m so dumb. I can’t believe I did that. It’s actually not helpful. Right. It’s supposed to. Yeah. Yeah. It’s supposed to, I did this. Now I can do something about it. And I will do something about it. Yeah. It’s so much more empowering. It’s so much more empowering to feel that. Yeah. Well, that’s, you know, it’s funny you bring that up, right? Cause I did. And this, I wasn’t going to go into the nuance of around, you know, my thoughts on addiction and where I fall in that. But I went to meetings and I pretty quickly realized in those meetings, I wasn’t an addict. I had a problem. Let’s be very clear. But I wasn’t one of the people in there that was saying, I can’t help this. I’m, you know, I, ⁓ on my third house, my third wife, they’re all, you know, I’m losing this. I’m just sitting there alone. That’s not me. I knew exactly what I was doing every time I picked something up. wanted a buzz. I wanted to feel good. And so, you know, part of that empowerment for myself was I didn’t identify as an addict. I identified as someone at this point who I just don’t drink anymore. I identify as someone who, who isn’t good at handling substances, but I wasn’t powerless to them. You know, I was I had power in making a choice. And, you know, I want to really be very clear that I am not in any way, you know, putting down someone else’s experience or poo-pooing AA or any sort of anything like that. This is my experience and my experience alone. But for me, it was the choice that I made all those years and it was the choice that I made to not do that anymore, to change the way that I approached it and to change the way that I approached it. being accountable to myself and to my family, to my wife, and now my son. That was the power, right? And I’d actually, I’ve actually done a lot of writing about that specifically was, you know, cause you’d go to, you’d go places and I would, I’d meet my friends out and we’d meet at a bar because people like to drink and I would just have a club soda. And invariably someone there is going, well, why aren’t you drinking? Like, well, I don’t drink. Well, then why are you at a bar? Like, you know, like. I have friends, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s okay for me to be here, but you know, I just, I made the choice. It’s not your business, but I am not that person. I don’t identify someone who does well with alcohol. That’s okay. Yeah. Well, there’s a whole bunch there on like whatever people’s discomfort with other people not drinking, but I guess the thing that comes up for me here is like how we face the pain, you know, like, cause to me, think Pain is like the thing that helps men become their full selves. It’s a thing that sort of breaks them down and whether it’s 12 years or 50 years or six months, whatever it is, it’s the thing that actually transforms us. And I think that’s hard for people to face because they don’t want to face the pain. But I think it is in that pain, really the change, and you described this really well, is we finally just take full accountability. it’s like in your case, was, you were struggling with substances. I think a lot of times though, for a lot of my clients and people I work with, it’s like finally taking full accountability of their role in the dysfunction of their marriage, the dysfunction of their parenting, the dysfunction. they just, it’s so hard for them to settle into this place of like, ⁓ I’m doing that. I’m part of the problem here. Instead of staying in this place of, you know, my wife is this or my boss is like that. And that blaming is a way to avoid the pain of really looking at ourselves and saying, okay, I got a deal. I got to fix it. But when men do that, when men do that, it’s transformational. It’s transformational. What you’re talking about, right, is in psychology, it’s internal locus of control versus external locus of control, right? So does life happen to me? Or does life happen because of me? you know, Jocko Willink is an ex special forces guy, Extreme ownership. And, you know, he takes that. idea to the extreme, but it’s a thought exercise in that if you believe things happen because of you, then you are always empowered to do something about them. If you believe things happen to you and you are not in control, then you can do nothing about them. You are a victim. And you know, that’s the difference between the hero mentality and the victim mentality. just, you know, when you can do something about it, when you can overcome whatever it is that’s in front of you, that is the hero story. But, know, again, to tie it back to what we talking about earlier, that hero story doesn’t happen without the dark moments when the lights are off. That doubt, the can I do this? The wondering, because nobody is perfect. Nobody is all powerful. Nobody knows for sure that they can do things. It’s just, you know, we have to believe and then we can do them. Yeah, that’s really well said. You actually are the second person that’s brought up that book. It is, think that is that. I think it’s interesting because I think that’s really what men are really needing is that sense of moving from the victim place to the hero place and becoming that hero that is the trajectory. And it’s hard though. It’s really hard to fully own your shit. guess is one way to put it. Hey man, you know, it hurts. it’s, a species we’re like biologically conditioned to avoid pain. But the reality is for in my life, all the good things, right? The only way out is through. The only way to get to the good stuff is through the pain. So at this point in your life, and it seems like it’s been a relatively short time since your last friend passed and, it sounds like you’ve gone through quite a bit in a relatively short period of time in terms of the changes that you made in your life. And I’m curious if you’re just like what It’s been like for you recently as you’ve, as you’ve really started to shift and face the pain and take responsibility for your life. Yeah, it’s everything’s different. It all started with taking accountability and putting myself in the driver’s seat in my own life. You know, because let’s be clear, if you want to, no one’s telling you that you cannot sit there and play victim. In a lot of cases in life, it isn’t your fault, but it is your responsibility. You still have to do something about it or not. Right. Or you can sit there and play say, me. And you know, since that, that shift, I just, there’s been a lot of reframing that’s happened. There’s been a lot of just accepting and embracing difficulty, understanding that, you know, the sun’s still going to come up tomorrow. And I have a choice on how I respond to this. And I still trip regularly. Right. But it’s more like micro fails, but with macro progress, right? Like it’s just, there’s a willingness to be wrong and to be vulnerable to just understand that, yes, I’m fallible, I fail all the time, but that doesn’t define the direction. That doesn’t define, you know, where I’m going or where I want to go. And, you know, to be completely honest with you, you know, having a son changes everything. You know, everyone tells you that, but there’s some things in life that words aren’t meant to describe. You know, it really is, is this an example for him? And, you know, with regards to the grief, I’ve learned that there’s a lot of beauty in legacy and a lot of beauty in the ability for me to bring, to take these men’s lives forward. you know, I now have the opportunity, though they’re never going to meet my son, I get to, they will be a part of his life. The lessons that they taught me will have an impact on his life. And I look forward to telling him those stories. It’s pretty simple for me. And this has made grief as a whole, much easier to much more palatable. And it’s a simple question. It is, would I rather have endured the level of pain that I have while, you know, with the depth of relationship that I had with these, these individuals, or would I trade that for less pain, but you know, a different, less intense, call it relationship with these people. And the answer is, unequivocally, no, the pain was well worth it for what I got and the time that I got and the impact that they had on my life. And when you look at it like that, it automatically shifts you to a place of gratitude of, you know, I would have loved more time, but man, what I got was pretty sweet. And, you know, I look forward to spreading that. Yeah, that’s beautiful. What would you say as like kind of a final thought about you know, if you’re to tell men, you know, from your own experience, what should they do if they’re facing grief or like, what would your advice be to them or just general thoughts? Talk about it. And that, you know, that can take many forms for many people, right? It doesn’t mean just go unload on a stranger, though maybe that is the most, you know, the most palatable thing for you as you you individually find someone or something, I guess, in some cases. where you can just start flexing that muscle. And that is one thing that’s come out of, you know, a great use case for guardian angels that I never anticipated was really just getting people comfortable with the idea of sharing in a risk-free environment, but then they realize it’s not going to kill them. And then I can take this out into the world, whether it’s to my therapist or to my close friends and start building that momentum. And then maybe, God forbid, you know, you’re in a public situation like this. I mean, if you told me I’d be sharing this stuff publicly two years ago, would have laughed you out of the room. I would have absolutely, it just wouldn’t happen. But what you realize is not only does it help you because the healing lives in the share, it just does. And I’ll fight anyone on that one. But when you share your story, it tends to be an unlock for someone else. It starts to rid people of that idea that I’m the only one feeling this, this isolation that we feel with regard to a lot of things in life. But in reality, A lot of people understand, a lot of people know where we’re at. Not the specific nuance to the situation, but the idea, the idea of grief, the idea of letting yourself down or letting your significant other down or not being the example you want to set or any of those things that really cut to, you know, the core of feelings of inadequacy as a man. We all understand it. It’s just, do we let that on or not? Frankly, okay, I’m going to flip this around. Are we man enough to admit it? Yeah. Well, I think that’s a great place to end, John. That was really helpful for me personally, as well as I hope for, I’m sure it was for our listeners as well. I just want to thank you for being here today and for what you’re bringing to the world and trying to help men with grief and help people with grief, not just men, obviously, but it’s a really powerful product that you’ve created, service that you created to help people start to talk and to explore through this journaling, these journaling exercises. So. I’ll put all that in the show notes. It’s Guardian Angels. Check it out, you guys. And John, thank you so much for being here. Yeah. Thanks for sharing all that stuff. Thank you for having me. It was a great conversation. And you know, to your point, if we helped one person today, mission accomplished. Mission accomplished, man. All right. Thank you very much. Cheers. Thank you for listening today. Please take a moment to like and follow so we can continue to change the world by changing ourselves. Have a wonderful day.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain small errors.

Bryce Giron Mathern: Welcome to the Man for Real podcast. We are here to celebrate men as well as talk about how all men can do better and lead our world to a healthier place. Get ready to get real. Hello, everyone. Today, I’m going to be talking to Larry Glover, author of Wild Joy, Eco-Spiritual Encounters with Nature as Teacher, Healer and Lover. We’re going to learn about Larry’s profound journey from a troubled childhood. and strict religious beliefs to a path of healing. Larry Glover, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much, Bryce. It is a pleasure and honor and delight to be here. Yeah. So, you know, I’d like to start out just by getting some context of your story, you know, having read your book. I have that context, but I imagine most of our readers won’t have had that opportunity, although I hope they do because it’s a great book. Thank you. Just to give you a sense, give them a sense of like, you know, kind of a 10,000 foot level of your, of your story today. Great. Well, thanks again, Bryce. big picture story raised more into a tradition of Abrahamic tradition under in a family where my father was a fundamentalist, evangelical, non-denominational preacher. And their tradition required that obedience required a father to be willing to slit the throat of his son for the God that lives out there somewhere. And I was suicidal at nine. It was required that I, yeah, the story was learning to be a man required. I swallow my feelings and separate and fragment so many parts of myself emotionally and otherwise. And through fortune and grace and initiation by a bear I met in a tent, taught me, initiated me into breath. I once walked into the wilderness to die or come out a different man. And it was really through nature and a lot of deep inner work, a lot of shadow work, course, and in the Aegeans. played a key role, mushrooms in particular, but really coming to a place I could celebrate life, which is something I promised myself at 15 when I ran away from home, suicidal, that if I ever lived life to a place I could celebrate it, I would write a book so that other children would not have to suffer what I had been through. So this book has been a long time birthing itself and I really believe it’s a book for our times in a world that is authoritarianism is rising and will. because of we’re in between story times and the book points towards what it is to live in a more beautiful now and present as a path forward. Beautiful. That’s great. That’s great. Thank you. So I’d to just start, and I mean, this is a big topic, but the thing that stood out for me from your book was just this sense of there has been a disconnection in so many ways and so many aspects of our culture, maybe in our whole world between What I want to say is the seen world and the unseen world, the sacred world, this world where we don’t, think for many, many, many generations, many, many years, people had a connection to the sacredness of life. And that has gotten lost. And I don’t know when we want to figure out exactly when it started. Could have been at certain points, but just to say in the sort of modern postmodern world, we have experienced a deep, schism between our sense of what it means to be a human and this connectedness to this kind of divine energy, this divine experience that lives in ourselves, in our planet, in the cosmos. And I think one of the things I loved about your book was the way that you spoke about it in a very vulnerable and personal way of like coming back to that, coming back to that and discovering that in your own self. and how powerful that has been for your own personal journey and transformation. So I’m wondering if you have any thoughts about that. That’s gigantic topic. I have a lot of thoughts about it, Bryce, but I didn’t hear a sort of, I heard the reflection and I can just. Well, yeah, I guess the question that is just like, you know, maybe talk a little bit or talk maybe a lot about, you know, that process for you and how powerful that’s been for you. Well, it’s been super powerful, of course, having been suicidal so early in my life. And it shifted a great deal after meeting the bear in my tent, which is a key story or at the door of my tent, which is a key story in the book, course, and realizing there how disconnected I was with my body. Because I think what really allowed me to survive that event and confrontation was, was breath and dropping into that. And so this connection to the body is one of the losses of reference. It’s an ecological fragmentation of the spirit and soul in my framing and world, which I reference in the book as a Jehovah wound. And let me say this around that I’ve searched long and hard for how to talk about this topic without using the word patriarchy and some of the other language that I find triggering or many people do, I think. But it’s a very personal piece for me because I began to recognize the wound that my father suffered that I inherited as a lineage being named after his father, Jack, who committed suicide when he was 19. And my grandfather was known as a horse trader and ⁓ a hard drinking man. And part of how my father handled that was his turn to religion and in particular, non-denominational group known as the Church of Christ. And there are many variations of that. I don’t want to, you know, they don’t all fit into this piece. And I wouldn’t say that all religions are obviously the same, even within that tradition. There are many fundamentalists who are people of heart. And yet I love the the quote by Joseph Campbell, it’s something to the effect of be careful of the God you choose, but the God you choose is the one you deserve. And I believe, you know, it’s became really important to me. And this was part of the entheogenic journeys, of course, many times of really dropping in and trying to trace as a spirit where it was that fragmentation happened for me. Because the book is my story. It’s not a prescription for other people. And I’m not trying to come to this as some kind of spiritual teacher or anything like that. That’s not an aspiration. Though when I was 15 and for many decades after that, I struggled with delusions about maybe I am the Christ. I’m the one. you know, as compensation for that depression and suicidal ideation. It’s like, well, maybe I have something here and gosh, where to pick that up. So while joy for me represents this capacity to remember within us who we innately are, this innate belonging that is ruptured. And we take literally in my experience, the Garden of Eden story. and this biblical Bible or scriptural, spiritual text of the Bible as we know it. And what happens in doing that, particularly in those fundamentalist traditions, is if you’re going to believe the world was created in seven days, that the sun stood still in the sky, where does one choose to take literally and where does one choose to take metaphorically the words? Well, it comes down to theology and beliefs. And historically, in my studies and experience, that came about through a political convergence of politics and religion back when Christianity needed to come bring together in service of Constantine and the politics of that time to have sort of this one true religion like a one true empire, which also then cut out the feminine because they needed the power structure of the masculine and the emperor. But the fragmentation in my experience and journeys and diving into this comes about actually back in the Genesis story. Again, taking that literally when we have this Jehovah Lord God who is vengeful and loving. OK, so split right there in my mind. And if I’m going to choose to love this God, who’s going to require the willingness to slit the throat of my son, then I have to fragment myself. I have to. closed my heart off in that moment of drawing the knife or saying yes. However, you know, he got his son to be on the altar. What was going through his head and his mind and his heart? What was he having to shut down and why the hell wasn’t he saying, fuck you, God, take my life. But you can’t, I’ll not give you my son this way. mean, I think that tradition is driving Western humanity because we have been consuming the planet, the mother. our sons and children ever since, which is self-cannibalism. And that Lord Jehovah God is fragmented. He’s like a fragmented man. It’s a fragmented God who…where did he come from? There’s no woman there equal in that traditional understanding of the Bible, though there is in other traditions and older traditions, Gnosticism and some Judaic traditions. masculine God has a feminine counterpart. But when I’m worshipping that God in that tradition, where man is the king, the head of the household and woman is essentially this servant created for his pleasure and companionship, it fragments the self because it does not recognize the inner feminine, which is cut off. And so this wild joy is the restoration of the sacred masculine and the sacred feminine. is to marry the self and wholeness and to embrace that, which includes the wild grief and wild sorrow and wild pain and suffering of our times. And the willingness to open my eyes and heart to that and be witness. Wow. Can I get a hallelujah? That’s beautiful. That’s really beautiful. Thank you. I think, you know, what strikes me about this is that you’re talking about these things say from a religious or, you know, maybe more spiritual context. But what I think really happens is that men are forced to deny that feminine energy, that divine feminine gym. And so as a result of that, it leads to all of these, you know, significant challenges for men in their relational world and their parenting and their ability to be in relationship with themselves. And think that in many ways, I think this is gonna go on for a long time, but I think we’re starting to get into this crisis point, you know, we’re see the increasing levels of suicidality, this increasing levels of men just kind of dropping out of our society, all these things. And so it’s like, you know, everyone always wants to get the clarity of like, what’s going on here? What’s happening to men, young men. And I think that, you know, in reading your book, I was reflecting on it. I was thinking, ⁓ you know, you’re really speaking to this kind of fundamental schism that men have to face on a daily basis. I cannot express my feminine energy. And we can speak to what that means. The more nurturing, the more expressive aspects of who we are. And it just ends up being that fragmentation, I think it leads to so many mental health challenges and some just general challenges. As a mental health practitioner, that’s what I’m dealing with. ⁓ these men that come in and they cannot be in relationship in the way that they’re being asked to be being led to. And as a result, it just leads to immense amounts of anxiety and depressiveness. I just read commenting about like how powerful I think that what your book is speaking to is like this fundamental challenge that our culture is facing, but men in particular are facing. Yeah. Thanks for that, Bryce. And I’m well articulated. Men are. The world is at a tipping point and this, I think it, it pivots and hinges on this question of what is it to be human? And I think we, you know, our tendency is to move first towards what is it to be a man or what is it to be a woman? And I think without first moving to the root of the issue and the problem, what is it to be human? We can’t really adequately address these pieces of the polarities, the masculine and the feminine. Yeah. And so one of my quests in life became, and again, entheogens have been a big part of this and that story’s in the book, but you know, it’s like, I began looking for images of wholeness in nature and aspens for me became one of those very enlightening allies and teachers for me. As you know, living in Colorado and in the West here, they’re the first tree to come back after forest fires. They can drop not only their leaves when they no longer serve, they can drop their limbs. They do drop their limbs when the limbs no longer serve. So it’s just letting go. the thin layer of white bark is a very thin layer of green, which is a photosynthesis layer. So they can nourish themselves even during the wintertime because they involved in cold climates. And I could talk all day about the aspens. But the key piece was their survival, thrive ability strategy, they invest it in the roots. It’s one rooted organism, you know, that can be a cluster of ones. They do reproduce through seed, but mostly they rise up off the root as what muttons call ramets. So it’s, can walk in an Aspen Grove and literally be walking inside of a single organism. There’s a Grove in Utah named Pando, I spread Latin. It’s been dated to something like 80,000 years old. We don’t know how old it is. could be a million years old. It’s the largest known aspen grove, but it’s a single DNA genetic organism. And that I believe is the image of what it is to be human with all of life rooted into the tree of life, innately belonging, innately worthy, not having to prove its worth, not having to chase achievement in life to be a man or a woman, not having to forget that it belongs. And when you touch a single tree, aspen tree, you’re touching the entire Grove. When I look at a single human, if I have the eyes that are open in my heart and in the science of going back to the mitochondrial Eve and going back into the arising of life on the planet out of not some five billion year old big boom, you know, that happened way back then, it’s still happening. It’s alive within us, within me. I am at my core, a portal. of consciousness, self-awareness, presence, awakening and falling back asleep and awakening and falling back asleep to be in the cosmos, aware of itself. And then within that context, I can carry the masculine energy of boundaries and assertiveness and move into the receptivity of the feminine within me because it’s part of who I am innately. And the same with being able to set boundaries and be aggressive or assertive or the warrior spirit or the king spirit when appropriate too. Yeah. The fragmentation and that’s the reason for depression because it becomes suppression. That was the reason for my suicidality as a adolescent. I would wake up in the middle of the night with a hard on and you know, the seductive beautiful woman coming to me. And then out of nowhere there would be the face. and the finger of God coming into my face and the words, if you do, and I knew what followed, eternal pain, damnation and judgment. How could I not fragment and be ashamed of my body and desires that God, the Lord God Jehovah out in some remote heaven gifted me with? And that in contrast to the gospel of Thomas, where Jesus says, you know, the kingdom of heaven lives within you. But men do not see it. And the restoration of that open heart and open eyes is wild joy, embracing the wholeness of what it is to be human, ⁓ belonging to the tree of life. Yeah. We’ll get to the tree of life. want to get talked to that, but I just want to talk a little bit about the sense of belonging. And I think that is really foundational to, I think so many men that I work with, their struggle is like they feel a lot like so isolated. And I mean, like literally they feel isolated. They don’t feel a part of their, many of my clients are working really hard. They’re financially really materially really well, but they feel so disconnected from themselves and disconnected from the people that they love. And they’re, they’ve, they’re sort of in despair of like, did it all. I made it. I did all the things I was supposed to do. And I don’t, feel terrible. I feel, I feel horrible. And it’s the sense of like, they don’t feel any kind of belonging or connectedness to anything. Cause it’s not even about, I mean, there’s some element of that when they’re families, but there’s, it’s, I think the challenge here is like, there isn’t sort of any depth of connection, know, like the depth of connection that comes with really grounding yourself into a sacred awareness. You know, I think that was, it was beautiful about your book is this awareness of like, we’re all interconnected and how beautiful that is. And so I think it’s like, you know, one of the things that I’m always trying to help my clients get more clarity about is to connect to this divine essence inside them. Yeah. That’s the fundamental thing. Cause in my opinion, I think you just said this, but I think it’s worth repeating is that these mental health issues are result of the schism. Yeah. Whether it’s the masculine, the feminine, it’s the inability to feel connected to the planet, the cosmos, the divine. But at the base level to me, it’s like, I don’t feel my divine essence. I don’t feel it. I don’t believe it. I don’t even know that there is a thing in there called divine essence. And that was what leads to so many of these challenges. So I’m curious from your point of view, saying all that, what in your sort of journey, you know, has helped you to like really connect to that from your experience? I know we talked a little about psychedelics and some of that, which is also a really powerful way, but I’m just curious, like, how did you find this in yourself? I know, I know it’s a long journey. But it just, if there’s like some thoughts about that and now that was for you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for that question, Bryce. And it’s so relevant to our times. think the last numbers I saw was something about seven out of 10 men have no close friends. And to be a young man at this time on the planet, how could it not involve so much, so many people, young men feeling lost. And from my perspective and so many others were in between story times. And I spent so much of my life being lost in programs. that I’ve taught as a wilderness guide companion for close to 40 years or something like that is how to be lost and found in nature and in life. So this is one of the ways that nature became a teacher for me. It’s like, how do I orient in the forest? How do I pay attention in such a way that I know where I am and I can find my way back out? Because one of my passions is to follow game trails and then to get off the game trails and just let myself go through wilderness. I got to say and take note too of what a gift, privilege and passion that is on the planet these days to have wild places and then to have access to those places. And I believe that’s one of the reasons the, I’ll just call it the wounded masculine or that fractured, disassociated masculine is attempting now to destroy as much of nature in the wild as it can, from rivers to forests to deserts, et cetera. So That journey for me with nature as teacher and healer and lover was really about how I mean, learning how to come to it in those different ways. And there was so much time spent lost and so much time feeling betrayed and so much time feeling bewildered and learning to live in the unknown, recognizing and honoring one that the map I inherited, the only place it’s going to take me is to living hell, you know, which is where I would say the billionaire bros are living for the most part. in their attempt to control the planet for many of them, not all. But I remember well in the stories in the book, walking off a forest fire when I was fighting fires with the Forest Service and just realizing this place needs to burn. Because the trees were so thick, we had to walk on logs, canner, chainsaw, and gas, and fire tools, and so on, because we couldn’t walk on the ground. It was too much, large pole pine, dog hair, as they call it. And there’s an amazing thing about that too. It’s like learning to see fire in the forest helped me learn to see the sun inside the cells of my body and that the mitochondrial, which, you know, control so much a non-human cell, a non-human species of which we contain, you know, what is it 70, 80 % you know, of the cells in our body are non-human. it’s this ecological self again, that is a mirror. of what it is to truly be human and to be long. We’re not separate biologically. It’s the theology of domination and control and consumerism in that frame. And that is part of the separation theology. that waking up that there’s a place for fire in the forest. I thought I was doing good. First, I thought I was doing good by saving people. It was a little young preacher, baptized a lot of my friends into the church. When I started losing faith, I became ashamed of that. I was lost. divorce. It was very painful and I nearly killed myself over that because I couldn’t stop sleeping with other women. So much shame. I was looking outside myself for love. It’s this extrinsic orientation. I can go on in that story, but to cut it shorter here, a dear friend who’s very in tune and psychic and sitting with her, once she looked at me and she said, Larry, you have a hole in your heart and you’re leaking love. And this came not that many years ago at a time when I thought, I have more love for myself than I’ve ever had. But it did send me deeper into this inquiry of all the places I still carried shame and had not brought love to. And so the psychedelics, the entheogens, MDNA in particular, that helped me drop into stillness and quietness in a way that I could listen to my heart and my body. And this thing about stillness and quietness is really important in slowing down. Again, working with forest fires and in the wilderness and, you know, technical canyons and all that wild rivers. You see a lot of masculinity that is driven to achieve and prove and, you know, this, this physicality, which can be very beautiful. And it’s a part of what it is to be masculine and to really inhabit our bodies and bring love to them and self care and all of that. But so much of it comes from the spirit of separation and proof and in a competitive, unhealthy way. I’m better than, you know, Yeah, I think, I think you’re really speaking to it. It’s like, I think that the focus is external. The focus is what can I do out here? How can I make you like me more? How can I make more money? How can I have more stuff? How can I experience this world? And the real shift, and I think it’s true in my own story, you know, and I really became more focused on my meditation practice and really started to find my body. mean, in many levels was when I think I started to really wake up. And I think before that, it was much more theoretical. Like I sort of thought about it and was like, ⁓ yeah, there’s these spiritual things and I understand it, but it wasn’t till I became more engaged in my body. And then also the slowing down the stillness of wow. ⁓ I can feel this reality in my body. Like it’s not, it becomes less abstract. know, like we talk about these things, but when you talk about them, it’s like, think for a lot of people it’s like, well, what What is that? What does that mean? And you have to slow down. You really have to slow down to be able to feel it. And that requires, you know, lot of different things I imagine for lot of different people. But for me, it meant just getting up every morning and sitting on my cushion for 10 or 15, sometimes 20 minutes ⁓ and slowing my system down. I can remember once while was at a meditation retreat and I was, you know, was been going for three or four days and you know, you get very still in those periods. And I was getting the food ready and we all took interns helping with the food and I dropped a fork and this voice came through and it said, you’re so stupid. And it was like, I was just like, whoa. Beautiful. Beautiful. He saw it, caught it. I saw it. I was like, oh my God, that’s probably going on all the time. I just am never still enough to hear it. Your whole life. this unconscious reality of like, beating, I’m shaming myself relentlessly, but in catching it, I realized, ⁓ I had a way of working with it then. And I could say, that’s not true. That’s not me. That’s not who I am. So yeah. So I think what you’re saying is, really in my opinion is really what it is. You know, there’s a quote in the book that you actually it’s not your quote, but it’s another person’s quote. it was like something about, maybe you were, you were speaking of somebody else’s point of view, but it was something about the quality of presence. I’m quoting this, we bring to the encounter is what makes the difference. And so it’s like, that is so much of what we all have to work on is the quality of presence. know, when I work with a lot of fathers, that’s their challenge is their ability to be in presence with their children when they’ve been so unculturated to be so distracted. in their achievements. So I just want to say like, really like what I loved about your book that was so powerful is that sense of the stillness, the presence, and then in that emerges that wild joy. Yes. It’s like, it’s a container that allows that wild joy to emerge, which in many ways I’m going to offer my own points of view here, but I think that, you know, the wild joy is that awareness of the divine essence. It’s really what it is. grief and sorrow and no matter what. Whatever it is. It’s yeah. It’s not like it’s not this negative positive polarity. It’s just what is it’s all divine. It’s all divine. Yeah. And it’s a wild joy is that capacity be present to that. Yeah. And humbled therefore. Bryce, here’s one more story around that. I can, if we got time here. So back with my early forest service days and learning to cut trees and my first Fire went out with these two other gentlemen, really beautiful men, large ponderosa pine tree with fire blowing out of the top. was rotten in the top. And so it had what was called a chimney. It was a chimney fire. So it had a hole that was allowing air to come through and feed the fire. And the top had been blown out. So there was a danger of falling limbs and dangerous tree. the other two guys, it was a large tree, bigger around. than our chainsaw blades. We had to beaver it. The other two men cut the first sort of falling cut. It’s a triangle where you cut it in the direction that you want it to fall. And then they turned to me and said, you finish it. So that would be the falling cut. Part of the thing was we’d had somebody standing next to the sawyer to touch your shoulder so you knew to split if the branch was falling or fire or something. Somebody standing at the distance, you know, then there’s a hauler. So you had this visual piece. So I do this and I can feel the adrenaline and the power and I feel bad for cutting this tree. But at the same time, you know, it’s like, well, I’m doing good. I’m fighting forest fires, know, smoky here. Another one of those heroic images that I learned was a cultural image. And so the tree comes down, makes a big crashing boom. The top of the tree lands in a grove of gambles oak. Fire is thrown everywhere. and starts burning, you know, as it spreads. And one of the men come up to me and says, doesn’t that just make your dick heart? And so the point being is that presence thing, right? It’s like, if I come into the forest and all I see is objects, that’s going to be the mentality. And I’m going to need my big machines and my big gun, my camo, whatever it is to feel like a man. Because it’s so big out there. The universe is so threatening and it’s a, you know, grandeur and scale that we need some theology in which we can contain it. And this masculine idea of what so much that is present today is one way to try to contain and identify identity, contain it. But to come into the forest and be willing to say hello to the trees and move slow enough and walk a trail. And there’s some poems about this in the book, but you know, where our souls kiss the earth as we walk. to slow down enough to make love and give blessings to the soil and the ground, recognize you’re walking and living in middle earth, life above you in the air, that’s the living air, life below you, that’s the living being, sentience everywhere. Then, and there’s a reciprocal peace, when I see that in the forest, I see it better in myself. The more I see it in myself, the more I see it in the world around me. So it’s just reciprocity. And that’s that fragmentation again that happens. Culturally that we’ve inherited this ancestral wound that can be healed and it’s a spiral journey I’m still healing. Yeah, I know it’s been interesting to listen to you because I can feel myself of like how I can be in like just glorious beauty and just be totally checked out. I’m like, man, whatever we’re here. What do we ought to do? I got to make have a picnic or whatever we’re doing, you know, and not just like fully enraptured in like ⁓ my God, look at what’s like what I’m seeing. Let’s look what’s happening. Look what’s around me. All this life. I wanted to double click on one idea you had around humility because I think it’s actually really important. I think that in some ways this lack of humility that humans maybe in let’s just speak about men, women have their stuff, but men struggle to it’s almost like an absurd of just coming to these words right now. So I’m just, so bear with me, but like there’s a way in which the immensity of it all, as I think you described the immensity of how big it all is. Yeah. Without humility, I think there’s a desire to control it. Yes. To contain it, to like overpower it somehow. Yeah. Yeah. And I think where that’s where we’re at right now, there’s not, there’s no humility enough, like ⁓ almost like bowing to it and saying, wow, you’re so much bigger than me. Yeah. And I just want to be a part of you. I don’t need to control you. I don’t need to dominate you. I just want to be a part and feel this belonging, this connectedness to it. And so I just, I just think that in my own life, I’ve really come to this word re not recently, but just really more magnifying how I feel this deep humility in my life, like in my work, in my family, in everything I do, it’s like, just feel so humble to it all. the moments of just deep joy and reflection and also the pain and the struggle. It’s just like, I’m so humbled by it all. It’s just so beautiful. And I think it’s actually, instead of it being this like, you know, self-deprecating, I’m not so good, it’s not shaming. It’s just like, ⁓ my God, it’s so big and I’m just a part of it. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I just wanted to reflect on that. It’s just such a beautiful idea. Yeah. That’s really a beautiful reflection, Bryce. And you just named it. I’m a part of it. I’m not separate. And you also described this life with purpose and innate purpose and meaning that comes out of you. It’s in service to a larger whole. And so it’s this reciprocity. It’s like you’re not a single organism. And it’s like the tree that we think is dead, but it’s still giving back to the neighboring trees through its roots and the mycelium network. And then it can identify actually its own progeny. ⁓ It’s a wonder and a mystery. but to live in service of life on the planet, particularly at this time and the regreening and to live in service of the awakening of an old story as again, a new story, so to speak, but it’s an old story that we belong and are part of it. It’s the, you know, the original heresy as I write about it in the book is that fragmentation. Again, that I traced back to what I call the Jehovah wound, the story of fragmentation. You know, again, the journey into self love, I think it’s the hardest, longest journey any of us can make. Yeah. And you’re really, this podcast serves that journey. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. I think, I don’t know, I can be very, what to say, it’s a period of time where I think I can feel kind of overwhelmed by the pain of the world right now, you know? what’s happening in our own country, around the world of course, but in our own country. And then at the same time, think there’s something about reading your book and I think just other books I’ve been reading of like, there’s a kind of confidence that I find in myself of like knowing that there’s an expanse of time that has gone on for millions and billions of years and we’re one blip in all of it, which also brings me back to my humility of like. I’m just like a blip in us whole thing. And also I think that there’s, you know, we’re talking about these, you know, social, political, economic structures and all these things and they do matter. I don’t want to in any way, put poo it, but at the same time, there’s just a kind of confidence in the ability of our, of humans, but also our planet to just keep evolving and keep going. And that, you know, I can get so caught up in, you know, the ecological crisis, the political crises of our time, the social and gender crisis, all these crises, there’s a lot of crises. And then I come back to this sense of like, it’s all going to be okay. Right? Cause it’s always been okay. Yeah. That’s beautifully expressed, Bryce. And it speaks to me of living out of wholeness. You know, and it’s a hard place to come to, to stay in. get, I come out of it every day. And we’re invited to it by the social algorithms and media attractions for feeding our fears and anxieties. And we can go on with that. But what helps me is what you just named is when I remember not to carry it as a small self, but to be present to it and with it as part of the larger whole. And then I can be back in my heart and it is a daily. Play for me. And I want to say play because play is a, think in this sense, a more creative place to be than work. You know, to say it’s work for me, you know, it’s, it’s a play and I fall off. I remember I forget kind of thing, but it is the challenge, primary challenge in my life. know, it is this remembrance of wholeness and not to carry this on my shoulders as little Larry. And I’m facing that now in a large project that I’m working on and it’s, really hard. It’s challenge. And, you know, challenge and play are where the learning edge curves. mean, learning really begins and it’s like the edge of the most interesting places in the forest are often, or an ecosystem are the edges where two sort of eco scapes come together. The edge of a river and the forest or the edge of the river and the banks, the land, you know, that’s where the greatest diversity lies. It’s where you’re most likely to see a deer or something in the forest is on the edge of the meadow kind of thing. And so it’s an interesting concept because you’re edge walking, right? And you’re doing it with presence and you’re recognizing this edge. And can I allow myself to bring the spirit, the creative spirit of life to what it is to be human and what it is to be a man? Yeah, I love that. I love that idea of the edge being where there’s the most diversity. It’s also like, Doug, I think about for me that my edge is the place where like my divine essence is constantly pushing me to grow, to grow, to grow. And there’s always this edge of like, wow, it’s hard to get to this next level of growth. It’s really painful. And so let the divine essence just keep saying, well, this is your journey. You got to keep going. There’s no way out. it never ends. It never ends. Yes. I mean, just yes. And it’s so much easier for me to meet again when I can recognize it as a learning growth edge and I’m never going to arrive. It’s the journey. It’s important. Instead of that’s part of the wound, if you will, is this sense of arriving. know? I think that’s part of it too, is this sense of like, we are always evolving and there’s no way out of it. And we can’t avoid it. try, people try really hard to avoid this growth inside them, whether it’s substances or. just distractionary things that we do, but it keeps pushing us towards this expansion, this growth or something. so like I think about right now and I can get very, I don’t know, in a sense of despair. And then when I come to that place of, as you said, that bigger self or that more whole awareness, it’s just, I’m humbled by the idea of like, it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. Yeah. And also like, I think there was a part of me when I was younger that I felt if I’m not upset that I’m not, something’s wrong with me. You if I’m not freaking out about how hard things are, then I’m not doing my job. And now I find that I don’t, I think almost the opposite. Like I think my capacity to bring myself more into wholeness, to bring myself more into presence is actually the thing that I need to do to bring change into the world. Yes, I think it’s the greatest thing any of us can do. it’s become that requires becoming present to myself and whatever change it is I want to see out there in the world. Unless I’m willing to be that inside myself, then I’m committing violence. I’m perpetuating the Jehovah wound. You know, there’s a kind of spiritual arrogance to try to not only claim my God’s the only one, but to change to trying to change other people, you know, versus allowing and putting my energy into being the frequency and vibration. That is what I want the world to be. One other piece around that really, I think fitting is this sort of in between story times. And I know you’ve heard this and know it, but it’s like the cocoon and butterfly image. And, know, I’ve had to work with this a lot with the cancer piece that I’m in. But the caterpillar is this voracious energy, like a cancer as I came to understand it. It’s just hunger, hunger, hunger, voracious. And then it goes into this cocoon, if you will, the quiet space. And in that, there are, as the caterpillar dissolves into a molecular goo, there are a few what are called imaginal buds for cells. And the immune system of the caterpillar initially attacks the imaginal buds. But it’s that actual attacking of the imaginal buds that allow the imaginal buds to become stronger. It’s like the wounding, the gift that my father gave me was this hatred of being dominated, if you will, and moving into submission and those things. It gave me a love and a hunger to want to be myself. So there was a gift in the wound, but then those imaginal buds become this organizing principle for the butterfly. And if Once born, that butterfly hangs out without a caterpillar’s, with other cocoons, those cocoons will emerge faster into butterflies. That’s where we’re at. Yeah. I think that’s just a really great place to maybe end, is just to leave with that metaphor of the transformation of the butterfly. Cause I think it is a beautiful metaphor for our time and for just, it does. It makes me realize like, you know, I can get so down about particular things and ticked off things and then to just remember. We’re just always evolving. We’re always getting there. Well, Larry, I just really want to thank you and I want to encourage everyone to check out his book, Wild Joy. I’ll put information in the show notes. It was a really beautiful book. And it’s really, I just want to thank you for the vulnerability that you had in writing that book and bringing that into the world. I’m sure it was, you know, it’s writing a book is always challenging, but I also felt like there was just almost like a lot of the writing, would just, there was like almost like a blood and sweat tears kind of thing that I felt it as you’re writing. I was like, wow, this was so powerful. You were so vulnerable and so real in it. Whereas I think, you know, it’s different when you’re just writing about, you know, blah, blah, blah thing you were writing at such a deep level of yourself, which I just really wanted to thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you, Bryce. That means a lot to me. And yeah, I feel like it was really getting naked and it was to bring love to the wholeness of me. and required so much growing and self-love to be able to stand in the world and say, you know, I’m no longer, I’m not going to be ashamed of this. This is the journey, my journey into wholeness. And that’s probably why I think it’s a book of our times. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate you. Thank you. Such an honor, Rice, and such a pleasure to meet after all this time. Yes, indeed. ⁓ Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for listening today. Please take a moment to like and follow so we can continue. to change the world by changing ourselves. Have a wonderful day.