The Grief App CHANGING Lives: How Two Tragic Losses Sparked a Revolution in Healing

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Hi there, welcome to Grief to Growth Podcast. Your host is Brian D Smith, spiritual seeker, bestselling author, grief survivor, and life coach. Brian believes that the worst tragedies of life provide the greatest opportunity for growth. Brian says he was planted, not buried, and he is here to help you grow where you've been planted by the difficulties in life. In each episode, Brian and his guests will share what has helped them to survive and thrive. It is his sincere hope this episode helps you today.

Hey everybody, this is Brian D Smith back with another episode of Grief to Growth. And today I've got with me a gentleman by the name of Reed Peterson. I'm going to read the brief introduction to read and then we're going to have a conversation as we always do. Reed is the creator of Grief Refuge. It's a mobile app. There's a daily companion to people in grief. Reed's biological father died in 2006, and his stepfather passed in 2016. After losing both father figures in his life, he sought support through community grief counseling and support groups. After realizing comfort and solace could be provided to grievers more consistently, he made the Grief Refuge app to provide support on a daily basis. Reid lives with his wife, Jessica, in Santa Barbara, California. And together they spend time at the beach playing volleyball, hiking in the foothills, and living heart-centered lives. So with that, I want to welcome Reid Peterson to Grief 2 Growth.

Hey, Brian, it's, it's a pleasure to be here. And I really look forward to our conversation as two gentlemen who value grief and just honored. Thank you.

Yeah, it's really great to have you. You reached out to me a few days ago and told me you had this app and First of all, it was good. We were kind of both talking about in emails, we're two guys having this conversation. That's very rare. Men don't generally talk about grief. When you go to grief support groups, you don't find men there, you know, for the most part. So it's good to be having this conversation with you as well.

Yeah, for sure.

So what I, you know, I kind of talked about it in the intro, but what I find that people that are in this field and the grief field, typically something kind of triggers them and drives them into it. So it's, and it's typically a loss event. So tell me what, what got you into being interested in working with grief?

Sure, I'll try to sum it up in a couple minutes. You know, as you mentioned, my dad died in 2006. And at that time, I was in graduate school for psychology, and I was learning how to be a transpersonal psychologist. Really, the way I define transpersonal psychology is like, almost the accelerated path to higher consciousness. And, um, in my studies, we were studying the effects of meditation. We were studying the effects of, um, drug-induced experiences, you know, like LSD, psilocybin, et cetera. And so when my dad died, I kind of felt like at the time it was authentic, but I felt a lot of relief. And the reason being was because my dad was an alcoholic. My dad, uh, did struggle with post-traumatic stress. He was in the Vietnam War and he had a lot of, uh, I think the term used in our culture is a lot of inner demons. And he really struggled with that. And so when he died, I had this, I, this concept of is he's no longer suffering. And so, you know, when living on my life accordingly, and, you know, processed grief, some of losing my dad, but just kind of, you know, focused on my career path, so to speak. But then when my stepfather, he got sick with cancer in 2008. And his journey was long and grueling. And he was also a veteran, but a very different story for his life experience. But the reason why I mentioned he was a veteran is 'cause he was a true soldier and never giving up and never surrendering to the illness that did take his life in 2016. So when Warren, my stepfather, passed, I reflected on our relationship and realized, man, I had a very solid parental father figure in my life and kind of took advantage of it, or not advantage, I took it for granted. He was always available to talk, but the way our dynamic played out was I kind of had to approach him. And so I reflected on that and thought, ah, kind of I just felt a lot of sorrow because I was like, there's a lot of missed opportunities for us to have a very solid father-son relationship, even though he's my stepfather. And in reflecting upon that, I started to realize, wow, there's a lot of unresolved grief with my father. So I went on a journey grieving both my stepdad and my father 10 years later. And that led me to working with support groups in my local community as well as some personal counseling. And then I started to realize, oh, you know, I'm starting to feel some kind of calling to provide help to others who perhaps, you know, embark on their own grief journey and started paying attention to how could I do that. And it led me to some pretty amazing training actually with the Center for Loss and Life Transition out of Fort Collins, Colorado, and learned how to, what Alan Wolfelt calls it, companion, and found this model and have started supporting people just by staying soft, keeping my eyes soft, my ears open, my heart open, and my mouth closed. Just really showing up to listen. And then, um, was like, hey, why not embrace technology? When I mentioned career path, I, I learned how to utilize technology to help people learn certain aspects.

Okay.

And then tied that in with developing an app to just be very, very candidly, uh, convenient for people to use.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot you said in there that I want to, I want to kind of go over, you know, I noticed that you were saying your father passed in 2006, and your stepfather passed 10 years later. And a lot of times we feel like we're processing the grief, or we don't need to process the grief or whatever. And then it might hit us 3, 5, 10, 20 years later. And, you know, we carry that around and don't even realize it, then there's some event I guess in this case, your stepfather's passing that brought that out?

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. And at the time of our recording right now, it's 15 years since my dad died. And I'm recognizing, wow, there's still a lot there. It's actually kind of fresh right now, because I kind of came to an epiphany that I've never publicly said this before. But My dad actually took his life. The circumstances of it were kind of unique because on his death certificate, um, he died by accident. But I was like, wow, he actually was the one who did it. He was in his house all alone. What had happened was he, he was— it was alcohol-induced, and he was, he was drunk at the time, and My dad struggled with flashbacks, um, from the Vietnam War.

Okay.

And my assumption is that he was experiencing a flashback and he ended up bull charging a wall in his house. So he hit the top of his head on the wall and it ended up severing his cervical spine. So he ended up dying from a subdural hematoma. But, uh, you know, on his— like I said, on his death certificate it says, uh, that's the cause of death. But when I look at it, I'm like, that's pretty much suicide. And so that to me, um, is fresh. I've really been thinking about that lately, and, uh, truthfully, it brings up a lot of emotion for me, even though it's 15 years later.

Sure. Sure. It's so complex. I was on— I had someone on my podcast whose mother was a drug addict and alcoholic, and she had passed. And then, so then you have, like you said, that feeling of relief, which can then bring about feelings of guilt, because now you're guilty that you're relieved. And, you know, suicide always brings, you know, a complex set of emotions. And if we don't process all those things, they just hang around, and they can be fresh many years later. So I certainly can, can understand what you're saying. And that's the thing about grief. It just kind of, it kind of hangs there until you pay attention to it. And I think especially as men, and I think that's why you and I don't see each other, men in these grief groups, we just carrying it around, we just stuff it down. And we say, I don't even have those feelings. I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, and I will say as a man too, definitely agree with you. And so I've done a lot of processing through some of my own movement, like hiking, etc. I've gone through gone for very long beach walks. But there are times where it's— trying to think of the right word— it's almost like intimidating. Because if I go to a support group and it's, you know, 90% or more women in the group, what I find as a man is that they're very gifted in articulating their emotions with words, and I can't identify with that. Right. It takes me longer. And, you know, I may stutter, I may pause and then get slightly self-conscious. Because I'm not like, I'm not able to hang with, with the women in the group who are so easily articulating what they're feeling.

Yeah. Yeah, that's an excellent point. And I've noticed that, you know, a lot of times women, as we're trying to figure out what our feelings are, and we're processing them in our head and trying to get them out, You know, they're just— they're past us, they're just gone. So yeah, for a man going to these groups, it can be intimidating.

For sure. Yeah. So it's definitely an assumption of why— maybe that's why a lot of men don't end up going. But I mean, there's so many other reasons too.

But yeah, and it's, you know, I've— one, I've thought about, you know, biology versus socialization. And I think it's a matter of socialization. I think it's the way men are taught to be. It's not— I don't think it's— some men will say, well, that's just the way we are. I don't believe that. I think it's the way we're taught to be, you know, we're not taught to express our feelings. You know, my relationship with my father is really, you know, interesting, because my parents were kind of like, if we feed you and we clothe you, then that's all you need, right? And I ended up in counseling when I was in my early 30s, late, late 30s, early 40s. My counselor's like, no, you need to be loved and be held and stuff like that. I'm like, no, that's— I don't need that. And then I didn't— I realized when I was like 40, yeah, I kind of do need that.

Yeah, I've gone through a similar experience. I was grateful, you know, when I was in, when I was in school for psychology, my, my whole vision was to be a professor. And that didn't pan out. I had to choose different career paths. But I'm so grateful that I was in that program. This was in my later 20s. Because it did open me up to better understanding. I missed out a lot on a lot of emotional and physical nurturing in my upbringing, um, definitely with my father but also with my mother at times because she was a nurse who worked overnights. So she just wasn't physically available. She was, you know, putting food on the table. And so I was just like Man, there's, there's a lot here. There's a lot of healing.

Yeah, there is. And you know, the thing is, I remember I was probably— it was a little bit after that thing. So I was probably my early 40s. And there was a book came out called Wild at Heart by a guy named John Eldredge. And it's a Christian-based book, but it talks about the father wound, the wound that all of us sons get from our fathers and the things we look for. And again, a lot of times as men, we're not even told you're allowed to want these things, or these things are available to you. So we just assume that they're not, we don't even know what we need. So when you say there's a lot, there is, and most of us don't start processing that till we're 30, 40, 60 years old.

Very true.

So, so you said you took this, this grief training, and you've been working with people. When did you decide to turn to technology to help people? And why did you make that decision?

Truthfully, I mean, it's simple answer. It's all pandemic related. I, when I started doing my trainings, um, I was learning a companioning model. And so naturally one can show up to, uh, provide one-to-one support, having learned those types of skill sets. And so I started making myself available to provide that one, that one-to-one support and still have a small practice in doing so. Maybe see, you know, 3 to 5 clients a week. But I had this vision, Brian, to have a grief retreat center, a physical location. I was thinking somewhere up in the Pacific Northwest of the United States where there's a lot of wood and there's a lot of water, and a lot of people can just come and have their own personal break from, you know, normal everyday stresses. So that they could just take refuge in their grief. And then the pandemic came and I was like, you know what, this, this idea or this dream, it may have to be more of a longer-term vision. And so I said, what can I do now? And I looked in, you know, I just kind of looked at the skill sets I had. And I've been making like online learning programs for 10 years. And so I was like, why don't I just meet people where they're at? And that was on their phones because phones are so convenient now. And so I said, all right, let's, let's play with the technology. Let's see what can be created to help people on a more consistent basis through, through mobile technology.

So yeah, that's really interesting. So it was Pandemic. So were you seeing clients, or are you seeing clients face to face, or are you seeing clients remotely, or how do you, how do you normally see people?

Yeah, video conferencing.

Okay.

Virtually. Virtually.

Yeah, I was going to ask you if it had anything to do with the fact that you wanted to reach more men, because I think a lot of times, again, we talked at times, men are intimidated by group settings and maybe even expressing their emotions in front of someone else. So I was wondering if you might think there might be a better market for that for men, that they could do this in the privacy of their on home?

Maybe. Truthfully, I haven't really consciously thought about it. I, you know, I put out that intention, you know, it's kind of a metaphysical concept of just like, you know, set the intention and the right people will show up. Right. I don't mean like right in the sense of right or wrong, but just more of like who's a good fit for you.

Right.

And, you know, they'll find you. And so, I didn't necessarily think like perhaps it would be a specific gender focus. I just said, oh, the right people who need this type of environment or this type of holding space.

Yeah. It might be a— it might be just a consequence or unintended consequence or side effect. I guess I'm just curious about that. Because as I've talked to the few men I've talked to in this field, you know, and even I really look at the afterlife a lot. And I'll ask you about your thoughts about that later, but it's mostly women. I go to a conference, it's 85%, 90% women, and usually the men that are there have been dragged by their wives. You know, they're the draggee, as we call it. You know, they just, they're there because, "Yeah, I guess I have to go support her in this crazy stuff." And, you know, I've thought myself, you know, how do I reach more men? I have very few male clients. And the ones that I have, their wives have been the ones that have signed them up. I just met one this weekend and his wife's like, "Yeah, I want him to meet with you." So yeah, it'd be interesting to see if that does pan out that way. And then I know myself, I love technology. So when I saw your app, I was like, really, you know, excited about it. This is kind of a segue, I just want to ask you, I'm just curious, what's your— what are your thoughts about spirituality? Or the after— is there any afterlife thoughts in your mind?

Or— all the time? Yeah, I'll start with a short story of When I got the news that my dad died, I was in the backyard of the house where I was living at in grad school. And my dad— and I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and most of my family lived in the area at the time, and I was out in California in graduate school, so there's a big physical distance. And I got a voicemail from my brother. He left me the message that Dad had died. And initially there was just like these volts of shock, and I'm like pacing back and forth in the backyard looking up at the sky, and I, I just couldn't believe that he died. But quickly I kind of, um, I didn't know what to do. And so ironically, I was in a class that weekend because I got the phone call on Sunday morning. And I was in this weekend elective course, and it was, um, it's called the Psychology of Men. I think the Psychology of Men's Spirituality, it might have been. And so I was like, wow, what an irony that my dad dies while I'm in this course. But I lived close enough to school where I would walk. And so I had about a 40-minute walk to school and I was thinking along the way, I said, Dad, I know your transition has been really quick, but just let me know you're okay. If you can show up in the form of a crow sometimes. So this may sound silly, but for quite a few years when he died, when I would be outside and there'd be crows on the branches, wherever they were, or up on the telephone wire, and they'd just be making their presence known. Sometimes crows can be so loud. Yeah, I'd look up and just be like, hey, Dad. And I'd, you know, I'd be connecting in whatever way I could. So that's the, the story that kind of gets me into the afterlife concept. But I don't necessarily— I haven't done a lot of study, Brian, as far as like other dimensions. Haven't really taken my knowledge that far, but I am of the belief that we have many different lives. I personally believe that I don't— you know, if I come back in human form in the future, I probably won't remember past lives. And in the life I'm currently living now, I don't have any past life memories that I can resolve. But, but I do hold the belief that we're probably given many opportunities, our souls are given many opportunities to have learning experiences. Can't necessarily explain why, but I just believe it. It's just kind of this gut feeling. And perhaps, you know, if, since I believe in that, I also believe everyone has an opportunity. I kind of believe in that old soul, new soul concept. Yeah, hope that answers your question.

Yeah. And that was just, that was just a personal thing. I was just curious, because that's, that's a big part of what got me or gets me through my grief is the belief that there is a reason why we're here, that we do go on. My daughter, you can see her pictures is behind me. She She passed away 6 years ago, but I feel like she's still with me, you know, every day. And she's the inspiration for what I do. So that's, that's a personal thing. I, you know, it's interesting for, for me, if that were taken away from me, I don't know how I would deal with the grief. I just, I just a big part of what I go through. But the reason I was so excited about seeing your app, because this is what I tell all my clients, and I say all the time that grief is a practice. It's like, we have to be disciplined in how we go about it. It has to be faced. You know, when you gave the example of how you didn't, you know, deal with your father's grief, you know, very much for 10 years. I've interviewed— I talked to someone, her son passed away, it was 18 years before the grief, you know, actually came back and hit her. But it will, it will wait for you. And it will, it'll be there lurking, and it will affect you. So I believe in, I believe in facing it head on. I believe in the practice. So So when I saw your app, like I said, I was really excited about that. So tell me how your app could help. How does it contribute to that?

One, I think it's consistency. The app does provide something on a daily basis and it's in the form of audio. So I like to call them reflections. It's something that a user of the app can listen to and now integrate into their own life. I try to be very careful about what is spoken about, try to think something a little bit more pondering or philosophical in its sense to help somebody help hold that space for their grief experience. I think that it's common these days, Brian D Smith, that people can make themselves very, very busy to either numb out a lot of pain, emotional pain that they're feeling in their grief, or just try to tell themselves they're okay. I know that in those moments, those types of things, that type of thinking can actually be helpful because, you know, if if someone is as devastated as they possibly can be, you know, it's really hard to function in life. So some of these breaks or distractions can happen, but the app is there to help hold space for it. It's like, in a way, like, it's a process of honoring your grief as well as letting yourself emote and now have a morning experience to it. So there's also— there was a prompt for me for a couple years by some colleagues of mine who said, Reed, you've got a really soothing voice and you should probably do something with that gift. And that's part of the app too, Brian D Smith. There's a lot of audio on there. So I've gotten a lot of feedback from users where they say If anything, your app helps me a lot with like slowing down my nervous system. A lot of people in grief can really struggle with anxiety. That wasn't necessarily, you know, a priority when I made the app of like, let's help people in grief be less anxious. But what I found is, as I get more feedback, is like that That's one of the benefits that people are getting from using the app.

Yeah, that sounds great. I, I use an app and I've been using it for off and on— well, I've been using it consistently now for about 6 years, but before that a little bit. But it's got Insight Timer for meditation, and I find that's been— because I, I like that because I have, I have a streak. I'm going, how many days in a row can I meditate? And it shows me how many minutes I've meditated. And so I like something like that. I use— I have a thing I call this Muse. It's like a biofeedback thing. And I love that kind of stuff. And so when I, when I saw your app, I thought, what a great way to make sure I honor my grief, you know, on a daily, on a daily basis. So let's talk about the different components that are in the app, because I did download it. And I have looked at a little bit. So what are the, what are the different components that are there?

Sure. First and most important one is what I call the daily refuge. And that's the audio musings. Those come out every day. They're actually relatively short, you know, they're around 5 minutes long intentionally because I don't really want to, I don't really want to put somebody through a wallowing in their experience. I want to help them, like you said, honor it. I have another component, a component of the app that is a journaling feature. Um, and that's— there's, there's some categories on the app so that those are the prompts themselves. But I know that in a lot of journaling experiences, there's questions asked as prompts. You don't really have those questions, um, asked very intentionally. The another component is called Reflections. Um, there's stories, um, there's stories to help be a little bit more inspirational I, you know, careful in using that word. I don't really want to inspire grievers, but the reflection stories are set up in a way where whom the story is about, it's from a perspective of like having been able to experience a lot of healing through their grief process too. So they're not necessarily feeling the rawness of the emotional pain. Another component is called My Grief Journey. And that is a little bit of what it sounded like you're referring to, like a little bit of a keeping a score. As far as that, it's a, it's a questionnaire that a user can answer each day. It provides a little scorecard for them to help track progress if progress is what they want to track. And then I just added a new feature called Ask the Author. And so I'm finding authors of grief-related books and trying to get into their story a little bit more as to what motivated them to help write the book that they wrote, wrote, and understand a little bit about a little bit more about their process of writing the book too. I find it really neat actually, because, you know, when we pick up a book, we often hear a lot of the— or read a lot of the marketing language to help sell the book, right? Well, um, you know, let's, let's get in the head and in the hearts a little bit about the author and better understand their intention too. So, um, and then finally, another component is called intentions. And intentions are just like small exercises that users can lean on and utilize when they may feel like they need it, such as, um, I think there's one about kindness, seeking kindness and asking for kindness, to be treated with more sensitivity, because a lot of people can say a lot of things that end up hurting a lot of people Right. That might be all the components. I might have missed one there. I know, I know, I integrated the Grief Refuge podcast on there. But yeah, that's just kind of more like because it was super simple to integrate.

Yeah.

We'll get back to Grief to Growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian D Smith is an author and a life coach? If you're grieving or know someone who is grieving, His book Grief to Growth is a best-selling, easy-to-read book that might help you or someone you know. People work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at www.grieftogrowth.com, www.grief2growth.com. If you'd like to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/grief2growth, www.patreon.com/grief2growth to make a financial contribution. And now back to Grief to Growth. Stay with us, we'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there. So how did you— you said you've done— you've been doing online learning or learning how to teach people online. And I can tell, you know, I downloaded the app like a couple days ago, I haven't really had a chance to dig into it. But it's really well done. It's really, it's beautiful. It's laid out really well. And it's got the components I would think I would need, you know, something. The day after Shayna passed away, something told me to start a blog. So I started an online journal. So I was like, and it's still out there, it's still public if people want to read it. And I would just write whatever I felt like writing that day. And I would categorize it by, you know, inspirational or a milestone, or just what happened to me that day, or maybe dreams I had. So I like the way you've got this set up. Now I can go in with it and I can journal, I can choose the category, how am I feeling today? I'm feeling sad. So let me put this in the sad category. I'm feeling angry or frustrated, whatever the emotion is I'm feeling. And I, like I said, download my phone, got a notification this morning that, that some new content was available. I love that, that, that prompt, because I think we kind of need that. You know, 5-minute audio, I think is perfect, because people, they're not going to dedicate a lot more time to it than that. So I, from what I've seen of it, from what you've described, I think it could be very helpful to someone, you know, even as a supplement to counseling, you know, you're in counseling, you're seeing someone once a week, or once a month, or whatever, you can do this, you know, in between. And for those people that aren't ready to go to a group, and, you know, and spill their guts. Um, we have to get that, we have to get that through us. And sometimes writing can be very helpful.

Yeah, that's, that's very true. Um, I think writing is extremely helpful. And I also think, um, back to a topic of men, a lot of men don't want to write. I don't know why. Yeah, but, um, I mean, it's not just men, period. A lot of people don't want to write too. A lot of I've gotten a lot of response from— I did do market research, Brian D Smith, before putting the app together. And one of the things that stood out for me was like a lot of people who I surveyed, they did say they would rather listen to something than to write it. And I think it might have to do with energy levels, perhaps. It's just, you know, it can be really exhausting to grieve. And it can be really exhausting to write your grief. And so I think a lot of people can feel some soothing and some comfort in listening to something shared to them.

Yeah, and the thing is, I like about the app is it gives you a chance to do both, you know, and maybe you listen for 5 minutes. And then you say, how am I feeling right now? And then you just write a little bit. Something about— I don't know, maybe it was— I read C.S. Lewis's book many years ago, Was It Surprised by Grief? I think it was the title of the book, when after his wife had passed away, and he kind of journaled his thing. And that just came back to me when I observed— I Grief Observed. Yes, that's what it was. Surprised by Joy: Grief Observed. But yeah, I read that. And after my daughter passed, I'm like, I just felt like I had to write this down. I had to see, and that way I could look back, you know, in a few years, and see, you know, where I was, you know. And that's— I found that to be very beneficial. For me. And also the writing process itself, even though people don't like to do it, it's— it can be beneficial. So this gives you a chance to do just a short bite-sized chunk, you know, just set aside 10 minutes a day, you know, 5 minutes to listen maybe, and 5 minutes to write, to honor your grief. And it's, you know, you mentioned you'd like to take, you know, walks and stuff. And I do too, I walk I walk 6 miles every day. It's the first thing I do in the morning. And people ask, oh, that's a lot, that's a lot of walking. You must be in great shape. It's like, it's more for this, it's more for my head than it is for my heart. Or my— yeah, it's more for my heart, my, my spiritual heart, than is my physical heart.

Yeah, that's well said. Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I, I started thinking about like, as I've aged a bit, um, You know, my physical body hasn't been able to maintain the abuse I used to put it through, you know, as an athlete in my younger 20s or something. And, um, now I realize how important it is, uh, for connecting with like my emotional heart and, you know, helping, helping my mind come to, come to peace with certain things, um, through, through my own movement.

Yeah, I think movement is important and as I said, this idea of doing something on a daily basis as opposed to willy-nilly or whenever I feel it and having something to me to instill that discipline. So like I said, with the Insight Timer app, I was using it off and on for a while. It was cool because I look at the graphs and stuff and I took a challenge in 2017, I guess it was. To meditate every day for 365 days. And so you get on the app, and it would say, what day are you on? And we were— I was in a group. And I got to the end of that time. I said, well, why don't I just see how long I can keep the streak going? So, you know, I'm still doing it. So if I, you know, it's— and it's— I found that it's really helpful for me to have that app and that reminder and that little— the prompts and stuff to get me to do that. So I know you know, technology is not for everybody. But I think it's a great— it could be a great supplement for a lot of people.

I like your word supplement too, because that was the intention. I don't want to take anyone away from group support or counseling. Because when, when you are— when your story is witnessed, it's very helpful. Yeah, I just can't think of a better word. It just really helps to have people, um, to be able to witness you sharing your story, and also you also to hear other people's stories and to have that connection. Um, even though that's more common now virtually, there's still so much value in it. But when I was, when I was having my experience in getting support through my grief, I had this kind of like, uh, I always have this question, like, you know, let's say Monday our group would meet, and Tuesday, you know, I'd wake up feeling a certain way. I would, you know, have a little win, um, through my grief. And I would sit there and I think, well, what now? Because this is going to be another 6 days. Until my group meets again, right? And, and so I'm like, okay. And that's really what I sat down and I pondered over with the app. I was like, okay, this, this is that supplement. This is something that can really just be that go-to in the in-between, um, where, when the human-to-human connection is so vital. And so important. And yeah, this can help in that regard.

Yeah, I'm glad to hear you say that. And that's the way I figured you intended the app as a supplement, because I think grief— it's very important to not isolate ourselves and feel alone. And I find that people when they're going through it, especially if it's a sudden loss, the loss of a child, especially the loss of a spouse, maybe we feel like I'm the only one that's been through this. We know we're not intellectually, but we feel like we're— no one else can understand this. And it's really important to sit down with somebody that can say to you, yes, I felt similar way, or yes, what you're feeling is very common. You know, the anger, the frustration, the all the different things that we go through. So I think that that part's important. But I love this as a, as an in-between thing, you know, because I might meet with the client, you know, maybe once a month, you know. So what can they do in the meantime? And I always try to get people— these are some daily things you can do, you know. And this gives you a great way to do that daily thing and to make sure you're doing it on a daily basis, because you get the little notification. I've just got an Apple Watch a little while ago. So I was sitting there, the notification came on my Apple Watch and said, grief refuge has a new— has new content. I'm like, cool, let's go do that.

Thanks, man.

Yeah. So how have you found the app has been adopted? How long has it been out, by the way?

Well, at the time of our recording, it's only been available 3 months.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a newbie. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah. And I know there's, there's a lot, you know, in the App Store, you know, in the Apple App Store. I'm on Apple. Um, so what are your plans for, for getting it out in front of people?

Well, um, I think in the mental health space, connecting with a lot of professionals who provide counseling, um, just make— helping them be aware that here's another tool that can help be a supplement. I'm really— I'm going to gravitate towards your words, so thank you, thank you for using it, because I'm like, I'm gonna have to borrow that going forward, Brian.

Oh, absolutely.

Um, and so definitely have thought that direction. My wife is a psychologist, a mental health professional, and, um, we've talked a lot about how just valuable of a tool this can be for, for other mental health professionals to recommend to their patients and clients. I've thought a lot about like, like peer-to-peer support organizations that already exist. And it's really interesting, Brian, because I'm like, I wonder if, you know, if there's a fit for that, because I've had many conversations with a lot of professionals in our field, where they say like, grief support providers can feel like they're so siloed. So like, you know, you have your thing going, I have my thing going, where can we collaborate? Yeah, it's kind of like that, that unknown. And so I'm like, I'm still exploring that option or that opportunity.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I've noticed a little bit of that too. It's almost like there's competition between some of the peer-to-peer groups, and I'm like, we're all We're all here trying to help people. So I don't frankly understand that. I, I work with an organization called Helping Parents Heal, and I've been working with them for about 5 years, I guess, now. I'm actually on the board of Helping Parents Heal, and we're 17,000 members, I think, now internationally. Um, so we, you know, and I'll definitely be talking to people in our group about it. Um, and I'll talk to— I'll recommend it to my clients because I don't First of all, it shouldn't be competition. Secondly, any tool that, that can be out there that can help people, you know, and, and everybody's gonna have to pick what's, what, what's right for them. You know, for some people, they're gonna— I hate technology, I'm never— and I want that kind of stuff. And other people are going to say, yeah, this is, this is great. I want that daily reminder. I want, you know, I want a notification when there's new content. Um, I want to set aside a time, and now I've got something to do. You know, I've got a a thing to do. And I remember talking to someone in my program, and she was a kind of a life, life coach person. She was giving people ways to change, and she was giving them exercise. And she literally said, I don't want you to do this for more than 3 minutes a day. And people said, what? I want to do more. She said, no, I don't want you to do it for more than 3 minutes a day because you're going to quit. So, you know, I want you to start with something that you can stick with. And I, and I like this, that this is in, in bite-sized, doable chunks that everybody can can do.

Yeah, I just finished reading a book called Honoring Grief. It's written by Alexandra Kennedy, and I think it's a few years old now, but what I found really interesting about that book is there's a part in the book about like, uh, creating a sanctuary for your grief. But what really stood out for me in that is that she recommended similar to exactly what you said, the bite-sized pieces, where if you have a physical sanctuary that you show up to, and if you're going to commit to going to it every day to, to be in your grief space, um, set a time limit. Set a time limit for a short amount of time, because what really helps with the healing and the transformation of a grief process is the intensity and the durability of the experience and not the duration itself.

Yeah.

And I really thought about that for a long time, Brian, and I thought, you know, I think I agree with that. And intuitively, that's, you know, that was, you know, an undertone for the development of the Grief Refuge app.

Yeah. Well, I know we're here to talk about the Grief Refuge app. But I want to talk about the other things that you do. So tell me about the other things that you're doing.

Well, like I said, I have a small companioning practice. And for me, that's really important because that helps me keep close to people's really authentic and raw experiences. It helps me feel human because when I, when I go behind the scenes and do app development, I can feel very, very distant from another human, even though it may be, it may have the capacity to reach more humans. So I'm like, grief, grief and grief support itself is, um, it's too important to get distant from people. You have to stay close. And so I intentionally have a practice and, um, find a lot of value out of that, truthfully, because in, in the companioning role, I hold a belief that there's really no cure or there's no fix. There's really just support. And empathy and compassion. And so I find myself, um, I'm not the type of crier where, uh, tears will flow down, you know, really easily. I just, my eyes kind of more well up. But man, I love having those soul-to-soul talks with the clients that I serve and feeling the emotion, whether it's, it's theirs or it's my own, and, and just empathizing. That, that is just— it's a beautiful experience, although it's hard. I can think of one client in particular who's probably going to find this podcast, and he's going to know this is him, where he's like, Reed, why do you do the work you do? You know, he, he dances around his grief, and, and then, you know, we, we get into those moments where He connects with his emotional experience and then he'll try to distract himself again and be like, Reed, why do you do the work you do? How do you do this? And I just say, you know, I really feel like it's a purpose of mine. I really feel like it's something I understand. It ties in with my personal values about kindness, compassion, and care. And And so that companioning practice for me is very important. What else do I do, Brian? What else? I don't know. Honestly, I spent a lot of time thinking about grief. Just trying to think about, like, these days, I'm pondering over, like, where's that fine line between feeling pain in my grief, and now feeling like I have this healing aspect. So like, you know, is there a catalyst in this journey or in this process?

Right.

And it's probably, you know, as we know, it's unique for everyone. But I'm like, I don't, I don't really see or hear it talked about in the literature written about grief. But, and I kind of understand why, because when I make content for the app, I can't really, I can ponder it, but I can't really talk about it as like, here's the path because the path is personal. The path is experiential for everyone. Um, you know, you're asking me at the time where the Olympics are on, truthfully, Brian, I'm taking a lot of breaks and watching a lot of Olympic competition. I'm just, I'm just super appreciating that the Olympics are happening. I know that COVID cases are going up in Tokyo, and that's scary. So I know that a lot of athletes from a lot of countries are putting themselves at risk to compete. But I also am like, there's a part of me that feels joy because they are pursuing their dreams.

Yeah.

And if, you know, like for the athletes who did test positive and had to withdraw from the competition, like, That's a death of a dream. That's a lot of grief there.

Um, so yeah, there are lots, lots of forms of grief. And yeah, we're recording this on July 28th, uh, 2021, so we're right in the middle of the Olympics. And, uh, I, I'm the same way as you. I, I love the Olympics. I've loved them since I was a kid, and, and I appreciate them so much more this year, as much as I love them anyway, than ever. And I'm, and I'm taking breaks and watching the Olympics also. And there, you know, it's, it's something that can Though, even while we're going through our grief journey, you know, we've got to take these, these, these other things. You touched upon something earlier about like, I don't have a cure for grief. And I work with someone, and it was really interesting because she's a grief expert. I'm a grief expert because I've been through it. She's a grief expert because she studied and has a PhD and all that stuff. And the thing is, grief is not an illness, you know, it's not something because people will ask me, will I ever get over it? Will I ever recover? This is not an illness.

This is a—

it's a journey. And it can actually be an opportunity, as weird as that sounds to people that haven't gone through it. But it's a real opportunity for growth and for transformation. So, and I like words like you were saying earlier, like honoring our grief, you know, we've got to— it's like, it's not— it's something that we've got to honor, that we should, that we should sit down with and try to understand What is the point of this? Because people like, why did this person have to die? Why am I going through this? And did you say there's answers we can't give the answer to, or questions we can't give the answers because they're individual? But pondering those questions, even if you don't get answers, there's, there's a lot of opportunity in that. There's a lot of growth in that. Why am I here? What's the purpose of my life? You know, and that's the sets— this resets us. We start thinking about that. My When my daughter passed, I would not be doing this if my daughter hadn't passed away. And, you know, people ask me, how do you feel, you know, talking to grieving people? Doesn't that bring you down? It energizes me. I feel, I feel great when I talk to somebody and they come in and their eyes are down and they're crying and they can barely say their child's name. I work with a lot of parents. And then, you know, I start talking to them and I asked them about their kid and they start talking about their kid and they just start lighting up. About how proud they are of their child and stuff like that. And then we talk about the purpose. And by the end of the session, a lot of times they're like, I feel so much better. And I'm like, so do I.

I love, I love what you do. And I actually love your Grief to Growth, like, like business concept. Because when I first started paying attention to my trainings in grief, I didn't have a fit for transformation. I thought, wow, you know, transformation is not an excuse, but a bypass.

Right, right. Exactly. I understand that.

And then, you know, I came to learn like, oh, okay, now I'm redefining transformation for myself.

Yeah. Yeah. What you said is really important. We have to be very careful with people that we don't just bypassing, that we don't say, oh, this is just a great thing, you should accept it, move on. You know, it's like, well, I tell people there are phases you're going to go through. They're not, they're not linear, they're not same for everybody, but there's usually like what I call a shock phase. Then it's kind of like the white-knuckling phase. And then there's, you know, maybe, you know, you start to accept a little bit, and then you can start thinking about, you know, transformation or growth. It's not— you can't just jump from one place to the other, but, um, In my experiences, I've worked with people, I've seen, you know, people make amazing transformations, you know, after going through grief experience. And it is, it is definitely doable, you know, something that we can do, we can take this, this thing and transform it into something else.

Sounds like you're doing amazing work, Brian D Smith.

Yeah, I, well, it's, I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do. You know, and, you know, I asked you about your spirituality earlier. And for me, this is my personal belief. I believe everything that happens happens because it's supposed to. And I've debated this with people. And I'm like, well, here's what I know, what happened did happen. That's not debatable. So how we react to it is our choice. I choose to believe it happened for a reason. But even if it didn't, what, what can I do with this? What can I do with what's happened? Because, you know, the reality is the reality.. And, but that's, for me, just makes it so much, you know, so much easier. And I have bad days. And, you know, I didn't have a great day yesterday. But I always know that, you know, it can get— it will get better. And I tell people, you know, it'll get better, you know. And when this first happens to people, you think like, this is the end. So I'm kind of rambling. But I think what you and I do, and that's what I really respect you, you reached out to me, it was just a couple days ago, and I saw your app. And I got so excited. I said, yeah, I want to bring this guy on right now. Because I think This is a great resource that, you know, that I can provide to my listeners and to my clients, that'll just help them along that journey to reach that, that transformation maybe a little bit faster.

Hey, Brian, if you don't mind me asking, in some of what you shared, some of your personal experience, I feel like you've developed a lot of the buzzword that we use these days called resilience. But authentically. And I'm curious of your professional opinion. Do you think— you mentioned some of the shock phase, the white-knuckle phase, and then coming to transformation. I heard them as phases. Do you think there's a phase for the development of resilience too?

Yeah, I think so. And I really— I always hesitate. When I said that, I'm like, stop. Because, you know, everybody takes Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' 5 phases of death, the stages of death and dying, and change and uses it on grief, which is just not— you can't translate those two. And grief is not a linear journey. It's like an up and down and back and forth. So even for me, even though I might say I'm in the resilience phase, I still have the pain, you know, I still go through the— still have shock sometimes, you know, it's like, why isn't Shayna here?. But yeah, generally speaking, but I think, and I've seen what I've, what I've observed is, I remember when I first started going to grief support groups, and I'll never forget the one of the first ones I went to. And I won't name the organization, but it was one that doesn't talk about afterlife or anything. And the people just came there the same week, it was the same thing, tell your story over and over again. And this woman had been there for like 10 years, her daughter passed away like 10 years ago, she was still as angry, shocked, depressed, everything as she was the day her daughter passed. And she was just holding on to that. This was at the time where I didn't even think it was possible for me to transform. But I was like, I do not want to be like that in 10 years. I knew what I didn't want to do. And then I discovered Helping Parents Heal, which is all based on transformation, which is, you tell from the title, Helping Parents Heal. And our thing is, I don't remember the exact motto, I should, but we help people go from bereaved parents, which we hate that term, to what we call shining light parents, which means that our children are shining lights because they have passed in the spirit, but we're also trying to become shining lights. And so what I try to do for people is try to model that. And then, you know, and a lot of people that come to me, actually, they want to jump into helping other phase right away. I'm like, let's just slow down on that. Let's, let's heal yourself first. But then you can start helping other people. And that to me is like the final final phase is when we start— once we've learned something, we pass it on to somebody else.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Yeah, so, um, yeah, I guess, Reid, I, I— what you're doing, I think, is, is fantastic. Um, the app, it's, it's beautiful. I'm, I'm in the visual stuff, so the app is beautiful. Um, and I think it's really, really well thought out. So I want to encourage people to check it out. If you— no matter else, whatever else you're doing, it could be a great supplement, you know, for what you're doing, if you're the kind of person the likes of type of thing. If you're using Insight Timer, or Headspace, or any of these other types of things, this one's specifically for grief. So tell people how they can get the app, what the, what the pricing model is, and all that kind of stuff.

Okay. Well, the app is actually really easy to find. So wherever you get your apps on your phone, just search Grief Refuge. It's two words. That's the easiest thing. And It is a free download, and some, some of the features, about half of the features, anybody can use for free for the rest of the time they use the app. And then there are some features that require a monthly subscription, and that's $11.99 per month. It is a, it is a for-profit organization, so the bills do have to be paid, right? And, um, you know, I wish it could be free, but I'm, you know, I'm a, I'm a small business.

So I perfectly understand. And it was funny, I was telling my wife to download the app. And I'm like, we've gotten so used to things, or we kind of on the internet, we want things to be free. On the other hand, I know a little bit about technology. I've looked into developing apps. I know it costs a lot of money to develop an app. Most people don't realize how much money Apple takes from you if it's in the App Store. So you might look at that, that's a lot of money. It's like Apple's taking a third of that. So you do your, your, your business and you've got to, you've got to be able to produce it. And I know it takes a lot to produce that, the daily content, you know, that takes a while. We were talking earlier about the things that we both do. Producing content is, is work.

It's a lot of work.

Yeah. It's been really great.

Let me just say it's it's also meaningful.

Yeah, it is. It is. And things can be both, you know, it's, it's, I enjoy what I do. I enjoy— we're talking about the podcast earlier. I know you produce a podcast. So you have an idea, you know what that's like. And, you know, again, people that don't do that, you know, try it, you'll figure out, it takes a, it takes a little bit. So people can reach you at— well, what's the best place to reach you? Is it Grief Refuge?

Yeah, the website's griefrefuge.com. And my information is on there.

Okay. Well, again, Reed Peterson, the website is griefrefuge.com. I'll put links in the show notes. Reed, thanks for being here today. Thanks for doing what you do. And I wish you success with everything you're doing and with the app.

Hey, Brian, I just want to thank you. I've learned a lot from you today. Thanks for this opportunity.

I appreciate that. All right, have a great day.

You too.

Thanks for listening to Grief 2 Growth. Brian hopes that you find this episode helpful, and will come back for future episodes. Brian's bestselling book, Grief 2 Growth: Planted, Not Buried, is a great resource for anyone who is coping with grief or knows someone who is. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support it, there are 3 things you can do to help. The first is to share the podcast with someone that you think it will help. The second is to go to iTunes, rate and review the episode. The third way you can support the podcast is by becoming a patron. Head over to www.patreon.com/grief2growth. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/grief, the number 2, growth, and sign up to make a small monthly donation. Patrons get access access to exclusive bonus content and knowledge that you are helping to spread the message of grief to growth. For more about Brian and grief to growth, visit www.grief2growth.com.

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