December 22, 2025 • 41 mins
When the lights are flashing and the clock is ticking, we train for everything—except the weight we carry home. We sit down with Coast Guard veteran and grief coach Justin Jacobs to unpack the invisible load of moral injury, the shock of losing the uniform, and the quiet ways unprocessed grief leaks into performance, relationships, and health. From the chaos of capsized boats to the stillness after a tough outcome, Justin names what many feel and few say out loud.
We explore how grief hides inside anxiety, depression, and burnout, and why so many transitions—retirement, reassignment, even a “first civilian job”—feel harder than expected. Justin explains decision fatigue after service, when structure vanishes and every choice suddenly feels permanent. He offers a simple reframe: plan early, expect detours, and treat course corrections as progress, not failure. Along the way, we draw clear parallels between the Coast Guard and first responders—rapid action, limited bench strength, and constant pressure to move on to the next call.
Most importantly, we get practical. Think “mental PPE”: a shared vocabulary for moral injury, short decompressions after hard calls, peer check-ins that don’t try to fix but do make space to feel. We talk about what genuinely helps the bereaved—curiosity, presence, honest permission to tell the whole truth about the person who’s gone—and what to retire forever, including hollow platitudes that minimize real pain. Justin’s own story of loss and growth brings empathy and precision to every tool he shares.
If you serve, lead, or love someone who does, this conversation is a field guide for staying human under pressure and building a culture that protects people as fiercely as it protects the mission. Listen, share with your crew, and tell us what “mental PPE” looks like in your world. If this resonates, follow, rate, and review so more first responders can find it—and subscribe for more candid, actionable conversations.
His Instagram is @manlygrief
His Website is: http://www.manlygrief.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome to Resilience Development and
Management with Steve B.
Smith.
This is the compass dedicated tofirst responder mental health,
helping police, highers, EMS,dispense, and paramedics create
better growth environments forthemselves and their teams.
Let's get started.ai.
SPEAKER_01 (00:37):
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that will save you time andmoney.
And I highly encourage you to doso.
Well, hi everyone, and welcometo episode 235.
If you haven't seen episode 234or listen to it, it was with
Sarah Abbott.
Please go back and listen to it.
We have a history, me and Sarah.
It was a great conversation,really appreciate it.
But episode 235 is a returningguest and a returning, shall I
(02:10):
even go, a friend, because weworked together on a very
important project that I wasreally excited about.
We unfortunately weren't able toget more funding on the subject,
which was the Mindful Guardians.
And I really appreciate itbecause I felt like I was being
accepted in an environment that,again, I've never been in the
military, and the Coast Guardreally uh needed the support at
(02:33):
the time, but it was so helpful.
And hey, turns out Justin is aveteran of the Coast Guard,
among other things, but I'mgonna let him decide what he
wants to talk about.
So Justin Jacobs, welcome toResilience Development in
Action.
Thanks, Steve.
Good to be back here with you.
I was excited to hear you werelike Blight, who was on a couple
(02:55):
of weeks ago, said, you know,you should contact Justin.
And I'm like, yeah, you'd begreat.
And you responded right away.
I was so excited.
So I'm so happy to have you on.
SPEAKER_02 (03:03):
Yeah, I appreciate it.
You know, I was talking to my28-year-old son the other day,
and he said, Dad, did you everthink that you're gonna be a
grief coach?
He's like, No, there's nothingin my mind that as a kid or a
teenager or even as an adultleaving the service, I was like,
Yeah, I'm gonna be a grief coachsomeday.
Because I did 22 years in theCoast Guard and decided I didn't
(03:24):
want to do anything with thatanymore.
I was kind of bored, wanted tochange, and uh did decide to get
into professional coaching forleadership and transition uh for
the veteran community here inthe Washington, DC area, because
at the time the Bidenadministration was spending
millions of dollars on coaching.
And I figured, yeah, I can dothat.
(03:45):
So fast forward a couple ofyears, and my wife dies of
cancer, and Blythe, our mutualfriend, uh has this grief
coaching program and she says,Hey, do you want to be a grief
coach?
And I said, Absolutely not.
I didn't have space to talk toanybody about their traumatic
event or their grief because I Ican't even take my own clients
(04:05):
at this time.
And so I went from life coachingto leadership coaching to
transition coaching to now griefcoaching.
But the interesting thing that Ifound about all that is that
they're all interconnected,they're all intertwined.
Everybody has experienced griefin some shape, form, or fashion.
Everybody is transitioning inlife in some shape, form, or
(04:28):
fashion.
And anybody who comes saying,Oh, I want, you know, coaching
on leadership, great, we cantalk about that.
And over a 12-week program,we'll probably talk about
leadership once.
Everything else is gonna end upbeing about life.
But life is too woo-woo whenyou're just like, oh, I'm a life
coach.
Like, oh, here's your crystalsand your chakras and your
(04:48):
breathing exercises.
Nah, I'm just gonna provide asafe space for you to talk about
life in a way that you probablydon't feel safe talking to
anybody else about.
And you're going to unlock stuffinside of you that makes you
feel like you know what you needto do, maybe for the first time
in your life.
Right.
And so, yeah, it's it's been aweird journey, but very happy to
(05:13):
be here.
SPEAKER_01 (05:14):
What I find interesting in what you just
said is I find that grief ispart of every session I ever do.
And I go back to a guest who'sbeen regularly on the show, Pat
Rice.
He argues that we don't havediagnosis, we only have grief.
And most of what we go throughis a form of grief, whether it's
anxiety, depression, eventrauma, it's the grief of all
(05:36):
those things that are reallytruly what we're treating
treating.
And I always thought that was agreat way to think about grief
and mental health in general.
SPEAKER_02 (05:45):
No, I like that.
A student that I have in the thegrief program, so the Blyth's
program will take a person whohas experienced a loss of any
kind and may be stuck in thatgrief a little bit, who wants to
work through that grief.
But then if they also want tobecome a coach to help others,
(06:06):
they can do kind of a dual trackof going through the program
themselves, but learning how tobecome a coach for other people.
And one of my students wastalking about the passing of her
husband and you know, to cancer,and it's a horrible thing.
But as we were talking aboutprevious traumatic events, she
kind of realized that, like,well, I moved around a lot as a
(06:28):
kid and I didn't have like afamily situation in a home where
I felt stability because wewould move in the middle of a
school year and we'd have toleave family who we were staying
with, and we'd have to make newfriends.
And I said, All those thingswere traumatic events.
And if you didn't know how togrieve those properly as the
child that you were, all thatstuff came back up when you lost
(06:51):
your husband.
SPEAKER_01 (06:52):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (06:53):
And so the thing that's so strange about grief is
that if you don't productivelywork through it in a way that
your brain and body kind of likeget used to the loss, it's just
waiting for the next thing tohappen to trigger it again.
SPEAKER_01 (07:10):
Right.
I agree.
And you know, it's interestingbecause it sounds like there's a
lot of things that led you towhat you're doing today.
You said you're you didn't seeyourself as a grief coach, but
there seems to be a lot ofevents that led you to being a
grief coach.
SPEAKER_02 (07:25):
Yeah.
The one of the interestingthings about transitioning out
of the military, regardless ofhow many years you've been in
it, is that everybody looks atit as a very simple process of
do your paperwork with thegovernment, get your disability
rating, process out of theorganization, build your resume
and your LinkedIn presence, andgo get a job.
SPEAKER_01 (07:46):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (07:47):
What nobody talks about is the fact that it is a
traumatic event.
One day you're in uniform, youknow exactly what to do, you
know exactly where to be, youhave your community, you have
your purpose, you have yourpaycheck.
The next day you lose theuniform, you take it off and you
never put it on again.
You lose your paycheck, you loseyour community, you may lose the
(08:11):
reason for getting up in themorning if if serving has been
your purpose.
SPEAKER_01 (08:16):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (08:17):
And so it's a traumatic event that leads to
grief.
And people talk about how youneed to come down off the stress
of being in the organization andit takes 12 months or 24 months
to come back down to a newnormal.
And while I think that might betrue, what they're not talking
about is the fact that thebrain's trying to make sense of
the fact that you're not doingthe thing that you did for
(08:39):
however many years, and it's socompletely different than what
you are going to do in thefuture in the civilian side,
that it it truly is a griefevent.
But we're not processing it asgrief.
SPEAKER_01 (08:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (08:55):
Uh, and so having gone through my transition and
choosing positively to go intocoaching, I feel that maybe I I
processed that grief a littledifferently than some of my
other brothers and sisterswho've separated from service.
But there was still a sense ofloss.
(09:16):
There was still a sense of likeseeing friends on instant or on
Instagram, social media, likeposting stuff about work.
I'm like, oh yeah, I I I missthat.
And I don't miss that.
Like I left because I wanted to,right, but I still miss it.
It's still a part that definedme for 22 years.
And so it wasn't until I starteddoing grief coaching that I
(09:39):
realized that yeah, I probablyneeded to grieve that transition
out of the military a little bitmore, and now I could probably
help somebody who'stransitioning out of the
military themselves to thinkabout it in a different way.
Like this is really freakinghard stuff because you're
grieving a loss that you don'teven recognize.
SPEAKER_01 (09:57):
I agree.
And I think that the I don't Idon't mean to interrupt, but I'm
gonna I wanted to add a littlebit to it.
Yeah, I talk about my firstresponders who retire.
And as I the more I do talkingabout retirement with people,
the more I do it like two yearsin advance prior to leaving the
fire service, the policeservice, sheriffs, whatever,
(10:18):
because it really takes thatmuch time to prepare for that
grief.
And I feel like the other parttoo is you you get that what
what you just talked about, I'veheard about from the military,
and you can correct me if I'mwrong, but this is what I've
heard.
When I was in the military, Ihad to be at this base at this
time, and I had to fill fulfilluntil this time.
And whatever decisions were madewere made usually above me.
(10:40):
So I just followed the order.
I became a civilian and I had tomake decisions for myself.
I had to make judgment calls andnot have someone say yay or nay
to my decision.
That's really a change.
That's a mind fuck, if youreally think about it.
I don't know if that's what I'mnot saying you personally, but
maybe you can share you.
But I think that's somethingthat I've heard from my military
(11:01):
folks.
Am I completely off here?
Or no, I think that's veryaccurate.
SPEAKER_02 (11:05):
I think sometimes people who haven't experienced a
hierarchical organization likethe military or like first
responders, where you give andreceive orders, think that we're
just kind of like robots that dowhat we're programmed to do.
What I would say is certaindecisions are made for you, like
where you're going to be based,what work you're going to do
(11:26):
while you're there, how you'regoing to dress, and all those
kinds of things.
But what that does is it removesthe need to make decisions on
things like what am I wearingtoday?
What do I want to work on todayaway from you so that you can
focus your decision making onmore important stuff like how
are we going to accomplish themission today?
What are we going to do to thinkoutside the box to overcome this
(11:49):
obstacle or this thing that'skeeping us from success?
How am I going to interact withthe people who I'm responsible
for to make sure that they'regetting what they need to
perform at peak efficiency?
So there's a lot of decisionmaking being made by the
military member inside theorganization that they're
excellent at doing when theyland in the right vocation after
(12:12):
the military.
The problem that I think themilitary member has is you
separate from service and you'rein, you know, whatever state,
whatever location around theglobe.
And now it's like you decidewhere you want to go.
Okay, well, maybe I want to gohome, maybe I don't.
Maybe I don't even have a homebecause I've been in for so
long, no place really is homeanymore.
(12:34):
Do I need to go where the jobis?
Do I need to go where the kidswill have a good school?
Can I afford where that is?
Like, and now all thosedecisions kind of start coming
up and like crap, I don't know.
Like I can do anything.
And that's almost debilitatingthat I have all this choice.
How do I refine the number ofchoices down to a manageable set
(12:54):
that I can then decide what isright for me?
SPEAKER_01 (12:57):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (12:58):
And there's no playbook.
There's there's no way to figurethat out.
And you're retiring from themilitary, you're in your
mid-40s, right?
You're a young person who hasanother 25-year career ahead of
them if you want.
That's a long freaking time.
And you think that, like, well,I've got to make the right
decision because that sets thetrajectory for the next 25
(13:19):
years.
If I don't make the rightdecision, then crap, this won't
work.
Well, 70% of the military leavestheir first job within like the
first six to 12 months becauseit's the wrong fit.
They jumped into what wasexpedient and looked right, but
then they get there and theyrealize this wasn't the right
thing.
And then they find the rightthing afterwards, hopefully, and
(13:39):
and then they start doing betterat it.
But yeah, back to the theoriginal point.
It's not that we can't makedecisions, it's that we don't
know what the right decision isbecause we've never been
confronted with having to makethat decision before.
The last time we did was when wewere 18 or 21, and we raised our
right hand and took the oath.
After that, it's kind of like,where am I going now?
Where do we tell you to?
(14:00):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (14:01):
Well, I think that you you you hit something that
you know, kind of like I don'twhen I never served, but if I
served, I'd be like, Okay,what's what's my uniform?
This is the uniform, this iswhat we're wearing today.
That's what everyone's wearing.
This is what we do on Tuesdayswhen we're in Mount Fuji or
whatever.
Um, there's no thought processthere, you just put it on.
Getting up in the morning andchoosing from five shirts is
(14:23):
really complicated.
And I I go back to a Frenchexpressions, and I'm sure
there's a good Englishexpression.
If you find it, please let meknow.
But the French expression is toomany choices is like not enough.
When people go to thisCheesecake Factory, they take a
long time before making adecision because that menu is
overwhelming.
And that the same thing, if yougo to some French restaurant
(14:44):
with three choices, it's also asdaunting because you get that
wrong, everything's wrong.
And I think that that's whatyou're kind of describing when
you talk about the militarysystem, and in general, any
military-paramilitary decisionmaking, and that's where the
first responders fall.
They're not quite military, butthey're definitely paramilitary.
SPEAKER_02 (15:02):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and you know, they'reexactly the same way.
Here's your uniform, this iswhat time you show up, this is
the work you're gonna do.
You're going to make a thousanddecisions during the day about
how to protect the public,rescue the person, put out the
fire, like really wicked hardstuff.
But you kind of have thebandwidth to make those really
(15:24):
hard decisions because you haddidn't have to decide, oh, am I
wearing my blue shirt today?
Oh, am I gonna wear the red one?
SPEAKER_01 (15:30):
Like, yeah, no, I know what I'm wearing every day.
Um, I I know for me, I know whatI wear every day, something as
casual as I possibly can.
And just uh shout out to ourconversation right before this.
But yeah, no, I think thatthat's part of it.
You know, like one of the thingsthat again, I've been told, and
you correct me if I'm wrong.
Sometimes I've heard theexpression that the Coast Guard
(15:52):
is are the first responders ofthe military branch, and so you
get a lot of like rescues, youget a lot of those things that
you have to do because you'rethe Coast Guard.
Am I wrong, by the way?
Number one, and number two, isthat what makes you kind of like
understand a little more aboutthe first responder world?
SPEAKER_02 (16:09):
Yeah, I think the the Coast Guard very much is a
first responder organizationbecause bad stuff happens out
there on the water, and it's theCoast Guard who's expected to
show up and and fix it, whetherthat's a hurricane that's
coming, an oil spill, search andrescue mission, law enforcement,
drugs, counterterrorism, namethe thing.
SPEAKER_01 (16:30):
Capsize.
SPEAKER_02 (16:31):
Yeah, I mean, we're the only military organization
that's allowed to functioninside the United States uh
without violating a ton of laws.
And so we, you know, or thatweird mix of like, yeah, we're
military, we're kind ofparamilitary also, and we're
definitely first responder.
SPEAKER_01 (16:48):
And that's go ahead.
SPEAKER_02 (16:50):
Well, and so it was that connection to understanding
what you know, I'm not a cop,I'm not a firefighter, I'm not a
paramedic, but I understand thementality of I'm out there
serving the people who I liveamongst in my community, because
when bad stuff happens, somebodyneeds to show up.
Right.
And the trauma that a persondoing that work undergoes while
(17:13):
doing that job is exactly likewhat the Coast Guard's going
through.
You know, whether you're goingto a house fire or a boat fire,
if you're having to sift throughthe ashes to find the person
hopefully still alive, it's thesame kind of moral injury.
I joined this organization tosave life, and today maybe I
wasn't able to save life, youknow.
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
Which is really brings up the trauma that you
kind of face on a regular basis,with you know, again, the Coast
Guard and all that.
I've I've been clear on thispodcast, but I like to always
remind people I've never servedin the military, I have never
been a first responder in mylife.
I'm a mental health counselorwho's worked with both organized
like those types oforganizations for a long time,
(17:57):
but I don't pretend I'm one ofthem.
So sometimes I go, hey, I don'tknow.
And it's okay for me to saythat.
But I think that with the traumathat the Coast Guard, and
particularly I talk about, youknow, I live in New England,
there's a lot of cap-sizedboats, and I know what those
rescues can look like.
And it's not like, well, theweather's not it's not it's bad,
we can't go, we're gonna wait acouple of days.
(18:19):
No, and they're they gotta gowhen they're called in, whether
it's on a boat, whether it's ona helicopter, they go out.
And you get there, maybe theperson's good, person's dead,
person has hypothermia, person'shaving a stroke, person,
whatever.
You it's a very unpredictablescene when you get there.
And I think that that sometimescauses a little bit of trauma.
(18:39):
And I know that part of grief istrauma too.
Uh, you want to explain a littlebit about that in the sense that
how's your experience reallyhelped you being a first
responder of the military worldand how to address that trauma
for those first responders whomay not know how to deal with it
because you will face it whetheryou like it or not?
SPEAKER_02 (18:58):
Yeah, so you know, full uh disclosure, most of my
career in the Coast Guard wasnot spent going out and doing
that kind of work where I wasrescuing the folks and seeing
that firsthand.
My job was actually trying toprevent that from happening by
inspecting ships and facilitiesand treating the waterway kind
of like a Department ofTransportation treats a highway,
(19:19):
so that we didn't have to gosave people from a burning boat.
We inspected it and the boat wasfine.
But the people that I workedalongside who did have to do
that work, you could tell thatthere was nothing that the
military did.
There was nothing that the CoastGuard did to prepare them for
the moral injury that they weregoing to receive from doing that
(19:44):
work with the best ofintentions, expecting that
they'd get there in time and theperson would be okay.
And I think that the CoastGuard's a very small
organization that is given awide amount of latitude to do
its job the way it sees better.
Oftentimes without sufficientresources.
And so we're very inventive andvery quick.
(20:07):
There's no bureaucracy when itcomes to going out and saving
life.
That bias for action leads us toa hyperactive sense of like,
okay, we got to go out and wegot to do this thing right now.
Okay, get it done, get it done,get it done.
And we get it done.
But then there's anotheraccident, there's another
hurricane, there's another badthing that comes, and there's
(20:29):
not enough time to take a breathbefore you're out there doing it
again.
And we get habituated to thisidea of move as fast as you can,
get out there and get the thingdone.
There's never time to like takea deep breath and go, okay,
let's go process how we feelabout the thing that we just got
done doing.
And unfortunately, because we'rea zero-defect organization, you
(20:54):
don't know that a person's beenimpacted until they get their
first EUI, until they have theirfirst domestic violence
incident, until they have a fullmental break.
And then we find out that, oh,that's because of work that I
did a decade ago that I neverfully processed and worked out
with a therapist or a mentalhealth professional.
(21:16):
And so those people are doingfantastic work and they're
taking such a ridiculous mentaltoll that nobody knows about it
until it's after the fact of thebad thing that happens that
reveals, oh yes, it's because ofthis.
And I'm sorry, I probably didn'teven answer your question, but
like But I no, I think you did.
SPEAKER_01 (21:37):
I think that one of the things that I'm gonna
gravitate towards, and I'll giveyou the full leeway of saying,
Steve, I don't want to talkabout this if you don't.
But I will tell you that whatyou just explained, there's also
where I feel leadership alsosays, okay, go to the next call,
go to the next call, go to thenext call.
That's the first responderworld.
You have very few and farbetween leadership that says,
(22:01):
listen, that was a rough call,get on the sidelines.
You need a day, you needwhatever.
And that goes for the militaryand the first responder world,
by the way.
They're just like, no, go to theother one, go to the other one,
go to the other one.
I think that that plays a factortoo, because that becomes an
institutional trauma that iscreated.
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong,and it's hard to address that
(22:22):
part unless you get theleadership to buy into it.
SPEAKER_02 (22:24):
Yeah, I think even if you had leadership buy into
this idea of the work we do ishard, we need to prep our folks
to be ready for the traumaticevent.
Then we need to have post-eventtime to figure out what it is
and what that did to the person.
Sometimes it's just a matter ofbench strength.
(22:47):
If I take these three people orfour people who are on this call
out of the game because they allneed to process this thing, I
don't have sufficient people forthe next bad thing.
Right.
Because the department's toosmall or the station is too
small or whatever it is.
And like, well, no, we still gotto get it done.
That's the job we signed up for.
That's what we get paid to do.
(23:07):
And so even though you'restruggling because you had this
really bad case yesterday,sorry, you got to go out again
today.
There's nobody else to takeover.
Right.
And so leadership could becompletely on board with like,
yeah, we need to talk about thisstuff, we need to process this
stuff.
Uh, and I'm still gonna make yougo out when we need to.
SPEAKER_01 (23:26):
Okay.
So let me then let me be uhdevil's advocate here for a
second.
So if we know that part of thisgo, go, go mentality can cause,
you know, long-term trauma, evenlong-term grief.
Even if we have leadership onboard, we're short staff or we
have just enough staff and youstill have to go out.
(23:48):
How do you recommend peoplelearn to deal with that grief or
that trauma of some like it'snot always PTSD for the record,
it's trauma, there's adifference.
But how do we teach people howto deal with that?
Because some people like, youknow, the old way, and you can
correct me if I'm wrong, is buryit as far as you can.
Um, we saw how helpful that waswhen people came back from
(24:08):
Vietnam.
But anyway, that's just my twocents on my little message.
So, how do we encourage people,knowing that the bench is is
short, we don't have anybodyelse, but we want to encourage
the process.
How do we how can we do that?
SPEAKER_02 (24:23):
So, this is kind of what we wanted to address with
Mind Strong Guardians when westarted it was let's give people
a vocabulary for moral injury,for traumatic events, for all
these things, because we'llspend millions of dollars on uh
personal protective equipment,right?
A firefighter knows how to dontheir their suit and put on
(24:46):
their SCBA and go fight thefire.
And if any of that stuff isn'ton right, they can't fight the
fire because the heat's gonnaget them, the smoke's gonna get
them, and they can't stay in thefight.
But I don't know that we spendany money on mental PPE.
We're not prepping them withvocabulary and an understanding
(25:08):
of when you go do this work andyou see this thing, your brain
and your body are going torespond this way, and that's
completely normal.
It's not something to be ashamedof, it's not something to hide.
It's something that when we comeback to the station, the
department, the whatever,everybody in the organization
(25:28):
knows how to talk about this,not necessarily to fix, but
maybe just event.
Like today was hard.
Like the thing I saw, I I'mmessed up.
Like, I hear you, and you're notalone.
I'm messed up too.
And this sucks.
But maybe that's just enough ofa relief that when the next
siren goes off and the next callneeds to be made, that it's just
(25:53):
a little bit better than itwould have been if it was like,
no, we're all tough and we'reall strong and we're just gonna
bury it down deep and pretendlike nothing's wrong.
And tomorrow we'll go getshit-faced, you know, rinse,
wash, and repeat.
SPEAKER_01 (26:06):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (26:06):
And I think, you know, much to the conversation
that you were having with Blytheon the last podcast she was on,
this younger generation sees thebenefit of mental health
conversations.
And when they're old enough tobe middle management or senior
management, I hope that they'recapable of instituting
(26:27):
preventative measures so that wehave mental PPE and we spend as
much time and money on it as wedo all the other ridiculous
training that you have to takein an organization like that.
Because holy cow, like, yeah,it's all well and good for me to
know how to put on my flash hoodbefore I put on my mask and put
on my SCBA.
(26:49):
But if I'm not gonna be wellbecause I'm expecting that every
time I go out on a call, I'mgonna fight the fire and save
the person and everything'sgonna be okay.
My brain's not gonna be able tofunction when it sees that's not
true.
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
And I think that that's where I go with a lot of
the stuff that we've beenthrough in life, including
myself, is we don't do thepreventive work, but you talked
about you did in the Coast Guardwas a lot of preventive work.
Uh, fire firefighters did thatwith you know, fire alarms and
sprinklers and the whole nineyards.
In the mental health world, Ithink that we fix the problem
(27:23):
after it happened.
We never do the prevention andthe buildup for that.
So that's why for me, what youjust said is so important, not
only for the military, but thefirst responder world.
You know, that's why I advocateand run a business that talks
about wellness visits.
I talk about having peer supportbecause you know, you don't want
to talk to some schmo like me ona wellness visit or in therapy,
(27:45):
then you have your peers.
And if not, you have a crisisintervention specialist that can
come and help you out when thereis a big crisis and that
everyone thinks, yes, we need toaddress that as a team.
I think that what we need tolearn to do is if we do wellness
and we do preventative work,we're gonna have less need, and
not that we won't need them, butwe will need less therapists,
(28:05):
less group, and less peersupport because we're gonna
address the PPE prior to it.
I think that that's what mindfulguardians wanted to do, and I
think that that's what we needto do in the first responder
world too.
That's just my experience.
SPEAKER_02 (28:18):
Yeah.
You know, nobody in the militaryor first responder world has a
personal trainer at the gym.
unknown (28:26):
Right?
SPEAKER_02 (28:27):
They go to the gym, they work out, buddies show them
different tips and tricks tomaximize strength and agility
and speed and all the otherstuff.
And, you know, you talk about itall the time.
Like, hey man, show me how to dothat that move.
What give me a workout routinethat's good for you?
And no big deal, right?
(28:47):
We're all talking about ourphysical health.
SPEAKER_01 (28:49):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (28:50):
Wouldn't it be amazing if we could do the same
thing with mental health?
SPEAKER_01 (28:53):
If you expect me to argue with you, I will
absolutely not.
One of the things that I wouldsay to you is part of it is, you
know, I'm I share this regularlyon my podcast.
For those of you who want tospeed up for the next 15 or 30
seconds, it's fine.
But one of the things brought meto my job was losing my best
(29:14):
friend when I was 12.
And I was way alone in thatgrief for many years.
And I don't blame my parents, Idon't blame anyone in this
world, it just happened.
But I didn't get any of thatsupport.
So when people ask me why do youdo this job?
It's pretty easy.
I never want anyone to feel thatalone ever in any population,
particularly my first responderworld.
(29:36):
But I think that everyone comesin with a personal story, and I
know that you went into theCoast Guard, probably have a
personal story on that.
But more importantly, I thinkthat becoming a grief coach
probably has a personal storythat goes with that.
I know you talked a little bitabout your ex, well, not your
widowed.
So talked about that wife andlosing her.
And I think that there's otherstuff, but I just want to throw
(29:59):
that out for you.
See what you know if you want totalk about that.
SPEAKER_02 (30:03):
Yeah, I mean, I got into grief coaching specifically
because I lost my wife toovarian cancer in February of
2024.
We thought she was experiencingperimenopause symptoms because
that was the age that she wasat.
And for six months, it wasgetting a little worse and a
little worse.
And she finally went to thedoctor and they said, Yeah, you
(30:23):
have stage three B cancer, andwe need to do a radical surgery
to take all that stuff out, andthen you need to start the chemo
and radiation.
And four months after thesurgery, she was gone.
And so it was it was a veryquick decline.
And so I was full-time caregiverand appointment maker and pill
(30:45):
pusher and all that fun stuff.
I had a junior in high school athome, uh, and our older son was
living in the area.
But what I what I found in thatgrief event of losing my wife
was that it resurrected stufffrom losing my dad when I was 11
that I don't know that I fullyprocessed because I was 11.
(31:08):
Like, how the hell does an11-year-old process losing their
dad?
And one thing that probablypushed me towards working with
Blythe was recognizing that nomatter how many grief events you
have in your life, you nevertruly get over them.
You just learn how to processthem in a way that doesn't make
even it doesn't make itdebilitating for the rest of
(31:29):
your life.
Uh, my therapist said that myfirst wife will be with me for
the rest of my life.
She will be an ever-present partof me.
And I really didn't like it whenshe said it.
It's like, I don't need a ghostfollowing me around for the rest
of my life.
But for 19 years, she was mywife.
(31:51):
And that means that, yeah,spiritually, physically, like
however you want to describe it,we were an entity together.
And to have a portion of meremoved changes a person.
And if you don't know how totalk about that stuff and
process that grief, that is adebilitating thing that can end
(32:14):
your life as well.
I'm thankful that I have afantastic support network of
family and friends, uh, peoplewho love me and care for me, and
that I was very open and honestabout the way I felt as I was
going through those first monthsof losing her.
And I feel that I did a decentjob of processing my grief.
(32:38):
Now, I still went out and soughtout therapy because I realized
that I wasn't doing as great ajob as I thought I was.
But like you, I felt horriblelosing my wife and saw people
who had lost their spouse andwere in that same mindset years
or decades later.
(32:59):
And I felt so bad for them.
I was like, I don't want anybodyto feel stuck in grief like that
for the rest of your life.
And that's one reason why Idecided to go in the direction
of grief coaching, because Ifeel that I have done a good job
of processing my grief, that Iam healthier than I was uh after
losing her.
(33:20):
I got remarried.
I graduated as a son from highschool, he's in college now.
I married off my other son, Imoved houses.
Like there's been a lot of churnin my life this last 12 months,
but it's all really good stuff.
And I think it's because I didreally hard work, and I don't
want anybody to feel likethey're doomed to be stuck in
(33:40):
their grief.
You can get unstuck, you canhave a life of joy again, but
it's not easy.
SPEAKER_01 (33:46):
Well, first of all, thank you for sharing that.
Really appreciate you, and Iappreciate you sharing that
story.
And I think that that's wherestrength comes from, in my
opinion, is sharing yourstories.
I think that one of the thingsthey teach us in counseling
psych is to remove the personfrom the therapy so the other
person can be themselves.
(34:07):
Well, in fact, denying your whoyou are in a room is the worst
thing you could ever do.
And I'm sure that being a goodgrief coach, you bring yourself
and your own grief that you'vebeen through and you're still
working on.
It might be in the rearviewmirror in some ways, but will
never disappear.
But really, really helps thepeople you talk to, and I give
you a lot of credit for having astory like yours and being able
(34:28):
to share it.
SPEAKER_02 (34:29):
Yeah, thanks.
Uh grief coaching specifically,I think, is the only kind of
coaching where the coach shouldhave the life experience of the
client.
I think in any other coachingsituation, the less I know about
you and the thing that you arecoming to me with, the better,
because then I can be curiousand do a really good job of
helping you figure out what youneed in life.
(34:53):
But specifically for griefcoaching, if I can't come
alongside you and say, I feelthe pain that you feel because I
went through the thing you wentthrough, then there's there's a
disconnect.
Like, well, then how can youhelp me?
You can't really help me throughthis thing if you haven't gone
through it yourself.
Because no one understands ituntil you've done it, until
you've lived through ityourself.
SPEAKER_01 (35:13):
I would argue that you're right.
I think that we all go throughgrief.
The more complicated grief likeyours may not be the same.
And I think that life experiencereally helps.
I also believe firmly that whileI've never had schizophrenia, I
can work with people withschizophrenia, but I prefer
working with people who, youknow, I again, I don't steal any
valor, I didn't do any of thosethings, but I've been on, you
(35:35):
know, scenes.
I've been out on, you know, thefires, the medicals, the mental
health, and everything inbetween with the police.
And having that hands-onexperience makes me a more
credible therapist, but moreimportantly, it makes me
understand a little more.
I don't understand fully, but Iunderstand a little more.
And I think that there'sspecific worlds where we need
(35:57):
that experience.
I don't need to haveschizophrenia to understand
schizophrenia, but that doesn'tmean I fully understand it and I
gotta be curious.
I think I go back to what yousaid about grief.
I think that I know a lot aboutgrief, but I'm still curious as
to how people go through grief.
So I think that curiosity alsogoes with the grieving process,
whether you're a coach or atherapist for that.
SPEAKER_02 (36:18):
Yeah, I agree with that.
I think that regardless of theamount of grief that you've
experienced, you've onlyexperienced your grief.
And grief is like a fingerprintbecause you're a unique person
and the person that you've lostwas unique and your relationship
was unique.
No other person had the samerelationship that you did with
that person.
SPEAKER_01 (36:38):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (36:38):
And so I'll never understand a client's grief.
I'll be able to speak tosimilarities in the way that I
felt, or the idiot things thatother people said trying to help
me.
But more than anything, I thinkit's just saying to the client,
I don't understand what you'refeeling, but I felt something
(37:00):
similar.
And here's something about myloved one that I lost that I can
say honestly.
And maybe it's the first timethat that person's been given
permission to say something thatdidn't deify or lionize the
individual.
Because people are complex andgood and bad, and like there
(37:21):
might be something about personthat you lost that you're kind
of glad that they're not aroundanymore because life's a little
bit easier.
Well, you can't say that tofamily and friends.
No, but you can say it to acoach, you can say it to a
therapist, and being able to behonest and tell your story about
something is freeing.
SPEAKER_01 (37:41):
Right.
And um, I'm just gonna do a PSAhere for everyone.
When someone dies for whoeverthey forever reason, including
the cat, the dog, whoever peoplecare for, don't tell them
they're at a better placebecause that's an insult to
where they were next to you inyour life.
So that's never good advice.
(38:01):
So just if you're listening tothis, never say to someone
they're at a better place.
Because my first instinct whenpeople say that to me, how do
you fucking know?
So just want to put my PSAmoment here because I hear that
too often and it just drives mewild.
SPEAKER_02 (38:15):
Yeah, and that's perfect.
The best thing to say to thatperson who lost somebody or
something that they care andlove about is that sounds really
hard.
Death loss sucks.
There's nothing good about it atall.
That thing was here, that personwas here, and now they're not,
and I miss it, and it sucks.
SPEAKER_01 (38:36):
And I'm my favorite line is when people say they
lost someone, whoever, or evenan animal, because people
dismiss animals, but not me.
I always go, I have no clue howyou're feeling.
I've had my own grief, but itcan't be the same as yours.
Tell me more about it.
So I think that's another goodway to kind of explain to people
what we can go through and tellthem.
(38:57):
But as we approach the end ofthe time here, I can't believe
we went on, we went really fast.
I just realized that.
How about you tell people whatyou're doing now?
I mean, I'll never lose the thethe dream of doing mindful
guardians again with you, I'llbe honest with you.
But since we're not doing thatright now, what are you working
on?
SPEAKER_02 (39:16):
So uh I'm a mentor coach in Blythe's uh grief to
purpose program, helping takestudents through both their own
grief process, but also trainingthem up to be uh trauma-informed
grief coaches.
SPEAKER_01 (39:28):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (39:29):
I hope to start working with first responders
through a company that's gonnahire me uh to be a grief coach.
They they kind of have a uh a12-month long program with
psychiatrists, therapists, peerrecovery specialists, and uh and
coaches.
And so I look forward to workingwith first responders through
(39:49):
that program.
And then otherwise, I am stillrunning my my own company, Manly
Grief.
Don't really have a website, butI'm on Instagram.
And I'm taking individualclients for grief coaching.
And uh yeah, that's that's mostof what I'm doing right now.
SPEAKER_01 (40:08):
I encourage everyone to go to his Instagram, always
good stuff.
I actually follow him, and youcan check if I'm following him
because it's the truth.
But yes, Blight's program isreally good, and I'm happy that
you're doing that.
Working with the first responderand having a program like you
just talked about is soimportant.
It's unfortunate because I wasin the Virginia area of
Washington, DC uh a few monthsago, and I wish we could have
(40:30):
connected.
But at one point we're gonnaconnect again, I hope.
Yeah, that would be great.
But I'll put all that in theshow notes, even though you
don't have a website.
I think follow him on Instagram,reach out to him for grief.
He has experience, you haven'theard half his experience, if
you ask me here.
And as a helper, but also as hisown life.
(40:50):
So Justin, I I can't tell youhow much I appreciate having you
on again.
Hopefully, we'll have you onagain soon, and we can talk more
about grief and what you'redoing because that sounds super
interesting with the firstresponder meeting.
SPEAKER_02 (41:03):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, and I appreciate
being on the podcast again.
It's always good talking to you.
SPEAKER_01 (41:08):
Well, I want to thank you and thank everyone
who's listening for episode 235with Justin.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou in the next episode.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (41:18):
Please like, subscribe, and follow this
podcast on your favoriteplatform.
A glowing review is alwayshelpful.
And as a reminder, this podcastis for informational,
educational, and entertainmentpurposes only.
If you're struggling with amental health or substance abuse
issue, please reach out to aprofessional counselor for
consultation.
If you are in a mental healthcrisis, call 988 for assistance.
(41:42):
This number is available in theUnited States and Canada.
Welcome to Resilience Development and
Management with Steve B.
Smith.
This is the compass dedicated tofirst responder mental health,
helping police, highers, EMS,dispense, and paramedics create
better growth environments forthemselves and their teams.
Let's get started.ai.
SPEAKER_01 (00:37):
You heard me talk about it.
I'm gonna keep on talking aboutit because I love it.
I've had about a year and ahalf, 18 months practice with
it, and I still enjoy it.
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(01:47):
that will save you time andmoney.
And I highly encourage you to doso.
Well, hi everyone, and welcometo episode 235.
If you haven't seen episode 234or listen to it, it was with
Sarah Abbott.
Please go back and listen to it.
We have a history, me and Sarah.
It was a great conversation,really appreciate it.
But episode 235 is a returningguest and a returning, shall I
(02:10):
even go, a friend, because weworked together on a very
important project that I wasreally excited about.
We unfortunately weren't able toget more funding on the subject,
which was the Mindful Guardians.
And I really appreciate itbecause I felt like I was being
accepted in an environment that,again, I've never been in the
military, and the Coast Guardreally uh needed the support at
(02:33):
the time, but it was so helpful.
And hey, turns out Justin is aveteran of the Coast Guard,
among other things, but I'mgonna let him decide what he
wants to talk about.
So Justin Jacobs, welcome toResilience Development in
Action.
Thanks, Steve.
Good to be back here with you.
I was excited to hear you werelike Blight, who was on a couple
(02:55):
of weeks ago, said, you know,you should contact Justin.
And I'm like, yeah, you'd begreat.
And you responded right away.
I was so excited.
So I'm so happy to have you on.
SPEAKER_02 (03:03):
Yeah, I appreciate it.
You know, I was talking to my28-year-old son the other day,
and he said, Dad, did you everthink that you're gonna be a
grief coach?
He's like, No, there's nothingin my mind that as a kid or a
teenager or even as an adultleaving the service, I was like,
Yeah, I'm gonna be a grief coachsomeday.
Because I did 22 years in theCoast Guard and decided I didn't
(03:24):
want to do anything with thatanymore.
I was kind of bored, wanted tochange, and uh did decide to get
into professional coaching forleadership and transition uh for
the veteran community here inthe Washington, DC area, because
at the time the Bidenadministration was spending
millions of dollars on coaching.
And I figured, yeah, I can dothat.
(03:45):
So fast forward a couple ofyears, and my wife dies of
cancer, and Blythe, our mutualfriend, uh has this grief
coaching program and she says,Hey, do you want to be a grief
coach?
And I said, Absolutely not.
I didn't have space to talk toanybody about their traumatic
event or their grief because I Ican't even take my own clients
(04:05):
at this time.
And so I went from life coachingto leadership coaching to
transition coaching to now griefcoaching.
But the interesting thing that Ifound about all that is that
they're all interconnected,they're all intertwined.
Everybody has experienced griefin some shape, form, or fashion.
Everybody is transitioning inlife in some shape, form, or
(04:28):
fashion.
And anybody who comes saying,Oh, I want, you know, coaching
on leadership, great, we cantalk about that.
And over a 12-week program,we'll probably talk about
leadership once.
Everything else is gonna end upbeing about life.
But life is too woo-woo whenyou're just like, oh, I'm a life
coach.
Like, oh, here's your crystalsand your chakras and your
(04:48):
breathing exercises.
Nah, I'm just gonna provide asafe space for you to talk about
life in a way that you probablydon't feel safe talking to
anybody else about.
And you're going to unlock stuffinside of you that makes you
feel like you know what you needto do, maybe for the first time
in your life.
Right.
And so, yeah, it's it's been aweird journey, but very happy to
(05:13):
be here.
SPEAKER_01 (05:14):
What I find interesting in what you just
said is I find that grief ispart of every session I ever do.
And I go back to a guest who'sbeen regularly on the show, Pat
Rice.
He argues that we don't havediagnosis, we only have grief.
And most of what we go throughis a form of grief, whether it's
anxiety, depression, eventrauma, it's the grief of all
(05:36):
those things that are reallytruly what we're treating
treating.
And I always thought that was agreat way to think about grief
and mental health in general.
SPEAKER_02 (05:45):
No, I like that.
A student that I have in the thegrief program, so the Blyth's
program will take a person whohas experienced a loss of any
kind and may be stuck in thatgrief a little bit, who wants to
work through that grief.
But then if they also want tobecome a coach to help others,
(06:06):
they can do kind of a dual trackof going through the program
themselves, but learning how tobecome a coach for other people.
And one of my students wastalking about the passing of her
husband and you know, to cancer,and it's a horrible thing.
But as we were talking aboutprevious traumatic events, she
kind of realized that, like,well, I moved around a lot as a
(06:28):
kid and I didn't have like afamily situation in a home where
I felt stability because wewould move in the middle of a
school year and we'd have toleave family who we were staying
with, and we'd have to make newfriends.
And I said, All those thingswere traumatic events.
And if you didn't know how togrieve those properly as the
child that you were, all thatstuff came back up when you lost
(06:51):
your husband.
SPEAKER_01 (06:52):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (06:53):
And so the thing that's so strange about grief is
that if you don't productivelywork through it in a way that
your brain and body kind of likeget used to the loss, it's just
waiting for the next thing tohappen to trigger it again.
SPEAKER_01 (07:10):
Right.
I agree.
And you know, it's interestingbecause it sounds like there's a
lot of things that led you towhat you're doing today.
You said you're you didn't seeyourself as a grief coach, but
there seems to be a lot ofevents that led you to being a
grief coach.
SPEAKER_02 (07:25):
Yeah.
The one of the interestingthings about transitioning out
of the military, regardless ofhow many years you've been in
it, is that everybody looks atit as a very simple process of
do your paperwork with thegovernment, get your disability
rating, process out of theorganization, build your resume
and your LinkedIn presence, andgo get a job.
SPEAKER_01 (07:46):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (07:47):
What nobody talks about is the fact that it is a
traumatic event.
One day you're in uniform, youknow exactly what to do, you
know exactly where to be, youhave your community, you have
your purpose, you have yourpaycheck.
The next day you lose theuniform, you take it off and you
never put it on again.
You lose your paycheck, you loseyour community, you may lose the
(08:11):
reason for getting up in themorning if if serving has been
your purpose.
SPEAKER_01 (08:16):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (08:17):
And so it's a traumatic event that leads to
grief.
And people talk about how youneed to come down off the stress
of being in the organization andit takes 12 months or 24 months
to come back down to a newnormal.
And while I think that might betrue, what they're not talking
about is the fact that thebrain's trying to make sense of
the fact that you're not doingthe thing that you did for
(08:39):
however many years, and it's socompletely different than what
you are going to do in thefuture in the civilian side,
that it it truly is a griefevent.
But we're not processing it asgrief.
SPEAKER_01 (08:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (08:55):
Uh, and so having gone through my transition and
choosing positively to go intocoaching, I feel that maybe I I
processed that grief a littledifferently than some of my
other brothers and sisterswho've separated from service.
But there was still a sense ofloss.
(09:16):
There was still a sense of likeseeing friends on instant or on
Instagram, social media, likeposting stuff about work.
I'm like, oh yeah, I I I missthat.
And I don't miss that.
Like I left because I wanted to,right, but I still miss it.
It's still a part that definedme for 22 years.
And so it wasn't until I starteddoing grief coaching that I
(09:39):
realized that yeah, I probablyneeded to grieve that transition
out of the military a little bitmore, and now I could probably
help somebody who'stransitioning out of the
military themselves to thinkabout it in a different way.
Like this is really freakinghard stuff because you're
grieving a loss that you don'teven recognize.
SPEAKER_01 (09:57):
I agree.
And I think that the I don't Idon't mean to interrupt, but I'm
gonna I wanted to add a littlebit to it.
Yeah, I talk about my firstresponders who retire.
And as I the more I do talkingabout retirement with people,
the more I do it like two yearsin advance prior to leaving the
fire service, the policeservice, sheriffs, whatever,
(10:18):
because it really takes thatmuch time to prepare for that
grief.
And I feel like the other parttoo is you you get that what
what you just talked about, I'veheard about from the military,
and you can correct me if I'mwrong, but this is what I've
heard.
When I was in the military, Ihad to be at this base at this
time, and I had to fill fulfilluntil this time.
And whatever decisions were madewere made usually above me.
(10:40):
So I just followed the order.
I became a civilian and I had tomake decisions for myself.
I had to make judgment calls andnot have someone say yay or nay
to my decision.
That's really a change.
That's a mind fuck, if youreally think about it.
I don't know if that's what I'mnot saying you personally, but
maybe you can share you.
But I think that's somethingthat I've heard from my military
(11:01):
folks.
Am I completely off here?
Or no, I think that's veryaccurate.
SPEAKER_02 (11:05):
I think sometimes people who haven't experienced a
hierarchical organization likethe military or like first
responders, where you give andreceive orders, think that we're
just kind of like robots that dowhat we're programmed to do.
What I would say is certaindecisions are made for you, like
where you're going to be based,what work you're going to do
(11:26):
while you're there, how you'regoing to dress, and all those
kinds of things.
But what that does is it removesthe need to make decisions on
things like what am I wearingtoday?
What do I want to work on todayaway from you so that you can
focus your decision making onmore important stuff like how
are we going to accomplish themission today?
What are we going to do to thinkoutside the box to overcome this
(11:49):
obstacle or this thing that'skeeping us from success?
How am I going to interact withthe people who I'm responsible
for to make sure that they'regetting what they need to
perform at peak efficiency?
So there's a lot of decisionmaking being made by the
military member inside theorganization that they're
excellent at doing when theyland in the right vocation after
(12:12):
the military.
The problem that I think themilitary member has is you
separate from service and you'rein, you know, whatever state,
whatever location around theglobe.
And now it's like you decidewhere you want to go.
Okay, well, maybe I want to gohome, maybe I don't.
Maybe I don't even have a homebecause I've been in for so
long, no place really is homeanymore.
(12:34):
Do I need to go where the jobis?
Do I need to go where the kidswill have a good school?
Can I afford where that is?
Like, and now all thosedecisions kind of start coming
up and like crap, I don't know.
Like I can do anything.
And that's almost debilitatingthat I have all this choice.
How do I refine the number ofchoices down to a manageable set
(12:54):
that I can then decide what isright for me?
SPEAKER_01 (12:57):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (12:58):
And there's no playbook.
There's there's no way to figurethat out.
And you're retiring from themilitary, you're in your
mid-40s, right?
You're a young person who hasanother 25-year career ahead of
them if you want.
That's a long freaking time.
And you think that, like, well,I've got to make the right
decision because that sets thetrajectory for the next 25
(13:19):
years.
If I don't make the rightdecision, then crap, this won't
work.
Well, 70% of the military leavestheir first job within like the
first six to 12 months becauseit's the wrong fit.
They jumped into what wasexpedient and looked right, but
then they get there and theyrealize this wasn't the right
thing.
And then they find the rightthing afterwards, hopefully, and
(13:39):
and then they start doing betterat it.
But yeah, back to the theoriginal point.
It's not that we can't makedecisions, it's that we don't
know what the right decision isbecause we've never been
confronted with having to makethat decision before.
The last time we did was when wewere 18 or 21, and we raised our
right hand and took the oath.
After that, it's kind of like,where am I going now?
Where do we tell you to?
(14:00):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (14:01):
Well, I think that you you you hit something that
you know, kind of like I don'twhen I never served, but if I
served, I'd be like, Okay,what's what's my uniform?
This is the uniform, this iswhat we're wearing today.
That's what everyone's wearing.
This is what we do on Tuesdayswhen we're in Mount Fuji or
whatever.
Um, there's no thought processthere, you just put it on.
Getting up in the morning andchoosing from five shirts is
(14:23):
really complicated.
And I I go back to a Frenchexpressions, and I'm sure
there's a good Englishexpression.
If you find it, please let meknow.
But the French expression is toomany choices is like not enough.
When people go to thisCheesecake Factory, they take a
long time before making adecision because that menu is
overwhelming.
And that the same thing, if yougo to some French restaurant
(14:44):
with three choices, it's also asdaunting because you get that
wrong, everything's wrong.
And I think that that's whatyou're kind of describing when
you talk about the militarysystem, and in general, any
military-paramilitary decisionmaking, and that's where the
first responders fall.
They're not quite military, butthey're definitely paramilitary.
SPEAKER_02 (15:02):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and you know, they'reexactly the same way.
Here's your uniform, this iswhat time you show up, this is
the work you're gonna do.
You're going to make a thousanddecisions during the day about
how to protect the public,rescue the person, put out the
fire, like really wicked hardstuff.
But you kind of have thebandwidth to make those really
(15:24):
hard decisions because you haddidn't have to decide, oh, am I
wearing my blue shirt today?
Oh, am I gonna wear the red one?
SPEAKER_01 (15:30):
Like, yeah, no, I know what I'm wearing every day.
Um, I I know for me, I know whatI wear every day, something as
casual as I possibly can.
And just uh shout out to ourconversation right before this.
But yeah, no, I think thatthat's part of it.
You know, like one of the thingsthat again, I've been told, and
you correct me if I'm wrong.
Sometimes I've heard theexpression that the Coast Guard
(15:52):
is are the first responders ofthe military branch, and so you
get a lot of like rescues, youget a lot of those things that
you have to do because you'rethe Coast Guard.
Am I wrong, by the way?
Number one, and number two, isthat what makes you kind of like
understand a little more aboutthe first responder world?
SPEAKER_02 (16:09):
Yeah, I think the the Coast Guard very much is a
first responder organizationbecause bad stuff happens out
there on the water, and it's theCoast Guard who's expected to
show up and and fix it, whetherthat's a hurricane that's
coming, an oil spill, search andrescue mission, law enforcement,
drugs, counterterrorism, namethe thing.
SPEAKER_01 (16:30):
Capsize.
SPEAKER_02 (16:31):
Yeah, I mean, we're the only military organization
that's allowed to functioninside the United States uh
without violating a ton of laws.
And so we, you know, or thatweird mix of like, yeah, we're
military, we're kind ofparamilitary also, and we're
definitely first responder.
SPEAKER_01 (16:48):
And that's go ahead.
SPEAKER_02 (16:50):
Well, and so it was that connection to understanding
what you know, I'm not a cop,I'm not a firefighter, I'm not a
paramedic, but I understand thementality of I'm out there
serving the people who I liveamongst in my community, because
when bad stuff happens, somebodyneeds to show up.
Right.
And the trauma that a persondoing that work undergoes while
(17:13):
doing that job is exactly likewhat the Coast Guard's going
through.
You know, whether you're goingto a house fire or a boat fire,
if you're having to sift throughthe ashes to find the person
hopefully still alive, it's thesame kind of moral injury.
I joined this organization tosave life, and today maybe I
wasn't able to save life, youknow.
SPEAKER_01 (17:35):
Which is really brings up the trauma that you
kind of face on a regular basis,with you know, again, the Coast
Guard and all that.
I've I've been clear on thispodcast, but I like to always
remind people I've never servedin the military, I have never
been a first responder in mylife.
I'm a mental health counselorwho's worked with both organized
like those types oforganizations for a long time,
(17:57):
but I don't pretend I'm one ofthem.
So sometimes I go, hey, I don'tknow.
And it's okay for me to saythat.
But I think that with the traumathat the Coast Guard, and
particularly I talk about, youknow, I live in New England,
there's a lot of cap-sizedboats, and I know what those
rescues can look like.
And it's not like, well, theweather's not it's not it's bad,
we can't go, we're gonna wait acouple of days.
(18:19):
No, and they're they gotta gowhen they're called in, whether
it's on a boat, whether it's ona helicopter, they go out.
And you get there, maybe theperson's good, person's dead,
person has hypothermia, person'shaving a stroke, person,
whatever.
You it's a very unpredictablescene when you get there.
And I think that that sometimescauses a little bit of trauma.
(18:39):
And I know that part of grief istrauma too.
Uh, you want to explain a littlebit about that in the sense that
how's your experience reallyhelped you being a first
responder of the military worldand how to address that trauma
for those first responders whomay not know how to deal with it
because you will face it whetheryou like it or not?
SPEAKER_02 (18:58):
Yeah, so you know, full uh disclosure, most of my
career in the Coast Guard wasnot spent going out and doing
that kind of work where I wasrescuing the folks and seeing
that firsthand.
My job was actually trying toprevent that from happening by
inspecting ships and facilitiesand treating the waterway kind
of like a Department ofTransportation treats a highway,
(19:19):
so that we didn't have to gosave people from a burning boat.
We inspected it and the boat wasfine.
But the people that I workedalongside who did have to do
that work, you could tell thatthere was nothing that the
military did.
There was nothing that the CoastGuard did to prepare them for
the moral injury that they weregoing to receive from doing that
(19:44):
work with the best ofintentions, expecting that
they'd get there in time and theperson would be okay.
And I think that the CoastGuard's a very small
organization that is given awide amount of latitude to do
its job the way it sees better.
Oftentimes without sufficientresources.
And so we're very inventive andvery quick.
(20:07):
There's no bureaucracy when itcomes to going out and saving
life.
That bias for action leads us toa hyperactive sense of like,
okay, we got to go out and wegot to do this thing right now.
Okay, get it done, get it done,get it done.
And we get it done.
But then there's anotheraccident, there's another
hurricane, there's another badthing that comes, and there's
(20:29):
not enough time to take a breathbefore you're out there doing it
again.
And we get habituated to thisidea of move as fast as you can,
get out there and get the thingdone.
There's never time to like takea deep breath and go, okay,
let's go process how we feelabout the thing that we just got
done doing.
And unfortunately, because we'rea zero-defect organization, you
(20:54):
don't know that a person's beenimpacted until they get their
first EUI, until they have theirfirst domestic violence
incident, until they have a fullmental break.
And then we find out that, oh,that's because of work that I
did a decade ago that I neverfully processed and worked out
with a therapist or a mentalhealth professional.
(21:16):
And so those people are doingfantastic work and they're
taking such a ridiculous mentaltoll that nobody knows about it
until it's after the fact of thebad thing that happens that
reveals, oh yes, it's because ofthis.
And I'm sorry, I probably didn'teven answer your question, but
like But I no, I think you did.
SPEAKER_01 (21:37):
I think that one of the things that I'm gonna
gravitate towards, and I'll giveyou the full leeway of saying,
Steve, I don't want to talkabout this if you don't.
But I will tell you that whatyou just explained, there's also
where I feel leadership alsosays, okay, go to the next call,
go to the next call, go to thenext call.
That's the first responderworld.
You have very few and farbetween leadership that says,
(22:01):
listen, that was a rough call,get on the sidelines.
You need a day, you needwhatever.
And that goes for the militaryand the first responder world,
by the way.
They're just like, no, go to theother one, go to the other one,
go to the other one.
I think that that plays a factortoo, because that becomes an
institutional trauma that iscreated.
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong,and it's hard to address that
(22:22):
part unless you get theleadership to buy into it.
SPEAKER_02 (22:24):
Yeah, I think even if you had leadership buy into
this idea of the work we do ishard, we need to prep our folks
to be ready for the traumaticevent.
Then we need to have post-eventtime to figure out what it is
and what that did to the person.
Sometimes it's just a matter ofbench strength.
(22:47):
If I take these three people orfour people who are on this call
out of the game because they allneed to process this thing, I
don't have sufficient people forthe next bad thing.
Right.
Because the department's toosmall or the station is too
small or whatever it is.
And like, well, no, we still gotto get it done.
That's the job we signed up for.
That's what we get paid to do.
(23:07):
And so even though you'restruggling because you had this
really bad case yesterday,sorry, you got to go out again
today.
There's nobody else to takeover.
Right.
And so leadership could becompletely on board with like,
yeah, we need to talk about thisstuff, we need to process this
stuff.
Uh, and I'm still gonna make yougo out when we need to.
SPEAKER_01 (23:26):
Okay.
So let me then let me be uhdevil's advocate here for a
second.
So if we know that part of thisgo, go, go mentality can cause,
you know, long-term trauma, evenlong-term grief.
Even if we have leadership onboard, we're short staff or we
have just enough staff and youstill have to go out.
(23:48):
How do you recommend peoplelearn to deal with that grief or
that trauma of some like it'snot always PTSD for the record,
it's trauma, there's adifference.
But how do we teach people howto deal with that?
Because some people like, youknow, the old way, and you can
correct me if I'm wrong, is buryit as far as you can.
Um, we saw how helpful that waswhen people came back from
(24:08):
Vietnam.
But anyway, that's just my twocents on my little message.
So, how do we encourage people,knowing that the bench is is
short, we don't have anybodyelse, but we want to encourage
the process.
How do we how can we do that?
SPEAKER_02 (24:23):
So, this is kind of what we wanted to address with
Mind Strong Guardians when westarted it was let's give people
a vocabulary for moral injury,for traumatic events, for all
these things, because we'llspend millions of dollars on uh
personal protective equipment,right?
A firefighter knows how to dontheir their suit and put on
(24:46):
their SCBA and go fight thefire.
And if any of that stuff isn'ton right, they can't fight the
fire because the heat's gonnaget them, the smoke's gonna get
them, and they can't stay in thefight.
But I don't know that we spendany money on mental PPE.
We're not prepping them withvocabulary and an understanding
(25:08):
of when you go do this work andyou see this thing, your brain
and your body are going torespond this way, and that's
completely normal.
It's not something to be ashamedof, it's not something to hide.
It's something that when we comeback to the station, the
department, the whatever,everybody in the organization
(25:28):
knows how to talk about this,not necessarily to fix, but
maybe just event.
Like today was hard.
Like the thing I saw, I I'mmessed up.
Like, I hear you, and you're notalone.
I'm messed up too.
And this sucks.
But maybe that's just enough ofa relief that when the next
siren goes off and the next callneeds to be made, that it's just
(25:53):
a little bit better than itwould have been if it was like,
no, we're all tough and we'reall strong and we're just gonna
bury it down deep and pretendlike nothing's wrong.
And tomorrow we'll go getshit-faced, you know, rinse,
wash, and repeat.
SPEAKER_01 (26:06):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (26:06):
And I think, you know, much to the conversation
that you were having with Blytheon the last podcast she was on,
this younger generation sees thebenefit of mental health
conversations.
And when they're old enough tobe middle management or senior
management, I hope that they'recapable of instituting
(26:27):
preventative measures so that wehave mental PPE and we spend as
much time and money on it as wedo all the other ridiculous
training that you have to takein an organization like that.
Because holy cow, like, yeah,it's all well and good for me to
know how to put on my flash hoodbefore I put on my mask and put
on my SCBA.
(26:49):
But if I'm not gonna be wellbecause I'm expecting that every
time I go out on a call, I'mgonna fight the fire and save
the person and everything'sgonna be okay.
My brain's not gonna be able tofunction when it sees that's not
true.
SPEAKER_01 (27:01):
And I think that that's where I go with a lot of
the stuff that we've beenthrough in life, including
myself, is we don't do thepreventive work, but you talked
about you did in the Coast Guardwas a lot of preventive work.
Uh, fire firefighters did thatwith you know, fire alarms and
sprinklers and the whole nineyards.
In the mental health world, Ithink that we fix the problem
(27:23):
after it happened.
We never do the prevention andthe buildup for that.
So that's why for me, what youjust said is so important, not
only for the military, but thefirst responder world.
You know, that's why I advocateand run a business that talks
about wellness visits.
I talk about having peer supportbecause you know, you don't want
to talk to some schmo like me ona wellness visit or in therapy,
(27:45):
then you have your peers.
And if not, you have a crisisintervention specialist that can
come and help you out when thereis a big crisis and that
everyone thinks, yes, we need toaddress that as a team.
I think that what we need tolearn to do is if we do wellness
and we do preventative work,we're gonna have less need, and
not that we won't need them, butwe will need less therapists,
(28:05):
less group, and less peersupport because we're gonna
address the PPE prior to it.
I think that that's what mindfulguardians wanted to do, and I
think that that's what we needto do in the first responder
world too.
That's just my experience.
SPEAKER_02 (28:18):
Yeah.
You know, nobody in the militaryor first responder world has a
personal trainer at the gym.
unknown (28:26):
Right?
SPEAKER_02 (28:27):
They go to the gym, they work out, buddies show them
different tips and tricks tomaximize strength and agility
and speed and all the otherstuff.
And, you know, you talk about itall the time.
Like, hey man, show me how to dothat that move.
What give me a workout routinethat's good for you?
And no big deal, right?
(28:47):
We're all talking about ourphysical health.
SPEAKER_01 (28:49):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (28:50):
Wouldn't it be amazing if we could do the same
thing with mental health?
SPEAKER_01 (28:53):
If you expect me to argue with you, I will
absolutely not.
One of the things that I wouldsay to you is part of it is, you
know, I'm I share this regularlyon my podcast.
For those of you who want tospeed up for the next 15 or 30
seconds, it's fine.
But one of the things brought meto my job was losing my best
(29:14):
friend when I was 12.
And I was way alone in thatgrief for many years.
And I don't blame my parents, Idon't blame anyone in this
world, it just happened.
But I didn't get any of thatsupport.
So when people ask me why do youdo this job?
It's pretty easy.
I never want anyone to feel thatalone ever in any population,
particularly my first responderworld.
(29:36):
But I think that everyone comesin with a personal story, and I
know that you went into theCoast Guard, probably have a
personal story on that.
But more importantly, I thinkthat becoming a grief coach
probably has a personal storythat goes with that.
I know you talked a little bitabout your ex, well, not your
widowed.
So talked about that wife andlosing her.
And I think that there's otherstuff, but I just want to throw
(29:59):
that out for you.
See what you know if you want totalk about that.
SPEAKER_02 (30:03):
Yeah, I mean, I got into grief coaching specifically
because I lost my wife toovarian cancer in February of
2024.
We thought she was experiencingperimenopause symptoms because
that was the age that she wasat.
And for six months, it wasgetting a little worse and a
little worse.
And she finally went to thedoctor and they said, Yeah, you
(30:23):
have stage three B cancer, andwe need to do a radical surgery
to take all that stuff out, andthen you need to start the chemo
and radiation.
And four months after thesurgery, she was gone.
And so it was it was a veryquick decline.
And so I was full-time caregiverand appointment maker and pill
(30:45):
pusher and all that fun stuff.
I had a junior in high school athome, uh, and our older son was
living in the area.
But what I what I found in thatgrief event of losing my wife
was that it resurrected stufffrom losing my dad when I was 11
that I don't know that I fullyprocessed because I was 11.
(31:08):
Like, how the hell does an11-year-old process losing their
dad?
And one thing that probablypushed me towards working with
Blythe was recognizing that nomatter how many grief events you
have in your life, you nevertruly get over them.
You just learn how to processthem in a way that doesn't make
even it doesn't make itdebilitating for the rest of
(31:29):
your life.
Uh, my therapist said that myfirst wife will be with me for
the rest of my life.
She will be an ever-present partof me.
And I really didn't like it whenshe said it.
It's like, I don't need a ghostfollowing me around for the rest
of my life.
But for 19 years, she was mywife.
(31:51):
And that means that, yeah,spiritually, physically, like
however you want to describe it,we were an entity together.
And to have a portion of meremoved changes a person.
And if you don't know how totalk about that stuff and
process that grief, that is adebilitating thing that can end
(32:14):
your life as well.
I'm thankful that I have afantastic support network of
family and friends, uh, peoplewho love me and care for me, and
that I was very open and honestabout the way I felt as I was
going through those first monthsof losing her.
And I feel that I did a decentjob of processing my grief.
(32:38):
Now, I still went out and soughtout therapy because I realized
that I wasn't doing as great ajob as I thought I was.
But like you, I felt horriblelosing my wife and saw people
who had lost their spouse andwere in that same mindset years
or decades later.
(32:59):
And I felt so bad for them.
I was like, I don't want anybodyto feel stuck in grief like that
for the rest of your life.
And that's one reason why Idecided to go in the direction
of grief coaching, because Ifeel that I have done a good job
of processing my grief, that Iam healthier than I was uh after
losing her.
(33:20):
I got remarried.
I graduated as a son from highschool, he's in college now.
I married off my other son, Imoved houses.
Like there's been a lot of churnin my life this last 12 months,
but it's all really good stuff.
And I think it's because I didreally hard work, and I don't
want anybody to feel likethey're doomed to be stuck in
(33:40):
their grief.
You can get unstuck, you canhave a life of joy again, but
it's not easy.
SPEAKER_01 (33:46):
Well, first of all, thank you for sharing that.
Really appreciate you, and Iappreciate you sharing that
story.
And I think that that's wherestrength comes from, in my
opinion, is sharing yourstories.
I think that one of the thingsthey teach us in counseling
psych is to remove the personfrom the therapy so the other
person can be themselves.
(34:07):
Well, in fact, denying your whoyou are in a room is the worst
thing you could ever do.
And I'm sure that being a goodgrief coach, you bring yourself
and your own grief that you'vebeen through and you're still
working on.
It might be in the rearviewmirror in some ways, but will
never disappear.
But really, really helps thepeople you talk to, and I give
you a lot of credit for having astory like yours and being able
(34:28):
to share it.
SPEAKER_02 (34:29):
Yeah, thanks.
Uh grief coaching specifically,I think, is the only kind of
coaching where the coach shouldhave the life experience of the
client.
I think in any other coachingsituation, the less I know about
you and the thing that you arecoming to me with, the better,
because then I can be curiousand do a really good job of
helping you figure out what youneed in life.
(34:53):
But specifically for griefcoaching, if I can't come
alongside you and say, I feelthe pain that you feel because I
went through the thing you wentthrough, then there's there's a
disconnect.
Like, well, then how can youhelp me?
You can't really help me throughthis thing if you haven't gone
through it yourself.
Because no one understands ituntil you've done it, until
you've lived through ityourself.
SPEAKER_01 (35:13):
I would argue that you're right.
I think that we all go throughgrief.
The more complicated grief likeyours may not be the same.
And I think that life experiencereally helps.
I also believe firmly that whileI've never had schizophrenia, I
can work with people withschizophrenia, but I prefer
working with people who, youknow, I again, I don't steal any
valor, I didn't do any of thosethings, but I've been on, you
(35:35):
know, scenes.
I've been out on, you know, thefires, the medicals, the mental
health, and everything inbetween with the police.
And having that hands-onexperience makes me a more
credible therapist, but moreimportantly, it makes me
understand a little more.
I don't understand fully, but Iunderstand a little more.
And I think that there'sspecific worlds where we need
(35:57):
that experience.
I don't need to haveschizophrenia to understand
schizophrenia, but that doesn'tmean I fully understand it and I
gotta be curious.
I think I go back to what yousaid about grief.
I think that I know a lot aboutgrief, but I'm still curious as
to how people go through grief.
So I think that curiosity alsogoes with the grieving process,
whether you're a coach or atherapist for that.
SPEAKER_02 (36:18):
Yeah, I agree with that.
I think that regardless of theamount of grief that you've
experienced, you've onlyexperienced your grief.
And grief is like a fingerprintbecause you're a unique person
and the person that you've lostwas unique and your relationship
was unique.
No other person had the samerelationship that you did with
that person.
SPEAKER_01 (36:38):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (36:38):
And so I'll never understand a client's grief.
I'll be able to speak tosimilarities in the way that I
felt, or the idiot things thatother people said trying to help
me.
But more than anything, I thinkit's just saying to the client,
I don't understand what you'refeeling, but I felt something
(37:00):
similar.
And here's something about myloved one that I lost that I can
say honestly.
And maybe it's the first timethat that person's been given
permission to say something thatdidn't deify or lionize the
individual.
Because people are complex andgood and bad, and like there
(37:21):
might be something about personthat you lost that you're kind
of glad that they're not aroundanymore because life's a little
bit easier.
Well, you can't say that tofamily and friends.
No, but you can say it to acoach, you can say it to a
therapist, and being able to behonest and tell your story about
something is freeing.
SPEAKER_01 (37:41):
Right.
And um, I'm just gonna do a PSAhere for everyone.
When someone dies for whoeverthey forever reason, including
the cat, the dog, whoever peoplecare for, don't tell them
they're at a better placebecause that's an insult to
where they were next to you inyour life.
So that's never good advice.
(38:01):
So just if you're listening tothis, never say to someone
they're at a better place.
Because my first instinct whenpeople say that to me, how do
you fucking know?
So just want to put my PSAmoment here because I hear that
too often and it just drives mewild.
SPEAKER_02 (38:15):
Yeah, and that's perfect.
The best thing to say to thatperson who lost somebody or
something that they care andlove about is that sounds really
hard.
Death loss sucks.
There's nothing good about it atall.
That thing was here, that personwas here, and now they're not,
and I miss it, and it sucks.
SPEAKER_01 (38:36):
And I'm my favorite line is when people say they
lost someone, whoever, or evenan animal, because people
dismiss animals, but not me.
I always go, I have no clue howyou're feeling.
I've had my own grief, but itcan't be the same as yours.
Tell me more about it.
So I think that's another goodway to kind of explain to people
what we can go through and tellthem.
(38:57):
But as we approach the end ofthe time here, I can't believe
we went on, we went really fast.
I just realized that.
How about you tell people whatyou're doing now?
I mean, I'll never lose the thethe dream of doing mindful
guardians again with you, I'llbe honest with you.
But since we're not doing thatright now, what are you working
on?
SPEAKER_02 (39:16):
So uh I'm a mentor coach in Blythe's uh grief to
purpose program, helping takestudents through both their own
grief process, but also trainingthem up to be uh trauma-informed
grief coaches.
SPEAKER_01 (39:28):
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (39:29):
I hope to start working with first responders
through a company that's gonnahire me uh to be a grief coach.
They they kind of have a uh a12-month long program with
psychiatrists, therapists, peerrecovery specialists, and uh and
coaches.
And so I look forward to workingwith first responders through
(39:49):
that program.
And then otherwise, I am stillrunning my my own company, Manly
Grief.
Don't really have a website, butI'm on Instagram.
And I'm taking individualclients for grief coaching.
And uh yeah, that's that's mostof what I'm doing right now.
SPEAKER_01 (40:08):
I encourage everyone to go to his Instagram, always
good stuff.
I actually follow him, and youcan check if I'm following him
because it's the truth.
But yes, Blight's program isreally good, and I'm happy that
you're doing that.
Working with the first responderand having a program like you
just talked about is soimportant.
It's unfortunate because I wasin the Virginia area of
Washington, DC uh a few monthsago, and I wish we could have
(40:30):
connected.
But at one point we're gonnaconnect again, I hope.
Yeah, that would be great.
But I'll put all that in theshow notes, even though you
don't have a website.
I think follow him on Instagram,reach out to him for grief.
He has experience, you haven'theard half his experience, if
you ask me here.
And as a helper, but also as hisown life.
(40:50):
So Justin, I I can't tell youhow much I appreciate having you
on again.
Hopefully, we'll have you onagain soon, and we can talk more
about grief and what you'redoing because that sounds super
interesting with the firstresponder meeting.
SPEAKER_02 (41:03):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, and I appreciate
being on the podcast again.
It's always good talking to you.
SPEAKER_01 (41:08):
Well, I want to thank you and thank everyone
who's listening for episode 235with Justin.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou in the next episode.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (41:18):
Please like, subscribe, and follow this
podcast on your favoriteplatform.
A glowing review is alwayshelpful.
And as a reminder, this podcastis for informational,
educational, and entertainmentpurposes only.
If you're struggling with amental health or substance abuse
issue, please reach out to aprofessional counselor for
consultation.
If you are in a mental healthcrisis, call 988 for assistance.
(41:42):
This number is available in theUnited States and Canada.
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