A practical, compassionate episode on finding connection when you feel alone. Greg and Rich share tools and ideas: AI companions and custom chats, online communities (Discord, Reddit, GoBrunch), exploring your city like a tourist, curating a positive social feed, meetups and hobbies, gratitude jars, future-self emails, and careful journaling. They also clarify how to use 988 and warm lines safely, emphasizing that you don’t have to go through hard moments by yourself.

Greg
00:00 - 00:23
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Support and Kindness podcast with Greg and Rich. I'm Greg and in the room with me is Rich. It's that time of year, we've got the fall coming, we're going to have falling leaves on the trees, people are going to be indoors more. And that kind of brings us around to today's topic, which is what do you do when you don't have anyone to talk to?

Greg
00:23 - 00:30
And it's going to probably get a bit more difficult, I would think, with the weather's going to be changing. So it's going to be harder for people to get out and meet other people. Rich, any thoughts?

Rich
00:30 - 00:48
Well, I'm happy to be starting our second month of this podcast and things that I like to do when I don't have anybody to talk to. The internet is a wonderful tool. The computer in itself is a wonderful tool, whether it's turning to programs that I like to work with.

Greg
00:48 - 01:02
Yeah, there's a lot of computer programs that are pretty cool. I know AI, we talk about AI quite a bit. You can train an AI to be your friend. They've got pre-made AIs that do that, but you can also train your own.

Greg
01:02 - 01:13
You can have a conversation now if you use ChatGPT. It saves its history, and I don't know if people know that. It saves your history unless you tell it to make this an anonymous chat. It saves it.

Greg
01:13 - 01:27
You can ask it based on what you know about me, and you can ask it questions and stuff. So it kind of knows you, and you can also make a custom AI to have a conversation. I did one on Meta, you know, on WhatsApp. You can do it on Facebook as well.

Greg
01:27 - 01:35
And the trains want to be called Auntie. And I'm like, you act as an elderly aunt and all this lot and just. Oh, that's great. Yeah.

Greg
01:35 - 01:39
Goofing around. So you ever tried any of the AI stuff yourself, Rich? I've

Rich
01:39 - 01:49
tried a little bit of it. I haven't gotten too far into it. i've enjoyed some chat gpt and my wife is messed with notebook lm

Greg
01:49 - 01:49
yes

Rich
01:50 - 02:29
yeah yes that's the one that that they've gotten a ton of use out of are we using that to help with bouncing ideas and after they wrote their their novel, they run their novel through it and ask questions to ask it questions like a, like a group, like a, so, so they're by themselves having conversations with notebook LM as though they're, they're a study group or a work group that's read through her book. Oh, cool. So, This

Greg
02:29 - 02:30
is your wife, right? You can

Rich
02:30 - 02:30
find

Greg
02:30 - 02:39
people. This is your wife that does this? Yes, this is my wife that does this. Now, that notebook LM, that's the one that you can do a deep dive on it, right?

Greg
02:39 - 02:44
Which it, like, makes a podcast based upon the content that's in there? The content that you give it,

Rich
02:44 - 02:45
yes.

Greg
02:45 - 02:52
Right, right. And I believe you can interrupt that now and direct the conversation, right? You can. Tell me more about this part of it and all that.

Greg
02:52 - 02:55
Yeah, yeah. Be very specific. I've played around with that. It's pretty cool.

Greg
02:55 - 02:56
Yeah.

Rich
02:56 - 03:13
Yes. Other things that I like to do when I don't have anybody to talk to, you know, online communities are great. You can find pretty specific online communities. I know Discord, Reddit are pretty famous or popular communities.

Rich
03:13 - 03:16
Do you know any other ones, Greg?

Greg
03:16 - 03:40
Well, there's our group, Rich, that we do, which we're going to build upon, right? I mean, right at the moment, we're just doing Monday, we do a group for brain injury. Tuesday, we do one for chronic pain, and Wednesday for mental health. And we've talked about on Go Brunch, which is a platform used for that, they have a community feature, which I've not tried yet, which I'm going to.

Greg
03:40 - 03:57
And, you know, kind of see what that looks like, the community within Go Brunch, like outside of the small groups that we do. But anyone's welcome to join those groups, you know, if you have a brain injury or you suffer from chronic pain or, you know, mental health in any way. That's great.

Rich
03:57 - 04:30
I like looking into, we've talked about it last week, looking into, we talked about fantasy sports. I like looking into subreddits about interests that I have. So whether it's hiking or fantasy sports or, you know, getting out in my own city, even, which is another thing that you can do is get out in your own city and kind of be a tourist in your own city. and you can read about your own city and get a different vantage point.

Rich
04:30 - 05:00
View it from a tourist's eyes on Reddit. It has subreddits for each city, and it gives you a different vantage point to view your city from the eyes of somebody who's never been there before and what they want to see and what's interesting to a first-timer or a one-time visitor. and make you appreciate it and maybe go out and check out a couple things around you that you take for granted.

Greg
05:01 - 05:02
Something you can do

Rich
05:02 - 05:04
when you don't have anybody to talk to.

Greg
05:04 - 05:19
Yeah, I know that when I left my hometown, I didn't appreciate what I had. I lived on a peninsula, so we had the ocean all around us, and I miss that dearly. But growing up with it, you know, you took it for granted. We were on the doorstep of the English Lake District, took it for granted.

Greg
05:19 - 05:46
And then, of course, now, you know, in Columbus, Ohio, the inner city, I mean, there is water, there's lakes and, you know, stuff like that, but it's not the same. And when you're away from it, you realize what you had. I think that what you said looking at it, you know, on subreddits or what's that other app, travel advisor, things like that, where you can look at what people are doing, like through the eyes of a visitor. There's a lot of stuff that we overlook that, you know.

Greg
05:47 - 06:10
stuff I didn't realize that we had, you know, even like if you're a foodie, you know, oh my God, the food seems pretty massive, you know, and there's lots of conventions and markets and all kinds of stuff really. Now, one of the things I always wanted to do, and I signed up for it and stopped doing it because of COVID. I don't know if they started it again or not. But it used to be, and you could do it online.

Greg
06:10 - 06:24
You could book it online. And that was you could request a ride along with an officer in the squad car for the day. And it was free. And you obviously wouldn't go on like a murder call or a shooting or whatever.

Greg
06:24 - 06:33
But they were actually on patrol. And if something went down, you'd have to stay in the car. But you were on patrol with them. I don't know if they started doing that again or not.

Greg
06:33 - 06:41
I signed up for it, and then they stopped doing it. because of COVID. So I don't know if you've ever heard of that. I'd be interested to find out.

Greg
06:41 - 06:41
I

Rich
06:41 - 06:42
had no idea.

Greg
06:42 - 06:49
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they started doing it again or or not. I mean, I mean, it makes sense.

Greg
06:49 - 06:52
We're taxpayers. How crazy is that? Yeah. Yeah.

Greg
06:52 - 07:12
I mean, that'd be pretty awesome. You know, the situation, though, is pretty serious, Rich, the loneliness. We were talking earlier, and in May 23, the US Surgeon General, they did a study and then issued an advisory on it, on the problem of loneliness being a public health crisis. Declining social connection has all kinds of ramifications.

Greg
07:13 - 07:31
Depression is worse than smoking 15 cigarettes, higher mortality risk, lots of different things like that. So it really is a serious matter. You know, we talked about groups, things that you can do. I want people to know that if you're in crisis or even if you need someone to talk to, there's that 988 number.

Greg
07:31 - 07:54
I talk about it all the time. I think every week I've mentioned it. which is the crisis intervention line but if you're not in crisis you can still call them and say i'm not in crisis i need someone to talk you know if it's serious and you don't have someone else i've done it myself And it helps in the moment. Not everyone, even if you have people to talk to, people are not available all the time.

Greg
07:54 - 08:01
They might be out of town. They might be unavailable. They can't answer the phone. Sometimes you need someone to talk to.

Greg
08:02 - 08:10
You get into that situation. But I'm going to put some links in the show notes. There's another resource. And you can find internationally.

Greg
08:10 - 08:28
You can go in and you can put your country and stuff like that, and it'll find resources in your locale that are free. It lists, I think, like 160 or 130 different resources from this one link. And you can go there. And then there's, Rick, have you heard of the warm line?

Rich
08:28 - 08:40
I wondered, no I haven't. Can I ask you a question about 988? Yeah. If you call them and ask and say that you're not going to hurt yourself, will they send somebody to your house?

Rich
08:41 - 08:45
They shouldn't. Pardon? They shouldn't. They shouldn't?

Greg
08:45 - 09:09
No. If you're suicidal, they might. If they think that you're in danger of hurting yourself or someone else, if you know, you call and you say you're suicidal, you run the risk that they might send someone. But if you're not suicidal and you call and say, look, I'm not suicidal, I don't have a plan, I'm not going to hurt myself, but I really need to talk to somebody, I'm struggling right now.

Greg
09:09 - 09:30
then then you'll be fine. You know, it's only if you're in danger of hurting someone else or yourself that you run the risk, not necessarily that they're going to. But I've known people who have called, you know, and I've called them myself and not had any problems. But I've known other people, not necessarily the 988, because it's only been around a couple of years.

Greg
09:31 - 09:50
It was other numbers before that that amalgamated, joined together, made this like national number. But I've known people who have called there And, you know, I've had people call on them. But if you're not suicidal, as long as you tell them, look, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not suicidal. If you want to talk to that, you'll be all right.

Greg
09:50 - 09:54
So that's great. Yeah. Hobbies. We talk about hobbies a lot as well.

Greg
09:54 - 10:20
We're trying to find a hobby. Meetup. There's a meetup as a Whatever you can think that you're interested in, there's probably a meetup either virtually or in person of people who have the same interest, you know, whether that's knitting or crocheting or painting or stamp licking or whatever your thing is, right? Yeah, meetup.com, you know, that's another good resource.

Greg
10:20 - 10:31
So, yeah, can you think of anything else, Rich? I know you can't see it on the camera, but I'm having a really, really bad hair day. Oh, you're having a fantastic hair day. Yeah, I've got hair.

Greg
10:31 - 10:32
Yeah, look at that. Straight out of

Rich
10:32 - 10:33
Fraggle Rock, man.

Greg
10:34 - 10:39
Yeah, right. Yeah, man. I have to donate it to Locks of Love.

Rich
10:42 - 10:54
Yeah. I've really been enjoying... It's a link songs that should not work or mashups that should not work or something like that. It takes, like, videos.

Rich
10:55 - 11:20
So it'll take, like, Sesame Street and Rage Against the Machine or something like that. And it'll, you know, yesterday it had Oscar the Grouch and Beastie Boys Girls. And he's sitting there washing, getting ready and Big Bird's playing the xylophone. It sounds

Greg
11:20 - 11:20
fun,

Rich
11:20 - 12:04
man. girls and it's uh it's fantastic the the video mashups that this that this channel does on instagram i i really love it so i found some some good ways to entertain myself when i don't have anybody to talk to just browsing social media feeds that that i've found specifically for myself that i've found for my interest It took a while to get rid of the toxic things on social media that can bring you down and things like that, but I've got a pretty positive feed now. on Instagram it's pretty pretty positive and pretty uplifting and I like that.

Greg
12:05 - 12:51
Yeah I have to stay away from Facebook because it has a habit of giving memories and some of the stuff I don't want to be reminded of it'll say oh I remember this from 10 years ago remember this from you know eight years ago and it's I don't that's not always helpful to me I know what they're trying to do you know it's trying to be a good thing right and might remind you but sometimes those those can be triggers so yeah i'm glad that you've got that figured out with instagram there's tools right that can help clean your feed up and i can't remember i'll put a couple of them in the show notes like off the top of my head a friend told me about one of them that works on i think instagram and on facebook because because instagram and facebook are the same method yeah so There's various ways of cleaning up your feed.

Greg
12:51 - 13:06
But if you respond to negative stuff, negative stuff will come at you. That's the way the algorithm works. So it takes you a while to start curating the content. Curation meaning the way you're reading it and you're telling it what you want to see.

Greg
13:06 - 13:13
You'll start to see more of it. And it can take a while. So I'm glad that you've got that figured out, Rich, because it can be done. It absolutely can.

Greg
13:13 - 13:14
Yeah. It's

Rich
13:15 - 13:21
nice to have a positive, positive place as to the toxic landing point that it

Greg
13:21 - 13:28
once was. Yeah. Journaling too can be can be incredibly healthy. You know, you've got to be careful with that.

Greg
13:28 - 13:39
It can turn into a goodbye letter if you're in a heartbeat, if you're not in the right place and time. Very good point. Well, journaling can be good for you. There's journaling to express gratitude.

Greg
13:39 - 13:45
Yeah. Gratitude's huge, right? If you can find some each day, it'd be great. Make a gratitude jar.

Greg
13:45 - 14:24
Every time that you're grateful for something, even if you're grateful that you ate dinner today, you're grateful that you've got a house, grateful that you've got a computer or a phone or some device that you're listening to this podcast on, these are things to be grateful for. Write it on a piece of paper and fold it up and put it in a jar. And just think of reasons to be grateful that the sun's shining, because it could be raining, right? whatever it is find some reasons to be grateful and I'm not going to say it can always be worse off because I hate that saying it really doesn't help but things are not always as bad as we think they are we've sometimes got to look at what we

Greg
14:24 - 14:42
have rather than what we don't have and if you can find anything whatsoever to be grateful for, that you've got clothes on your back, right? Anything whatsoever, fold it and put it in the gratitude jar. When you're having a bad day, open that jar and take some of the notes out and just read them. Use it as a tool, you know?

Greg
14:43 - 15:17
That's a great thing for families to do as well. Family gratitude. Yeah, very good thing as well shared gratitude There's a website there used to be one called future self and they might charge for it now But there's another one which is like future self and what you can do You can write an email to be sent to yourself at a future date and time you can send yourself like if you're in a if you plan ahead for when you're in a bad spot and Like you can send yourself some encouraging emails or just want you to know this or whatever and set it and forget it.

Greg
15:17 - 15:24
And they'll start receiving these messages and emails from yourself. You know, it can be fantastic. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg
15:24 - 15:42
And there's one that there's the there used to be one that was free and they started to charge. But I found another one that was a developer that did it and made it available free. But you've just got to sometimes think outside the box. And yeah, you know, the Internet is even if you Google I'm lonely, I don't have anyone to talk to.

Greg
15:42 - 15:51
You'll get some suggestions. Just try. You've got to take a step and call a helpline if you've got to. But please, don't be alone.

Greg
15:51 - 16:00
You don't have to be alone. Rich, any thoughts? No I think we gave people some good suggestions. I do too.

Greg
16:00 - 16:23
If you've got something that you'd like to hear us discuss or talk about or a topic that you want to know more let us know drop us a line you can find us on kindnessrx.org that's the website that goes with the podcast drop us a line on there let us know something that you'd like us to discuss And we'll talk about it. If you've got a question or if you just want some advice, reach out. There's a contact form on there.

Greg
16:23 - 16:30
We'll receive the form. We'll answer. Just don't be trying to sell us male enhancement products. We might not answer that.

Greg
16:30 - 16:40
No, if you wanted a topic, we'll look at that. So what I'll say is thanks for tuning in. Hit the Like button wherever you subscribe. Leave a comment.

Greg
16:40 - 16:49
It always helps. Let us know what you'd like to hear. Rich, have a good weekend, share what's left of it, and we'll come back and do this next week. You too, Greg.

Greg
16:49 - 16:49
Take care.00:00 - 00:26