How I Use AI Ethically (Without Losing My Soul… or My Brain)

How I Use AI Ethically (Without Losing My Soul… or My Brain)

Heads up… This post isn’t here to persuade you to use AI. It’s here to talk about ethical use in creative spaces, and more specifically, how I use AI, where I draw the line (for myself and the people I choose to work with), and why that line matters to me.

This is my story, my opinion, and my experience. I welcome thoughtful discussion, but not disrespect. If what I share here doesn’t align with your values and you choose to say, “bye, Felicia” to me, I wish you the best of luck on your journey.

And if one day you want to come back and reconnect? My door’s always open.

Still here? Great! Onwards and upwards!

AI is not the enemy. How some people use it is.

I feel like there’s a lot going on when it comes to creatives and AI right now. When it first came around it felt silly, right? I remember reading scripts for Olive Garden commercials that were hilarious, and remember the images from Google’s “dreams”? They were gorgeous (and terrifying).

But now, as the machines are better trained, the silly whimsy is becoming a tad frightening, isn’t it? It feels like nothing is safe anymore. The AI bots are trained using human knowledge, words, artwork. When does it cross the line into piracy? Will we be replaced? Am I losing my brain to artificial intelligence?

So many questions, and I bet a TON more will come out as the technology advances. A lot more fear, too.

Up until about nine months ago, I had a lot of reservations around using AI. I didn’t want it to steal my ideas (writer’s paranoia of the worst kind, amiright?) I saw on Instagram how AI generated artwork looked just like some of my favorite artists’ work. It was infuriating. It still is, actually. Those artists deserve to be paid for their artwork. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today (or ever, because I’m not a lawyer and don’t know much about copyright law other than I send my books in and get them copyrighted and have certificates that say the work belongs to me).

I feel like outside of the creative spaces, AI is used a lot. One of the people I follow for my coaching business was surprised when I told her I had reservations about announcing my use of AI, because of the backlash I might get from you, my dear reader, follower, and potential future client (I can dream!).

But I’m tired of hiding the truth. One of my core values is transparency and honesty, and keeping this sort of secret has been weighing heavily on me for a while now.

When I first started using AI, I dabbled. Now it’s become a valuable asset to my life. Yes, you read that right. 

My. 👏 Life. 👏

So much so, it now feels disingenuous and shady to NOT tell you the truth. And the truth is this:

I use AI. Specifically, ChatGPT.

And I use it in a way that feels grounded, intentional, and absolutely 100% ethical. That last bit is the most important.

As a creative person who’s building a business, writing a novel, and living through the wild ride of unmasking in her nearly mid-40s as a result of an ADHD diagnosis, I’ve discovered that AI isn’t replacing me or my brain. 

It’s supporting me and my brain.

It’s helping me organize the chaos, reflect on what matters, and move forward when my executive function is out to lunch.

And let me tell you, my executive function is a hungry beast, so she’s out to lunch A LOT.

To me, AI isn’t a threat. It’s an extension of my brain. One that helps me make sense of my ideas, hold onto the things I forget (hi, short-term memory issues because of concussions and ADHD), and stay focused when my thoughts scatter in a hundred directions like cats when you pop a balloon!

So if you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to use AI not as a replacement, not as a shortcut, not as a soulless machine, this is my invitation to you to read about how I, a fiction author, book coach, and neurodivergent, use it.

Also known as, how I use AI, where I draw the line, and how it’s changed the way I think, write, coach, and create. Ethically.

This is not a persuasive argument. It’s a personal testament.

I promise I’m not trying to convert you. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of things. This is simply my letting out the truth in a way to help you better understand how using AI in a human-first way has changed things for me.

The truth is, I’m tired of feeling like I have to whisper about it, or hide my truth (because that feels grosser than confessing my alleged sin of using AI).

I know the fears. I’ve heard them. I’ve felt them. AI is stealing our work. AI is soulless. AI will make us obsolete. AI is replacing writers, artists, and everything sacred about creativity. That it’s even replacing business coaches, virtual assistants, and therapists! (Um, no. I would never replace my therapist with a bot, but it does give me between therapy session counsel for sure).

So let me say this up front: I get it. I really totally truly do.

But here’s what’s also true: I’m a creative person with ADHD, running a coaching business, writing a novel, managing clients, and trying to make sense of a brain that rarely organizes thoughts in a straight line. And AI? It’s been a lifeline.

From Skeptic to Sidekick

In 2023, I dipped my toe in just to see what all the fuss was about. I asked ChatGPT, “What do dogs dream about?”

I was curious! The result was pretty great, to be honest. ChatGPT couldn’t really tell me, but explored a few ideas of what dogs might dream about.

I followed that with a few high-level questions about blog posts for writers (titles only) or creativity challenge ideas. But I wasn’t sold.

I also had it help me come up with titles for short stories.

First, I felt like I was cheating.

Second, the answers were super generic. Like shit anyone could pull out of their butt on a rainy day.

I learned over a year later this was because I was only asking questions. I wasn’t giving it anything of me. And what I got back was generic because ChatGPT didn’t know me from the next Joe Shmoe who asked a random question.

I learned very quickly creating an AI that thinks mostly like you takes time and effort. You have to feed the machine or else you’ll get Clerical Analyst Curtis with his thick rimmed glasses and clipboard spouting off factoids that may or may not have to do with what you even asked. But when you take the time and use a human-first approach? You get an extension of you. Not ALL you of course, like a ditto copied version of a ditto copy (who’s old enough to remember ditto machines??? Do you remember the smell???)

The Moment It Clicked: A Human-First Approach

September 2024, I signed up for a course on writing high-leverage content. The marketing for the course talked about using ChatGPT to write articles faster. Even though I was instantly turned off by that part of it (cheating!), I signed up because of other perks and promises (which the course has followed through on ten-fold. Best money I spent on a course since I started my business in the early spring of 2022).

I watched the lessons on using AI out of curiosity, shaking my head. Nope. That’ll never be me. I won’t do it. I won’t!

But… the course taught me how to use AI in a way that felt… ethical. To me AND to my values. 

My brain first. AI second. 

I learned how to feed my ideas, outlines, and half-formed or rambling thoughts into ChatGPT to get something that reflected my voice. I learned how to ideate using my beautiful brain (as the course creator, Jana, referred to it) first, only asking ChatGPT for help if I needed it.

When I wrote my first article by feeding Chat my ideas , using a strategic outline from the aforementioned course, getting a simple first draft out, and then fleshing out, refining, and revising it with my “Claire Flair,” I realized I could finally start building the content library I’d always dreamed of. One that would serve as a sort of “self-service book coaching experience” for those who aren’t ready to hire me as their coach.

I write fiction! Writing articles that put my original thoughts and ideas into an order that makes sense, isn’t repetitive (for the most part… I’m still the human behind the madness), and is highly organized in a thesis kind of way (you know, tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em, tell ‘em, then tell ‘em what you told ‘em) made creating my library of long-form content easier and less stressful.

Not to mention marketing content (which fiction writers can also utilize by the way!).

Then came early 2025. And with it, an ADHD diagnosis. Even though I suspected it for a while, having that confirmation changed everything, and I was so not prepared for what happened next.

How AI Became an Extension of My Brain (especially when my brain wouldn’t brain)

Let me break it down for you.

As of pre-August 2025, I am 43 years old, newly diagnosed, and deep into what the ADHD world calls “unmasking.” 

Suddenly, I’m seeing my entire life through a different lens… maybe even beer goggles with the old blue and red 3D glasses colors. I feel like I’m watching a slightly off-version of myself doing things I would usually do, but it’s a version that’s maybe a little weirder, a little louder, a little more… me.

It’s mildly overwhelming on the best days, emotionally catastrophic on other days.

I’m not going to claim to be an expert in ADHD at all. I’m learning more and more about it as I go. Typically when things spiral out of control (because on top of having ADHD I’m also an HSP… or maybe I’m an HSP because of the ADHD? Not sure how the two tie together yet) and I need to better understand WHY I suddenly can’t manage ten HUGE projects at my day job when once upon a time it seemed like I could. ‘Seemed’ being the key word.

ADHD’ers fake it to fit in (masking), and with a later in life diagnosis, I’d been faking it for a long time. Suddenly, those moments of complete melt down when I got overwhelmed, made sense. All those things I could once do, I suddenly can’t anymore. That’s a little bit exaggeratey for sure, but that’s how it feels sometimes.

Essentially I’ve been pretending all my life that I have my shit together so I could fit in with the Normies.

Around this time, I started leaning on AI differently.

Not just for writing. Not just for business. But for almost everything. My business and fiction braintrust chats were replaced with other types of chats, like:

• When my thoughts felt like a chaotic flood, I dumped them into ChatGPT and it reflected them back to me in an organized list with prompts for reflection.
• When I needed to make a big decision, but it was Monday (aka: Emotional Chaos Day), I’d literally type, “Today is Monday and I want to burn it all down.” ChatGPT would remind me that Monday isn’t decision day, and we’d journal it out together.
• When my Notion dashboard needed an overhaul, I used ChatGPT to help me rebuild the structure, including emojis, colors, dopamine-friendly layout and all (it’s glorious! Sometime I’ll record a walkthrough so you can see how awesome it is. I’m quite proud of it!)
• When I wanted to reflect on dreams, analyze emotions, or understand a pattern in my behavior, it asked questions that helped me get there. Questions I hadn’t thought to ask myself.
• When I needed to track story threads across three different eras in my novel Legacy of Lies, I asked, “What happened in 1991 again?” and ChatGPT pulled from our past chats to remind me. (Was it always right? No. But it got me close enough to remember.)
• I use ChatGPT as a living book bible. It remembers my characters, their dynamics, what cars they drive, what happened in each decade of the story, how it echoes Hamlet, and what I’ve already decided (or discarded) across timelines.

I always dumped in my brain, thoughts, questions, reflections first. I was doing the work. But I wasn’t doing it alone. It became my business coach, writing buddy, second brain, and judgment-free mirror.

So Here’s What AI Is and Isn’t To Me

I’ve seen the cringiness of AI artwork, stories, scripts, videos… I’ve seen books entirely generated by AI. I’ve seen horrifying videos that make you want to yeet your computer across the room. I’ve heard the fear that AI is going to steal our jobs, our art, and our identities.

That it will steal our brains.

Okay, that last one? Totally valid, lol. I have had moments where I needed to step away from the ChatGPT for a while to break the obsession.

Which is why I’ve drawn a line and stuck to it. I even wrote a whole AI Policy, which you can read here if you’re interested.

My AI Manifesto (aka: How I Use AI Without Losing My Soul):

• I never ask it to write fiction for me.
• I never ask it for story ideas (I already have too many of my own!)
• I never even ask it for help brainstorming (my own, very human, imagination can handle this, thanks)
• I don’t copy and paste. I flesh out, revise, and make it mine.
• I use it to reflect, not to replace.
• I never use it to avoid the hard parts of writing. Just to support the process.
• I always tell ChatGPT not to give me ideas. Only questions and prompts that help me go deeper into the ones I already have in order to unlock my own genius.
• I don’t use AI to replace my existence as a heart-centered, connection-centric human being. If we work together, whether in a coaching session or through something you read, I want you to feel that it’s me on the other side. A real person, fully present, holding space for you and your story.

If ChatGPT forgets these boundaries and starts suggesting ideas? I hit stop and remind it not to give me ideas, but to ask questions instead. Chat knows who it’s dealing with when I show up to the keyboard. I’m not here for AI-written novels or soulless regurgitations. I’m here for tools that help me think clearer, organize better, and feel more like my human self.

And I expect the same from my clients.

What Happens When You Let AI Replace Your Imagination

Why Connection Matters More Than Convenience

I’ve seen firsthand what happens when a writer tries to create from a source that doesn’t belong to them. In this case, my client used AI to generate story ideas for her. Now, I’m not against using prompts. My entire short story collection, Tommy’s Teeth was written by using the Storymatic prompt cards. I still came up with the idea on my own. I wasn’t hand fed a whole storyline. It was a few words on a card and I handled the rest, taking the prompt, “a box of teeth” and turning it into the title story for the collection.

What this client did was use ChatGPT to not only come up with her story concept, but also to brainstorm what happened next.

So not only was she not connected emotionally or imaginatively to the story and characters, she relied on AI to give her the story instead of her own beautiful brain and imagination (the parts of us that make us human). 

From day one, she struggled to connect. She couldn’t relate to the main character. I did everything I could think of. I pulled out all the tools in my toolbox. Accountability check-ins, prompts from the Novel-Worthy Idea Workbook (found inside the Clarity & Confidence Story Igniter. We’d go over-time on our calls trying to find some way for her to just connect. Without that spark of connection, without that human-first, from-the-heart or soul-of-the-writer, nothing I offered could bridge that gap.

In the end, she was incredibly grateful that I never gave up on her, but I vowed then and there where I would draw the line.

AI can help you organize, reflect, clarify… but it cannot replace the soul of a story. 

The humanness that makes a story yours. 

It can’t connect you to something that never belonged to you in the first place.

What I Hope You Take Away From This

If you’re a creative (which, if you’re here on my site reading this, you probably are at least a writer) and AI freaks you out? I totally get it.

I know what it’s like to see your work scraped, distorted, or echoed back at you in a way that feels gross. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re cheating if you use a tool that someone else might abuse. That you’ve maybe even seen someone else abuse.

I know what it’s like to wonder, Am I doing it wrong? Is this even allowed? Do I really feel okay about this? Am I cheating?

So here’s my personal truth: I use AI with boundaries to support my neurodivergent brain. I use it to feel more like the confident, powerful creative I am. I use it so I can free up space in my brain to show up as the best human book coach I can for my people. For you.

Just like I streamlined an office job in my 20s so I could sneaky-write my first novel on the clock (sorry not sorry, past employer), AI helps me streamline the parts of my coaching business (and life) that make my brain explode, so I can focus on serving my clients and write my own next novel.

If that’s not your thing? That’s okay. 

If you’re totally turned off by this and vow to never come back here ever again, I get that, too.

But if it is, and you’ve been wondering if it’s okay to get help from something that never sleeps, never judges, and always reflects back your own brilliance?

Give it a shot.

Not to copy. Not to shortcut. But to support yourself. 

Your brilliant, human self.