Greg
00:00 - 00:17
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour Podcast. Today is September 20th, 2025 and we're on episode 66. Not Route 66, but episode 66. But today's episode will be good as a trip on Route 66, I promise you.

Greg
00:17 - 00:26
Allegedly. Alessandra and I were talking before we came on air, and we were talking about loss. And loss can come in many shapes and forms. It could be loss of your health.

Greg
00:26 - 00:43
It could be loss of a loved one, employment, possessions, material things, relationships. And we thought that it would be a good question to ask, how does loss affect your creative work? Alessandra, how does loss affect your creative work?

Alessandra
00:44 - 01:02
Loss can be an absolute showstopper. You can have it all together, like with the finish line in view on a project. And loss can hit your life like a freight train. And it can take all that momentum and just blow it the hell apart.

Alessandra
01:02 - 01:43
Loss is something that against it we can feel or perceive that we're powerless, that we have no control, that we couldn't cause what happened or limit what happened or reverse what happened. Loss is a stinker and it can bring the creative process to a standstill. Loss is one of those things that is also highly defining about who you are as a person, the priority that a creative work project has taken in your life, but it can also define what a community is. So Creative Work Hour was formed on July 1st of 2021.

Alessandra
01:45 - 02:21
And we didn't really know what exactly it was going to be. We knew it was for people who wanted to get together in the interest of advancing their own creative work, that it wasn't going to be anything that we had ever experienced before. It was going to be something new, and we didn't know what that something new was going to be. But what happened straight away was we found that even though the community is small, tiny even, that are members when things in life happen, that this would be the first place that they would come.

Alessandra
02:21 - 02:51
And what I mean by coming here and to this place, Creative Work Hour, is a daily online community that is Available whether you need it or not. What we say is that we see you when we see you. So if you're working on something and you want the community support while you're working, we check in at the very beginning of the hour and then we all go to work on whatever that is. It's not a table read.

Alessandra
02:52 - 03:17
It's just where we're doing the work alongside everybody else. So if you're thinking about maybe when you were in school, if you had friends and you go to the library together so that you could get work done. It's a little bit like that, but what we noticed is that, say someone had had a very high level job at a tech company, like for 18 years, got fired. And the first place that they came was not home, was not the bar.

Alessandra
03:18 - 03:28
They logged on because we were in session. Someone else got a scary diagnosis. The first thing that they did was they didn't go home. They didn't go to a bar.

Alessandra
03:28 - 03:36
They didn't go shopping. They came here. We were in session. Most recently, someone had a loss of a loved one.

Alessandra
03:36 - 04:15
We were not in session when it happened. But there's an asynchronous piece of Creative Work Hour, which is held on Discord. So if things are happening between the daily sessions, people will show up there if something wonderful happens or if something terrible happens. And so we're able to support each other with a very light touch on a daily basis as needed so that when things happen, when things in life do fall apart, when there's a loss, however severe or not so bad in the scheme of things, but it's still a

Alessandra
04:15 - 04:23
loss, that we're here and we can support synchronously and asynchronously. And that's just who we are.

Greg
04:23 - 04:33
Thank you, Alessandra. As I said earlier, loss can come in many shapes and forms. Loss of a marriage, your health, your home, your employment. I've experienced all of those losses and many more besides.

Greg
04:34 - 04:58
And loss can also bring on its own problems, stress, anxiety, depression. A lot of suicides are a result of loss, usually loss of a loved one, but employment and health as well. And I've gone through a lot of those losses alone, but I don't have to go through losses alone anymore, because I've got a family around me called Creative Work Hour. And I say family because it really is family of choice.

Greg
04:59 - 05:27
I can share good things, I can share bad things, and I know that people will rally around me. And I've also seen people share on Discord, which is our asynchronous community, as Alessandra said. And when we're not in session, I've seen people jump on and say, hey, do you want to get on a call? you know I've got you know 30 minutes or whatever and I've sent people kind of be there for one another in that way and support each other in many ways shapes or form I'm going to add some resources to the show notes just in case you're experiencing loss

Greg
05:27 - 05:53
it'll be some grief and loss resources and the 988 crisis line if you are in crisis and experience a loss What I want you to know is that you're not alone and loss does affect your creative work. Loss can leave you empty, hollow and feelings of meaningless and things that you used to enjoy you may not enjoy anymore. You may find it hard to be creative. But the most important thing is that you're not alone.

Greg
05:54 - 06:14
You know, the suicide crisis line, you don't have to be just suicidal in order to call them. You can call there if you don't have, in the absence of somebody else, if you don't have a friend, a family, a relative, or whatever the reasons might be, you can call there and say, look, I just need someone to talk to. I'm not suicidal, but I'm in a bad place right now. Can we just talk?

Greg
06:14 - 06:21
And they will talk to you. They will do that. you know, let that be a resource for you. But yeah, loss and creativity.

Greg
06:21 - 06:28
Devin, for you, when we ask that question, how does loss affect your creative work? What comes to mind for you, Devin?

Devin
06:29 - 07:21
That it totally depends on the scope of loss. A minor loss might fuel more what I'll call higher level creativity or continuation of that because I want to distract myself from it. If it's a big loss, if it's a can't look around it, can't compartmentalize it, it's just there like a lead blanket on you all the time, that kind of a loss, then what I often do is I have to reduce the complexity of my creative work. I'm not going to do any higher level sort of Content creation, but I will continue to do something creative, but it may be very very simple it may be Crafting memes or sending the perfect gift to someone I consider that a creative work if I'm searching for the

Devin
07:21 - 08:03
perfect gift to send to someone in response to what something they have posted and I've often distracted myself from grief by doing things like that but that's like as much as I can do in those kinds of heavy loss situations and depending on where the particular loss falls, I may do a combination of all those things. So yeah, loss certainly has an effect, but in my experience, the creativity continues on. Now there may be a degree of loss I haven't experienced yet that is a complete and utter showstopper, but So far, the losses I've experienced, I've always been kept doing something creative.

Devin
08:03 - 08:15
And then it's almost a measure of how am I recovering? How well am I recovering from a loss measured by how much is my creative work improving or moving forward into two higher degree

Greg
08:16 - 08:27
levels of output. Thank you, Devin. I'm glad you mentioned that because it reminds me of how kindness factors into loss. And you know, if you're hurting and you're struggling, try doing something for somebody else.

Greg
08:27 - 08:36
It can be a real help to you as well. Shadows, when we ask the question, how does loss affect your creative work? What comes to mind for you?

Alessandra
08:36 - 08:38
All usually goes to hell in a handbasket.

Greg
08:38 - 08:44
You have any more thoughts on that? Care to elaborate? I think it both sums it up. Alessandra, interesting discussion.

Greg
08:44 - 08:49
And that kindness element really comes in as well. I'm glad Devin brought that up. It really does.

Shadows Pub
08:50 - 08:51
Well, what I can say about that is

Alessandra
08:52 - 09:28
there's loss and accessing the belonging and the safety of, well, a group like this. And the group for the listeners may be something similar, something vastly different, or could be an assortment of things. What I have noticed that, and I love what Deva talked about in the recovery of loss, I said, while recovering, today, as you said, is the 20th of September. And it was one month ago today that I took that hell of a fall where I caught myself, so there was no head injury.

Alessandra
09:28 - 09:39
I could still walk. I was kind of bruised up and swollen, but I could still walk. But this left hand was crushed. Right.

Alessandra
09:39 - 10:23
So the loss of my being able to play and participate as a classical clarinetist on the recording, I was going to the next day. I mean, really, really tough, because I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know to what extent I would be able to So now a month later, I have more information and some of that I like, some of that I don't like, some of that is a gain, some of that is a loss, but this community and you and Devin and Shadows and a few others have been there to aid in my recovery from this loss.

Alessandra
10:24 - 10:35
And like what Devin was saying, you know, just the right meme. So, Shadows has this thing and she always catches me off guard with it, but she will send me just the right kitten

Shadows Pub
10:36 - 10:36
meme.

Greg
10:36 - 10:39
Kitten memes always help, right?

Shadows Pub
10:40 - 10:53
I can just be a soupy mess of experiencing the loss, and she will just send the most perfect kitten meme, and it does make a difference

Alessandra
10:54 - 11:16
in how I'm experiencing the loss, and it puts a point or two over in the recovery column. The recovery from loss is not a solo. Sticking with our music metaphor, it is an ensemble effort. And that's what we're doing.

Alessandra
11:16 - 12:07
I mean, I remember last winter that there was a loss of power that went on for days. for and stay and stay warm. There are people in real life and so there's something about being able to even in very few words talk about loss that helps to set perspective. And that's why I think it is so important when you're experiencing that.

Alessandra
12:08 - 12:24
don't play it solo because you need to be able to adjust that perspective and you can only do that with another human being or two or three or however many feel appropriate and safe for you at the time. So what else came to mind for you, Greg?

Greg
12:25 - 12:36
Just the fact that you can't do it alone, you know, you were talking about, you really can't do it alone and you shouldn't try to, you know, seek help. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong at all.

Devin
12:37 - 12:54
I'd just like to say that Alexander's musical metaphor is so apt because this is a non-violent community, accordion, Alessandra, and we encourage people to just stop by and say hello anytime. But maybe that's just her trying to drum up

Greg
12:55 - 13:16
membership. www.creativeworkhour.com www.creativeworkhour.com