Ep271: How to Keep Moving Forwards After You’ve Lost Everything | with Christina Rasmussen

Zack Arnold

I'm here today again with Christina Rasmussen, and for those that may have missed our first interview together, first of all, I highly, highly advise and implore you go back and listen to that entire interview, because, dear Lord, was it life changing for me, and I've received so many good pieces of feedback from listeners and viewers who have gone through that, but let's presume that the person listening right now has not gone through any of that. So who's Christina? Well, you are a grief educator. You're the best selling author of multiple books, including second firsts, where did you go and invisible loss. You also hold a Master's Degree in guidance and counseling, and also, this is something we're going to talk about a little bit later. That I think, is very much related the fact that you are currently finishing your Masters of Fine Art degree in both painting and drawing. So Christina, here we are again, and I'm going to say that it is not often it's it's not that it's never happened, but it's not often that I have the same guest on twice, and I've had a few high profile authors when they have another great book come out. Like, I've talked to James or not James clear, but I've talked to Greg McEwen twice. I've talked to Cal Newport twice, right? So they bring out something new and a totally different idea, like, oh my god, we have to get you back on right? But by and large, I have great conversations with people. Then I continue to collect great conversations with more new people. But as we're going to go deeper into significant shifts happened in my life the day that you and I talked, it wasn't just a podcast interview. I really think that I got away with something and that I got like a free therapy session with and I even might have made the joke that you should invoice me afterwards. But number one, I wanted to make sure that people understand just how valuable that conversation was for me and how people can apply to their own lives. But the real impetus for bringing you back is what the hell has happened to our world since you and I talked last like we live in a completely different world than last June, when you and I released that previous episode. My life is different. I'm sure your life is different, like just the makeup of the entire world, and just the way that the world feels right now is different. And I think that there's I can't speak for anybody else that's listening, but I know that in both my world and in the worlds that are surrounding me, the concentric circles of friends, co workers, colleagues, like it is just an overwhelming amount of grief and loss and fear and uncertainty, and this is where you just swoop in. And I don't know how you do it, you just know exactly what to say. So that's why you're back and why you're back so quickly.

Christina Rasmussen

And Zack, I want to say, as you said, about repeated guests, the topic of losses in our lives is the most repeatable experience we have. And why this is a rare occasion too, because losses is going to be experienced so many times in our lives, and as we are learning more and more, as this year has been unfolding, with the fires, with the political landscape, whichever side, everyone, whoever you know, wherever you are in this in this conversation, I think that change brings loss, and change that is is completely outside of our of us, or change that we chose, or when we make our dreams come true, or we choose a career path that's different, there's a lot of loss, even though we chose it, and I want to, I want to make sure people understand that loss is, I would say, if I this is, I've never used percentage on this before, but if I was just to put percentage on how much of our life is kind of bathed in loss, integrated with loss, I would say about 75 80%

Zack Arnold

Wow, that's a pretty high number. Yeah, that's kind of scary.

Christina Rasmussen

It is, but only if we are not educated about it, only if we have the perspective of that old fashioned, traditional way of looking at loss, if we actually enable ourselves to look at it as you know, I'm gonna say something else dramatic. What's the matter with me? All the dramatic sentences here, but our blood, right? It's yucky and horrible when we look at it, right? It's blood, but it keeps us alive. It's and it's everywhere in our body. Loss is everywhere in our life. If we love we experience loss. If we are attached to something, we're experiencing loss. If we want something, we'll experience loss. And without it, Zack, we wouldn't be where we are today, in regards to the good things in our life, not the bad things, but the good things. Because if I didn't have loss, I wouldn't have decided to take on my masters in art because I missed having art in my life, and it's the best decision I've ever made for myself, so it's the biggest yes I've ever given to myself. If you didn't experience loss, we wouldn't have had that conversation last time, and it wouldn't have changed your life in the way that it. Did to experience and it's not. It's never, it's never going to be perfect. I always talk about what I call life reentry. Life reentries, the the experience we feel when we come back to life after any kind of loss, whether it's what I call invisible loss, whether it's traditional loss, the loss of someone to death, whether it's the fires, whether it's rejection, abandonment, different types, we are re entering life. And if we don't re enter we stay in this stuck place, the place in between that I call the waiting room, right, very simply put. So we have to have hundreds of reentries in our life, if not 1000s, and you and I will reenter again in a different place. We should never, ever stay stagnant. And sometimes there's a reason for the re entry, like fires, and this has been so hard for so many people, and other times we make the reason we create the re entry for ourselves, because that invisible feeling, that unspoken grief that we feel that has no words, that has no label, and the only person experiencing is ourselves, we have to be the guide to that self, to step outside of that waiting room, and that is the hardest thing to do, and that's why friendships are important. Authentic, honest friendships, conversations like the one that we had with strangers, we were strangers before, right? And we had this conversation. And I don't care if the moment of connection is a podcast, it's a professional meeting. I'm gonna have authenticity in it, because this is my life. What if there's no other hour after this one, Zack, and this is our last hour on this planet? I'm not gonna waste it just to have a podcast, just to have a conversation, just to sound professional. I'm gonna I'm gonna be myself, and I expect the same from you and the listener. I want you, the listener, to listen in with all of your ears and all all of you, the whole being of you, and demand answers from yourself after this conversation so

Zack Arnold

Well, that level of honesty and authenticity is exactly the reason that I wanted to have you back, because we need to start having some very honest conversations with ourselves and others about the reality that we're all facing, and to start with the very personal I have a feeling we're going to expand outwards and maybe even get global at some point in this conversation, because it's hard to avoid that. But I want to very, very briefly and quickly recap our previous conversation, because you would even mention that since we talked last, you're like, you seem like a completely different person. And I want to there's some catching up that we need to do just the two of us. And also I can do some catching up with those that haven't listened to the first episode when you and I spoke last, I guess it would have been May of 2024 saying that I was in the waiting room was an understatement. I was in a waiting room with the lights turned off, with the doors locked, handcuffed to the chair like I've never experienced the level of being so stuck in without direction and without purpose and motivation in my life, and I've been through extreme cases of burnout. I've been through extreme cases of depression. But this was different. This was a matter of almost like living my life in quicksand, and it was largely driven, not completely, but largely driven by the fact that I transitioned to being not the primary caretaker, but the primary coordinator of the healthcare for both of my parents, because I watched both of my parents simultaneously come down with dementia, while my father also came down with congestive heart failure, and went From going to visit them over Christmas. Everything is great. This is just a few months later. They literally can't take care of themselves. They're not eating. They're like, they have no kind of basic, you know, ability to be able to manage any of their basic hygiene. And it's like, even though they were both still living, lost both of my parents over the course of months, and then just the logistics and the emotional experience of moving them into a home and like my mom is literally a completely different human being now, just like the way she interacts or like even recognizing me anymore, just like stories that she tells, like the mom that that I know, that raised me, that grew up with me, she has now passed. She's still alive, but since you and I spoke last, my father has since passed. I'm so sorry, and I appreciate that.

Christina Rasmussen

Wow, but that's huge, by the way, it's people who lose their I have not lost my parents yet. I think about it, and I've, I've heard from 1000s people who lost their parents. And it is such a huge loss. It's identity based.

Zack Arnold

It is. It's very much identity based. And I think that this, like, again, it was just this one conversation, but there were seeds that were planted in that conversation that significantly changed the trajectory of my journey through all that. And I know I've kind of, I've sent you a couple of follow up messages that were brief, but there I want to kind of. I want to frame this bigger picture. So I remember that one of the things we talked about was you asking me, like, we just, we got to find that, that one thing that re entry. And I was like, Well, I like to go for walks, and I used to go for hikes, right? And just the thought of, like going out to a hiking trail. Was like, you might as well ask me to bench 4000 pounds. Like it just wasn't going to happen. But because of you, I was like, All right, well, I said I'm gonna go on a hike so I cannot do it, so I'm gonna email Christina. I just went on a really, really simple hike, right? Then I went on another hike, and then I went on another one, and then four months after our conversation, I hiked Half Dome in Yosemite, which is one of the hardest hikes in the United States, and it kicked my ass, but it was that momentum of just go out and get your get your feet on the hiking trail that was this tiny little domino that led to me literally being at the top of Half Dome in Yosemite, no, not more than four months. And it was during that process that I watched my father slowly degrade and eventually pass. But here's, here's what was interesting to me. And again, we're going to start personal. Then I want to, you know, talk more about community than kind of looking at grief from a global perspective. This is something that, to this day I still don't quite understand. And I think for others that are dealing with any form of grief, whether it is death of a loved one, loss of a job, there are just, there are some emotions that just don't make any sense whatsoever, and there was a tremendous amount of anxiety and fear. Like I just, I always felt like I was on edge, right? And I was just waiting for that moment when it all comes crashing down and I just completely lose it. And I'll never forget the one I got the call was about four o'clock in the morning. I was, you know, woken up in the middle of the night, where I got the call saying that, unfortunately, you know, your father passed last night, I felt this immense sense of peace, and it's like I lost 50 pounds in an instant. And it wasn't just this overwhelming sobbing, like, Yeah, I mean, there was, there was sadness, but the transition from and I and again, this is what I want to help people better understand, is that it's just it's this constant spectrum of grief and loss that I felt like during that entire period, I had already kind of lost my father, and for me, I was grieving that for like, a year and a half. So it wasn't like all of a sudden, oh, my father has passed, and there's grief. I had a year and a half of nothing but grief and sadness and anger about what was happening, and then the second it was over, it was like in the first thing I asked, Did he pass in his sleep? They said, Yes, he did. And just thinking about it now, that makes me emotional to think like I worked. I not just me, but I and my siblings, we worked so hard to make sure that that moment was one where he was in bed, he was peaceful with his wife by his side like to get to that point was the hardest thing I've ever done, and I felt like the grief was over, as opposed to the grief was coming, because it was such a giant spectrum,

Christina Rasmussen

and the loss went from something that it was invisible to everyone else to it hadn't happened before, But you were grieving. You. You had lost your father for a year and a half before it happened. So when it became, when it moved from non physical to physical, I guess that's the way I look at it. Then, then you are able to lose that 50 pound burden and weight and find the peace. And it was, and I could feel when you said you were at peace. I felt, I felt the peace that that that kind of release that you felt must have been so heavy to carry this.

Zack Arnold

So no, I mean, it was overwhelming, like I said, I wasn't in the waiting room, like I was just trapped in this quicksand underneath the ground, trying to get out of it. And it was just, it was such a such a trend, and it was literally happened in minutes. It wasn't a matter of weeks, like, it was literally in minutes. It's like I can breathe, like, because I was just so anxious about the next thing that would happen to make him even sicker or more uncomfortable, like, there were just all these little things that kept coming up. It's like I just, I was so tired of watching him suffer and to have that moment happen just was completely liberating. The challenge is, I'm now fairly close to being in the same cycle with where my mom is with her health, right? So it's not over yet, but it's it's a very different experience, having now already gone through it, to knowing that she's managing different issues. So I have, I have a lot more confidence that at least I understand the process. I'm the kind of person that can get through it, but it's, you know, I'm just kind of back in the same place that I was. But what's so different is that I don't feel like I'm stuck the way that I did last time. I feel like a completely different I'm in the exact same place, but I'm a completely different person in the same place.

Christina Rasmussen

I feel like you're in charge.

Zack Arnold

I don't know if I'd go that far, especially given the nature of the world. But here's the thing, it's not that I'm in charge. I feel like I'm more in control. This

Christina Rasmussen

control, yeah, but it feels like you're, you're you're, you're involved in your own life in a different way. You know you're, you're engaged and aware and awake and and I know we use the word present, but kind of. Yes, I don't know, in action mode, which action mode is hard? Is a hard that's re entry, that's stepping outside of non action mode, and you're in action mode inside grief, inside loss, inside this kind of transient change, this you're waiting for more change to come. And the complicated nature of our lives as it is right now, on top of everything, the personal and the global, the local and the non local, and everything in between, basically,

Zack Arnold

Yeah, and like I said, I wanted to make sure to kind of do a little bit of a recap, just so people can really connect the previous conversation to this one. And again, I implore anybody listening the first conversation for so many people, not just for me personally, so many people that listen are like, wow, like, this has really helped me understand and process everything that we're all going through collectively. So I want to send people back there, but now that we're kind of, you know, back to square one, we've caught up. We've connected part one to part two. That the impetus for doing this other than I love our conversations, and who knows, we may end up doing this on a regular basis, but it was immediately after the fires that there were multiple people in my own community, like people that are students of mine, that I know, personally, that I know, well, lost everything, lost their homes, and the first thing I thought was, what can I do? Like, how can I help? Because you just feel so powerless, and we had to evacuate as well. Like, standing up by our window, like I could see flames. So it got close. If the wind had changed, we would have lost our neighborhood, and we would have lost our house, but because of the the wind direction, we came away unscathed, but we had to evacuate for about five days. So we got really, really close, but just this feeling of helplessness and this feeling of survivor's guilt and like, why do they lose their house, and I didn't lose my house. And my first thought was, well, the one thing that I can't the two things that I can do, one of which is I started like a flash fundraiser with our community, and was able to to get some meal delivery gift cards, just so the one thing they didn't have to think about was, like getting food, because a lot of them also have young kids. But then the second thing I immediately thought of was, I know somebody that's an expert on managing grief and loss. So I messaged Debbie, and I'm like, Debbie, we got to get Christina back on the podcast ASAP, because this is a very different kind of grief and loss, like with with my father, long trajectory, right? But I just spoke to one of the students that lost their house that we did a community Town Hall call with all of my students, and he was one of the people on the call, and he was like, I we were two miles from the fire zone. Like, we're in a city area, so yeah, like, we evacuated, but I didn't even bring anything. I'm like, There's no way. Yeah. Like, if you live in the hills and in you know, Los Angeles, you always know that fires are a danger, but the neighborhood that he was in, in Altadena, never in a million years would you think that would happen. So he literally didn't bring anything other than a few documents. There is not a more acute, faster version of loss than today. I'm working on a project and I'm ready to export it. And this is notification evacuation. All right, okay, this is annoying, and then four hours later, your entire life has gone like, where do you even start?

Christina Rasmussen

And Zack, can I ask you a question? And I will ask this question, and I want everyone to ask this question, you know, to themselves and to the people in their life. If you were the observer and the witness to this catastrophe and loss from your students, the people in your community, what is the one thing you've noticed that happened that is you didn't expect kind of and maybe you haven't even thought of this question before, but now, thinking about it, look for the theme or the pattern that came out of that experience, that you're able to notice that for yourself, that took place. What would that be?

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I hadn't thought about this, but I immediately know what the answer is. The theme was everybody, in their own way, said, Well, it could have been worse. Wow, right? Like there was in a couple of the comments were just outright shocking, like an example again, of this one student that I talked to recently. He was a longtime student of mine, and this is something that he had shared in our group, where one of the projects that he had that was just like, everybody procrastinates on this thing, they never get to it. He just had this project with a bunch of paint cans in his garage, right? Wanted to get them organized, figure out this paint can goes with this room, etc, etc, right? It's just this thing that was just, we would check in every once in a while, like, Hey, how's that paint can project? Right? I messaged him as soon as I heard that he lost his home. Like, you know, so sorry about the loss, you know. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know. And his response was, at least, now I don't have to worry about the paint cans in the garage. I was like, what like I was I was floored by that response. And multiple other people, in their own version, was like, Yeah, you know, it's been crazy and we're in shock, but boy, it could have been so much worse because of dot, dot, dot. I was like, this is just the human condition, and our ability to be resilient is just I was so amazed by. This.

Christina Rasmussen

And it's incredible to witness it and to notice it for ourselves, that in the worst crisis, in the time when we lose everything, that we have nothing left, all of our life's memories, our clothes, our you know, everything, everything that meant something to us in the physical world, is gone. The theme, actually, is that, is that it's, I think that's what it is to be human. And I've seen it with 1000s of people when they lost their spouse, their child, there's this, I don't know, I don't want to call it. It's not supernatural. I guess it's kind of a superhero, kind of feeling of some sort, that that what takes place is this overarching, this we become bigger than life. What I want to say is it's perfect when we have a conversation, it's almost like we plant exactly what we're gonna say. But it's not like that at all,

Zack Arnold

zero agenda or plan whatsoever. Everybody thinks I'm so well organized I have no idea what I'm going to say,

Christina Rasmussen

But that's the immediate survival instinct that takes place. We're going to be fine. The community comes together. Let's get through this. Let's go, let's go. Let's do it. Do it. But that will that will go away ultimately, as the weeks and the months and the time goes by, that will go away, and there'll be other things that will come forward that will start to feel and that is the important, that is the step that needs to take place. So yes, people are getting through the first few weeks. Yes, the news covered it. Yes, we felt and I wasn't there, but I'm speaking through the people that were Yes, you we felt together. There was a community spirit. Everyone is coming through. Everyone is talking about us. There's validation of the loss, there's a community sharing, there's acknowledgement. There's all these great ingredients that are very healing and incredible, but all of a sudden, as you started to notice nobody's there's no more cameras. It's not on the news. Sometimes, for the people who haven't been there, it feels like it never happened. We move on to the airplane crashes, to the craziness of everything else that's going on, and nobody's talking about you, the person who lost that home, the person who who lost everything. And that's why this is, this part is even more important than what happened the first few weeks. This is the part that when you have to come back together as a community and find a way to support each other, it's like, it's like, with any kind of loss, when you lose someone, you get casuals, you get people knocking on your door. What can I do? You get a lot of validation, acknowledgement, a lot of love from everyone. But then within a few weeks, that all goes away, and you're left on your own. And that's it. Is what it is. Ultimately, unfortunately, we nobody's going to come and save us from this, and we have to find it within ourselves to go forth. This is the time when you can't do this on your own. This is the very first thing I'm going to say, is that you can, if you're sitting by yourself at home, getting through this. This is not going to be okay. You're doing it on your own. It doesn't matter how amazing you were when it first happened, how resilient, how incredible you were, how you help your neighbors, how your neighbors helped you now you're by yourself. Don't do this alone. Start asking for help from everyone around you, whether it's financial, whether it's mental, emotional, career, job, wise, practical, whatever it is, ask for help. I can't say this enough. Do not think you can do this on your own. You can't. It's not it, and it's gonna it could feel worse as time goes by because there's so many things that are that are missing from your life that you have to put together. There's so many things that are no longer there for you that you do your you live somewhere else where there's nothing that's familiar. There's no pictures on the walls. There's no you know there's, there's, there's nothing that is yours, almost like you you went to another world and started over, and that feels fresh and great sometimes. But at night, when you're going to bed with someone else's clothes and, you know, furniture that you haven't really seen much, and you don't even know how you're going to pay your rent. You know how? How can you get back to your house? What's going to happen next you You also don't have a next step, and a lot of those next steps depend on the government, depend on insurance claims. There's so many obstacles that. Head, and this is why I believe this can only be done if it's done in groups, whether it's three people together, four people together, I'm not asking bring 25 of your best friends. One more person will be enough to sit and talk about this, to sit in and plan together, to do things for one another. This is not about being strong alone. It is about being strong together. Long term.

Zack Arnold

Yeah, I'm very glad you brought up this idea of long term, because my knee jerk reaction, and I'm pretty sure it was still while I was evacuated, when I messaged Debbie, and I'm like, we got to get Christina back on the show, right? And I had like a block of time that Friday, or the next Friday, whatever,

Christina Rasmussen

do it, and I couldn't do it that that Friday,

Zack Arnold

This is, this wouldn't be about me saying, Oh, why weren't you available? But the here's the immediate thought I had. Well, I want to get this out immediately, but then when I saw you on the calendar in like a month, I'm like, you know, I think this is actually going to be much more beneficial, because by the time you and I have this conversation, everybody else will have forgotten about this. They've left, they've gone, they've left, they've moved down. They're now dealing with their own issues, their own loss of job, their own fear of fascism, whatever people are feeling right now, right? It's a matter of, oh yeah, those fires happened a few weeks ago. That was in the news cycle. So sorry, you lost it. I'm back to my problems, right? So that was the way that I immediately framed it. Is great. Now I can have a resource that's more about the longer term process, rather than you just went through this. How do you process it? And one of the interesting things that I've noticed as well, once again, had no intention of talking about this, but I love the free flowing conversation. I've noticed this pattern that most of the food delivery gift cards that we sent hadn't been redeemed, and they're just now starting to redeem them, because most likely, they've got so many damn casseroles they don't know what to do with and finally, they're settled into their new reality. Holy shit, we're not getting casseroles three dimes a day. People aren't texting and calling as much anymore, right? And that was one of the reasons I wanted it to be a gift card where it's like, whenever you need it, you need it tomorrow, awesome. You need it in six months. Awesome, right?

Christina Rasmussen

Yeah. And when I booked this, I said to myself, you know, and I couldn't do that next, the next week. And I said, You know what? I hope Zack knows this, and we must have connected in the mind, right? And I said, this is so much better, 10 times 100 times better, that it's going to come to people who are still dealing with this and they're feeling even worse and the shock of what happened, because you're in denial, you're numb, you're you're just not don't You don't even believe your own eyes with what's happening. So the very first step, and I'm very action oriented kind of person I like to, I like to talk about, what are we going to do about it? Right? What? Okay, you know, we understand what's happening. What? The first step is, ask for help and be very specific as the kind of help that you need, you have to be you have to be specific, and you have to ask and and this, the second thing is make sure that you bring people around you, and it could it could be like a quick text with a friend, whether checking in on them or sharing how you're feeling, or going for a coffee somewhere, or if you can't afford coffee right now, bring your coffee with you. Whatever it is to make contact. Make contact with another human being, with two more human beings, with someone else going through the same thing. And then I was thinking, you know, and I don't know what kind of support groups exist if you're someone who can put a support group together. Do it if you, if you heard of a support group that comes together from the people locally, go, go join that group. Ask the question, who's putting the support group together? If nobody? Let's, let's make it happen, because it will make this journey much easier. Because this is not going to this is not going to stop next week. You're going to be dealing with this a year from now still. And and then the other thing I want to talk about is, how is this changing you? And I'm putting the verb in this way, not how has this changed you? That's not enough to ask this question at one time. How is this thing changing you today, next week, a month from now, and I guarantee you that you will feel different as time goes by. Who you are now, how you're being changed by this is not going to be the same as who you're going to be next month, who you going to be next summer. And I don't have the answer to who you're going to be, and nobody else should anyone who's trying to tell you how you're going to feel. They don't know. They should not know, and they should not tell you they know, any professional, any personal, anyone who's been through this and telling you what to do because they went through it in a different way. You are the only, I don't know, expert on how you're going to change or what. It's going to be like for you. Your personal circumstances are different from everyone else's, the 1000s of people who lost their homes, their circumstances, and you're going to learn so many things from this. And it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough. And I have if you're listening and not watching, I put my serious frown on my face, it's going to be hard, but it's going to get easier, and it's going to get better. And I don't ever say things like, this is a gift, and I don't like it when people say that, either, because it's not so black and white something like this, Zack, right? It's not a gift or not a gift, it's something completely different, the person who lost everything in a fire lives in a world, in the Western world, amongst people who haven't lost anything. So that makes you very different and unique and kind of unlike anyone else that you know outside of that community of people who lost everything, but most people are not talking to each other, so you're not really sharing this experience with someone else, with your neighbor. Everyone just went back in their shell, because that's that's how we do it. So this is going to have to to be different. This is going to have to be communal and compassion. I was, I was rereading a book, a Buddhist book, and I'm not a Buddhist, by the way. I just like to read different books and and compassion is such a paramount experience. And compassion for others is important. But to have compassion for yourself, even though I'm putting that as step three or four, compassion for yourself, self compassion I found in my work and all the classes and all the groups I've ever done. When we lose self compassion, it's the worst thing that we can do for ourselves. So find compassion for yourself, for what happened to you. Have compassion not just for others, but for yourself. This sucks. This is unfair. This shouldn't have happened, and it did and and your life is completely altered because of this thing and compassion, I can't I. I used to have this self compassion scale I used to do with with my groups. You know, how throughout our classes, how is your self compassion increasing, because when you don't, when you don't know how bad something is in your life, you won't give yourself compassion. And we are raised, a lot of us are raised to be tough and resilient and like you know you What do you have to complain about? Look, you have your health, and that's all great, and it's great in the first month, in the first three or four weeks, thank God we didn't die. That's important to say then, but that has to completely flip the second part of this.

That's when you have to say, Can I swear and this please, by all

Zack Arnold

means, you know, stress yourself. You know,

Christina Rasmussen

like, I can't believe this happened to me, and to have to the realization your own burnt you lost everything in your life. And cry when I lost my first husband, I could not cry for four months, and it was the most devastating experience of my life. I couldn't cry. I could not cry. Couldn't produce tears that were not coming out of because I was I was in that other place, right? But four months in, I was crying and I couldn't stop crying. So cry, be vulnerable. Be weak. Go in the corner and sit and get it all out and be vulnerable and compassionate about what happened to you. This compassion is missing in our lives. Self Compassion is not I'm so passionate about this, I couldn't believe even if I, you know, I sat, I started creating these classes in 2010 2011 that's a long time ago, and I had curriculum and structure. I would never have guessed that self compassion was one of the primary things that we talked about, because I had to see it from the community that they were lacking compassion for themselves. They even had compassion for others. Oh, my God, I'm sorry, what with what happened to you, but they couldn't give that to themselves, and it's a very healing ingredient that we need in our lives. And I'll stop, I'll drop my mic.

Zack Arnold

I'll be quiet. I think you dropped your mic at least three or four times in there, because I, in my mind, I'm thinking, that's an entire podcast episode. There's another episode, there's another one. So I'm going to do my best to, you know, thread the needle very deftly to try and cover as much as we can over the, you know, the the remainder of our time. But I can, I'm sure that you can see this, because you seem very good at, you know, recognizing people. And I'm sure you can tell that I absolutely suck at self compassion. I was wired in condition. In train where self compassion is not a virtue, that is a weakness, and you are a machine, and you power through no matter what, and when you said it's not, how has this changed you as how is this changing you? This is one of the core things that I have recognized, that my connection with my own needs and compassion for the fact that I'm in the middle of a really difficult situation, and I need to find my way out of it. I'm 100% action oriented. Next Action Step, power through it. But then when there wasn't something to be done, I just I was completely stuck and frozen, and the the part of the story that I hadn't shared yet, which is not as devastating as anybody that's lost their home to a fire, but literally, the day after my father had passed, I came home, and, by the way, because of the timing of my father passing, I ended up losing the tail end of my job. So I ended up losing, give or take, at least a couple of months of income. It's just the nature of my industry. It's a project to project basis. I couldn't finish it. They had to replace me. No hard feelings whatsoever, but I lost a significant amount of income, and being associated with something that I really believe in, a project that I wanted to finish to completion. So I lost that, then I lost my father, then I came home, literally getting off the plane onto the Uber, opened the door of my home. And while we were gone, our house had been completely infested by rats. Oh, now I lost my home, and we had to stay in an Airbnb for two weeks, all of which was the night before my kids were going to school for the first day of school. My son's first day of high school was him staying in an Airbnb. We had to relocate immediately, and we threw away over half of our belongings, all of our blankets, furniture, couches, like just a giant pile of stuff on our front lawn. All of that happening at the exact same time. All I

Christina Rasmussen

can think about Zack is that the moment you decide to change your life, the universe said it's about time. And through the rat scene, oh yeah. Like, yeah,

Zack Arnold

it's Oh good. So you're ready to move forward. Hold my beer. Let's see how that's working out for you. And I kept wondering, like, What in the world is happening? But here's the reason I bring it up. I don't want to make it about me, but I want to use this as an example, with all the things that I was going through, literally in a span of four weeks, lost my job, lost my house, lost my father in less than four weeks, boom, boom, boom, right? And because of all that, one of the this is a little bit more complex, but also lost my car because of all of it, which was a different conversation we don't need to go into, right? But all of these things are happening, get through all of it. And what I've learned about myself is that when the chaos comes, like, I power through like, whenever, like, the shit is hitting the fan. Zack, what do we do? You're our problem solver, right? I'm a machine, and I get through it. Like, you know, it's just a matter of, come on, bringing out. Oh, I'm losing my house. Great. What do you got for me next? Right? But then the worst is when there's nothing to be done and you're just sitting in space. So get to the new house. Don't even have pictures up yet, but it's like, all right, family is settled, the family is safe, right? Not even a weekend. It's like, what the hell is wrong with me? Why do I want to stay in bed? Why can't I just send the emails that I need to send? Why can't I start reaching out, looking for projects or like it was just And that, to me, there's like, 0% self compassion. Where you were working with me, you'd be like, dude, let's let's just recap everything you've been through. But internally, it's like, Nope, just keep going solve the next problem. And the worst was in the spaces. For me, it was like four in the morning. I would wake up, and all of it would just start to envelop me, and I'm like, What the hell is going on?

Christina Rasmussen

And at 4am

Zack Arnold

I dread 4am because it is just the worst. Yes, because once I'm up, I'm fine, I'm I'm moving forward. But when there's that space, it's the worst. And the reason that I bring this up is that, not only in relation to what's going on with the fires, but as we start to kind of, you know, zoom out to the much, much larger community, my community of people that I know this is a global community, but those that do creative work, specifically those that work in entertainment, our industry has been absolutely decimated, like it has just been destroyed for the last two years, and I've had so many conversations with people like I had spoke to somebody just the other day where I'm very much again, action oriented. I want to do anything I can to provide solutions. And I had led this master class a few weeks ago about how to update your brand and redo your resume to get noticed and find work, even when things are slow. And I got some feedback from somebody where they said, Sure, sounds great. Here's the thing, I am completely frozen right now. I feel like a rat, and I'm trapped in a maze that has no exits, and I don't see the point in doing any of this anymore. That's where a lot of people are right now, yeah,

Christina Rasmussen

yes. And that's, that's the and it's like, and you know, when I say this phrase, the sentence that everyone knows and hurts heard 1000s of times in their life, but life is hard.

Life is hard. Life is hard. It's, it's

like, I actually. I think about when I have good weeks and meaning everything's going great. I'm like, I Oh, even, even I know. And last time we talked about the survivor self, which is the part of us that keeps us in that survival mode, because it's automatic and habitual, that survival self says, Don't rest, don't take a breather, because something else is going to come and fall right on you, and it's going to, it's going to destroy your life again. So so we are in that mode, and then when we feel stuck, like we don't believe anything can be better, and we don't even know what we want, I am sure the people like, I don't even know if I want anything. I don't even know what is going to be good for me. I don't I don't know what I like I and they don't believe that anything is possible for them. They have lost hope. I'm going to say this, they have lost hope. They they have no they wake up every day and they feel this dread. And I look out the window when I say this, I feel like I'm a very visual person, by the way, I have photographic memory as well. Like, if I see something, I remember it forever, but I see my thoughts. I see everything. So if I'm looking at you, I'm listening, but if I am thinking and talking, I'm looking out. So that's why I'm looking away. But it's they have. They have no understanding of themselves, and they're alone in this. There's a silence in that depression, that Doom, that dread, that burden, and I get chills when I say this. It doesn't matter how many times I thought it, I said it, there is this silence. We are alone with no hope, because we don't even know what hope looks like for us. We don't even know what, what is a good outcome for us, because we're in this infinite stuckness experience. And what's the point? Right? What is the point of me putting the effort in this? Nothing good is going to come out of it anyway, right? That's what people feel like. And I want to be when someone feels like this before we move to anything else. I want to, I want to acknowledge that feeling, because it's, it takes such a big space. Zack, it takes all of our space in the inner world. By the way, I love the inner world. I see a map when I say that it's such it's bigger than our physical world, and we don't have coverage there, meaning we don't have help to help us when. So imagine all of us walking inside our inner worlds every day, carrying our big luggage and baggage and things, all the things from all the our whole lifetime, right? And we carry it every day. Nobody can see it. We're walking alone in the dark, and there's no end in sight, because that inner world is so vast and so infinite and so big. So now imagine Zack and I are walking by your side in that inner world, and we're seeing how heavy that baggage, that luggage, that burden that you've carried all of your life is, and Zack and I can see that you don't know what it is that you want, and we understand that, and it's okay, because the world Has has been really difficult, and it has given you images, language, instructions that actually don't apply to your inner world, and you cannot recognize yourself because of those instructions. You don't even know what to do, and people think you should know, and you don't know because there's no mirror, there's no reflection in that inner world. And I have never said it like this before, but this is the way it feels. Zack, so we're there. We are in that inner world and and I want people that we're walking, we're walking by your side and what this conversation ends. I want you to know that someone has witnessed how heavy it is how, how he has no labels and he has no words and he has no name, and it's okay that you don't understand it, and it's okay that you don't understand yourself. And that's the beginning, because we have to acknowledge that before we can say, Okay, now that I know this about me, and it's okay and it's normal, what do I do about it?

Zack Arnold

Yeah, and I, one of the things that I say all the time to my students, probably three times a day, to the point where, like, we get it already, is that you can't read the label from inside the jar, right? You can't, you can't see it from the inside. And that's why again, and I want to go deeper into this idea of surrounding yourself with people. Because, logical level, yeah, of course, the emotional level, it's much more challenging, but I'm also very visual as well. I wish I had the photographic memory you did. I very much Mr. Magoo when it comes to memory. But the first thing I thought of with this inner world and this inner self is it's almost like we have Google Maps to navigate the world. But imagine if we had a Google Maps app that's like you. Hey, Siri, what are all of the emotional triggers and issues that are calling the tightness that I have on the right side of my neck right now, right? It's like, Oh, so you are experiencing the neck pain because of trauma from your childhood? Like, oh, okay, that totally makes sense. Now, I understand where the pain is coming from, right? But you need somebody to reflect those things. But I'm going to come back to what you said, because to me, it's kind of the crux of this entire conversation, right? This idea of getting out of the waiting room and kind of moving out requires some form of action, and you were able to help me get over that step. But I feel like when it comes to, well, you need to surround yourself with people. It's not a matter of, don't do it alone. It's a matter of, you can't do it alone. Sure, that sounds great, but I know myself, and I know so many other people, when you say, reach out, text somebody, ask for support, like you're so frozen you can't even do that. And this idea, and this is something you talk about a lot, this idea of like sharing yourself, and why we don't want to share our true grief, and we just, we have kind of these, these half truths. And I guess I'm doing okay, hanging in there. It's like, bullshit. You're definitely not right. So how do we overcome that hump of, even that first step of, I feel like I need community. Everything you says makes sense to me, but I just can't. Like, I know several people right now, they're in this place where I want to, I want to be there for them. Like, nope, I'm good. I'm fine. And they desperately need to not be doing it, them themselves, but they don't even know how to take that first step. So I'm gonna,

Christina Rasmussen

I'm gonna give everyone some good news. Um, everyone who's listening to this podcast, they've taken their first step because the person who pressed play knowing that the subject of this is ready to receive help and to connect, because the listeners connecting with you and I right now, especially if they're here, still listening, they're connecting. And Step one, done, check congratulations, and even just saying that, as someone who hasn't taken hasn't taken the step they need to take for themselves, to say, you've already done it, that's a big it's a shift in perspective, in the way they look at themselves. So I've and I'm not just saying, I never say something just to make someone feel better, unless they bought a dress. It's something like that, very basic, and they really like it, and I don't really like it. I say, you know what's okay, it's good. I will never tell them it's I don't like the dress, unless it's something like this. I won't tell you something just because it sounds good. I think your life is worth more than that. So I am saying this because it's true. You have clicked play to a conversation about loss and the LA fires, and that is step one, done. So let's talk about step two. Have a question, and I have had a thought in my mind come when you said a bet, nobody's, nobody's gonna, it's gonna be hard for anyone to reach out for help. And how did thought come to my mind that I never thought before, and I would never, I would never put that out there. And we might have to come with a specific way to do this for the LA Fire specifically. The question is, what if? What if the listener, there is a place when you can reach out to someone that you already know that they are waiting for your message. And what if it was Zack and I right just here, just reach out, just say hello, say how you feel, and someone, there'll be someone there to respond. I don't know if we can do this. I The question is, what if there is a place where you will feel like you someone is waiting for you to go, to write, to share. What if there's a place like that? You're not going to be unexpected that they they're inviting you. We're inviting you to reach out, to connect. We're waiting for your for your share. Would that make it easier? And how, if it's not texting Zack and I, is there somewhere in your life, and that's a different question to who you're connecting with. Is there someone in your life? And for some people, that's still going to be a no, but there's going to be some people who already know this answer. Is there someone in your life that you know you're always welcome, that you always if you reach out, if you say hey, even just say hey on a text without saying anything else, hey, there will be a response back. They'll say, Hey, how are you doing? And that's your invitation to write. So one word, three letters,

step two, hey. And if

it's not texting me or you, but sending a message to someone just saying hey, without saying anything else, it's just opening a door. That's been closed, and it's slightly easier. And I call those steps plugins. It's like a plug that you're plugging into the new life, right? It's a 5% low risk step that you you cannot take the first or second step by jumping or doing something that's really hard for you. So, so we are shrinking that into very, something very, not very easy. Shouldn't say that easy, simpler, and it has three letters. It just say, hey, hey, what's up? Hello, hi, speaking of you today, just even say something like that without asking for anything but making contact as simple as that. And if someone doesn't have anyone to reach out to, I'm happy to if there is nobody in someone's life, hey, send a Hey to me. Respond

Zack Arnold

and you were that for me after our podcast, I sent you a few different I think I had sent you like, here's a picture of me on my first hype or something like that. All the difference in the world, yeah,

Christina Rasmussen

and see how it's important to have that there's someone on the other side, and there's so many people who are so lonely, and they and they may not be as lonely as they think they are, because they don't know who would be on the other side. And it could be someone that meet at a coffee shop. It could be it could be strangers, like they're just meeting us for the first time, right? And, and, you know, Hey, someone making contact, right? A long time ago, I created a social network before this was in 2016 before anyone else was doing it, I spent all my money on this thing, but and did it for a few years, and it was called Life starters, and we had 1000s of people come in to create a safe environment where people could share and make contact, right? And these days, you can find places like that, there's groups, there's Facebook groups, there's so many places, but like you said, it's hard to knock on those doors, and it's hard to reach out to strangers or friends. Sometimes it's harder to reach out to friends than it is to strangers. So hey, to someone that's step two.

Zack Arnold

Well, I love that. And just to frame it, you know, a little bit broader like that absolutely applies to somebody that literally lost their home in a fire. But one of the best ways that it was put by a fellow colleague is they said, and this is during the fire, somebody had posted this, I think, on Facebook or something, and it just perfectly encapsulated this. They're like, You gotta be kidding me. We've been watching Hollywood figuratively burned to the ground for two years, and now it's literally burning to the ground. So when we talk about people that are caught up in the fires, we're not just talking about you literally lost your home a few weeks ago. We're talking about your entire livelihood, your identity, the work that you do, the craft, the future of your craft, is being decimated. It's literally on fire. I feel like this applies to all of us, not just the people that lost their homes in the fire, but now, having said all that, just to get even more morose and throw more anxiety and fear on the fire. Now it's not just a matter of we're dealing with our own personal losses, especially those that are in middle age. They never really prepare you for the fact of what it looks like to be in the sandwich generation. You're raising your kids, then your parents become your kids, then you lose your parents. Like a lot of people in my generation are definitely going through that right now. But now again, there's this global loss of identity with our craft, with our careers. What is things? What do things look like in the face of artificial intelligence? Yes. Now without getting political, let's talk about politics and the amount of fear. And this is, by the way, this is on both sides. This isn't about, well, these are horrible policies, and this is just a matter of the amount of uncertainty around everything right now. I just feel like so many people are completely frozen, like you watch the news, you read the social media feeds, and you're like, what is the point of anything right now? It is all falling apart. That's a whole other level of loss and grief and fear and anxiety. So what the hell do we do here?

Christina Rasmussen

So the I want to start by for this saying, if you're a creative and listening to this, hold on to your craft for dear life, creatives are, you know, I don't want to it's not that non creatives are not the all the things I'm going to say next. But creatives, the people who have said yes to their art and their creativity had all have already made a lot of sacrifices. Zack, as you know, they've sacrificed so much to say yes to their craft and their art, because it's to be doing creative work, and to be living in that location, in that world, it comes with a lot of sacrifice, loss. There's a lot of things that are going on in a very intense so when you add this your many people would say, I've had it. That's it. That. That's the is it? Express the nail on the coffin.

Zack Arnold

That's where most people are right now, most of the people I'm talking to, they're like, I'm out. I give up. I'm moving on.

Christina Rasmussen

So I'm gonna say, Please don't, don't give up. This is this you have the most precious thing for yourself and and the listener knows this, the fact that they have to be to have been where they've been all this time, having chosen their their craft, their creativity, their whatever it is that they've been doing with their creativity, it comes in different forms, in many different ways, to have made it as far as they have and now to give up. They're like, Have you ever heard of this? Like, just before you reach the gold before you find, oh, sure,

Zack Arnold

I share that image all the time of the gold miner, that there's literally a sliver of dirt between him and the gold mine, and he's turning around the other way. I think of that image on a daily basis.

Christina Rasmussen

That's it, because, and I'm going to show you a picture of what it will be like if you in this moment in time, give up on your craft, give up on this creativity, give up on the way that you've made your money now. You're going to look back five months from now, a year from now, now, and you would wish you didn't do that. Don't do it. And it's going to get harder, and it's going to be tough, and you might find have to find a part time job to to just pay the bills, like whatever it is that you have to do, to just feed yourself. But no matter what I'm going to if I had a physically want to jump up and down and say to everyone who's listening, don't give up on this. It is the most precious thing you have, and that's why you fought for this all of your life. And I don't know the person who was listening, and I don't live where they live, and I'm not in their shoes, but if they're listening to this, and they've been a creative and this has happened, they've sacrificed so much all this. It will all be no do not do it. Do not give up. Do not let go of this. It's it's almost it is as important as your soul and your heart and your whole being. In a timeless way, creativity is divine. It is the most divine thing we have as humans, against AI, against the future. There is when you're creative in a human way, it doesn't matter how complex and intelligent and supreme the AI will become, they will never be able to reach that divinity and creativity that humans can. And I believe this with all of my heart, there's going to be this. There's always going to be a special place that will have a lot of value for human creation. And this is the time to to fight for this. This is the time to fight even more than ever before. I know I'm again, I'm on my soapbox, but you

Zack Arnold

and I are standing on the exact same soapbox, so I'll make room for you, because I've, I've been saying all the same things, and I very much feel the same way. And when it's a matter of, I don't really know who I'm talking to, but they need to hear this. You're talking to me, and I need to hear this right now, because the last year, my business has been decimated because my entire livelihood is now based on those of the working Creative Industries, specifically entertainment, having both the means and the desire to improve themselves and build their careers. And everybody's lost hope. So I'm at the same place where, less than two weeks ago, maybe it's time to give up. Maybe I've just stopped the podcast and stopped the classes and close out the community and just give up. But there's always that kernel of like you can't like this. This is what you're meant to be doing, and you just you have to find a way through it. So having said all that, I'm going to play the devil's advocate for a moment. Yes, please do Sure. It sounds great to not give up, right? But in the in, one of the analogies that I like to use is the idea of, you know, we feel like we're figuratively climbing a mountain, but let's say we're literally climbing a mountain, right? And right now it feels like we're climbing Mount Everest, and it's really hard, and I want to give up, right? So I get that. But what if, by the time I climbed to Mount Everest, it's not even there anymore. Then it's like, how do I not give up? Right? And that's the real fear that a lot of people have. It would be like, imagine if you said to the top of buggy whip manufacturer in the late 1800s don't give up. A lot of people feel like, what is the point if the mountain I'm climbing is going to disappear? That's a totally different conversation.

Christina Rasmussen

And I am so glad you're asking this question, because this is the most important answer I gave to myself, but I wouldn't have been able to give that answer two or three years ago. This is a newer revelation, and I'm gonna say this with everything that I know and I. Am I believe this deeply, and it's probably the hardest Revelation And the hardest truth that I had to express in my own life. What if the mountain is not that the mountain top is not where we're going to every day? What if the journey is the experience? What if today is that destination? What if, how you choose to spend your time holding on to your craft and holding on to your skills even, even if you couldn't hold on to it the way you used to, but in a in a way that allows you freedom in some of the hours of the day. What if the expression of that creativity is the joy, is the fulfillment of yourself, and if you do not have that feeling, if you are every day climbing a mountain without enjoying your own creativity to get to another place, whatever that is, then you need to readjust yourself and change. And I'll tell you this discovery, but, and I've heard it, and people talk about it, I always thought it didn't pertain to me, or it didn't pertain to to the things I was talking about. But I realized that I was I was also, even though it didn't look like it, I was heading I was always going somewhere. I was I was going up the top of the mountain. I'm gonna get there. And I'm not there yet. I'm gonna get there. What if you're there now? What is how would your life look like on a daily basis? To make you feel like you made it, Zack. And let me ask you that question. Now, there's nowhere to go. Ooh, throwing

Zack Arnold

me on the spot. I am so sorry, and it's no, you don't need to apologize at all. I appreciate you doing that. And here's the good news. I've actually thought about this a lot, reflected on it all, I have a very clear answer. The only thing that would change for me now there's only one component, and that's I have more reliable and predictable income coming in with the current business if I won the lottery. The only problem that solves is, oh, I don't have to really kind of hustle and grit myself through finding my next students to keep the business open. Other than that, if I always say to my students, like, if you were to talk to the version of you five years ago, they'd probably murder somebody to be where you are now. But we lose sight of it, right? So, as far as the community that I built, you know, the the resources that we have, like, there's, I have a million things on my to do list I want to make better and improve. But as far as by and large, the new life that I've created, doing this for a living, I love it. The only challenge that I need to solve that defines I'm not at the top of the mountain is just, I like to have more reliable and sustainable income on a monthly basis, rather than the feast or famine of kind of riding the wave of the industry and trends. And if I can, if I can clinch that, then that's the top of this mountain for me.

Christina Rasmussen

Then you are the top of the mountain every day, right? So question, another question for you. And and, dude, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask a percentage question, what percentage is missing that that, if that reliable income addition happened, would help you feel that you're the top of the mountain every day. What is the percentage that's missing?

Zack Arnold

Probably about 25% doesn't that, right? It's not, it's not like a matter of, like, Man, I just, I need to make a million dollars. It's like the gap between I can't sleep at night and I'm at the top of the mountain is about 25% right

Christina Rasmussen

now. And if I was to ask you, and you don't even have to answer specifically, but whether you have the answer or not to ask you, is there a way to get to that to only 10 more percent, not 25 but 10% change that you already know how to do,

Zack Arnold

just absolutely, literally as as we speak, I just sent out a campaign to try and just close not even 10% just I'm going to close the gap by 5% Then I'm going to close it by another 5% so I'm in the process of doing that now. But here's, here's the first, first thought that comes to mind is that, given present circumstances, and me having a lot of understanding, a connection to a lot of people in this industry, I am in a very I'm in very select company saying I'm 25% away. I had a conversation with somebody just on Tuesday that said three weeks ago, I was down to cans of black beans and sardines because we ran out of grocery money. They're not at 25% there's a lot of people listening. They're they're at more than 100% right? So I would just, I want to reflect and make it very clear, I'm aware that my 25% is incredibly fortunate under the circumstances. And I know a lot of people are not relating to this right now.

Christina Rasmussen

And if you were to ask that person that is at 100% you know missing what they need, apart from the fact that they need to feed themselves and to pay their bills so they have. A roof over their head. What is the second most important thing for them? Do you know?

Zack Arnold

I don't know for a fact, but I would venture to guess, from having had many of these conversations, it's once that basic need is fulfilled. It's some connection to meaning and purpose with the work that they're doing. And I think kind of going back to this idea of all of these changes and all of these losses, where you had said, like, Hold on to your creativity. Well, what if the mountain isn't there, right? And I, and you can correct me if I'm wrong with this, this interpretation, but I feel like, if we really were to break this down, what people do for a living is disappearing, right? But if you hold on to how you do what you do, and why you do what you do, right? Like, going back to me using the analogy of, well, I'm one of the top, you know, buggy whip manufacturers in the late 1800s if everything is tying around what you do and it's manufacturing buggy whips, you got, you got a rough future ahead of you. But if ultimately what you do is you want to help facilitate better travel. For those that ride, you know that they use horses to get to work. But you really, you really believe in helping people travel from one destination to the next and making it as efficient as possible. Well, then you find a different way to do the same thing. And I think that's really what you're tapping into with the creativity that's there are entire job paths that are disappearing, but that's just what somebody does. It's not what or how they do it, or why they do it, and

Christina Rasmussen

also, and I, I know I can't say this. Imagine if I was given the mic to speak in front of people, and I had five minutes, and those five minutes, I knew that it would, it would be, it would, it would change their life, that it would be the most important thing. And I would always say this. I would say, hold on to what is meaningful to you for dear life. I used to have a podcast. I called it dear life. Hold on to what is meaningful, creative and important to you for dear life, by if you know what makes you happy in work, never let that go. If the environment around your work has changed, find another way to do what you love to do, but never let it go. Never, ever, ever, if you need an extra job, I always said to myself, there's a there's a quote and that I love. It's from Henry Miller. How easy I found this. It's meant to be read, to be read. Then I found it so quickly. Here it is. It's from Henry Miller, and this quote helped me make this decision to to do the creativity part of my life that I've never said yes to because it was, it was felt like I had no more oxygen. And it felt like, to me, felt like, if I didn't have this, I don't have anything. And and I made promises to the universe that it didn't matter what I had, materialistically, and because it didn't matter if I didn't have this, I don't care if I have a nice car to drive in. I don't care if I have if I live in a nice house, if I don't have this, I don't care. So Henry Miller said, Someday, I'm going to own a few feet of Earth somewhere and put a house over it, just one big room will do with a stove and a basin of water, a huge desk, a bookcase and an easel, then life can go rolling by and what floats in through my door will be sufficient for me. So what I want to say to people, and always, Zack quote, I've had it here for many years. It really spoke to me, because ultimately, the person who is struggling and listening in and has lost everything, and maybe possibly the way they've made their money through their creativity, I want them to remember that without their ability to express themselves in some form that is fulfilling to them. It is like losing everything over again, double you lose you lose your physical material things, and then you also lose the thing that fulfills you, and then you enter a life of the waiting room indefinitely, forever. And the practical advice that I would give is I and as long as you have a roof over your head, and then you can pay your bills with some in some way or form, make sure you hold on to that fulfillment and your creativity for a couple of hours a day, every day, for dear life. And I know that is not heaven, it is not paradise, it is not the dream, it is not the Hollywood dream. It is not the you know, the way we have been told, but without that fulfillment, without that one big room where you can live your life in doing what you love for a few hours a day, it is not worth it. You. It's not worth it. Zack, there's no point in being alive because you're not alive. And I don't care about any material things at all, nothing. I grew up with very little. So it's not like I'm talking like our my parents, we didn't even know we were we had to grow in our garden like fruits and vegetables and we would eat. And they still, they still eat. They they live their life with very little. They don't need much. So I grew up in a place where I felt like I didn't need anything but my childhood friends and just to go at the beach and just be a kid with nothing right, with the same clothes I was wearing day in and day out. So but if you lose the expression of self, that's why creatives are living with their souls on the outside. And if you have to hide it, forget it. Zack, it's over. Yeah.

Zack Arnold

Well, it's insights like that that are the whole reason that I wanted to have this conversation again, and what you've really tapped into. We're not going to be able to to explore the depths of this, because I'm pretty sure we maybe already have a part three in our hands. But one of the I always like to to posit really big, difficult questions for myself, right? Because part of the creative process is the the creative challenge of solving a problem. And I've been working workshopping this question for a while, and I feel like I've gotten pretty close to understanding it. And I think you just kind of clinched it for me, which is the question has become, what is the difference between being creative and being a creative and I think what you really touched upon is all human beings have the ability to be creative. It's a survival mechanism, making tools, whatever it might be, and you can be an accountant for a living, and you can paint on the weekends, or you can journal, and you're a creative person, but that's different than being a creative and I think what you just really hit for me just now is this idea that the difference is that when you lose that creative outlet, you're literally giving away a part of your soul, and you're dying inside. And it's the difference between even. It's even the difference if you make a living doing it. It's the difference between I've lost my livelihood and making money with my creativity, versus I'm losing that outlet to express myself and put myself out into the world and I'm dead inside if I don't have the way to express myself, right? And the thing that I thought we'll have to wrap up shortly, because I want to be respectful of your time. But the thing that I thought of immediately, that goes back to, how do you define the mountain and what needs to change? One of the conversations that I've had, both with myself and with my team, given things are really challenging right now, is I thought, so let's just say that I stopped everything. I just I flipped the off switch. You know, there's no more podcasts, there's no more businesses, no more income. What do I do next? And the thing that scared me the most, I don't get to have these conversations anymore, and I don't get to write my thoughts and share my thoughts with others, and that's like so deep seated that's far beyond cash flow and revenue. Like my podcast has never made money in 10 years, right? Like, even with sponsorships, like my podcast is a way to generate exposure and build an audience, and there are other ways to generate revenue. I've lost money in my podcast for a decade. I don't care, because most of the the best conversations, and a lot of the like the I can't put a price or revenue projection on the conversation you and I had, and the difference that that made for me, that's a core part of my creative expression is having the conversations and being able to write about them and make sense of the world. That, to me, is the difference between being a creative person and being a creative

Christina Rasmussen

and I love that distinction. I never thought of it myself. And I want to say that imagine if we sat here and the conversation was how you know when things like this happen, you got to be realistic, and you got to give up on your dream job and on your dream life. You got to give that up and imagine if there were never conversations that tell you otherwise, that against all odds, and especially then, to keep that flame going. And for those who've made their their incomes through creativity, even if that decreases by 90% to find a way to keep a 10% income coming from that creativity to allow you to believe that it's possible to increase it again. And I don't know, I tell my kids, when my kids were ready to go to college, and I said to them, I don't care what makes money. I said, I care what makes you happy. And I think we have it wrong in our life, especially sometimes in Los Angeles, there's so much money. You see it everywhere, right in people with who lost everything in the fire, there were many wealthy people that were being featured on television, right? Never mind the 1000s of people who had nothing to begin with. Don't give up on your dream. Don't give up on the version of a life that is the mountain top, especially when life is like this, I'd rather die. A dreamer than ever become realistic in my life, I don't know about the person who's listening if they need to have they need to have the perfect roof over their heads, or they need to live in a specific neighborhood, but even if those who believe that that's more important, what they will ultimately realize is that the creativity that they use to make their income was the most important thing of all, and sometimes we have to lose it. So even if someone does give up and then they go back to it again, they needed to give up to to allow for that realization to happen, because we can talk about this forever, and someone who is doesn't believe in this, doesn't understand this, they would have to experience the loss of all their creativity, income gone and not waking up every morning, being able to do what they love to do, even partially. That's when they're going to realize that I don't know, and I'm glad to hear that you're closer to your mountain top routine life. And even when we get close and we get it to be perfect, I arrived at a place in my life after many, many years trying to get there where I said for me, because the journey became more important at the destination. If I have a day that looks like this, and it had no goals, but it would look like this, my day would look like this. That would be the most invisible success, but the biggest success of my life, and I got to that day,

and I sat back,

and I said this, I've been trying to get here since I was five years old, like it's a long it was a long road, and the reason why I hadn't gotten there before is because I didn't know that it had to look the way it did. I thought it was if I had to prove so many things. We're trying to prove so many things in our lives that have nothing to do with what we want. So we have to be very clear as to what it is that we want. So everyone's listening. Don't assume that you know how your how you want your day to look like. Question, that question, that answer, sit down, write it out. What is your perfect day? What do you think your perfect day looks like? That has nothing to do with making a lot of money, success. Yes, paying your bills is important, but what else? Don't lose the what else in the midst of this. Like, do you know what I'm saying? Like, yes, pay your bills, get the job, whatever you can get. It absolutely you have to feed your kids. Are you kidding me? I go and work anywhere. It doesn't matter. But then how can I add make sure that this part of me doesn't get deleted.

Zack Arnold

You know, this is so important. Not only do I agree with you and think it's important, it's one of the foundational exercises I work with, with all of my students, when we're doing career design, lifestyle design, it's what I call the ideal normal week, not the I'm sipping my ties on the beach because I won the lottery. It's like the most boring, mundane week imaginable. What does the dream week look like? Let's build a life around creating that on your calendar so that again, that's like that. There's part four of our conversations we're going to have to do another time so many things to talk about

Christina Rasmussen

exactly. Can I just say during this time with someone who have lost their homes? And you know, if we're sitting here, someone might ask themselves, why would why am I talking about my dream job and my dream life when I don't even have a home to go to? This is the part that you need to keep dragging with you, like it's it's as important as being alive. I don't want people to remember, yes, do the basics. Reach for help. And just to summarize, reach for help, connect with someone, write hate to text, find community, have self compassion for what happened. You know, make ends meet, but then don't forget your soul behind. Don't forget the part of you that makes you, you, your signature self, that part of you that without that, there's no point in anything. And I cannot emphasize that enough. I can't it's there's nothing else that matters more.

Zack Arnold

And I certainly can't top that, that's an amazing place to leave it. And once again, this conversation flew by in about four minutes. I don't know how you keep doing that. Yeah, we've been talking for an hour and a half, but once again, this is an amazing conversation, and I'm pretty sure you might just end up becoming a series regular. I could literally talk to you for hours and hours and hours and hours, and we barely got started, but at least for now, I will be respectful of your time. Once again, if somebody. Is inspired by this, or they literally need somebody to send an email that says, hey, where do people find you? How do they get a hold

Christina Rasmussen

of you? Christinaraism.com, and there's a contact. There's form the contact there, and I mean, my email is Christina at second, first.com someone needs to write Hey, because they don't have anywhere to send it. Just send it. Send it our way. Just know that there are people around you, friends or strangers, that want to listen to what you need reflection on in there, they would welcome your inner world. And I'm glad that I got to walk with you, Zack, inside people's worlds and keep them company and maybe maybe bring some hope that not everything's going to be okay, but there's a way through and to not give up. Thank you for having me again,

Zack Arnold

and thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Christina Rasmussen

Thank you. Zack.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai