Welcome to picture love. I am so excited to bring this episode to you today because the title is just a little inkling of the goodness inside. We are talking about the divine art of receiving, allowing help, asking for help. And the many intricacies of being a human that maybe get in the way of receiving help that we need, whether it's hired help or personalized help from friends and family. And this episode was so full. I pulled out a part of it for a part two, which you'll get to hear on Thursday. So today's episode, you get to hear all about Dot and the professional work. She's done the personal work she's done on herself and support of her adorable son. And on Thursday, you'll get to hear part two of it, where we go a little bit deeper on her situation and how she views and uses her photo collection. And please just understand Dot is so much more than divorce, but that happens to be the backdrop of her life at this point of view. So if this topic is especially sensitive and triggering to you, I hope one of two things will happen either. You'll just come back to this episode when you're in a little bit of a steadier space to receive a whole lot of optimism and love. Or you will listen to it, and just receive the support and the wisdom and the, the light that's shining through these conversations today. And again, later this week. So without further ado, we're going to jump in with a quick message from our sponsor, and then you get to hear all about resources and the hope and support the Dot brings our community. If you're looking for a trusted service that can transform tons of printed and digital pictures into something that's space conscious, beautiful, and displayed on your walls or in a legacy album on your lap, then look no further. Reminiscence by Kris LeDonne is here to serve you and your loved ones. Now you can continue to make and capture beautiful photo memories, enjoy sharing them with ease, and make new memories in the process of reminiscing You can find inspiration and a contact form at krisledonne.Com or just check the show notes for a link. Now back to the show. Dot. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I love our conversations because I know you fearlessly go deep and it's always authentic and I'm already smiling from ear to ear. Thank you for being here on Picture Love. Yay. Thank you for having me. I'm just so like honored that we even had our worlds collide in the first place. I feel like it's such a blessing. When we step into our truth, and we step into, like, the little things that call us. So taking the course that you and I took, I just think it's so powerful when we do those things, the people that we get to continue to carry on our journey. It changes our lives. And you're one of those people for me. So thank you for having me. Thank you. I'm hugging you right now.. We met learning how to set up our podcasts and I love the name of yours, power of oxygen first. My A DHD makes it through every episode. Because they're not very long and wordy. They're concise and heartfelt and gold nuggets. So I love that. I'm going to make sure that, any listeners can go back and find you, especially if they're driving and can't look you up right now. I love what you do and I know we're going to get into it, but inspired by the last episode of yours that I listened to, I'm going to open with a question for you. Let's go. Dot, what makes you happy today? What makes me happy today? Well, first of all, I can just like look up. I live in Durango, Colorado, so I'm surrounded by mountains. I'm in a temporary home that is a total blessing in my life. And I'm looking out the windows and there are mountains right there. And right in front of that is my dog sitting there looking at me, wagging his tail, even though we went for a very long walk this morning, he's just my ultimate super fan. And that is something that warms my heart. And I got to meet with two friends today, one for a long walk and one for a really quick coffee. And I brought it back to go in this little community. It's just. I'm going through a lot of change and trauma and pure devastation, but it's just this beautiful path that I've had these little angels planted everywhere. And I'm just so grateful for, I'd say like the way the universe is showing up for me as it guides me through what is happening for me. You keep giving me chills. Even before we started recording, I kept getting chills because you're literally full of light. And I love the visual that you gave me because as we're speaking, my doggie's outside on the deck deciding she wants to join the conversation and her very long walk is never long enough. She's always ready for another one., I feel like there are little like angel workers where they're Helping guide our energy and saying like, don't you think you could walk a little longer? Don't you think you could live a little more today? And do a little less. Oh my gosh. You're so right because at the end of the walk today Like I had to run and use the bathroom real quick But then I go back out and I find her just like a worm rolling around in the lawn Just loving life tongue hanging out ears inside out and floppy Fearlessly not caring what kind of laughter and ridiculousness she's causing is fully in her joy. And it's so nice to have those reminders. Nature's so good at that. Oh, yes. And you know what I think is interesting about dogs and animals is that I think like that image of We're rolling around in the dirt or on the ground. That's so grounding. They're so much better at getting grounded naturally every day than we are like my dog wakes up every day and does a downward dog. It's called downward dog because they immediately know to stretch their bodies. Like why don't I stand up and do a downward dog every day of my life? They just are like, Hey. This feels good. I'm going to do it and I would like a treat, please. Thanks. Or two or just rub my belly while you're at it. Give me the whole box. They're so good at receiving, aren't they? They are. And you know, that's what I am so passionate about is people learn this divine feminine art of receiving support. Just these little miracle workers that are with us showing us what it would look like if we received. And if we stepped into the things that our heart deeply desired every day. Since you brought it up, you started a membership about divine receivers. Is that correct? Yes. I'm an HR professional and CPA that scales small businesses and I help entrepreneurs hire teams and support. But what I find is that Entrepreneurs in general are resistant to hiring support and delegating and and there's many reasons for that. But 1 of the biggest is we're really good at doing it ourselves. We're go getters. We're mostly type a people who have gotten where we are because we've done it all. Because we've worked so hard because we've figured it all out because it doesn't matter like we've done it and it's hard to it's all about the how, but when we talk about receiving when we talk about divine feminine women. In that space, men too, if they're in their divine feminine, are easily ready to receive support. Right? But it's not natural. And so I created this membership to help people really dive into that. And in that, We talk about hiring support. We talk about getting some virtual assistance. We talk about delegation, but sometimes that's actually more about, most businesses that I scale when they come to me and they say, oh, I'm so burnt out. I'm so overwhelmed. I want to go back to my corporate job. I've got to hire a whole team right now, or I'm just going to die, right? Because we just wait to the last minute because we've got to suffer. But when they come to me and they say, help me hire a team right now. I say, okay, well, let's talk about what lights you up. Well, let's talk about like, cause you have lost that light and what I need you to do before I will scale your business or hire you a team. You need to go out in nature two hours a day. You need to go put your hands in the soil and get grounded. You need to do yoga. We've got to scale your life first before we scale your business. And before we hire you a team, because unless we deal with those again, underlying issues. Beliefs and disconnections that are out of alignment until we do that. We're going to not have success at hiring. We're going to find more reasons to put in the bucket of "See, no one can do it as good as I can" I had to figure out the whole process before I hired somebody. We will just keep finding evidence that having a team and being supported isn't available for us. So in the membership, sometimes we talk about, wait a second, how could you receive support today from your family? Did you ask your husband to cook dinner twice a week? Could you ask your kids to do more chores? Like it's not all about spending money to hire support. It's about our hearts being in this space of how can I receive? How can I do what I want to do that lights me up? And not still do everything for everyone else and like, let this be a tribe. You know, there's, there has to be a willingness to receive, you know, if it's not naturally your state, if we have lost sight of the fact that we do have choices, we can choose. How we want to feel and then take actions accordingly, that's something that's just so easy to forget. If you grew up believing that you have to earn your worth and you have to work hard and you have to, you know, prove you're good enough to have what you want. Or even the influencers of the DIYers, because I come from generations of do it yourselfers, but unfortunately, by the time I I was conscious of it. I was actually not a DIY er. I was a do it all yourself er. Oh, yes. I think that's very common for entrepreneurism, but I also think that's very common for heads of households who are raising other humans and, and those who don't have helping hands in place. Just, you, you can't necessarily go from that space of utter despair and Overstress and overwhelm without some fresh perspective on the outside is my experience. Absolutely. I mean, as entrepreneurs, what I see is there's actually a really high level of codependency. And when we hear the word codependency, we think that that means I'm dependent on other people. It actually, for most entrepreneurs and most high achievers, is an over reliance on oneself. And that is the definition of codependency also. It's this lack of openness to receiving. And we have been very successful. Because of that codependency and so breaking ourselves of that pattern is really hard, but codependency is about control. And if I do it all myself, for whatever my excuse for doing it all myself is, because there, I've got, I could list out 10 excuses I get on a very consistent basis, but whatever that excuse is, It's actually codependency. You're trying to control the situation. You're trying to remain in control and your heart is closed to receiving. And the thing about receiving is we, we tell ourselves this story that it's a one way road. And that's such utter bullshit. It is not a one way road. When we ask for what we need, when I say to my friends, I'm going through a brutal divorce, I need help picking up Dominic from school today, because I can't, they get the opportunity to show up for me. They get the opportunity to connect and see me and, and be there for me. And that is a two way street. I ask, they gave and they feel like, how cool is it when you get to show up for your friend like that? How cool is it when you know something you can actually do to help them when they're in that place of despair? I'm so glad you said that because I truly, to my core believe that asking somebody for help and receiving it is actually giving them a gift. It's both, right? Like I'm giving to you by saying what I need, and you're giving back to me, and then you're receiving Amanda Palmer wrote a book called the art of asking and Amanda Palmer is this punk rock star who is really the 1st person who she invented crowd sourcing. She funded her album. By having her fans just send money, not like, Hey, send me a hundred dollars, send a dollar. She raised millions of dollars to fund her albums, but she started out as like a mime in New York city, dressed as a, as a bride standing on a food crate, silent. And people would walk up to her and hand her money and she would hand them a flower and her exchange of energy. There was she would look those people in the eye and see them and they would hand her money. Right? It was it is an equal exchange. It's just not what we think of as. self sacrificing and doing it all and then people can show up for me. Right. And so she wrote this beautiful book about the art of asking and it changed my life. I read it seven years ago. She has also a very famous TED talk called the art of asking. It's like 10 minutes long and it could change anyone's life, but it's, it's this premise of it is an equal exchange of energy and we have to stop looking at it as if it's not. I'm hearing every word you're saying, but I can't help but notice what a beautiful, loving example you get to be for your son. While tending to your own needs, because then you're raising a young human who sees somebody who's willing to make good choices so that they can step into their wholeness so that you can heal. And we can't heal somebody else, but we can model by our own healing and sharing that energy of, of love and healing and compassion and the ability to do scary things in order to navigate this very twisty journey that we're each on. I, I hope this is not condescending, but I just so commend you giving him that example. Thank you. How's he doing? Is he hanging in there? He's great. You know, he's steadier than I am in many ways, less emotional. He lives more in his body than his heart. He's an Enneagram nine, a peacemaker, and I'm a three, an achiever. And so I'm very heart forward and he's much more, body forward. And, we learn more from different types. Totally. And he's very clear. Like "mom, how you should handle this situation is just don't engage. Just don't talk to them. Just don't, it doesn't matter. It's all good." Right. And so while that's a big override, he's also just like, look, don't let them have your energy. And it's just very clear. I love that. Listen to the wisdom from the mouths of babes. Listen to that. And, yeah, he's doing great. He's doing great. He's had a really big year in school and he has, I think, really been able to, with my guidance, learn to stand up for himself and, you know, it's fifth grade, so we're encountering bullies and we're navigating and I'm like, look, I will go with you to the principal, but you need to have the conversations and Then I'm releasing you with him to navigate this. I will advocate for you, but I won't do it for you. Like we're not doing that. And so we've had that with a, with bullying in school, with family situations. And now with a teacher, like there was a teacher about two weeks ago that did not let him go to the bathroom during class. And that became an issue and, and then after he got to confront the teacher about this, he said, "mom, I feel so empowered." and I'm like, awesome. I see you picturing love in all directions of your life and I'm just, I'm cheering for you. And I just, I hope that on the other side of this, you will keep finding that sparkle. You said something like that before the conversation. What was that? I just, what I have noticed is we can, we can see a lot of negative in our life, right? We can be like, Oh, that was so gross. But if you look closely, there are glimmers, sparkles every day that are like leading us in this other direction of light versus darkness. And they're planted everywhere. So for me going through this divorce, which is sudden and odd and shocking and really kind of scary, but empowering as I go through this, what I'm noticing is. Each day I have this abundance of glimmers and sparkles and blessings pour into my life and it's so profound. But if I wanted to bury my head in the sand and just be sad, I think I would miss those glimmers and all the light surrounding me. And you know, I was crying in the gym. Locker room recently. Like I got a text from the ex. It hurt my feelings. It hurt my heart. It felt scary and threatening and I didn't know what to do. And I went, Oh, and the lady next to me, she asked, she said, are you okay? She didn't have to ask. I'd never met her before. Right. And at that I had the opportunity to just say, yeah, I'm fine. Or I had the opportunity to wear my heart on my sleeve and say, no, I'm not okay. I said, I'm going through a hard divorce and I'm scared and she said, I was a paralegal. I'm retired. Do you have a lawyer? And I said, I do, but I don't know how to do this. And she said, well, I have so much free time. Here's my card. If you have any legal questions, anytime, day or night, you can call me. Right? And so she said, what's going on right now in this moment? And I told her and she gave me some advice that was really valuable in that moment. And then, and then I let that go and then I went out and had a good workout, right? But if I had not shared that moment, opened up that art of asking space, um, I wouldn't have been given that blessing, but she was right there and she was waiting for me and she was planted for me that day. Right? And now I see her often at the gym. So she's one of my little, I say, little angels that are planted for me to help guide me each day. And I mean, each and every day like, Oh my gosh, the number of angels that were planted for me earlier this week, I went to yoga. And one of the ladies knew I was going through the divorce and, she said, Hey, you know, just, just so you know what I do, what I did during my divorce, do you know where I went to cry? And I'm like, huh? She says, I went to the cemetery one judges you. If you cry at the cemetery, they have no idea what you're going through. And she said, but you are facing a death right now. You don't get to bury anyone. So go to the cemetery. And so now I'm like, well, actually go to the cemetery anytime you need to cry for anything because often we're crying because there's grief and grief is love with nowhere to go. So I'm like, well, that's a great ritual to have in my life is to, when I need a good cry, divorce or not, go to the cemetery. I never would have thought of that. Yeah. Right. So pockets of love that are being shared. Glimmers and sparkles are light versus the darkness that is really all around me right now. I want to stay in the light. You know, and going back to that moment in the gym with the paralegal, if, if you hadn't had that exchange, you would not have felt supported in that moment. But she was your glimmer. She was your sparkle that reflected the light into your eyes so you could see it. And then you were able to go work out and you were able to breathe. And what a beautiful thing. You know, I really think that that's the heart of the work I do. Well, at least that's my why. It's just because I believe we can do anything if we feel supported. And sometimes we have to just first show up and support ourselves, before we can then look to other people for support. And sometimes it takes that other person to make the noise, to break the silence, to remember. And so I've been talking a little bit around using albums to support children of divorce and the benefits of actually compiling, you know, some pages. On behalf of the parent or parents for the child, while it looks like a gift to support the child, there's so much healing involved in reminiscing over, you know, points of love, beautiful memories that when we rediscover them, when we relive them, when we reconnect with the energy of those beautiful moments, then they support us. And I just feel like. When we receive that kind of support inside of our hearts, pretty much unlimited what we can do in that moment. And, You know, just like exercise and just like eating and just like breathing. You got to keep doing it, but, I feel like your business and mine have that in common that we want to show up and provide maybe shine the light on the support that's existing and, and see where we can come alongside of and add more support where the gap is that we see on the outside when we're not in the middle of somebody else's story. So I feel a resonance with you and what you're saying. And I cannot say I know what it's like to be in your shoes, but I can sure say I love you and I'm here for you. And I hope I'm one of those friends you can shoot a text to when you need to. You absolutely are. I mean, it's that you're just another light worker in my life and you're totally right. The work that both of us do is driven out of our passions, right? Like, my passion is hiring and people management and like entrepreneurs not doing it all so that they can live this life of wild adventure that they desire and you know, I think that people are doing it all themselves and that is Helping them lose sight of their real why? So that's why I do what I do but why you do what you do is different and but it comes from the same space of Your passion is in this and my passion is in this and yes, I'm a CPA and I outsource bookkeeping, but I outsource it so it gets done on time. So it gets done on time, right? So it's not because I can't, but because I see the value in having it. Done. But because money is scary. Yeah. Taxes are scary, right? So there's like a more, there's more of a fear driven approach to people outsourcing bookkeeping. What I'm saying is I notice in my life when I really resist something, it can often be because It just doesn't actually light me up to do it. Yeah, you know, it's not just that I don't want to face Two marriages and divorces and yeah delete all the stuff. I just freaking hate it. I don't want to sit around and spend my time Doing that there's no part of that. That sounds fun to me the only part that sounds fun to me is having the printed out photo books and and the the joy of the organization. I think we have to recognize when we have those things in our lives and then we have to Honor that and step in and invest in yourself. Like you and I did the podcasting course together. We stepped in and invested in ourselves. If I had not taken the class and spent some money on myself, would I have been as inclined to take messy action? I didn't think I was capable of doing it myself. I wanted something to push me through the steps to get it done and published. And that was the framework I needed. Because you honored the inner voice called you to have a podcast. And does that inner voice actually make any sense to you? In my world I still don't fully understand what that inner calling is. I just know I have to honor it. I call it my heart. My heart tells me what to do and I'm happiest when I follow my heart and I'm probably in my worst cases when I resist it and the pressure builds like a boiling pot with the lid on too tight and the pressure builds and the pressure builds And then what happens? A whole hot mess an explosion when I let something really important sit unattended. Then it's just a bigger problem. Because you are really important, right? And the desires of your heart are really important. And we aren't just given those desires. They're not like out of nowhere. My podcast is all about the power of oxygen first, which means the, it's really powerful when we take the courageous action on a daily basis to show for ourselves first to honor those inner nudges, to see the light because it's this life in alignment and it is not just about getting things done. It's so powerful when we do that for ourselves. It doesn't have to make sense though. I mean, I had a therapist once tell me, like, if your child asks for a hug, do you ask why? And I'm like, no, I would never. So if you're asking for something, What would it look like if you just honored it? It would look like forward movement. Heck yeah. Yeah. Scary too. Scary and exciting. Yeah. We'd be really like alive and adventurous. Yes. courageous. I do love roller coasters. I do. I just, I haven't been on enough recently. I think it's time to get back on the roller coaster. I fly airplanes. Flying airplanes is like, and I also haven't been flying airplanes for a while. And I know in my heart of hearts that I have to honor that nudge in the plane. And I mean, I just giggle like a school girl when I'm on those roller coasters. Turbulent waves. And yeah, it's my happy place. Yes. That's so beautiful. So Dot, I feel like you just gave me the beautiful breadcrumb trail to tell people about this gift that you made for the masses. Will you please describe it? Because it's, it's genius and I've never seen anything like it and it's free, which is crazy. Okay. So actually this came out of the podcasting course where we were talking about offering freebies because, there's a lot of power in offering our gifts to the world. I was trying to come up with a new freebie and realized that most people's resistance to hiring support, is that they think it costs money. It's all about money. So I was like, well, what if I created a hiring return on investment calculator? And so I started playing with that. Well, for me, hiring is so multilayered that it ended up being a couple tabs. It's a Google sheet that people can download for free. And it calculates what you would pay yourself on an hourly basis. If you were paying yourself. Now, if you're not an entrepreneur, you also can just plug in. I make 50, 000 a year, or you can plug in your hourly rate. And then it's going to continue to calculate things for you. And then. It steps you through questions about what things you enjoy doing in your life and what things you don't in your life and in your business or in your life and in your work. Because I deeply believe we've got to scale our personal lives before we can scale our businesses, especially as women, right? Like we do so much for others that we need to do that. So this calculator steps you through like, What things you could outsource and then what that would cost and then it calculates your return on investment, meaning how much it would have cost you to do that versus how much it costs you to outsource that. And it also gives you options for like, hey, it's actually free to ask your kids to do more chores. Or to ask your neighbors to trade nights so that you can have a night off and work and they can take the kids and it's, it, it is back to the art of receiving support that's still built into this calculator. Right? So it's not all about what you have to spend to receive support. And it takes into account, hey, if you didn't do hours of bookkeeping a month, could you spend 2 hours on client work? And if you spent hours on client work, that you're making 200 on, versus hiring a bookkeeper for 30 an hour, you have $170 return on investment by not doing it yourself. You're actually making more money in your business. And don't forget the energetic exchange and joy you experience in your life because you didn't do that soul sucking activity. Also, those two hours of bookkeeping would have probably taken you six hours because you would have resisted it and you would have thought about it for three days and you would have gone to the movies with your husband and been like, Oh my God, I have to do a bookkeeping. And you would have, it would have taken away from your experience on your date because those are those energetic sucks matter. So the hiring return on investment freebie also has a tab about energetic leaks and what those do to you. And then it concludes with another tab that helps walk people through what are your underlying beliefs about hiring. It's hard. I'll hire the wrong person. They'll leave me. I'll spend all this time training them and they'll leave. And so walk people through like, is that really true that they'll leave you? You know, it walks people through those fears and beliefs that are underlying not hiring support or even asking for support for free. Because these things we do are are driven by our beliefs in the stories and the fears that we have within us. You didn't mention the fact that you put a video link in it that walks us through it. And for those, uh, like myself, who are not naturally in love with spreadsheets, this is actually, very easy to receive. It even worked for me. It's So interesting how we think that the first objective is the problem when in fact, it's, it's usually many layers down below the root of it is the actual resistance, right? And we put labels on it that are just mainstream. Like, I don't have the time or I don't have the money, but it's usually something much deeper than that. And it's so nice. To be able to explore it with curiosity instead of judgment. And so that's what I like. It's a disarming tool. And I think it's extremely generous that it's free. So of course I will include the link I was really fun to create. And, I'm thankful that my team helped me I hope you will come back again and we can share some more stories, and in the meantime, I'm cheering for you. I'm grateful for you and you have definitely influenced me in some of my hiring. Great. It's so good to see you. Oh, thank you so much for being here.