Welcome back to Picture. Love my friends. I hope you are doing well today. I had planned to share a personal growth tool with you today. But while testing it on myself, I discovered. I am not finished testing it, and I'll give you a quick little peek behind the curtain. Part of it was I have done a lot of healing over, you know, something that really deeply hurt my heart a few years ago, about a decade ago. And every time I think I have healed from it, something else comes up and. Then it occurred to me after really meditating on this for a long time, now all of a sudden I let go of resistance and a solution came to me and I I wrote it down. I made a system, and the system is really serving me, and I found it so beautiful that I've decided that, it's not ready to share until I'm finished using it, and I don't like to make recommendations to anybody without having a degree of sureness that in fact, it is worthy of sharing and. I'm telling you this much because I know it's worthy of sharing, but I'm giving myself the grace of time. Have you done that recently? Given yourself the grace of time to finish something without, rushing to a deadline because I am, you know, my teacher background, I learned about deadlines and it's really good to have a plan, but it's also really good to know when to give yourself compassion to delay or cancel a deadline until something has really truly matured or ripened for the picking. So in the spirit of the title of this episode, picture Loved"Contradictions". I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about the contradictions, the beautiful contradictions that we have, the freedom to enjoy and partake and be mindful through as. Humans and this experience, and I hope all of it will resonate with you, but I'm curious to know if there's something that really jumps out in particular. So the contradictions I'm referring to, somebody might consider them opposites, but going deeper on discovering, they're really two sides of the same coin. And when I do share that tool that I'm developing, there will be more contradictions. But for now. I'll give you an example. I've noticed that during this constant stage of change, some people consider that pretty chaotic and there are times where I look around my house, where, which is also my place of work. And I label that chaotic at times and then I put a lot of time into trying to make it peaceful by tidying it up and finding homes for things but I have found that. The contradiction that's helping me through my chaos is finding calm. So that is the contradiction that I'm kicking off with because the work that I'm doing on my healing journey is causing a lot of chaos because I am, I am. Getting a lot of contradicting thoughts. Some are positive and some feel a little lower vibe you could call it. But I find calm from the satisfaction of knowing I am finally figuring out what's at the root of some of the chaos in my heart. And for that. It gives me calm because I know I'm making progress and that feels good. So yes, I'm geeking out. The self-help geek is showing her colors right now, and another contradiction I'm discovering is you can be fully joyful while grieving. And I am. I am grieving. The pains that I've gone through and I'm grieving some of the stages that I've outgrown. But that's part of growth, right? And it's okay to grieve old versions of ourselves. it's okay to grieve the loss of relationships. Maybe they'll come back, maybe they won't. And sometimes you're grieving, more mortal grief and. May we always be able to find our joy and that grief. You know, in my history of working with people's family photos, there was a lot of joy found in their pictures while celebrating the life of somebody, they lost a loved one, and the laughter that can be happening while their hearts are sad and grieving is. Easily perceived as a contradiction, but quite honestly, it's two sides of one coin. One coin. They do make sense together, and I don't believe that we have to be always looking and feeling sad while we're grieving. I think that we actually have, we have the freedom to feel all of our feelings. Sometimes at the same time, it's just a matter of where are we focusing. So if you'll join me in these contradictions, I hope that that resonates, and I hope if something occurs to you that's really valuable as a result of this discussion, I hope you'll join. You'll jot it down or explore that with yourself or share it with somebody you love. Here's another contradiction. I love this. I am no stranger to stress. How about you? But stress is not always negative. It's what we do with it, right? You can have positive stress and, and from an energetic standpoint, I find that stress is like a state that makes me burn my energy faster. My physical energy and. One of the ways that I manage my stress is through playfulness, and so a dance break after too much physical stress sitting on the computer or a game after, you know, a really trying round of negotiations. I'm trying to apply to different walks of life. Maybe just, you know, time out with friends or playing with animals or singing at the top of your lungs and not caring if it's in tune or not, just to break the silence of the intensity of some of, I don't know, maybe a researcher or a scientist. And, and you have to be all in your head and it's really noisy and it's a really great way to. Break the patterns of that mental stress that's going on. Another contradiction that I think are really important to accompany each other would be stillness and activeness. So if, if you're an athlete or you're training and you're doing something very physical, to actually give your, your physical body. Stillness. Not just sleep, but the conscious stillness and knowing, oh, I can give myself a break from that is, is really valuable to me. Know that there have been times where I worked in retail and I was on my feet. It doesn't mean I was running around and doing stairs and getting my heart rate up, but just the strain of being on my feet constantly after a full day of teaching was a lot of standing. And that in itself is very, it's active in a sense, but then to actually rest, rest my muscles. Was a really beautiful contrast to being, you know, having an active mind and a very, active, physical job. Making myself sit still, making myself have a. Quiet meditation is one of my favorite ways to do that. That really, really helps me. And yoga actually is a beautiful blend of both for me. I know what a lot of people have found relief in the activity and the stillness in yoga. I think that's one of the, my favorite, favorite contradictions that just mesh perfectly. How about listening and speaking? You know, I've heard many teachers say, we have two ears and one mouth, so we should be listening twice as much as we speak. And quite honestly, there are times where I'm speaking, I cannot hear what other people are saying. And so it is, it's a joy to be conscious of that fact. And I feel like the contradict contradictions of giving and receiving. Sound is really important. My years of singing in choirs was a really beautiful way of meshing them together. Music has so many boundary breaking properties and the way, the way singing in choirs and making music with musicians allowed me to not only use my voice and make sound. While listening to others to find balance, to find harmonies, to find, placement, in cooperation is such an energetically dis satisfying way of enjoying those contradictions and agreeing to disagree. There is you. We don't have to agree on everything and the risk of sounding redundant, I just, I find there's so much peace when both parties can understand that we don't have to agree with each other, but we can reach, we can respect each other's, position or views because there is never two people experiencing the same. Circumstances with the same perspective. Everybody's perspective is gonna be unique to their, their situation based on information they have coming into it, how they're experiencing it, how they're processing it, what's their emotional state while processing and experiencing. And for that reason, I think there's freedom in agreeing to disagree instead of always I. Arguing the case, you know, I'm not talking about court obviously, but in life is where I'm going with this. And this weekend I, while I was doing some of that healing work and writing out my process and all that, I was dealing with pain, emotional pain that I have experienced all the way back to childhood and through adulthood and you would think that that would have me in a terrible state, but honestly, finding reasons and connections and a solution to work through pains that I didn't even know were hiding in the backs of my mental closets and under my mental beds. That felt so empowering. And from that I found sunshine. I found emotional sunshine and I went to bed smiling about it because from that inspiration came the phrase BYO sunshine. You know how that old BYOB bring your own booze to a party? That came to mind during this weekend while I was. Starting my hopefully not too long journey of working through my, my healing process, I found my own sunshine and I, and I love using that term when I see somebody I love. It's a term of endearment. I'll call them sunshine out of love, because I want them to feel the warmth and joy of sunshine or because I feel warmth and joy in sunshine. I know them. And so I think we should all look within ourselves to find our own sunshine. And that is why the BYO sunshine stands for Be your own Sunshine or Bring your own Sunshine. I'd love to know which one you, you lean towards if you favor one over the other. But it cost me to create something to help those who agree. Pass on along. Pass the word along. So if you will join me, I am going to, for the first time on Picture Love Podcast, offer you a chance to check out the brand new swag shop. That's right. I have launched the Picture Love Swag Shop, and I will put. The link in the show notes, and I invite you to go check it out. There will be new themes periodically, and the first one is BYO sunshine, and you will see a whale, you will see a sun. You will see bright, vibrant colors that are meant to feel good. Yes, it can feel beachy. Yes, it can feel summery, but to me, sunshine doesn't have a season. Sunshine is, it just is. And sometimes when it's really dark, it's nice to look inside and find the light, the sunshine in your heart, in your soul that is innately born there. You don't have to do anything about it, it just is, but. Isn't it great? When we dig within and we find the joy and we find the light inside of ourselves and we don't have to look outside of ourselves, we don't have to wait for a sunny day to feel happy and and revitalized, we can revitalize ourselves. And then when it is sunny, that's a bonus. I'm gonna give you, another parallel example of this. My husband travels a lot for work and he was a little bummed the countdown to traveling'cause it's been cutting into our family time. He's missed a lot of Sundays since we moved and, he, I could tell it was wearing on him. He didn't have to tell me. I just knew that Crankiness was kind of creeping in and I'm so grateful that when I made some suggestions and he did his own thing and I left it alone. And I just sent him love and the guy did his work. And while I'm busy at home on my own, not looking to him for, to make me happy, I'm just making myself happy. I was, excuse me, I'm a little at a loss for words because it's so special. I'm just feeling it right now. What I suggested to him was, Hey honey, let's focus on all the things that are going in your favor. When he texted me that his flight was delayed and he was gonna have a nine hour layover, which made it look like he wasn't gonna get any sleep before his appointment tomorrow, and, he didn't have to, but he chose to focus on all the good things. And I get a text from him, like an hourly. He's like, unbelievable. I got bumped up to first class and it's a sleeper plane. I can actually sleep on this flight crossing the country. And sure enough he did. And then I wake up this morning to the most beautiful love letter in a text, where he had clearly been. About to fall asleep on his flight, and he was so full of gratitude. He just wrote it all in words, and I was already feeling that way. I was already feeling the love within myself, but to actually see it on the outside was a really nice, it was a nice proof. He went inside and he found his own sunshine when a lot of things were just getting chaotic and hairy and not the way he wanted to be. So my guy found his sunshine, and I'm very proud of him for that, and very, very grateful to receive the love messages that he felt inspired to write and the benefit of him writing that. I wasn't relying on him to make me happy that that was a beautiful thing to happen. I loved it. I received it. I saved a screenshot because that was delicious, was me knowing my honey is tapped into how to go on this gratitude rampage, and knowing he spent time doing that meant he's attracting more of things that will make him feel that way. So just by being in a certain state, more of that comes. That's why people say, this is my perspective. That's why people say things happen in threes. I'll be honest. Now I see why they say, you know, bad things happen in threes. Like, no, it's when you're focusing on it and you're emotionally matching that bad thing that happened, you're waiting for the other shoe to drop because you're taking on the mindset that, oh, the first bad thing happened. Maybe the second and third ones are gonna happen next, right? Because we're creating our experience here. So whether we realize it or not, we are master manifesters cause what we, what we focus on is what grows. So I choose to grow I choose to focus on more love and more sunshine. Inner sunshine that we each have, that we can tap into ourselves in spite of the chaotic world on the outside, let's be the contradiction that we want to have. What do you say? So I hope you check out the Swag Shop. I would love some feedback whether you purchase or not. Thank you. It's just all about positivity and finding resonance with a happier thought. So let's all be the sunshine that we need in our own day and let other people, receive that as a permission slip to do the same. So I hope you keep picturing love and thank you for listening. See you next time.