Welcome back friends. I'm so happy you're here with me. I have a confess confession to make. I recorded a, an episode for you and it was just not right, so I trashed it and I'm just gonna sit here and speak with you from my heart. Not about everything that's in my head because you'll probably, be a little. Concerned about my mental health. If you heard everything that is bouncing around in my head, this is the mind of a creative. It is a beautiful mess. And the teacher training I have been blessed to receive in my life has have, has enabled me to get some of it organized. But I just wanted to pop in here and share a little pep talk and dedicate it to anybody. His head might be as noisy as mine, but he is really feeling like they're drowning Right now, I feel like I'm floating, and so I wanna hear be here and be that buoyant boat that maybe, um, you can just climb up the steps, get inside, and we'll just enjoy our beautiful messes together. But I wanna just offer somebody the buoy that needs that pep talk today. So if you don't need a pep talk, me be. This is not your episode. Or maybe you're gonna listen long enough to find somebody else that we can uplift together by sharing. So I'm gonna speak directly to this person who's on my mind today, and they know who they are if they ever listened to this episode, and if you needed to, yay. My dear, you are many things. Those adjectives, they don't matter those pronouns. They can be important to you. What they call you, it doesn't matter. What you do is up to you. And all of those things that you did as a child that made you get lost in your own head, in your own world. Those were not just play, those were expressions of your heart, and I wanna invite you to get back to those expressions. It doesn't mean you have to get a bucket of crayons and some paper, unless of course that feels good, but whether it is a hammer and nails. A piece of wood where you needed to practice until you could hammer a nail in straight. That's fine. Good for you. Good for you for playing. Good for you for being curious. Good for you for being willing to make a mess and see what happens. I wanna invite you to join me and go back to that place where it was safe to make mistakes. Where if you fell down and you scraped your knees, you got back up because you were having way too much fun to quit playing, or you celebrated when the training wheels came off the bike or you hopped back on the swing because you're just having way too much fun to be bothered with the mess, where you learn to create beautiful things. Maybe you used some of the things that they said the opposite gender should be using and who cares. Just be curious. Embrace that inner child. Tell them what a great job they did because when nobody was looking, you are doing beautiful things. And sometimes people were looking and they had opinions, but you know what? Honestly, if you weren't hurting anybody else. Their opinions don't matter. What matters is what you think of what you've done and what you learned from the process. Don't let any of their comments shut down your creativity just because they think it's weird. Just because they've never seen that before doesn't make it wonderful what you're creating just because they thought you should be playing ball. Or they thought you should be playing with dolls has nothing to do with right and wrong. It's just their opinion. Just because they told you, stop singing so loud, I can't hear the radio. Doesn't mean your voice isn't valuable and beautiful and wonderful just because they said somebody else cut the part. Doesn't mean you are just as talented and wonderful just because they said, Hmm, you need a backup plan. Doesn't mean your first choice wasn't the right one. And just because it's years or decades or many chapters later. It doesn't mean you can't go back and honor that version of yourself. What was it that you wanted to do so long ago and then life taught you? It wasn't practical anymore. What is it? What is that thing that still makes you smile, that still makes your hands sweat, that still makes your heart flutter? What is it that you never got to learn or never got to try or never got to see because it wasn't what somebody else thought was reasonable or practical? If you're still getting that reaction. Maybe you deserve a chance to give it a try, give it a look. You don't have to be the lead in the show in order to love the experience of being part of it. There's so many ways to enjoy life, and I wanna invite you to join me and question is what I'm doing right now, honoring that version of myself. And just because you have a passion does not mean that has to be earning the money to pay the bills. Because I really believe we're never one thing. We are many things, and each one of us is unique, and that's wonderful. And you know what? If they call you weird, enjoy it. Call it a compliment. That means somebody sees you or. Their perception of you anyway. But now let's not look at other people for their approval. Let's look at them with love, and if they say something that's not supportive, you can just say Thank you and carry on. You don't have to agree with them and they don't have to agree with you. But let me just tell you something, your heart deserves to be heard. Your curiosity deserves to be satisfied. And if you dare to revisit a childhood dream, you're giving somebody else permission to do the same for themselves. And maybe they'll get their nose outta your business because they'll be busy in their own. And how great would that be if all of us discovered a childhood desire? Lived it now in our adult versions or our later versions of ourselves and got something wonderful out of it. How wonderful would that be? Because if everybody was doing it, imagine how happy everybody could be. I gotta sit there for just a second. So I gave myself a pep talk in my journal today, and it was amazing because I gave myself a pep talk towards that little version of myself before I was told that I play with boy toys, even though I'm a girl. I was told that I'm weird because of the way I dressed or wasn't good enough, you know? Before the world gave me their feedback that I honored above my own. Going back before that, I gave myself a pep talk. I. And I gave, I gave myself praise and I said to myself, that is beautiful what you just created. And don't worry if somebody says it's too creative for them, it doesn't mean you have to simplify. You can be as creative and as ornate and as busy, and as colorful, and as exuberant, as loud, or as quiet, or as reserved or as whatever as you want, and all of those things. Are who you are and that's who you should be, right? We don't need to be versions of other people in this world. That's not what we're here for. So looking at variety as one of the beautiful reasons we're here in life is the perspective I'm adopting and invite you to do the same. So hopefully this will inspire somebody to. Grab a pen and paper or open a document and start typing from your heart. And see what comes out of it, because the result was, I remembered things from my childhood that I had long forgotten about, that I thought was so amazing like this. My dad actually made me my own workbench, my own area. It was a. A little corner of the basement where I could be messy, but I could be alone. And honestly, I think I entered another universe of my own in that creativity. And it didn't matter if I wrote on the table or if I made a mess, or if I spilled glue, or if I got paint on something, it didn't matter 'cause it was my own little happy, messy space. And in from that messy space, I built things and I crafted and I created, and I, I made things where nobody's opinions mattered. I was just being curious. And that workbench brought, I, I would love to know how many hours of my childhood were spent creating. And you know what, it wasn't unusual. It wasn't weird. It was normal. It was normal to be creative. It was normal to go to that little quiet space where nobody needed me, nobody noticed me. I wasn't looking for approval. I was just being me in my pure creative state. And honestly, I honor that version of myself today. That is the person I choose to be, and I choose to never forget her again. May you find your metaphorical workbench. Whatever that is that maybe you forgot from your childhood and maybe some of my reminiscing, maybe some of the pep talk, maybe the idea of writing down a little pep talk to that younger version of yourself will help you uncover something. It gives you so many smiles. I love that my dad made that for me. I love that. My parents never touched it. They didn't plop other things. They didn't put homework on it. They didn't put anything on that, that bench. It was just my own little. 48 inches of the world that let me discover what I could create. So if you've never had that, maybe, maybe if you like the idea, you can just meditate on it and visualize what your workbench looks like, your creative desk, your creative space, your creative, I don't know, chair your wherever. Wherever pleases you the most. Maybe it's your own airplane where you're flying in an imaginary world and you get to see all kinds of things that you've always wanted to see. Whatever that creative escape is, I hope you get to discover that today and that it brings back something really beautiful that's been waiting for you to be remembered. Well, that's all I've got for you today. Picture love. I hope that that inspires you, fills your cup, or encourages you to fill your own cup so you're giving somebody else permission to do the same. I will see you next time and thank you again for being here on Picture Love. Bye-bye.