Welcome back to Picture Love Friends. I'm doing something crazy Today. I am doing a bunch of things that are me winking at my fears, my fears of how to show up in the world, how I've practiced all of the preparation, the lesson plans, the put your face on, make sure you look presentable for the world. Make sure you show your best version of yourself well. I have Rede redefined what I believe is the best version of myself, and that is my authentic self. So here I am recording an episode on video with no makeup, messy bun. My office is a hot mess, but it's a happy mess. And. I created something for you as a gift, and I'm very, very excited. I will get to that next, but it was scary because I wanted to give it while I felt inspired. Have you ever started a project and then abandoned it? I'm probably the only person in the world who's ever done that. Right. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. I'm not here to shame any of us, but the necessity for me to create something today and put it out in the world for tomorrow was my intention to follow through. Let me compare it to, you know, when somebody crosses your mind and you thinking, I gotta call them. And then the day passes, and then the next day passes, and then a week passes and a month passes. And you haven't called that friend or that person you're thinking about. Well, I am showing up imperfect and raw and a little unedited, hopefully edited enough for you to listen to the end of this. In order to demonstrate my commitment to you, my commitment to show up and be the permission slip somebody needs today to show up messy, but to show up real. I'm actually gonna post this on YouTube. This will be the first episode of Picture Love podcast that I'm putting on YouTube and. I'm winking at my fears. I'm showing up in a cut t-shirt in a messy space because I love myself enough not to shame myself into what I think the ideal, the perfection is. Behind me. You can get a glimpse at what's important to me. There's a camera behind me. There's a picture of my dancing daughter behind me. There's a picture of my children on the beach, which I love so much. There's a picture that a friend drew for me of a black iris referring to one of my early episodes where I talk about the Black Iris. If you have been with me that long, thank you so much. And if you don't know which episode it is, hmm, might wanna scroll back. There's some goodies in my over 80 episodes of Picture Love. You'll also see plants behind me because I am a late bloomer, pun intended, and discovered that I can not only grow plants, but find great joy and great fulfillment in nurturing and speaking lovingly to plants. And you know what's so cool is the more time they spend with me and hearing my voice and the music I play and just having my shared energy, the faster they grow. And I love that so much. So this is me showing a little bit behind the scenes. So if you're listening to the audio of this, I'm going to link up the YouTube video for you to watch video, if that pleases you. And if it doesn't, no problem, no problem at all. So this morning was. A little bit of a bumpy start for me, because I started the day early trying to get a jump on things so that I had time to take my pets to the vet with my husband. It was a two person job'cause it was a two pet trip for very anxied animals. Long story short, they're okay, but it took hours out of my day. And I came back having not had my meditation time, not having done the head clearing things I like to do first thing in the day, and it caught up with me big time and I found myself, I. Getting overwhelmed by things that were really none of my business. You know, it's so easy to get overwhelmed by news and social media and neighbors and friends and family and, the nurturer in me wants so much to be of support to other people. But as you may know, I'm working on some boundaries to own my peace and do my part that I can. Be good energy for those people to do their own. Anyway, there was one sticking point and it was a family in my community who's got some challenges. I mean, who doesn't? Right? But for some reason they got in my heart a little bit deeper. I did not practice my boundaries with this family in the respect of loving them, being supportive, being a good neighbor friend, but without taking on that emotional burden. And I literally could feel energy in my heart that was making me stressed and feeling panicked and overwhelmed because, well, first of all, I just put myself in their shoes with not enough information. So again, I was in something that was none of my business and I wasn't even aware of it. I had pressure on my heart, I had stress in my body. And after getting back from the vets. I started to journal what's going on? Why am I so overwhelmed? Why do I feel like that? Why does my body feel so tight and so painful like this? And I started writing things on the right hand side of the page that had everything to do with me and my body and my existence. And the things on the left hand side of the page were things outside of my being, things that belong to other people. And I was able to see I was too zoomed in. I need to zoom out and put things back in perspective. So I did some meditation, I did a little bit of yoga, stretching, and that made all the difference in the world. I literally came back to my life after about 15, 20 minutes feeling like a new person. My battery was charged, and there have been episodes on picture Love where I have. Recorded, a visualization to share with you, whether it was me or a friend doing it with us, and I don't know how many people have actually received and done those with me. But instead of doing that on this episode, I just wanted to share behind the scenes about what all these little bumps in the road did for me. They gave me an opportunity to look at why do I feel this way? Do I need to be focused on this? Is my head turned the wrong direction, and what can I do to lovingly redirect without beating myself up like I have done for many years? And. How can I make something beautiful out of this mess? And it was later in the afternoon when I realized I want to make a gift to the picture love community, because I really wanna build a community where it's not just people listening to me talk and listening to the beautiful guests that I've been able to have on the show. But I really would love to build a community where we are loving one another and it's more reciprocal. Those in my community are loving on each other and supporting each other, whether they know each other or not, or speak directly or not. And I really love holding space for that intention. So if you remember a couple weeks ago, I created a picture Love swag shop and I haven't really been promoting it heavily, partly because I was scared. Well, I will put the link in the bio. I will put the link in the bio asking you for Grace if you understand that it's a little rough and it's gonna be polished and it's gonna get better, but it works. And I it's fun to try new things, but what was scaring me was putting it out there and then I. Anticipating something going wrong and somebody not being happy. Well, it's art that I designed and the reason I did it was so that you could help me express to the world and to yourself and remind yourself to be your own sunshine and bring your own sunshine to your days. Because the more positivity we put out there, the better. And it's really fun to wear graphic tees. So I could wear a t-shirt that promotes a beer, or I could wear a t-shirt that promotes something. I really believe in like a mission. Nothing against beer drinkers. Please. I'm not judging, I'm just saying, what if my t-shirt could say something that actually makes a difference at somebody's day, not just branding. So if you'd like to check it out, I would love that. But the gift I'm giving away for free, not for sale, was, piggybacking on that. And it's called the BYO Sunshine Bundle, and I created a visualization and two free wallpapers that you could choose from or rotate between for your smartphone. And there will be a little love note coming soon after that, but I will put the landing page in the show notes. My hands are sweating. My palms are sweaty because it's not perfect. And actually you know, after a year and a half of learning how to record and edit and publish my own podcast, I had sound problems. Yeah. So it's not perfect. I believe it's going to be enough to really recharge your battery when you need it most like I did today, and it's meant to be used and reused, and I hope you'll share the link with friends. There will be occasional, not spammy, uplifting emails that you can always opt out. Of course. I'm here to ask your help to participate in spreading thoughts of love and positivity, personal growth, and helping each other picture love in the best ways we can. And I really believe that every day we show up the best we can. And today, not brushing my hair meant me showing up as. My authentic self, and it doesn't mean I won't brush my hair tomorrow, but today I'm showing up anyway even though I might not be magazine cover presentable. My heart is as beautiful as I could ever wish it to be and so is yours. So let's celebrate that together. So I do hope you will check the show notes. You will find instant access to those and the little love note of gratitude we'll be following in the coming days. Thank you for the grace of being here with me and my imperfections, and I hope you'll celebrate those imperfections in yourself and in all of us, and know that we're all a work in progress and it's a beautiful thing to show up in our authenticity. The whole point is we keep showing up and keep picturing love. See you next time.