Welcome back to Picture Love Friends. I have to just say how grateful I am to the handful of friends who immediately clicked to watch my first, my YouTube debut, so to speak as a podcast host. It was so heartfelt and so wonderful to get the support and the feedback. Thank you so much, and if this is the first time you're finding me on YouTube, thank you. If this is the first time you're listening on audio of my podcast Picture. Love. Thank you. You are all welcome in all walks of life. And I would like to give you a quick disclaimer for those who found the links for this on social media. Thank you for clicking the links or trying to apparently me being so green on YouTube, the links won't go live. That's considered an enhanced or an advanced feature to actually have hyperlinks that link in the show notes on YouTube. I don't know. Anyway, I'm gonna keep going and I'm gonna trust that it'll all work itself out. But if you ever discover that you're trying to get a link and it's not working, feel free to leave me a gentle comment and say, link here please. And I'll be so happy to paste it in the comments, but it will all work out and thank you for the grace. Some of you're trying to help me show up better, and those of you who are being patient while I am doing this messy. My name is Kris if you don't know me, I am an. encourager. I love to look at people and listen to them, hear their stories, see their lives, and I love to mirror back to them the beauty and the love that I see in them, even when they can't see it themselves. And one of the little drawbacks to loving people and wanting to observe people is I can find some. I won't say addictive, but I'll say habits that I've developed lately because I'm sure if you are living in this Earth experience with me right now. It is actually April, 2025, and there is just a lot of, a lot of headlines. As soon as you read one headline, there's another, and I believe that it's gonna probably get a little crazier before anything ever calms down again. And I've discovered that I'll go onto social media to try to find something in particular, and I go down a rabbit hole, you know, a digital rabbit hole where I'm finding a whole lot of ads I didn't want, and I'm scrolling and they get me distracted. And I am neurodivergent. I have a creative, you know, I have many, many tangents on every little thought. And if you've been on my audience any period of time you've. Probably noticed some of that. There's a lot of detail in a story because I feel like there's so many things that I care about. My point is that the scrolling can become a habit that becomes a time suck or an energy suck, and I'm trying to be more mindful about where I put my energies so that I'm not drained after trying to find one creator and their content that I wanna hear, and losing an hour, it's kind of frustrating when you realize that you lost something you didn't even intentionally mean to spend. And I'm talking about energy, not just time. So in an effort to. Spend my energy more mindfully. I am going to be taking a seven day social media detox. Now you're probably thinking it sounds like a diet or something like that, or it sounds like I'm going to be a nomad. Well whatever you wanna interpret, that's fine, but I believe that everybody can use a break, a timeout, and I actually created a tool for myself that I will be using, and if any of this resonates, I am going to put a Google Drive link where you can download a copy of it. Where it gives you just little nuggets that you can do one a day over the course of seven days, and if five minutes is all you can spare, fine. If 30 minutes a day is what you can spare, great. If you want to fully remove yourself from social media all day for seven days, that is entirely up to you. But I may go a little bit quiet for the time being. Because I am literally practicing what I preach. I've got a lot of wonderful events going on in my family and I wanna be fully present with them, and I don't wanna lose track of details and I wanna show up prepared and I wanna show up rested and I wanna show up knowing where my energy is being spent and where I can call it back. Does that resonate with anybody right now? So when you have a, a break to your routine like travel, and you're sitting at the airport waiting or on the highway for an extra number of hours, sometimes it's nice to have something to listen to. Sometimes it's nice to have something to watch, but I am going to choose during this seven days to actually listen to a book. Listen to my own thoughts. Read a book, listen to music, sing more and not scroll. So that is my goal, and I'm probably going to give myself. Maybe 30 minutes each day where I can see if there is something that really does matter to me from a family member. But it will involve setting a timer, and that will be the time that I won't lose track of, because there's a timer to keep me grounded and connected to this linear concept of time. So when I show up to my daughter's recital. I haven't stressed myself out with more information than my brain needs. I will appreciate my digital devices for boarding passes and for directions on the highway and for placing an order for dinner and for checking out at the grocery store when we take her grocery shopping. I will gratefully tuck it away and enjoy a paper book that I am packing for the airplane. I will also enjoy studying the inside of my eyelids in flight, meaning turn the brain off and hear what thoughts come in because quite honestly. I am curating the best thoughts I possibly can because where my focus goes, that's what grows. We all know it, right? And I think that there is so much power in our minds that goes unnoticed when, at least for me, when I numb out on amusing animal videos. Or people whose opinions I really value, but if they are not a personal relationship of mine, that's not going to get my attention for the next week. So will you join me or at least check out my download and see if there's something that appeals to you. The goal is just one measure better. One measure more. Mindful is better than nothing, for sure. And there's nothing to lose from giving it a try or listening to a more positive thought. That's all I wanna give you is positive thoughts, and I want your responses to me to cause me to have more positive thoughts, right? That's what a community does. It's an exchange. It's not a programming. I am not here to create a new matrix for people. I'm here to live and let live. I am here to learn and be willing to agree to disagree, and still honor that. I am here to experience life with you alongside of you and know that your experience is not always gonna be the same as mine, and that's okay. So. What good could come out of this kind of digital ease, this holding space for one's self? How many wonderful thoughts can be remembered or discovered or born? How much creative space can be found when. Two, three hours of social media is spent on something else. I'm sure most people don't even know how much time they spend on social media for those of us who use it, because it's something that's so convenient. It's always in your pocket or on your desk or in your Bluetooth, right? It's something that allows us to communicate ideas and information, which is a beautiful thing. It allows. Beautiful creators to share their art. It allows so many beautiful things, but when it takes us out of our own lives and other things get neglected, there are relationships that can suffer relationships with ourselves, relationships with our pets, relationship with our neighbor, relationships with nature. I put my feet in the ocean this morning, and I'll be honest, it set my whole day on a track I feel great about. I got a lot done and it wasn't because I was trying or being slave to my lists, it's because I approached the day with a clear mind. It was gorgeous. Something about that salty ocean water just. It's a course correct for me personally, and maybe yours isn't the ocean, maybe it's something else. But nature is so healing and it has so many gifts for us and so many, so much wisdom, and it is such a joy. When I discover what was waiting for me to what was waiting to be noticed, I actually got stopped. This morning by a woman who was leaving the beach with her little dog, couldn't have been more than three pounds. And it was so interesting to have her total stranger, I don't know her name. But it felt like an old friend because she was admiring the beauty of the ocean. She was admiring the fresh air. She was looking and I said, are you going or coming? And she's like, I'm, I'm finished. I've already been here. I'm, I'm heading out. She was an early, early bird and the two of us total strangers were marveling over how just everything feels better. And she said I had a stomach issue for two weeks, and I finally put my feet in the sand and in the ocean, and I feel like a new person. And it's such a gift to put down the device and experience and receive the gift of that knowing. So I am really curious to know if you take a look at it and you do one day or seven days or how you used it, I would love to know, but I will tell you what it's called. I called it picture love, not scrolling, a gentle reset for real life joy. That's what I'm hoping it is. I'm hoping it is a gentle guide for you to find a reset. This is no bootcamp. This is, it's something that I really believe everybody can complete with some intention, so if it aligns, grab it from the link that I will put in the show notes. You may have to copy and paste if it's not a live link. Yes, I hear you YouTube, but we'll figure each other out soon enough if you are listening to this on audio through your podcast player. I will also include that in the show notes and it will be a live link there. And more than anything, I hope that this activity and this thought and even just the suggestion of some kind of reset, a boundary that a loving boundary you give yourself to be mindful and present in your real life, not just your virtual life. I hope it blesses you today. Above all, I hope it helps you picture love better in your life. All right, folks. That's it for right now. I'm gonna go do as continue practicing what I'm preaching and I'm going to go unplug and go play with my dog. Have a beautiful day. Thank you friends. Bye-bye.