Welcome back friends, if we've never met before. My name is Kris LeDonne. I'm the host of Picture Love podcast. And, I'm, sitting here if, I don't know if you're seeing this on YouTube or on video, but if you are, you're observing my new recording space in my new home, my new Forever Home. So if you've been following me for a while, you know that I took a little bit of a break to transition myself a little bit with some time off. And last week was the first episode of Picture Love in three months. And it was a very special one. It was a transformational one for me, as they all are, but this one especially, while. Writing and recording and reflecting and then preparing it to share with you. I did a lot of growth. A lot of growth, and I realized listening to the playback, yes, I listened to my own podcast. I don't know if other podcasters do, but I realized that, I had basically in that conversation listed about, I don't know, half a dozen topics that could actually be a series in themselves, and something that I woke up thinking about today prompted me to record this episode a follow up one. I'd like to just talk to you from my heart. No script, no characters, no modulated voices or anything like that. Um, but just from my soul to yours. And I wanna talk about the courage it takes to show up and be seen in, in progress in complete. And, and reflecting on that, I, in my journal, I'm like, I can rattle off 101 reasons why I wouldn't let somebody see or hear or experience or observe my work when it was incomplete. And I realized all of them started with the words fear of. And the lists started getting long and I cut myself off after a seven or eight of them, and some of them were fear of judgment, fear of comparison, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of copycats, fear of theft, people stealing my work, feel of failure. There were the list went on and on and on. And then I realized, oh my gosh, all of the excuses that I used to not show you my rough work, my behind the scenes work, my in progress work, or to show even trusted mentors, friends, family, all of those reasons were excuses. And I am realizing I am guilty of. All of those offenses towards myself. Okay, so I'm getting real here. You know, uh, the first one, fear of judgment. I was judging my work. I was judging my worthiness. I was judging, you know, um, I was judging my work and my worthiness because in my mind it was incomplete. And if you look at the grand scheme of life. The purpose of life is not finishing it, it's experiencing it. So when I'm doing something creative, what's the harm in being seen, in the process? I'll be honest, some of the viral videos that have just sucked my attention. Were the ones where I see a transformation and in a transformation, you go from one state to the other, but it's not just a side by side. The ones that suck me in are the ones that let me see things get dirty and dis, what's the word? Dis, not disassembled, deconstructed. Before and then cleaned up before something new becomes, so I think that's why I love those home improvement shows. I, I love to see something go from old and needy to a second chapter, a second generation a second, you know? Experience. What are the words? I'm sure you, you're in your mind offering me the words I'm missing right now, but it's a transformation. It takes us from one state to the other, and I think that's why I love doing this emotional work on myself is going from something that. I accepted to something that I realized, mm, I need to reconfigure and then find new freedom in my newest version and my healed version. And that's a healing process. A healing journey, which I love. And I love to hold space for other people to do. So that judgment alone was keeping me from savoring the process and allowing somebody to savor the process with me. Another thing. The comparison game. So I like to look at other people's work, and I like to observe what's going on in the world around me. Not for the sake of comparison, but for the sake of curiosity and wonder and inspiration. Inspiration doesn't mean, okay, let me see exactly how you did this so that I can copy it. None of us are here to be carbon copies of each other. All of us are here to be expressions of. Our individual selves. So that comparison game, comparing myself with professional podcasters who have hundreds of thousands of followers and downloads and, you know, professional teams and producers and marketing teams and all that. I'm a, I'm a podcast staff of one. I'm the creator, the producer, the editor, the everything. And I'm okay with that, but I'm willing to show some of my raw ideas, my raw work, which I did last week, and share the inside so that I get the experience of my process and invite somebody to take a sneak peek with me. And who knows, maybe I'm gonna magnetize my dream team, my A team. To expand on what picture Love is here for. Okay. Rejection is a biggie. You know, I mean, how many, how many times have humans not talked to somebody 'cause they were afraid of being rejected? I mean, I'm thinking back in middle school. When there were kids dancing on the floor and I was a wallflower, I was the dictionary definition of a wallflower. The wallflower who stood on the side wishing she could dance, looked like they were having fun, but terrified to move my feet to get off the wall. 'cause first of all, I didn't know how to dance. And second of all, you know, I'm. People will look at me funny. What are they thinking of me? And obviously I wasn't thinking very highly of myself. So the fear of rejection, I was rejecting my work, not letting other people see- Me participate. I was rejecting my energy and I was rejecting who I was in that middle school gym. I was re rejecting the artist that I am by not showing up to you with frizzy hair and no makeup on, just to share something that's really valuable. And in the process of, of growing! I mean. When you go to a garden nursery, we don't buy a potted plant that's full size. We buy it for the experience of planting it to see it grow and to let it, let it fruit, and let it leaf, and let it flower, and let it do what it needs to do, where we're gonna, where it's gonna be planted and I don't reject a plant for what it isn't because I see it for its potential. So that's how I'm choosing to look at my work. I'm looking at my work as, as a child with wonder and curiosity and hope for what it is right now and what it can be, and that means I'm going to honor my unfinished. So those are some of the fears that really, really held me back. Um, a couple others I've mentioned, uh, copycats. Well, I was copycatting my bad habits. I was copycatting my behaviors that were keeping me in a box, that were keeping me safe, that were keeping me small. And if they were keeping me from being noticed by other people, then that was protecting me from criticism. Gee, is that a mission? Is that something I can look back on and build a legacy on staying small? Hmm. To me, the purpose of a legacy is something not just to feel proud of, but something that I can, my soul can express what I'm here to express and that others can stand on and build on and be inspired by, and benefit from being in the presence of, that's a legacy for me. And theft. I was afraid of showing things that were in progress because what if somebody stole the idea and patented it? Well, how many times have that happened? Has that happened? It's happened all the time everywhere, but I'll be honest, that's not a reason. That's not a reason to hide. Yes. Maybe you don't want to post your recipe that you're about to. I don't know, launch a product line on. Maybe you just want to divulge the ingredients so people know if it's aligned for their system or not. We don't have to give away all of our details and secrets of formulas, but we, but there's nothing wrong with showing up with, "here's what I am, here's what I'm doing. I'm in progress. Come alongside of me. And let's see what you're cooking up at the same time". There's nothing wrong with that. And the fear of failure was a biggie that's up there with fear. Fear of. Success, but they're kind of the same coin. Maybe two different sides, but the fear of failure. I mean, I have created many things in the name of picture love that I have maybe mentioned and not promoted and not linked up, and haven't made a landing page for people to snag or haven't re, I haven't repeated them on social media because- I don't know why. It's not because they weren't good. It's not because it didn't come from my heart. It was because I was second guessing myself and I was afraid of failing, so I didn't even try. That's like saying I don't wanna run a marathon because what if I don't cross the finish line? I have fear of failure. Well, when you never try that, that right there is the failure. So I was failing myself. I was failing myself by not even trying. To share the process. And a lot of this is rooted in why I haven't been showing up in social media. I, I do feel like there's a lot of distraction and a lot of noise. I don't feel like I need to compete. I do feel like I can speak truth the way I see it, and let those who resonate come alongside and those who don't resonate, they might spit my way. And you know what? They can do what they want. I'm not here to control other people's behavior. I'm just here to show up fully as Kris, as you're here to show up, not as me, but as you as your perfect self and see the perfection in just being. Not in the finishing- finishing is great, but we have stolen the privilege of finding joy and wonder, and excitement and vitality and purpose. In being in the process. So I made to something, I made a tool, uh, for myself, and I am gonna share it with you. I discovered that one of the things that gets me unstuck and out of a space of, of fear, out of a space of, um, self-judgment and, you know, also keeps me company when I am in kind of a cocoon state. And that is the practice of appreciation. Now don't lose, don't, don't hang up. Don't, don't move on yet. So the word gratitude gets put out there a whole lot, but, but for me, gratitude seems to be attached to, it can have threads and cords of obligation that it's a response to an outside thing. But for me, appreciation is deeper. They're not the same thing. They're not the same. They're definitely cousins. They live in the same neighborhood. But for me, appreciation is kind of the, the secret sauce behind some of the most beautiful, uh, transformations that I've made. Some of the most beautiful creative outputs I've made have come from coming from a place of appreciation. I'll give you an example. So when my husband and I moved south a year ago. Before we knew where we wanted to stay permanently, we rented a house and the house was just 15 minutes from the beach and we became, it became quite a thing. The end of the workday, we'd go walk the beach and there was one area of the beach where I always found these shells that I love so much. They were maybe the size of a US dime, sometimes a little bigger, and they always had a hole in them. A hole drilled in them and they looked kind of like they should be app pendant, you know, something that would dangle and they were so beautiful. I later on found out what they were and why that happened, but I found myself collecting them and I had literally a container full of these beautiful, bright white, they looked bleached. They were so bright, white, beautiful little shells with little delicate holes drilled on them. Now, I, I am handy. I have a tool bench. I have power tools. I love building things. I love creating things with my hands. But I don't know if, if any of the tools I ever had or would have could make the precision drilled hole in these shells the way I found them naturally delivered to me on the beach. And I started gathering them. And once we found the house that we are living in now, as of a month, woo-hoo. Um, I knew I wanted to create, uh, a chandelier over our dining table to display these beautiful little shells. And it was inspired by some of the popular things I was seeing in the lighting stores and online and, and I thought, oh, I just, I would love to have our local beach shells, you know, helping us bring ocean energy to the dining table. And I did it. I did it, and if you're watching this on YouTube, I will show you an image of the beautiful chandelier and I actually made two, one for over my kitchen island and one for over the dining table. Um, and the reason I'm sharing this with you, they came from appreciation. The wonder of finding one and wondering what it was and how it happened that way, and then wondering what could I do with this? It's so special. And the same kind of, shell kept finding me in tens and dozens and, and eventually I was able to craft them into something original and special. I used as a, as a way of not just appreciating nature and appreciating where we're living and appreciating the new home we come in, but that's where my creativity just flowed out of it. So I wanna offer you this little tool. I will link it up in the show notes to help you appreciate yourself a little bit more. Appreciate something that's always with you, and maybe you're not in the space to do that right now, but I wanna encourage you to download it, read it, and just plant those little seeds in your mind so that when you are in a space where you might look to that, you'll have that idea whether you remember it came from this episode or not. But let's, let's grow. Let's build beautiful things on a, on appreciation. And make appreciation part of our everyday thinking process, because beautiful things can come from that. And appreciating the process is one of the ways I celebrate showing up incomplete. So I hope that there's something here that lights you up today. If it did resonate, share it with a friend. And when you have a moment, check the show notes. And if you're listening to this on audio, maybe check YouTube. If you wanna see a picture of my shell chandelier. I call it my jellyfish 'cause they're all dangling down the bottom. It reminds me of a jellyfish with the tentacles. Anyway, from my heart to your, thank you so much for being here. You are so appreciated and I love the process of creating these episodes, but I love even more hearing the beautiful thoughts and things that my listeners- my Picture Love Collective- discover, and express in this conversation. I'll catch you next time. I love you and thanks again.