Picture Love is a place to pause, reconnect your head and heart, and remember that love is something we can choose to notice within ourselves, practice with intention, and inspire others in the process.
Hosted by Kris LeDonne, the Picture Love Podcast speaks to exhausted overthinkers who want to feel clearer, calmer, and more connected to themselves through soul-led conversations, personal stories, encouragement, including guided practices.
Because the world doesn’t need more exhausted people bracing for the next crisis. It benefits when we are steady enough to meet our lives, relationships, and work from a place of love and authenticity, without abandoning ourselves along the way.
The podcast is where Picture Love began, but the conversation has grown.
If you’d like more space to reflect, the Picture Love newsletter on Substack continues the conversation in writing. And if you’re craving real-time connection, Picture Love Community is where we gather live to meditate, reflect, reconnect, and be fully human together.
You’ll find the current ways to listen, read, connect, and join us in the links included with each episode.
What if compassion doesn’t start out there… but within?
In this episode of Picture Love, I’m sharing what compassion looks like in real life—especially on the days when things feel heavy, uncertain, or just a little harder than usual.
We talk about why so many of us apologize for simply taking up space… and how self-compassion can gently shift that.
This isn’t about carrying everyone else’s emotions or fixing the world.
It’s about learning to stay open, present, and kind to yourself—so you can show up with more clarity, more capacity, and more love.
There’s also a simple invitation woven through this episode:
To notice the “winks” in your life… the quiet reminders that say, keep going—this matters.
And maybe, to offer that same reminder to someone else.
Welcome back to Picture Love. Friends, if you were with me last week, we listened to a character that I have written before and she returned. Her name is Talia. And i've been talking about an arc of things I think that are fundamental to my intention and my meaning behind Picture Love this what this podcast is built on. So the foundation is including kindness and presence, truth and compassion. So those are the four legs of the chair I sit in to bring you Picture Love, metaphorically speaking. I'll be honest with you today, I just, it's not easy. I'm not talking about any one thing in particular, but just I'm experiencing resistance in a universal resistance right now within myself. And I don't know if you, are feeling that lately or not, but then I saw this question I had written and don't remember writing, and it was in my journal, and I made it a card, and it said, send me a wink that says, keep going. This matters. That's my own words that came back to meet me today. And, uh, I was very encouraged by the idea of setting the intention to be open to notice a wink from the world, my day, my little universe. I am open to notice the winks that say, keep going, this matters. So in that spirit, I'm going to see what comes out for you and to share from my heart Today. My intention is, is sharing a few things that have touched me on the topic of compassion, because compassion is something that I just, I'm starving for. I'm starving to see it in the world, and I, and I think that, that's the soothing balm that we need right now. The world needs compassion, self-compassion, and compassion for others. Not, not suffering for others, but identifying with their needs or their pains and being able to be supportive with an air of action. So for those empaths, those people like myself who feel like emotional sponges, this is not an invitation for us to soak up all of the negativity and the pain of others. this is an invitation for us to practice that self-maintenance, that lets us be present and notice and care when we notice others and care about our own selves. So. To illustrate this further, you know, I love to talk about nature. Nature gives me so much inspiration, and right now I'm in the process with my husband of plotting a, a bigger garden than I've ever imagined we would have. And it's, it's pretty exciting and oh, it's a lot of work. This particular one, it has room for us to grow into. So I'm very excited and I'm very sore and I'm very scratched up and blistered. But it's all, battle scars that I am, I'm grateful that that is why I am sore. It's for something I choose. And in the hours that I'm assembling raised beds and pulling up sod and things like that to make space for this new place. I have been filling my mind with, some beautiful information from various sources. And one of the ones I wanted to touch on, maybe you've heard of too, and it's a podcast called The Telepathy Tapes. And if you're smiling, you've heard of it. Maybe you've listened, maybe not, but just to share the premise is diving into the connection between autism and being telepathic, and how especially non-speakers are so adept at communicating with one another through telepathic means. There is data, there are statistics to show and there are beautiful interviews and people I'm not gonna name names here on Picture Love. If you wanna go deep into it, you gotta go straight to the source. Don't get it secondhand from me. But literally, there are people who are like soul, family, and their friends not in the same zip code, not even in the same country. They telepathically meet in this energetic location where they get to share and relate. And it's like social media for nons speakers and not just nons speakers, but those with these gifts. And as a former educator, I knew I didn't know enough about autism 'cause I had students through the years in the spectrum. But one is just, he jumps out at me, Willie. He made the strongest impression on me. And he would sit in my music class and participate in his own way, in his own what felt like own world, but I knew in some way he was present with us, but also in many other places. And listening to the telepathy tapes is so cool because. It's giving me data to back up the compassion that I had for Willie not being understood. And it, I could get angry. I could get upset about all of the information that has been stifled and hidden and, and disregarded by decision makers. Let's just put it that way. That have made it so that educators, Para-professionals, parents, have really, really been not only misguided, but completely, separated from the support that they deserve while raising and supporting and loving people on the spectrum. And so. Compassion for me is, is growing so many tendrils and so many roots because I am realizing that while I can't go through history and school, people making bad decisions to, you know, who were invalidating very, very valid ways of helping autistic, non-speaking people communicate. I'm thinking kids in particular, but adults as well. But all of the ways that our society has kept autism in a bubble, in a cube, in a pigeonhole that's kept us separate from learning and communing with them. And it's amazing to hear the stories about how an autistic child would actually know his or her mother's thoughts or their teacher's thoughts, but because they're nonverbal and usually more often than not, not allowed, tools like spelling. If you know, you know, if you wanna know what I mean by spelling, please listen to an episode or two. It's just, it's fascinating. What I love about gaining information about something that was mystifying is still mystifying to me. I love the awareness that lets me deepen my compassion by checking some of the biases or some of the things I were told are true and debunking them. So that I can not only have compassion for myself for having learned wrong lessons very well and make corrections, but that's one way that I can help serve that community, is just by working on myself to then show up more fully and more understanding and more loving for this particular scenario. And it's amazing how many people have been blessed by being open up to telepathic experiences because they gained the trust of an autistic student or child or person. And, so this is a whole new world, literally. That I am so excited to have discovered, and I'm so grateful to the creators and the brave professionals who are willing to speak out, and to go on record. And the parents who've been probably segregated beyond any other thing I could ever fathom. But it's, it's, it's exciting that these stories are finally being heard. These people are finally being seen and you know, love needs to be seen. It needs to be heard, and we all have to, in our own ways, discover ways that we can see and hear more openly. Otherwise, we just stay in our little safe boxes with the familiar. You know, we've talked about that already. Now the familiar carries feelings of safety, but that doesn't make it true. That does make it honest and it doesn't make it loving. So my compassion is deepening while my body is getting sore from all of this manual labor. Anyway, so I had to go to the Tractor supply store today to get some more posts for fencing to keep my dogs from trampling the beds that are being built. And while I was there waiting for somebody to help me get the posts so that I could load them in my car, there was this sweet young girl and she was stocking shelves and she thought she was making a mess and she thought she was obstructing me in the aisle and I was not bothered at all. And, she was just so warm and caring, but she was so willing to apologize for being in my way when I never said she was in my way, and I never gave her any reason to believe she was in my way. But the point was why apologize? Why? Why have we been raised Women in particular, but we- We good students- Why have we been raised to accept to be sorry. Be sorry for taking up space? Why should we be sorry for making noise? We shouldn't apologize for our dogs barking. We shouldn't apologize for our children squealing in the backyard when on a swing set or playing ball, and the joys and the noise of delight. That's love. That's the sound of love. That's the sound of life. It's so beautiful. Why do we apologize for taking up space, for being seen and for being heard? I think we all. Have degrees of desire to be heard. You know, making this podcast is not just because I want to be heard, it's because I wanna serve by sharing some of the best thoughts and the best information that I've been served, and I wanna pay it forward. When I am in the aisles of a store and somebody says, sorry, when I'm just trying to go by, I don't dare correct them, but the compassion in me says, you deserve to take up space as much as I do. There is nothing to be sorry about. My husband and I were out to, brunch a few months back at a, at a local restaurant where we go pretty often. And there was a boy there who I assumed was on the spectrum just because of like some of the, the mannerisms and the lack of eye contact and some of the behaviors that I've come to associate with autism. But whether he is or not, he was loud and he was flapping his hands and he was having a grand old time. And it was happy noise. And he was literally five feet from my table and I couldn't help it. I had to look over and I had to smile. And my smile was because he was so joyful, I couldn't handle it. And just because he wasn't, conducting himself in the quiet, reserved senior adult behaviors that were also in close vicinity, i, I just thought it was delicious. I thought it was wonder wonderful, and I was appreciating him. And the mom looked at me and she said, I'm so sorry if he's disturbing you. I was like, there's nothing to apologize. But I'm reminded of, of how often our society wants to normalize everything and make everybody acceptable, and we don't wanna make somebody uncomfortable just because we said something weird or made a weird sound or had a a strange reaction out of the, out of the normal reaction. I want this space to be the place where we can say the weird thing, and whether you agree with me or whether I agree with you, we're just enjoying being! Let's just enjoy being today. Let's stop apologizing for taking up space. Let's stop apologizing for having a view that somebody might think is weird. And if you don't believe in telepathy. Okay, then maybe you haven't encountered the information I've encountered. And that's okay. We're all in different places, but I think the best, the best way of implementing and rooting and growing in compassion is by working within our, our hearts First. Embracing an excitement to learn knowing that the more we learn, the more we know there is to learn, and being grateful for the variety that allows us to keep expanding: expanding our experiences, our awareness, our joy. And let our joy take different shapes. I don't expect this garden to look like a grid. Maybe from a bird's eye view, parts of it could look grid-like if things grow straight. But honestly, I'm not asking my plants to grow straight. I'm asking my plants to grow healthy and happy and thriving and nourishing. I wanna nourish the earth and I wanna be nourished. And that's not always neat, tidy and according to other people's expectations. So. What's something that you can do for yourself today, to practice Self-compassion? I ask you sincerely, because I just had to give myself compassion for snapping at my husband over something that, in my view, he might have been able to figure out, but honestly, that's just my perspective. That's not his. And I, I had to catch myself like, why am I so cranky? Why was I so snappy? So I did apologize. I hope it didn't cause the trajectory of his morning to be that snappy, but I gave myself compassion to say, okay, something, needs to be seen or heard, something needs to be looked at. And it was my body. My body is tired and sore, and I'm pushing myself too hard and too fast. The garden will happen in its own time and nothing has to be perfect. I just need to be present. So that was me practicing compassion so that I could have the capacity to apologize and ask for grace from my honey. And he delivered. So another thing to be thankful for. So. Let's just ask the universe to send us a wink that tells us to keep going because this matters. Not everything matters in the long term. But right now matters. What's going on with you right now That really does matter. That deserves a wink. I'm gonna set the intention to not only notice a wink in my favor. But I'm going to set the intention to give somebody else that wink that they need today 'cause there's just so many reasons on the news to be discouraged. There's so many reasons. There's so many other podcasts out there with monetized billions of downloads. And I am not here to compare myself. I'm here to show up and share my unique perspective. Maybe draw your attention to a thought that you've already had that's worth having again, or maybe saying the right thing that helps you find the thought that you need to find that's uniquely yours in the next moment. So what do you say? Shall we root in some compassion for ourselves so that we have the capacity to do it for others? I think that's a good way to start the day, start the week, and whenever you are hearing this, I hope you receive exactly the wink that you need, but that you're willing to give yourself one as well. I'll catch you next time. Friends. Thanks for being here. I truly, truly thank you. Bye-bye.
