Welcome to the Picture Love Podcast. I'm your host, Kris LeDonne. In this space, we believe that love is something you can choose to see because it lives within each of us innately. Picture Love is a practice, a way of seeing with your heart, not just your eyes, a way of showing up as the love you wish to see in the world. Each episode offers encouragement, soul-led conversations, and gentle tools to help you reconnect with what matters most, to live, to create, and love with more presence. I'm so glad you're here. Now let's get started. Welcome back, friends. I'm so grateful that you are here with me right now. If you have been following the last four episodes of Picture Love Podcast, then perhaps you've participated in or at least heard tidbits of a bridge series of guided meditations. And I wanna be very clear about my intentions with that. I am not here to sway anybody's view. I'm not here to convince you of anything. But I am here to acknowledge there is a widespread need for people to come back to themselves because this world has gotten noisier than we've ever witnessed. And the intention behind this was to not lose ourselves among the noise. And so I created that bridge series. If I'm repeating myself, please bear with me. I'm going to share new information to take us from that dysregulated space in through a journey. So you could actually listen to one of them at a time. You could listen to them in a sequence back to back. You could use them book club style, literally, where you work on one for a week and compare notes with yourself, with notes in your journal or with a friend. And I think that's one of the most loving activities friends could circle back on besides a delicious read would be, how do you feel after a week of taking that time out for yourself? Um, that is not only offering ourselves self-care, it's holding space in community for others to do it as well, because we all just need to be sure of ourselves in any given moment. And when I, when I mean sure of, I mean just grounded and in touch with our breath and able to show up and meet the day that's in front of us. And if that felt good, and if that served you, and you would like to continue to use them, fantastic. Then mission achieved. If this is something that you would find great support in doing in community with other people, I am in the process of creating a community where Picture Love listeners can actually come and be part of a community where we have live connection with each other. And there will be more details coming, but if this kind of thing sounds like the perfect way for you to start your week- With a live and recorded playback option, of course, because everybody's schedule doesn't always match their neighbor's. Then stay tuned. I'm very, very excited. I don't know who's coming, but I know who will be there. They'll be the ones like myself who are on this growing journey. And honestly right now on my heart are the people who are in some kind of in between. You know that the end of something is wrapping up in preparation for something new, and maybe you anticipate what that new thing is. Maybe you're anticipating moving. Maybe you're anticipating a new, education journey. Maybe you're anticipating moving your physical home. Maybe you've had a change in some kind of status, and you're in that in between, 'cause we're always in the process of going somewhere. But right now, I feel like there's the biggest influx in my lifetime of people making massive changes, whether they chose them consciously or their lives delivered what they were asking for through a sequence of events, or both. And I'm reminded of a meltdown I was blessed to witness. I held space for somebody who honestly was feeling in crisis, but I could see they really weren't, and without betraying their privacy. I'm gonna talk about this for just a moment because we all know somebody like this, right? When there's somebody that is going through a really, really rough patch, and that rough patch could be, the anxiety of change. It can be the fear of change. It can be the, the body's just so dysregulated that the logical mind should be able to handle it. But when we're so dysregulated, the nervous system goes out of whack, and it forgets it can be a peaceful system. And so this person that I witnessed was in utter breakdown. And I was so sad and yet glad because here were all the good things going. While there were some pretty hurtful things said at me, they weren't about me. They were saying things out of anger because they were in a space that they didn't wanna be in, and I was the one witnessing it, so I got to be the catcher. Those were some hard balls being pitched. But when it was over, it was all forgiven and understood. Another good thing that was happening is this person was moving through their emotions, and they got to vent, and they got to cry, and they got to beat it out. Not, like, hit me, but I mean with the words. Just beat that energy out of their body and they got up, and they moved around, and that was good, too, 'cause when we move that energy by physical movement, that helps. You know? If we think of our bodies as kind of like a pipe, a vessel where energy's always moving- you don't wanna get clogged up with old energy, stagnant energy, like, like bad plumbing. Nobody wants to keep that wasteful water backing up inside their pipes. It's gonna blow. So that's what happened yesterday. And this person just let it rip, and I was so happy that I had the awareness. This person just needed to be witnessed. They just needed to be seen and heard, and this person is about to get some medical support i'm so happy. But I got to be that loving witness, and I'll be honest, I cried a little when it was over. It was a lot. And that was my way of not collecting somebody else's dirty water. It felt, it felt good to witness the process of this person letting the energy move through. And I was very grateful 'cause there's no guarantee, but this person was actually relieved enough afterwards to actually consider this thought. And the thought was, "You know you're not actually stuck. You're in the in-between, and what you knew back then is not relevant for what's coming down the pike. You have wisdom, and you have experience, and you have lessons, but that doesn't mean that the new is gonna feel familiar. And when we're courageous enough to let go of the familiar and be with our emotions and see what that fear is, then it can move through us and move on, and we can be left with space for things like excitement and wonder and curiosity. And then maybe, maybe at some point in our lives, maybe in the next ten minutes, maybe in the next ten weeks, months, years, we could even potentially consider preparing to be amazed. Because what was great ten years ago is never gonna look the same today, and what seems great today but might be getting a little worn out is certainly not gonna make us happy ten years from now in today's state. Everything has to grow, evolve, change, expand, upgrade, update. You can't keep the same plumbing in a house for ten years and expect the next ten years to be identical. Sometimes things have to be updated, and that doesn't mean we have to throw the house away. But it does mean we need to be willing to take care of it and make sure things don't get backed up, and be willing to call help when we need help, and be willing to consider that maybe there's a different update that's gonna serve us better. So with the Picture Love community that's coming out- that's my goal, is that we can all be in the same space at the same time, going through all different things, but have the intention of forward movement, and no shame in tears, no shame in being silent, no shame in sharing, no fear of judgment, no fear of being compared. Because when we're not comparing ourselves to other people, we can be the permission slip to, to be without comparison. But one thing we can compare with gratitude is where we came from. We can measure back, and I... If that seems too redundant 'cause you've heard it before, then maybe we're... Maybe I'm speaking it with a new voice today. Because there's nothing more wonderful than measuring back and saying, "Wow, look what we did." I'm almost finished with a, a project in the new home. I'd hired somebody to do a job, and they ended up not showing up, so I started doing it myself, and it, it's a lot of, of heavy labor, manual labor. I'm almost finished. I think by the time you're listening to this episode, I'll be laying down the final rocks. But it's gonna be so... It's already so much better than it was. And I was going through my Photos, and I stumbled across the picture of this house from the listing, and seeing it from then to now is so satisfying. It was a beautiful home then, it's a beautiful home now, but it's more mine than it was back then. And that feels good. It's not because I didn't love this home as it was. It's because I'm gifting it with my love, and my labor, and my sweat, and my presence, and I feel like it's smiling back at me. You know? So whatever that in-between is that somebody might be facing right now, or maybe they're not facing it, but they're getting really cranky 'cause they know it's coming, but they don't wanna consciously feed it with attention. You know, that sweep it under the rug approach that we humans know so well. It takes a lot of courage to be willing to pull back the rug and see what's under there. You know? Are the floors really damaged under there? Is there really a lot of junk? Maybe there's a $20 bill waiting to be noticed. It's not all junk. But the rewards for looking, and clearing it out, and living in a healthier space It's worth it. It's worth it. And when you're fortunate enough to have somebody physically help you, there's another thing to be grateful for. And when you don't have somebody to physically help you, and you have to do it yourself, maybe it's not done as fast as you would like. Maybe it's not the snap of a finger. Maybe that cleaning out, clearing out the dust under the rug is about the process, not the completion. What if we could choose to be curious about the unfolding instead of crossing that finish line? What if the goal is not crossing the finish line? What if the goal is the participation? Hmm. That makes the in between the whole point of it. So if we're humans, and we're breathing, then we're, then we're evolving, whether we do it intentionally or not. And the people that I plan to host who are gonna gather in this space are the ones who want to grow with intention. So I hope that you will listen to those meditations as many times as you need to. There are older ones, but it's just easier to find the last four episodes. And I cannot wait to build a community of people lifting each other up, and there's gonna be so much more than just meditations in there. But they're gonna be the people who want to apply the work and do it with friends in real time, with support and a whole library of playbacks that they can find exactly the one they need at any given moment, even when we are not live together in a virtual room. So please ask yourself, "Who's in between right now? Who could use that extra support to breathe right now? Who would really understand this right now, who deserves to be part of the Picture Love community?" And share an episode with them. Show you love them by sharing. And only share something that really lifted you up or that thing that made your heart flutter when you thought of somebody else. Pay it forward. And if it's not this podcast, it's another one. But let's just look out for our neighbors. You know? When there's somebody who deserves a smile, just say, "You know what? This lifted me up. This made me feel good, and maybe it'll help you." So no harm in offering. We can't make the horse drink water, but we sure can lead them there. Thank you for being here, friend. I'll catch you next time. Bye-bye. Thank you for spending this time with me. If today's episode touched your heart, I invite you to share it with someone who might need a little extra love. Your support helps our community grow and keeps the Picture Love movement thriving. Until next time, keep Picturing Love.