Welcome back to Picture Love, friends. I have a question for you: How easy is it for you to let yourself be supported? Now, if you had a, a scoff response, kind of like, "Supported? Supported by what?" Then you're probably really, really good at carrying a lot. And if you said, "Oh, I'm great. I I accept help all the time," or, "I expect help all the time," then awesome. I'm so happy for you. This might not be your episode. I am right now recording this on what's considered a holiday here in the United States. It's Labor Day, and I got up early and went to the beach with my husband, and it wasn't sunrise or anything like that. We did the morning routine and I knew I had a long list of things I wanted to do, including going to spend time with the neighbors across the street But we made time to go sit and plop on the beach this morning, and it was pretty amazing how, how much of my noisy thoughts get rinsed by the sound of the surf. And if that thought helps bring you a little breath of relief, then great. But if you're still listening because you had a response, a physical response to my question, then I wanna share some beautiful images with you that does me some good to reminisce and hopefully will do you some good to receive. So while we were sitting there, the sun was-- the morning sun was so bright, and it was one of the cooler days. It's only a high of eighty-two here today, and that is a breath of fresh air, of cool air compared to the way the last three months have been here. And sitting there it felt so good. And I brought a book with me, and I wanted some time to read, and it, the-- it, it felt so good to sit, and it felt so good to read. But I said to my husband, "I don't think I'm going to. The sun is just so bright." And he says, "Well, turn around." That was so obvious it's painful that I didn't think of it myself. So I turn my chair a hundred and eighty degrees. I'm like, "Oh, now I can see you better." Still listening to the surf, still in my vibe. And just as I turn around to situate and open up to the next chapter of my book, I see two men, walking heavily through this thick, deep sand. One's got his arms full of two little children, and one's got his arms full of the wagon of all their gear. And the wagon's wheels were so tiny it looked like they belonged on a child's toy wagon. And I thought to myself, "It's a lot of work dragging that through this deep sand. Maybe a little harder than carrying it." And I'm looking at these two gentlemen, and I just smiled. The kids immediately took to the sand in their happy zone while the men are trying to set up the chairs and the gear and the towels for the kids and all their stuff. And I tucked into my book, and then all of a sudden, my husband reaches over, and he goes, "Do you have an extra ponytail holder?" And I was like, "No. Why?" And he says, "I think that dad's struggling." And he's a girl daddy, my husband. We have two daughters. So he was so in tuned to the situation going on next to us, where the little girl's hair is whipping in her eyes and her face, and the dad is struggling to help wrangle her hair back and realizes he doesn't have a ponytail holder. And she's maybe, maybe two, two and a half years old. I wouldn't say quite three. And so small enough to hold, but big enough to, you know, traipse through the sand herself. And I was like, "Oh, I'll just give her mine," 'cause we were getting ready to leave shortly anyway. And I take the ponytail holder off my hair, and I said, "Do you need one of these?" And he's like, "Are you sure?" I was like, "Yeah, we're, we're about wrapping up here. You can take it." And he says, "Well, my big problem is I can't ever get it to stay in her hair." And the little girl looked a little intimidated by my presence, so I said, "I'll show you how to do it on my head, and you can do it to her." And he says, "But it always falls out." I was like, "I got you." So I taught a dad how to do a ponytail on his little girl today. It was so cute because he looked like he was much more comfortable with me reaching over to do it for him than he was to actually copy my instructions and do it on his own daughter's head. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it was just evidence of somebody who's never really had to do that job. And he's like, "My wife is always doing her hair and I've never..." I was like, "It's okay. We all learn," I said. And so once he'd finished, uh, getting the ponytail on and he tightened it, I was like, "Great job." And I, I was talking to him, but I was using the voice so his daughter would feel more at ease. I'm like, "You look so good. Now you're ready for the ocean." And she smiled at me halfway, you know, through her grandfather's shoulder. And, and the dad just thanked me. I was like, "You're so welcome. No big deal." And I walked away and I thought to myself, you know, how many things do we, do in a day, that's so normal that we forget that somebody else doesn't necessarily have that skill? And how many times a day do we do something that maybe somebody else could be learning how to do themselves? And not that there's a should or a shouldn't scenario, but it just made me more present to discover that something as simple to me as putting a ponytail holder in a daughter's hair could be a stressor for a dad of two little kids. And then there's the kind of support when you just wish you had somebody to talk to. And are you one of those people, you could be in a store or out in public, and a total stranger just tells you their life story? That's me. And scenarios like that are gentle reminders that everybody deserves and needs support at times. But we humans sure do love our patterns. You know, there's safety in a pattern. There's safety in a routine. And when we know how to do something and somebody else needs it, it's so easy to jump into the serving mode. And unfortunately, I've found myself in the serving mode where I give and give and give, and I don't replenish myself. And if you're listening to this and you have identified with anything about that question about, you know, do we allow ourselves to receive help and support, it's so many practices. I have so many thoughts running through my head, like if you want something done, give it to a busy person. You know, those are the doers, the givers. Then there's the teachers in life who take on the role of teaching some kind of knowledge in a category, and then that job, that profession often becomes an identity where that person feels like they can never take off the teacher hat, that role. And when you're teaching, ideally there's some reciprocating going. There's acknowledgement, uh, and feedback from our students. But teaching is a definitely a giving profession, and givers often have to learn or be even aware before they can learn that they need to receive as well. Everything in life is reciprocal if we don't cut ourselves off. And it's my goal to not only hold space for us to all participate and reciprocate, and of course give, but freely and appreciatively receive, not out of expectation, not because of obligation, not because of the job titles that we have taken on that have become personalities and identities. But if we can make the ebb and flow of inhaling and exhaling gratefully, of observing and witnessing, and letting somebody be seen and heard and not fixed, and offering help but not expecting it, not projecting help because projections often come with a lot of weight and obligation attached to them. And if you're catching this on YouTube, you may notice the hairstyle change. I was starting to get warm talking about this little girl and her ponytail so I paused. I paused the recording, and I went and I put my hair up because quite honestly, I needed to take care of me in order to offer more information that I thought might serve somebody else. So please do go get yourself that glass of water and be grateful for it and thank yourself for it. Be who you need so that others can not only learn from your example but learn that you need to receive too, not just give. I really-- I have a very big heart for over-givers. And I think the way I said that really wasn't fair. Over-givers is a label. Let me just take the label off and say, if you are somebody who has noticed patterns of giving and giving until your cup is empty, until your well is dry, then I see you, and I feel you, and I care about you, and I'm not here to fix you. But I am inviting you to a community well where we can all fill our own cups, where we can all see each other, we can meet each other where we are without judgment. No comparison, just community. A place where we can ask for help without shame. We can receive help if we wish to. A place where we can be present and sovereign, connected and independent, celebrated for our individuality and our different views, and never threatened by somebody else's progress. That's how I wanna picture love for the world, for the whole world. I want the whole world to know the love in their own hearts. I want the whole world to know the freedom and the peace that lies within them without needing outside feedback, without needing outside validation, without needing to be needed. What if we all just needed ourselves, and then we magnetize those who need and honor themselves, and then we can see ourselves in one another? We can see the beauty. We can see the potential. We can see the creation, and then the collaboration can just happen. What if? You know, conflict gives us a lot of information. Conflict also shows me where I'm my heels in too deep. Conflict also shows me where there's something that I can't control, but I can let go. Conflict shows me I care, and it also shows me my expectations of others. So when I observe conflict in other people, I start to see, oh, you know, those are just opposing views. All of our views are valid because nobody can tell me how I'm experiencing something, and I cannot tell somebody else how they are experiencing the same event. We're all each here to learn different things, but we're also here to experience and to model different things. And that's the beautiful thing about a community that comes together not out of obligation, but because we are coming together through authenticity and the intention of being the love we want to experience in this life. I love the witnessing of the dad who learned how to do his daughter's hair. I, I think that that is such a tiny, profound experience. I hope in some small measure it offered a little bit of confidence that he's welcome to claim as a good dad who cares. You know, you don't have to be the world's best cook to be the best mom for that child. You don't have to have the best landscaping in order to be the world's best neighbor. You don't have to wear the finest fashion in order to be the best possible role model. And we don't have to judge the physical appearance of another person's eye color or skin color or their accent. We don't have to judge the book by the cover anymore. We can look beyond that. We can care enough to read the pages of the book and experience the book for what it is, even if you would have written it differently. We can honor the creation of one another, and we can also use the information to decide how we wanna create our own, how we wanna write our own stories. We get to choose what words we put on the pages of our own book. If you are still listening to me right now, the pages of your book are so worth reading. Keep writing them. Metaphorically, please know that your story is worth reading. Your cover is just the packaging. And no matter what color or how hard or how soft the cover of your book is, your book is uniquely yours. Your story is uniquely yours, and I am not here to impose the right way to do it. But I am here to hold space to say, "This library has plenty of open shelf space for the stories that you wish to have witnessed in this community." The doors are open for the PIcture Love Community I am going to be plopping some extra meditation experiences so that you can taste what it's gonna be like when we're in there live. If you would like to dip your toe in the water, you do not have to join in order to check it out. I will make sure that the links are in the notes of this episode of Picture Love Podcast. I invite you to come. Come be my guest, and if the shoe fits, come join the community as an ongoing founding member of Picture Love Community. There is space for you on my beach. My ears are open to learn from you. My eyes are open to witness you. You will never be put on the spot, but your presence will always be respected and honored and welcome. So come with your heart open. I can't wait to see you there. And I hope that whatever you're doing today, that you're Picturing Love in your life just the way you need to. I love you, my friend. See you next time.