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.
Sometimes we don't need more words. Sometimes we simply need a little space between them.
After the past couple weeks of looking at words to interrupt looping thoughts, noise and reconnecting with feelings we WANT TO experience more, I'm remembering something equally powerful; The gift of quiet.
In this episode of Picture Love Podcast, I'm sharing a personal shift in how I experience the noise around me, the stories I tell myself, and then... I'm going to stop talking.
The final five minutes are yours, with gentle ocean sounds to accompany whatever feels nourishing.
You can use this time to close your eyes, stretch, journal, walk, or simply skip ahead if you need to.
Come back as often as you like- sometimes the rest between words is exactly what's needed.
Welcome back, friends I happen to be a lover of words because I feel like they're powerful building blocks. They build paths, they build bridges, they build roads, they build beautiful intricate patterns. Here in Picture Love I offered a lot of words the last couple weeks of this podcast. Words with the intention of distracting you in a good way. You know, when the mental loops just keep going round and round and round, and it's not a joyful ride like in an amusement park, but it's something that gets between us and point B, whatever that point B is, whatever your desire is. And then I came back to you with waterfalls of meaningful words, words that feel good, to evoke emotions, to help you tap into the feels that you're choosing with discernment, with intention. And they're both different ways of looking at words as bricks that you can use to build things with. But sometimes we don't need more words. Sometimes we just need to BE. Sometimes we need silence. I'm discovering that about myself. I used to think that I didn't like being the first one up in the house because I felt like everything that needed to be done for the home, for the pets, for the day was landing on me, and that's not at all what was happening. That was just a story I was telling myself. And now I look back at that story and I giggle at myself for my misunderstanding What it really is, is when I'm the first person up in the house. If you live alone, this might not be something that has occurred to you, or maybe it has. But I love the peace and the quiet, where I get to choose my thoughts before I am bombarded by other people's thoughts. I love that. And I've come to appreciate the dog barking while I'm fixing her breakfast as not more noise and not a stressor, but her excitement. It doesn't matter if I take two seconds or two minutes to prepare her bowl of food. She's gonna bark because she's excited. And it doesn't matter if she waited an hour for me to begin, or if I jump out of bed and start filling her bowl. It doesn't matter how long it takes, she's gonna bark. And you know what? That no longer rattles me and makes me grumpy. That's no longer a part of the story I was telling myself. What I'm coming to discover is I love the quiet. I love walking in the morning and hearing the birds chirping before I'm hearing another human talk to me And if that human next to me wakes up at the same time I do, that's okay. But I have made space for myself to sit cross-legged on the sofa and say, "Hey, I need to meditate. I can listen to you in, like, 10 minutes." And that little practice, whether it's 10 minutes or in an hour, I've made that little space. I didn't have to go somewhere. I didn't have to leave my home. Maybe that's not what your situation is, but I'm just using this as one example of something I've discovered about myself, is that while I am a lover of words, sometimes the space between the words is the most powerful part. So if you're finding yourself all in knots or, or in a stress ball today And you're listening to meditations like, or you're, you know, doing the best you possibly can. I hope that you Picture Love for yourself by finding a little piece of space somewhere, whether it's in a car, on a walk, standing in the shower. I know as a new mother, that was my refuge, and as a music teacher, as a matter of fact, a lot of my creative ideas came in the shower because there weren't other things that I could hear. So that was, that was some space for me. So whether you have the option of physically removing yourself from somewhere or maybe even putting a headset on and not having anything playing, but giving the world that visual that you can't hear them right now for a few minutes and setting a timer, maybe that's the space between words that your body is crying for today. And maybe you feel fine. Maybe this is not your issue. Maybe this conversation is to help notice somebody else who's in great need of that space, that, that space between words and ideas. So if you need a happy thought today, I hope it's easy for you to find because prioritizing a happy thought helps us stay in balance. Whatever anchors you into your space today, and if it's random words on a walk just to drown out the thought patterns, and if it's utter silence because that is what you need, maybe you put on music with no words. Maybe you turn on a white noise. Actually, you know what? I'm going to follow an inspiration. I'm going to, for the next five minutes, stop talking. How novel of me as a podcaster to be quiet. All kidding aside, I wanna give you the gift of space. The space between not just my words, but any words. So if you're in the presence of other people, and you would like to have the next five minutes to just breathe and have your own thoughts or shut off all thoughts, I'm going to finish this episode now with five minutes of nature sounds. So if you have a headset nearby that you could put on your ears to make a visual boundary, a social boundary, so that other people know you're not available, you can do that. Or if you need to go I don't know where, sit in your car, or some place where you are removed from other distractions, this is the space I wish for you today. And if you don't need it, that's okay. Somebody listening to this does today. I trust that. And this is how I am picturing love for myself. I'm going to be listening to these and breathing. And if you need to stretch, if you need to sit, if you need to lie down, if you need to breathe, if you need to just not think, or maybe you even do wanna go for a walk and you're in a crowded place, and you just wanna hear nature instead of noise or traffic, this is my gift to you. Use it and Picture Love for yourself today, friends, 'cause you so deserve it. And I will see you next time.
