0:31

Hi friends. I hope that

0:33

this episode of picture love brings

0:36

you some extra empowerment and

0:38

support and maybe you can relate

0:40

to some of the topics that I'm going to

0:42

touch on today. My motivation

0:44

behind this is purely to help myself

0:47

and those who are coming alongside

0:49

of me do picture love better in our lives.

0:53

And some of that means dealing

0:55

with things that get a little bit sticky.

0:58

The sticky wikis for me this

1:00

week, the theme was about

1:02

technology and when

1:04

things malfunction and the mishaps

1:07

and the misunderstandings and

1:09

the things that I rely on and

1:11

even take for granted from day to day.

1:14

When they're not behaving, it is so

1:16

easy to slip into old patterns

1:19

that just don't serve me. Can

1:21

you relate? And yes,

1:23

a lot of it comes back to the

1:26

work I do with people and their photos

1:28

and helping them not just fully enjoy

1:30

them, but celebrate life through those photos.

1:33

But there are so many threads of

1:35

this thought process that can relate

1:37

to pretty much any

1:40

subject in your life that

1:42

all of a sudden you stumble. Whether it's

1:44

a conversation with somebody, whether

1:46

it's a work project, whether

1:49

it's, you know, troubles with

1:51

your car or a health concern I

1:53

think that there are common denominators

1:56

that connect so many things that

1:58

we might put under the umbrella of mishaps

2:01

and malfunctioning. And

2:03

before we dive in, I've got a brief message

2:05

for you from our sponsor; Me.

2:11

If you're looking for a trusted service that

2:13

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2:15

photos into something that is space conscious,

2:18

beautiful and displayed on your walls

2:20

or in a legacy album on your lap, then

2:22

look no further, my friend. Reminiscence

2:25

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2:27

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2:29

to make and capture beautiful photo

2:31

memories, enjoy sharing them with ease

2:34

and make new memories in the process of reminiscing.

2:37

You can find inspiration and a contact

2:39

form at krisledonne.com or

2:41

just check the show notes for a link.

2:44

And now back to the show, I'm

2:47

going to start with a happy thought. Think

2:50

of a recent time or

2:52

just a standout time, if it wasn't very

2:54

recent, when you started sharing

2:57

a story with somebody and

2:59

it triggered an emotional response

3:01

from them and they jumped in

3:04

either on your story or

3:06

to piggyback with a story of

3:08

their own with some connected

3:10

thread and you shared

3:12

the emotion. Hopefully

3:15

it was a positive one, but we do

3:17

know that it's a slippery slope when somebody

3:19

starts complaining. Those emotions can be

3:21

negative too, but hopefully

3:23

you can think of a happy memory,

3:26

a time when you were reminiscing and

3:28

it just made you feel so good.

3:31

And you could feel the smile chemicals

3:33

in your body, the happy chemical release.

3:36

And the person you're sharing with was

3:38

either there to share the memory

3:40

or they're expanding on it, or

3:42

they're jumping in with another story.

3:44

And there might be laughter involved

3:47

and it might be over food and drinks.

3:49

There might be music, there might be noisy

3:52

background, or it might be just the two of

3:54

you on a walk or on

3:56

your sofa or out

3:58

at, at lunch. That

4:01

time together, when it's finished,

4:04

and you look back on the conversation,

4:07

you can't help but physically smile.

4:09

And whether you're a smiley person or

4:11

of a more stoic appearance,

4:13

you know what I'm talking about? You just

4:16

felt energized by that exchange.

4:19

Well, that's what I want you to hold on to

4:22

as not just

4:24

a memory treasure, but

4:26

think of it as a tool

4:29

to help you return when

4:31

life doesn't feel quite that good.

4:34

I'll explain. It

4:36

was a typical April,

4:39

Monday morning, and

4:41

I woke up happy to dive into

4:43

the projects that I had ahead of

4:45

me for the day. One was

4:47

a really beautiful, beautiful,

4:50

album project that I'm making for a

4:52

family to preserve their

4:54

parents photos. You

4:56

know, the bags and the boxes, the bin, the posters,

4:59

the things that they inherited that you

5:01

just really couldn't enjoy. I was really

5:03

looking forward to this project because

5:06

I'd gotten all the tangibles scanned

5:08

into files so that I could design

5:11

this beautiful book, on my computer.

5:13

Well, the

5:15

hours that I had designated for that project

5:18

got bulldozed

5:20

by some technology

5:23

that went awry. And

5:26

my inbox was just flooded

5:28

by Well, notifications.

5:30

I'm not going to rehash the whole

5:32

thing for you, but let's just

5:35

say the cortisol started to

5:38

kick in and the stress

5:40

level started to rise and

5:42

the distraction. You know, the emotional

5:44

distractions that happen when

5:47

you know, you're looking forward to doing something

5:49

special, something meaningful,

5:52

something you're passionate about, and

5:54

life just gets in the way, right? We

5:56

could all name a hundred different ways life goes

5:58

wrong, but that's not what I'm trying to bring

6:01

you through right now. Where

6:03

I'm going with this is, after

6:06

a day of troubleshooting, I, I

6:08

just literally blessed and released

6:10

it and was fortunate to be able to go to sleep. And

6:13

one of the things that helped me go to sleep

6:15

was a reminiscing rampage, like

6:17

what I had just described to you. And

6:20

it soothed me, it made me feel

6:22

better. It reminded me of times when things

6:24

do work easily and that this

6:26

challenge right now is a momentary thing

6:28

and it's not a forever thing. Just

6:31

because my inbox is flooded with notifications

6:33

of something that's going wrong and something

6:35

that I am not experienced

6:38

enough with my tech to fix.

6:40

I have people I can trust. I

6:42

trusted it was all going to work out. Everything

6:45

was gonna be okay. So

6:47

I woke up the next day to more of

6:50

that. And this time I decided

6:52

to take a new approach because all of the time

6:54

I was wasting and not getting this beautiful,

6:56

beautiful album project underway

6:59

it was not only frustrating, it wasn't

7:01

helping anybody because I was not

7:03

equipped. So eventually

7:06

I got into a workflow and got some

7:08

stuff done and silenced

7:10

the notifications. I don't know if

7:12

you're one of those people who always feels like

7:14

you have your cell phone attached to your hip, but

7:17

that do not disturb setting is

7:19

a lifesaver. I digress.

7:22

Anyway. If you didn't

7:24

know this about me, I am

7:26

a big journaler. I like to put

7:28

things down on paper, you

7:30

know, pen and paper. If you're a digital journaler,

7:33

no offense to that at all. I think that's great.

7:36

I love having things digital and accessible

7:38

from my desk or from my phone.

7:40

Whatever. But in this case,

7:42

I just I I love a morning ritual

7:45

that's not on tech that lets me just

7:47

brain dump the things that are concerns.

7:49

Well, I started journaling about this mishap,

7:51

this technology mishap, the thing that was

7:53

going on. And I started just

7:56

writing about how it made me feel. And

7:58

I really got into the feelsies. I

8:00

said, I felt attacked and I felt overwhelmed

8:02

and I felt stressed. And, and then

8:04

I remembered what more than

8:06

one mentor of mine said to look at your emotions

8:09

like children. Give them some attention so

8:11

that they can feel heard and then they can calm down

8:14

and to personify an emotion like that

8:16

is a different way. To me, that

8:18

was not an instinct. That was something I had

8:20

to receive as a, as really

8:23

great advice. So if you've never done that,

8:25

I highly recommend it, whether you're

8:27

a journaler or not, just listen to that

8:29

emotion one at a time, like children

8:31

lining up for attention. I'm a former

8:33

elementary school music teacher and

8:36

those kids just wanted to be heard.

8:38

So thinking of each one

8:41

of these emotions as one

8:43

of those children. Each valuable

8:46

deserving to be heard, but

8:48

not all at once. I can't hear anybody when

8:50

they're all talking or excited or

8:52

storytelling or complaining all at once. I couldn't

8:55

focus on them all at once. So

8:57

treating my emotions like those precious children,

9:00

all of a sudden they discovered they calmed down

9:03

and I got to the root of it. The root

9:05

of the problem was Not just

9:08

the actual thing, but that I

9:10

was feeling unreasonable

9:13

expectations on myself as if

9:15

I was letting my clients down

9:17

by dealing with my Technology and

9:20

then I realized that is a trait

9:22

of the people pleaser that I

9:24

had recently done a

9:27

lot of work to uncover

9:29

and to heal and So

9:32

perfectionism by the way is one

9:34

of those traits as well. But

9:37

Realizing as a human, I can

9:39

hire people to do things, I

9:41

can trust them to take care of them. And

9:43

then I can show up fully and really where my expertise

9:46

lie. It was so relieving

9:48

to look at those feelings, get the

9:51

ideas down. And then all of a sudden

9:53

my head was clear and

9:55

things started working. And

9:57

then I had beautiful,

10:00

beautiful gift of this realization.

10:03

This challenge. This

10:06

malfunction was

10:08

kind of like a sign

10:10

in the road saying, look

10:13

at how protected you

10:15

are. Nothing was

10:18

broken and irreversible. Look

10:20

how supported you are. You

10:22

have people who can fix this. Look,

10:25

you have time. If

10:27

this project is not done already,

10:29

it will get done. You trust yourself.

10:32

So, it was a chance for me to dive

10:35

deep into appreciation for

10:38

this pattern interrupt

10:41

that let me discover all the

10:43

things that really I have going

10:45

in my favor. And

10:48

it's my hope that my clients who

10:50

come to me with these feelings

10:52

of I just don't understand this

10:54

technology." "I just don't understand

10:56

why are all my photos in paper

10:58

and in bins and in files

11:00

and in devices and why can't

11:02

it be easy again?" And

11:04

so that's why I created

11:07

the freebie that if you haven't already grabbed

11:09

from my show notes, "Obliterate the

11:11

Overwhelm". It comes back to this.

11:14

Sometimes we just need to get things out of our

11:16

head and down on paper so

11:18

that we can realize exactly what

11:20

are they and look at each item.

11:22

When it's not all up in your

11:24

face and blocking your sight from seeing

11:27

all of the other beautiful things in front

11:29

of you, then all of a sudden you can

11:31

process that information. I

11:33

mean, we're humans. We're not machines.

11:35

We're not computers. Computers

11:37

are wonderful tools and technology

11:40

that we have, and we have trusted

11:42

humans who can help us decipher

11:45

it, do parts of it for

11:47

us, and then come alongside

11:49

of us when there's something we need to learn how to

11:51

do for ourselves. And that is

11:53

the beautiful thing about empowerment. So

11:56

I'm actually grateful for this malfunction.

11:59

It was involving my website and

12:01

I was able to disable the part that

12:03

wasn't working and it drew my attention

12:05

to something that really needed some

12:07

updating. I was

12:10

told by a colleague recently

12:12

that your website is always an old version

12:14

of you. Well, I think it's a little

12:17

severe, but it's at least a representation

12:19

of us, right? So

12:22

when we go get our haircut, we're becoming

12:25

a more polished version of ourselves. With every

12:27

website update, I'm putting out a more

12:29

polished version of what I'm serving. When

12:32

I put out a new podcast, I'm putting

12:34

out a new polished version of what I'm

12:36

serving, um, to my audience.

12:39

And I think all of us have

12:41

different ways we show up in the world,

12:44

fresh and new every day, every

12:46

week, every month. And

12:48

we get to picture love from a new perspective.

12:52

So I want to just take a

12:54

minute to review the

12:56

next time I feel

12:58

overwhelmed and I'm encouraging you to do

13:00

the same thing where it just

13:02

feels like everything hit the fan

13:05

and it's splattering everywhere and

13:07

you feel like there's an emotional

13:09

hot mess going on, name

13:12

it, write it down, look

13:15

at it. Examine it like a scientist

13:17

would under a microscope. And

13:19

I'm just speaking metaphorically, of course,

13:22

but whether you're a journaler and you using paper,

13:25

whether you can use some voice notes on your

13:27

phone, get it out of your head,

13:30

record it, and then love

13:32

on it. Don't hate on it. Treat

13:34

it like that child that just needs a little

13:36

bit of your attention and they'll feel so

13:38

much better. And once they're calm,

13:41

then you can carry on with what you were doing.

13:44

And then you can also see what

13:46

needs some of my attention. What did

13:48

this life interruption offer

13:50

me as an opportunity

13:53

to revisit, to

13:55

appreciate, to remember,

13:57

to share, To remember

13:59

to ask for help, to

14:01

remember to allow help in,

14:04

and also maybe even

14:06

a chance to see something that's

14:09

worth letting go because it's no

14:11

longer serving you anymore. So

14:14

that is the

14:17

goal of this conversation. How

14:20

can we return to the things that matter

14:22

the most, by putting

14:24

other things in perspective?

14:28

I would love to hear your stories of turning

14:30

malfunctioning and overwhelm

14:33

into a learning moment where

14:35

you have received a gift.

14:37

Because my gift today is

14:40

the reminder that I am fully supported.

14:42

Things always work out for me, and

14:45

they do for you too. I hope

14:47

you can see it and feel

14:49

it and picture love more

14:51

beautifully in your day.