When the Plan Changes: Detours, Tomatoes & Trusting the Process

This was not the episode I planned... and maybe that’s the point.

In this solo episode of Picture Love, Kris reflects on what happens when life, tech, and tomatoes all refuse to follow the script. A planned spirit guide interview was postponed (thanks, Mercury Retrograde), and in its place, a deeper message came through: Detours aren’t delays—they’re invitations.

You'll hear about:

Why “things always work out” isn’t just a mantra—it’s a lived truth
The unexpected wisdom of gardening in a new climate
A mysterious glitch that called Kris… Cedric?
What it really means to release the outcome and fall in love with the process
Whether you're navigating your own pivot, waiting on a dream to ripen, or just watering your metaphorical tomatoes, this episode is a reminder that presence holds the magic. 🍅✨

🎙️ Mentioned: Riven’s episode is still coming—it just needed more room to breathe.
👣 Stay tuned for deeper spirit guide conversations and unexpected visitors.
🌟 Soft Call to Action

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 🧡 Visit: https://podcast.picturelove.us

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Transcript

0:39

Welcome back to Picture Love Friends, I'm so happy you are here today. I thought you were going to be listening to the next episode of the Spirit Guide Series, but Mercury's in retrograde, and whether you buy into this or not, my technology and my communication has been disrupted. And something I have learned is it's a gift, not a curse, because when the unexpected happens, that makes you have to pause and reconsider or regroup or re redo something, or maybe even detour- There's usually a good reason for it, and I don't mean reasons, as in something's being difficult, even though often appears that way. I mean from the perspective of there's something good to be gotten from the detour. So I'd like to talk to you a little bit today about releasing or detaching from outcomes and why this has become something I'm more conscious of these days. The reason you are not listening to the. Interview with the Spirit Guide Riven today is because there were distortions. There were glitches. There were things that kept me from completing that project the way it deserves to be completed. The way my audience deserves to receive it, and the way my heart needed more space to let it fully develop before it hatches. So I cannot wait to tell you when that is ready. I have no doubt it will be soon. But in the meantime, I think we have some really delicious topics to unpack together. So the detour and the change in subject, this reminds me that things really do always work out, and that's a mantra that I use a lot for myself, and with my family. I tell my husband all the time, things always work out for us. They really do. It just means that sometimes they don't always look the way we had originally planned, and usually it's just as good, if not better. And I realized today that actually I was introduced to that mindset a long time ago. I mean, careers ago. Let me give you a little background. So as an elementary school kid, I was a little too tall for my age, you know, like the puppy who needed to grow into its feet. I, I was really tall, my head stuck out when we lined up for class and I felt a little self-conscious about it and it took until high school to actually blend in a little bit. And I really liked blending in. I was not great with being the center of attention. Anyway, there was one place in school where always felt like I fit in. I never felt less than anyone else when I was in my music class. That was such a happy place. There's so many elements about music class that served me. It was the variety of music, it was the being able to move. It was the frequency of music in my body and around me. It was partnering with other people to make music and move to music. It was that that cooperation, the space to be creative. And I was blessed to have teachers who played the music loud and honored us singing and making music loud. And it was there. It was freeing. You know, in a climate where you're expected to walk silently, single file in the hallway, it was a place to let the hair down and a place to really find joy. Some kids liked the academics. Some kids did great, had great grades. Some kids were fast on the track. You know, some kids really shined in debate or excelled with their numbers, or were excellent readers and writers. For me, music was my jam. And unfortunately it, I couldn't spend more of my class hours in music class. But I think that's why when it came down to choosing a first career to go to college and you know, the track, that's why everybody said be a music teacher. And I didn't know what else to do, so I became a music teacher. But there's something I was never exposed to and that was some of the internal pressure that educators work under all the time, including music educators. You know that that performance pressure, there's a lot of political stuff when you make concerts and performances for PTA and for parents and for community events. There is a lot of political pressure, whether it's ever spoken or not. And, and me, I just wanted my kids to be able to sing and, and perform and make music that made their hearts shine. You know, I wasn't as worried about impressing the others, but there were times where we would have final rehearsals that would just. Be a hot mess. I mean, things would fall apart and I would go home at night stressed to the nth degree. And early on I did have wonderful mentor teachers who would always say, a terrible final rehearsal makes a great performance. And, and I learned that. I learned that that actually was the case. It's something I never noticed as a student. But as a teacher, a really bad final rehearsal really did. The kids would like tighten up and pull it together, and it always worked out. So I guess that was the first version of that mantra. Bad rehearsal makes a great performance, AKA. Things always work out. There's so many times in life when I can look back and see myself worrying about an outcome. Worrying like being in the future and, and missing the now. And so I'm really grateful that I have that perspective now. If I had learned it earlier, I probably wouldn't be the same person at the time, but things really do come together. And one thing that's kind of weird is this Plan B episode I'm sharing with you right now. I actually had to record it three times because technology was being so glitchy. I actually I hope this is live on July 22nd, 2025.. It's a piece of a bigger picture and I feel like this is the foundational layer that I really want to lay out for you and for me. But something really weird happened with the second version. So I use this software and it allows me to transcribe. It helps me edit so I can take out some of the extra ums, or if I repeat myself too many times, I can just tidy that up real quick. But this software has AI to. You know, help me make some of those editorial decisions and it knows my name because in the settings I put Kris LeDonne host, and so it assumes that the voice is me from the get go. Only this time it did something really weird. It assigned me a different name, a name I've never spoken before on picture love. I don't believe I know anybody by this name, and I certainly haven't discussed any characters by this name. The only context I have for this name is the Harry Potter Books. The name is Cedric. Now. That's a very respectable character for those of us who are Harry Potter fans. So that's kind of cool. But on the other side, why would AI call me Cedric? And then I went into my settings and sure enough it had Cedric as the host. Is somebody trying to tell me something? Is this a preview of another character I have yet to discover in my imagination, or is there something else going on here? Anyway, I put it out there because if you're listening and that name Cedric means something to you, I wanna hear about it. Okay? Because this was really unexpected and I didn't even think I'd be sharing that with you right now. But it just goes to show sometimes things happen to make us pause, stop, and reexamine. And I can't wait to tell you if I discover a reason why that name needs to be significant for Picture, love, podcast. But thanks for sticking with me while I digress for just a moment. There's another thing that has been going on lately that I thought was really weird. And I realize that I identify with, keep working until you get it right. That mindset. And if you've been around for any period of time, you've heard me talk about my gardening and my, my late in life love for gardening. And I discovered that I was pretty good at growing tomatoes and peppers when we lived up in the northeast of the us. Well, now that we live in southern states of the US it's a totally different climate. We're much closer to the equator. The summer heat is way more intense than we had before, and I discover I don't really know what I'm doing regarding growing tomatoes. All I know is I have two gigantic tomatoes that are very green and happy to stay green in the summer, sun. Normally in the past, I would be very frustrated with this because I guess I, over time developed enough knowledge that I took for granted that I could yield a good amount of tomatoes or peppers or whatever my, my garden was. And now that I'm in a different climate, I kind of have to go back to the drawing board. I have to, if I wanna grow them, figure out how to do that wisely for this. Zone, this gardening zone and like, you know, do I cut them and let them ripen? Do I try to put something to give it some more shade? Do I, I don't dare dig them up at this point because they don't like being transplanted. Or do I give up and just enjoy watering them every morning? But that really honestly isn't giving up, is it? One thing I've come to discover is even though I don't really know how to do this here, I know how to spend time in that early morning sun with the hose letting my feet get wet with the morning sunshine, the dog watching over me, noticing the birds flying overhead, the gorgeous clouds. I realize that for me, gardening is more about the process than the yield. I am not a professional farmer. I just like to grow things that are beautiful or taste good or smell good. I love my herbs. And it's okay if I don't get it right perfectly. On the first summer season here, I have a lot to learn and it's fun, but much like going on vacation, you don't go on vacation to hurry up and get home. You go on vacation for the experience, right. So that is the deepest wisdom, in my opinion, of detaching from outcomes because it's about the journey. It's about the experience. It's about the process. It's not about the results. I think the results are the cherry on top. So whether it's singing really loud in the shower or in a choir, or with your family or your friends, whether it's just making that joyful noise as loud and proud as you can, or if it's just watering the garden to love it. Or if it's feeding the animals to love them, or if it's editing the third round of the episode, just because you love the process, then the ending result- It's just proof you did it. Proof you were there, proof that we showed up. I hope you'll join me to picture love by being present in something mundane, something we do so often or something that might even frustrate us. But find a new way to reframe it, release the outcome, and just be present with the joy of the process and find the freedom right there. I appreciate you. Thank you for being here to picture love with me and I'll see you next time.