Crisis, Clarity, and the News We Deserve

When crisis strikes and the headlines stay silent, what do we do with the fear that rises?

In this raw, unscripted episode, Kris shares what happened when her daughter’s school went into lockdown after a bomb threat—and no news outlet offered real-time updates. Everyone is safe, but the silence spoke volumes.

This is not a story about panic.
It’s a reflection on truth-telling, media noise, and what it means to return to peace in a world addicted to fear.

🔍 Inside this episode:

• A personal brush with emergency on her daughter’s 23rd birthday
• The disturbing realization that even helpful businesses can rely on fear-based sales
• A call to rise above doom-scrolling, empty headlines, and fear marketing
• The shift from reaction to response, from spiraling to sovereignty
• A mantra to support you in heavy emotional moments

For anyone overwhelmed by today’s world, here’s your soft landing.
A space for clarity, compassion, and choosing peace again when you’re ready.

💛 Mantra from this episode:

“I allow myself to feel this moment.
 My reaction is real.
 I can hold truth and tenderness, rage and rest.
 I trust my peace.
 I will picture love again when I’m ready.”

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Transcript

Kris LeDonne: 0:41

Welcome back to Picture Love Friends. I'll be honest, I've tried to record this episode twice and both times it just didn't feel like me. I think I was trying to sound professional. I was trying to sound articulate, and I wasn't me. So here I am, unscripted and authentic because that's who you deserve to listen to. If you are sharing your valuable time, you deserve to listen to real Kris. So I'm gonna share from my heart today. If I seem a little intense, it's because I am still decompressing from a little bit of an emergency. Everybody's okay. And for that I am so happy and so grateful. But like more and more people in the world right now are sharing stories of grief and fear and stress and panic and crisis, and I don't wanna spread more of that. I wanna spread encouragement. I wanna hold safe space where I can share authentically from my heart without multiplying more fear and more of that which holds us back from living fully. I wanna call out a few experiences that just don't align anymore, and I will share briefly in not too much detail what I'm grateful to be speaking from after the fact. So my daughter lives far away. And is a, is a flute teacher in public schools in Texas and is one of my heroes. And they would think that I was just blowing smoke, but it's true. And on my daughter's 23rd birthday, they stepped into hero mode without ever meaning to, they were just being their authentic self. And for that, I am so grateful and so proud, and I'm so grateful to say that nobody was harmed, but the emotional harm was bad enough. There was a bomb threat at my daughter's school. And while investigators were responding, the school went on lockdown. They weren't even supposed to be there anymore at that point, but schedules got messed up and fire drills happened and lessons had to be delayed. And my daughter is so committed, they stayed around to teach at the later time, and that's when lockdown happened. So not the birthday one might plan for the oneself. I'm really grateful for the way I saw my daughter respond after the fact, but the crisis I lived was not knowing if they were okay. And the frustration of looking at the media for some headlines or social media or something on the websites in the school district or some way of knowing what's going on, because they shut off the whole darn network. So no calls could go in or out for obvious reasons, because you wanna cut off the communication of anybody who might be coordinating this. But meanwhile, parents were in a frenzy. Students were scared. Staff was oblivious. And administration- They learned a lesson hopefully, they did not have a plan for when the emergency was outside the building. Anyway, I'm not going to multiply my frustration at that administration. I'm gonna share with you that. I found myself making a choice. I can either go in a downward spiral of fear and panic and scrolling, which I started to do. It lasted for the better part of the first hour when I realized my calls are not going through, my texts are not going through, and I cannot find my daughter's location through the phone, so I was looking for media to find out some information, some news, some updates. Well, there were plenty of articles talking about it with the timestamp when it first happened, but nobody was giving updates. Nobody was saying it's still going on, and those articles sat there for three, four. Five hours. And after the first hour of going bunkers, looking for more information, my husband finished work and he said, let's just, let's go get some dinner. And we finally, we did and got some food and I started to feel better'cause the blood sugar was, you know, back where it belonged. And, and then my daughter called and we got to breathe. A breath of relief. We found out everybody was fine, everybody was okay, and then the sequence of events. I'm not gonna rehash here because it's not helping you if I rehash any more than I already have, but reflecting in that, I realized, yeah, I have a very, very good muscle when it comes to checking my phone too often. Can anybody else relate to that? Whatever your digital source is for information. And the same can apply to people we hang out with or, you know, the neighborhood meetings or the clubs where, and honestly, there was one teacher's room that I had to leave behind that was part of my quitting teaching.'cause there was one teacher room that literally was changing who I was in a negative downward spiral. And I realized who I was sounding like. And so. Looking at this, it's just the umbrella of communication and the way society has been so dysregulated by talking about fearful things and spreading the gossip and oh my gosh, there's so many junkie. Reels and viral videos that are out there that have no value and oh, come on people. We have got to start living life. Like real people. Let's start responding. Instead of reacting, let's put some good stuff out there. Let's be the good conversation at the neighborhood watch. Let's be the, let's spread the good news. Let's compost the crap. And let's grow things that bloom into beauty. An example of this, I realized I had to reprogram the way I was working business because I, I was in sales when I left my teaching job. And it was for a company, that taught me a lot of beautiful things and it taught me something I really care about, which was family stories and photos and preserving them. And I loved that. I worked with a sales coach and I learned a lot. And what they taught me was even more so- now that I look back- Misaligned for me because the way that they were teaching people in sales to connect and close the sale was through fear. And I'll give you an example. And this is why I'm very sensitive when I, when I hear this in sales, you know, the pressure sales was- in my, my dialogue, it was"if your house was burning down, what's the one thing you would grab besides living things- Because you knew insurance could never replace it?" And so it was a short distance for people to say, oh, I need to protect my pictures. Let me hire you, Kris. You can make them digital and replaceable. I got really, really good at doing that and appealing to what people care about, and I was so grateful for the work, but I was doing it the wrong way. I was appealing to people through fear. I was letting people feel their own fear about what they could lose. And I don't feel good about that. I really don't. It may have been truthful. It may have been effective. But at the end of the day. The only good stuff I did was in the delivery. When people were reconnected with fun, digital ways of reengaging with stories they cared about. So that's why I stuck with it as long as I did, was because of the end game. My intentions were good, but my methods were distorted. And so for that, I'm sorry. I'm not beating myself up over it anymore, but I am getting really real about, I don't feel good about that. Fear sales is not gonna be my legacy. Thank you very much. And when I hear that in advertisements, oh my gosh. You know, you pay for the premium, streaming platforms and you're still. Seeing commercials now it's like I'm paying to watch advertisements. Don't get me started on that rabbit hole. And it sounds like I'm full of complaints today, but honestly, I am just identifying ways that I have seen fear and negative emotions multiply in our society. And I'm calling it out. And Oh, and if I ever do that to anybody else, I hope that they would lovingly shine a light on it so that I could continue to walk the talk I'm trying to offer us now. Because there are so many ways of communicating without having to put somebody in a place of dysregulation and fear. So to the media who's not listening to me right now, give some updates, give some updates, put something, not just fear out there, but say great news. You know, the situation has been contained or cell service has been turned off in the area for the protection of- so we'll keep you updated. But don't just spread the fear and then leave us spinning in circles! Who are the good media people out there who really serving and not just selling fear? Who are they? Call'em out. I wanna listen to that. That's the, that's the news I want to hear. I wanna hear the news. That is helpful. That's what I wanna hear. I wanna hear the good news because I'll be, I'll be honest with you, there's a ton of it. It's just we can't hear it over overall. The noise. And I won't even talk about presidential noise. You know, I think half of the rumors and the headlines out there. Are not even real because they retract'em like every other day things are being retracted. And he said, she said, and it's just ways of keeping us divided. You know? Which side, which political party are you on? Because there's always going to be a hero if there's a villain, right? Well, we're all pieces of one Humanity. So what if we looked at the sameness instead of the differences and call out the noisemakers for what they are? Noisemakers. And I'm not saying some of this stuff isn't real. I'm not saying some of it isn't important to call out. So thank you for the truth tellers out there. But let's make sure we're telling the whole truth, not just the parts that keep us in a fear loop. What do you say? So who's telling the news in a helpful, constructive way? Who's giving us the information that's helping us make a difference? It's amazing how many things are going on in other countries that the United States is sheltered from, so we're not even aware of the wisdom of other countries and what those people are doing in spite of the fear factors coming from the governmental dialogue. Let's dig deep down. Let's find our breath. Let's decide to observe and not multiply the chaos that some people seem to be here to create, and let's be builders. What can we build that is a legacy that's beautiful and going to change the world for good? What changes can we do for the good? What good can we speak and multiply and put out there for ourselves and the greater good. That's what I wanna hear. I want to offer somebody a helpful thought today if you are being hit hard by a thought, by a situation, and you're in that place of despair that you just don't feel like anything I say can lift you out right now. I honor you. I am not here to ask anybody to bypass their own truth, but I do offer you. Affirmation to validate what everybody is going through. So if this feels good to you, please take it. It's, it's a gift from me to you right now, or to the ones who need it most. And that would be:"I allow myself to feel this moment. My reaction is real. I can hold truth and tenderness, rage, and rest. I trust my peace. I will picture love again when I'm ready." And your time might not be the same as my time, but that's okay. I want us to all remember that our peace is there for us when we're ready. Thanks for listening. If you made it this far I wanna be the better that makes a difference for good. And I hope you'll come alongside of me and let's just picture love. And let's point out those who are picturing love. See you next time.