Benefit of the Doubt
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase before, “Giving someone the benefit of the doubt.”
The dictionary says, “the benefit of the doubt” is the state of accepting something or someone as honest or deserving of trust, even though there are doubts.
Today on The Karen Kenney Show, we’re talking about how we often think that giving the benefit of the doubt is a courtesy we’re extending to the other person.
But sometimes, when we extend the benefit of the doubt, our mental, our physical, our emotional and our spiritual well-being also benefits from this too.
Another way to say this is we get to choose to see through the eyes of love, rather than fear, which means we don't have to give too much credit to our ego’s first and loudest reactions.
This doesn’t mean that we become doormats, give up our common sense, or stop listening to our Inner Voice or abandon our wise discernment.
However, there is a benefit sometimes to not just running with that first fear reaction of the ego, and instead, learning to slow down and take your time, so that you can assess a situation from a place of love.
KEY POINTS:
• Definition of Benefit of the Doubt
• Being Called an Idiot
• Practicing in Relationships + in the Car
• The Importance of Perspective
• Getting Your Panties in a Bunch
• Giving Bad Evidence + Proof
• Be Kind, Be Kind, Be Kind
Karen Kenney is a certified Spiritual Mentor, Hypnotist, Integrative Change Worker and a Life Coach. She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent and her no-bullshit approach to Spirituality and transformational work.
She’s been a yoga teacher for 22+ years, is a Certified Gateless Writing Instructor, and is also an author, speaker, retreat leader and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.
A curious human being, life-long learner and an entrepreneur for 20+ years, KK brings a down-to-earth perspective to applying spiritual principles and brain science that create powerful shifts in people’s lives and businesses.
She works with people individually in her 1:1 program - THE QUEST, and offers a collective learning experience via Group Mentoring in The Nest. She supports both the conscious and unconscious mind by combining practical Neuroscience, Subconscious Reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis, and Spiritual Mentorship. These tools help clients regulate their nervous systems, remove blocks, rewrite stories, rewire beliefs, and reimagine what’s possible!
Karen wants her clients to have their own lived experience with spirituality and to not just “take her word for it”. She encourages people to deepen their connection to Self, Source and Spirit in down-to-earth, tangible, and actionable ways without losing sight of the magic.
Her process, of transforming “Your Story To Your Glory” helps people to shift their minds from an old thought system of fear to one of Love - using compassion, un-shaming, laughter and humor. Her work is effective, efficient, and it’s also wicked fun!
KK’s been a student of A Course in Miracles for close to 30 years, has been vegan for over 20 years, and believes that a little kindness can make a big difference.
Transcript
Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenney show I'm super duper excited to
Speaker:be here and I got a little story to tell you. I always loved my
Speaker:storytelling. Okay. Okay. Okay, get it together. All right.
Speaker:Here's the thing. I'm super duper excited to be here. loyal
Speaker:listeners, loyal listeners. I love you beautiful humans. Thank
Speaker:you so much. If you're new to this show, if you've never
Speaker:watched it before, or listened to it before, welcome, welcome.
Speaker:I'm so happy to hear. And I'm always curious how you found me
Speaker:like, did a friend recommend it to you? Did they send you a
Speaker:little link? Did you happen to see it? I have this shiny spot
Speaker:right above my lip. Okay, and we're back. So maybe you were
Speaker:scrolling through the local cable access channels on Concord
Speaker:TV and you saw me and you're like, Who's this broad and you
Speaker:were like checking it out. However you got here. I'm so
Speaker:happy you're here. And then we get to spend a little time
Speaker:together.
Speaker:I also want to point out for those of you that are watching
Speaker:how cute is little Bob Ross over there. Oh, I got this little,
Speaker:like Bob Ross stuffy and he has this incredible beautiful like
Speaker:Brown, fuzzy afro. And he's holding this little pink palette
Speaker:in his hand. Oh my god just love him. So he's my buddy. Now, he
Speaker:hangs out back there and keeps an eye on things. Oh, so if
Speaker:you're listening to this show, you might want to just you know,
Speaker:if you haven't seen him yet, he's worth he's worth taking a
Speaker:little gander.
Speaker:Okay, so this episode, this episode is called benefit of the
Speaker:doubt the benefit of the doubt. Now, I am sure you have heard
Speaker:that phrase before. It's a noun phrase I'm sure you've heard it
Speaker:before. And I know what I think what that phrase means. But
Speaker:whenever I'm doing a show where I'm talking about something that
Speaker:is like kind of a part of the lexicon of the language of the
Speaker:people, I like to look it up and see what the dictionaries you
Speaker:know, have to say. So Merriam Webster says this about the
Speaker:benefit of the doubt, it says it is the state of accepting
Speaker:something or someone as honest or deserving of trust, even
Speaker:though there are doubts.
Speaker:For some reason, I find this so funny, okay, the state of
Speaker:accepting something, or someone as honest or deserving of trust,
Speaker:even though there are doubts. Now, I find that definition
Speaker:fascinating in and of itself, but I really am trying to keep
Speaker:myself from going down a rabbit hole. But I will say this, if we
Speaker:just look at this part of deserving trust, even though
Speaker:there are doubts, well, if there are doubts, then what that tells
Speaker:me is there must already be some sort of a history somewhere.
Speaker:Because otherwise, either you're just a person who doesn't trust
Speaker:anybody, or somebody has given you enough proof that maybe
Speaker:they're not to be trusted.
Speaker:But I see how this shows up in the world, so often, how we
Speaker:don't give people the benefit of the doubt. And so what I want to
Speaker:talk about today is the power, the benefit, like literally the
Speaker:benefit of the benefit of giving it because as I'm going to tell
Speaker:you, it doesn't just affect the person giving the benefit. All
Speaker:right, it all I mean, we It doesn't just affect the person
Speaker:you're giving it to it also affects you. And I'm going to
Speaker:get into that a little bit more. And of course, I have a story.
Speaker:So some of the places that it's wicked good to extend the
Speaker:benefit of the doubt and where you can practice doing that. It
Speaker:100% in human relationships, okay, if you are relating to
Speaker:another human being at all, and whether that is an intimate
Speaker:relationship like your partner, your sweetie a lover, whoever,
Speaker:you know, your fiance, your boyfriend, your girlfriend,
Speaker:whatever. Or your friendships, your family, relationships, your
Speaker:siblings, whatever, you're working at co workers, right
Speaker:relationships are a great place to practice this.
Speaker:But you know, where else is a great place to practice this?
Speaker:when you're driving in the car! when you're driving in the car.
Speaker:Because nevermind going from zero to 60 by stepping your foot
Speaker:on the brake on the gas right? I see so many people's emotions go
Speaker:from zero to 60 their anger their frustration, their
Speaker:impatience, right boom. It does not take much to send some
Speaker:people right over the edge right and they get wicked angry or
Speaker:they're like flipping people the bird or that like she does
Speaker:scream or pounding their dashboard like slamming on their
Speaker:their lemon on this steering
Speaker:We'll oh my god has given me flashbacks of being a student at
Speaker:BU, Boston University. And back in the day when I was in
Speaker:college, Ah, man, my nervous system was so dysregulated and I
Speaker:had zero patience. And being in traffic made me mental like it
Speaker:made me so insane and so crazy. And I would literally be like
Speaker:slamming my, my steering wheel and like, cursing up a storm and
Speaker:like, I think back and I'm like, I was an insane person. But it
Speaker:was self inflicted.
Speaker:Okay, but let me tell you the story, let me tell you the story
Speaker:of why we're talking about this today. Okay. So the other day,
Speaker:I'm driving in downtown Concord, and I'm coming down the street,
Speaker:and I get to this stop sign. Okay, now I'm on one of the side
Speaker:streets that come down and it intersects Main Street, okay,
Speaker:now, if you're not watching this, I'm doing little hand
Speaker:signals to show you where I am. I wish I could, I shouldn't draw
Speaker:shouldn't draw a little extra for you guys. I'm gonna do my
Speaker:best to describe it. So I'm coming down the street. And
Speaker:where some of the streets. So the way that the streets in
Speaker:downtown Concord work, it's like some are only one way coming up.
Speaker:Some are one way come down, like whatever. But I'm on a two way
Speaker:street. So I'm not I'm not doing anything insane.
Speaker:But I'm on the right hand side, which is where we drive in
Speaker:America. I'm at the stop sign. And there's a woman coming
Speaker:perpendicular like a cross in front of me. And she's driving a
Speaker:car. And then she stops and pauses because I realized, Oh,
Speaker:she wants to turn left and come up the street like past me like
Speaker:she you know, our driver's side of windows would be side by
Speaker:side. But what she couldn't see, or she wasn't looking for,
Speaker:because first of all, she had her phone in her hand. I saw it.
Speaker:She wasn't really paying attention. Okay, so she wasn't
Speaker:not necessarily paying attention to her own driving. But she also
Speaker:was not looking for what I could see from my perspective.
Speaker:Okay, so I pulled down, I'm at the stop sign. And there's a lot
Speaker:of parking on Main Street. So you can't always see the traffic
Speaker:that's coming if there's a big vehicle like packed in one of
Speaker:those parking spots. So even though I stopped at the stop
Speaker:sign, now I'm going left onto Main Street, she's turning left
Speaker:coming up the street that I'm on, but I can't see what's
Speaker:coming. So I have to keep inching out like just a tiny
Speaker:bit. My blinker is on. I'm following the rules of the road.
Speaker:But I also don't want to like turn out into traffic too fast
Speaker:and then have somebody slam into me, right? So I'm just inching
Speaker:out, inching out, inching out. So, again, she cannot see what
Speaker:I'm seeing.
Speaker:From my point of view, there is a method to my madness, there is
Speaker:a reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. But she can't see because
Speaker:she is clearly now I can tell, right? I mean, the work that I
Speaker:do as a spiritual mentor, the work that I do as a yoga
Speaker:teacher, as a hypnotist, as a life coach as a change worker,
Speaker:right? I'm always like watching people's like body language, and
Speaker:I'm wicked sensitive to other people's energy. I don't even
Speaker:have to be in the same car with her. I could tell by the way
Speaker:that what her face was doing what her shoulders were doing,
Speaker:right? And her tone of voice. Now, you might be asking
Speaker:yourself, dear, dear listener or watcher, you might be asking
Speaker:yourself, "KK, but you were in your own car. How could you tell
Speaker:what her voice sounded like?" Well, let me tell you because as
Speaker:I'm inching out, but not dangerously I'm doing it wicked
Speaker:slow. Anybody who was at the stop sign with me could see
Speaker:probably like what I was doing and why but not this person. So
Speaker:she takes finally she's sick of waiting, right? Because going
Speaker:left on Main Street can be tough. Right? So finally she
Speaker:gets her left hand turn. And apparently she does not approve
Speaker:of how far I have edged the nose of my car out into Main Street,
Speaker:which was not an obscene amount. It was just enough to keep me
Speaker:from getting harmed or hit or whatever.
Speaker:And so when she drives past me, it was kind of nice out, so my
Speaker:window was halfway down. But she rolls down her window and I hear
Speaker:her say - And now listen, listen if you're if you got little kids
Speaker:around right now block me as I'm just giving you a warning. I'm
Speaker:given fair warning. Okay. So she drives past me and she gives me
Speaker:this look like she gives me the look. Right and if you can see
Speaker:what shirt I have on today, right? I have I have my Masshole
Speaker:shirt - I'm a kid from Lawrence mass. I'm a kid from Boston,
Speaker:okay, so I'm in the car and she drives past me she gives me she
Speaker:shoots me a quick like look with like daggers now I give her
Speaker:credit. She doesn't flip me the bird. What she does instead is
Speaker:she calls me this what she says to me she drives by and she says
Speaker:like into my window. Fucking idiot!
Speaker:Okay. Now, the best part of this though, is, I think I thought
Speaker:that that was wicked funny. Like, I literally started
Speaker:laughing. I was like, did she just call me an idiot? Right?
Speaker:And I was like, Oh my God. Now, old me, Vicki with two K's from
Speaker:Lawrence part of me back in the day, I would have like I the
Speaker:stuff that probably would have come out, back to her. But I
Speaker:didn't I just kind of laughed, because I realized a couple of
Speaker:things very quickly.
Speaker:Why this was happening. Her reaction now there could have
Speaker:been there could have been a couple of reasons why, okay,
Speaker:obviously, right. She didn't know me. Okay. She didn't know
Speaker:me. So she made the assumption that I'm stupid, that I'm a
Speaker:terrible driver. Okay, she, we have no relationship, right?
Speaker:That could have been a nice little, like, you know, three
Speaker:second relationship when she went by she could a smile that
Speaker:maybe we could have had a much better relationship. But instead
Speaker:she hurled she hurled insults at me, right. So she didn't know
Speaker:me. So she doesn't know that I am, I am an intelligent human
Speaker:being right. She didn't trust me.
Speaker:She clearly seemed impatient, inflamed, frustrated, whatever,
Speaker:zero to 60. Or maybe there was something going on in her own
Speaker:life. And I'll get to that in a second. But she definitely
Speaker:couldn't see what what I could see, she could not see from my
Speaker:point of view, she could not see my angle. And we had different
Speaker:perspectives. And because we had different perspectives, she
Speaker:couldn't see why I was doing what I was doing, that I must
Speaker:have had a good reason for doing what I was doing. So she chose
Speaker:not to extend to me the benefit of the doubt. She decided
Speaker:instead to make an assumption and an accusation and then
Speaker:hurling insults at me, assuming that I am, in fact, an idiot.
Speaker:Now. There's a lot of things you might be able to say about me.
Speaker:One of them that I'm not, is an idiot. Now, there are certainly
Speaker:a lot of areas in my life where I don't like I'm not super tech
Speaker:savvy, like there's certain things that I'm like, yeah. But
Speaker:by and large, I don't think I'm stupid. I got called Stupid a
Speaker:lot as a kid. But my grades reflected otherwise, my ability
Speaker:to survive my childhood in my life, and I went on to college,
Speaker:and blah, blah, blah, like might reflect otherwise.
Speaker:Now, I'm not saying I'm friggin Einstein or anything like that.
Speaker:But I was like, wow, that was pretty like that was pretty
Speaker:aggressive math. Okay, but here's the thing, here's the
Speaker:thing, why I wanted to talk about giving the benefit of the
Speaker:doubt, when I started to break this down, right, the benefit of
Speaker:the doubt, it's really easy to think that you're the person who
Speaker:is somehow like the better person, and you're extending
Speaker:this benefit of, of like the benefit of doubt, like, even
Speaker:though I might doubt that you know, something is going on, I'm
Speaker:going to give you the benefit I am going to bestow to you.
Speaker:Right, like you're the queen or the king, I'm going to bestow
Speaker:upon you my benefit.
Speaker:And we often think that we are, the benefit of the doubt is a
Speaker:courtesy to the other person. And you know, the way that my
Speaker:brain works is I really love to play with words and language and
Speaker:flip things upside down and shake them and like see what
Speaker:comes out. Like I have so much curiosity about these things.
Speaker:And I started thinking about this. And I said, wow, you know,
Speaker:even though we often think that giving the benefit of the doubt
Speaker:is for the other person. Sometimes giving the benefit of
Speaker:the doubt can actually bebetter for us. Or you, too.
Speaker:There's something really magical about this. Because when we
Speaker:choose to extend positive intent, right, and I made a note
Speaker:to myself here, right? I said when we assume positive intent
Speaker:and that somebody isn't just doing something just to be a
Speaker:dick, right? When we assume that there must be a good reason why
Speaker:a person is doing what they're doing, especially when we don't
Speaker:understand it. Right when we get a little flustered, we get a
Speaker:little upset and it's like right and I'm like throwing up my
Speaker:hands and making funny sounds right we get so you get like our
Speaker:panties in a bunch.
Speaker:And if we do not have a regulated nervous system, if we
Speaker:do not have any spiritual tools in our in our toolkit, if we do
Speaker:not have any practical, again, practical tools to be able to
Speaker:calm ourselves down. Right, then we're going to be like launching
Speaker:these great needs of insults and, and impatience and hurry
Speaker:and discontent.
Speaker:And we think, oh, like I'm gonna bestow this gift upon somebody
Speaker:else. But it's like no, you give, give, give yourself the
Speaker:benefit of extending the doubt that you don't know what the
Speaker:fuck is going on. Right That woman had no idea what was going
Speaker:on, she could not see what I could see she and maybe if she
Speaker:had taken 30 seconds or whatever to just pause and go like, Oh,
Speaker:that big truck is there, she's probably pulling out because she
Speaker:can't see past it. Like if she had just taken a second. But
Speaker:whatever was going on in her own life did not allow her to slow
Speaker:down her mind enough.
Speaker:And this is why the power of a daily spiritual practice a DSP
Speaker:is so important, because it helps us to show up as the kind
Speaker:of people that we like to think that we are, which is kind or
Speaker:compassionate or nice or empathetic or whatever. But when
Speaker:we're all jacked up, right, when we're all like worked up, or
Speaker:stressed out or anxious, or whatever, we're not able to see
Speaker:outside and I'm making these little kind of like foveal
Speaker:vision, I'm making these little cups around my eyes, like we
Speaker:can't we lose our, our ability to, to expand our focus out, we
Speaker:lose our peripheral, right, and we get so like, zoned in on of
Speaker:like, they're doing something bad wrong, like "an idiot" you
Speaker:know what I mean?
Speaker:Okay, so this is what I said, when we can make the most
Speaker:generous assumption that we can - I love that word here - to be
Speaker:generous, to be generous, and maybe assume that we don't have
Speaker:the whole picture. And I'm gonna do a whole other podcast on
Speaker:perspective and why this is really important.
Speaker:Okay, another way of saying this, for me, this extending the
Speaker:benefit of the doubt is that when we choose to see through
Speaker:the eyes of love, right, and I don't necessarily just mean like
Speaker:with our eyes, right? We even eye doctors will tell you that
Speaker:your eyes don't actually see. So when, A course in miracles, you
Speaker:know, there's a line that basically say, we think that
Speaker:human eyes see and human ears here, right? The reality of it
Speaker:is we even just put the spiritual to the side and we
Speaker:look at it just from a physic physical, a scientific
Speaker:standpoint, your eyeballs are not actually the the thing that
Speaker:sees.
Speaker:The eyes take in the information, what really sees is
Speaker:the brain, the brain is the thing that interprets the
Speaker:information that is coming in through the windows that is
Speaker:coming in through the eyes, that is gathering the information.
Speaker:It's the brain that sees and if your brain has a history, right,
Speaker:we're going back to that thing that I said earlier, right? If
Speaker:the brain goes back to a history of this person can't be trusted.
Speaker:People can't be trusted. People are stupid, women are terrible
Speaker:drivers, like whatever stories that we've got floating around
Speaker:up there, and our old noggin is going to shape and influence the
Speaker:way that you're responding to the world around you.
Speaker:So if we can choose to see through the eyes of love, right?
Speaker:So to me, that's more kind of metaphysical, right then then
Speaker:just physical. We can see through the eyes of love rather
Speaker:than fear, then we don't give too much credit to our egos
Speaker:first and loudest reaction. So in A course in miracles, there's
Speaker:a line I'm paraphrasing it says basically, the ego speaks first
Speaker:and it speaks loudest. And I always add, and it's always
Speaker:wrong.
Speaker:Because the ego isn't actually choosing how it wants to show up
Speaker:- the ego is a reactionary, right. So love allows us to
Speaker:choose and to act from a place of our choosing. The ego is a
Speaker:reactor I think that love stands for... like love or fear. Love
Speaker:is an actor it like love is the action of the heart. Fear is a
Speaker:reactor from our history, from our stories from our, from our,
Speaker:from our literally from our fears from our trauma from our
Speaker:past, from those unhealed places within us, you know.
Speaker:So when we extend the benefit of the doubt, our mental, our
Speaker:physical, our emotional and our spiritual well being also gets
Speaker:enhanced. Because when we go on the attack like that, and we
Speaker:just choose to make other people wrong, when we aren't generous,
Speaker:when we aren't generous. When we choose instead to like try to
Speaker:attack them or cut them down or assume the worst of them. You
Speaker:know?
Speaker:And just think about like you can, I'm sure you can go back to
Speaker:so many times in your life when you thought you knew what was
Speaker:going on. And then later you got a itiny bit more of information
Speaker:and you're like, oh my god, like you had just assumed the worst
Speaker:about somebody and their intentions and their actions and
Speaker:why they were doing a particular thing. When once you got a
Speaker:little bit more information, it was like literally like the - I
Speaker:don't know what that's called maybe the exposure on a lens,
Speaker:all of a sudden it goes FWAH, and it just opens up in so much
Speaker:more becomes possible, you know what I'm saying?
Speaker:So, I was just thinking, like, how many times has our ego mind,
Speaker:rather than extend the benefit of the doubt - the ego mind
Speaker:loves to run around like a little, like a little I try to
Speaker:think of, I try not to use - I love animals so much - and I I
Speaker:just love them so much. It's why I've been one of the reasons why
Speaker:I've been vegan for like 20 years. And so many examples that
Speaker:we give, we use animals like in a negative light. So I was
Speaker:trying to think of like, what's a creature... like magpies I
Speaker:think, like collect, but I think that's cool. So I've tried to
Speaker:think of a way to say this.
Speaker:But so the ego mind will just go around trying to collect little
Speaker:bits of evidence as to why somebody else is guilty, why
Speaker:somebody else is wrong, why somebody else is stupid or lazy,
Speaker:or an idiot yet, you know what I mean?
Speaker:The ego mind when it is in its fear place, which is what it is
Speaker:the home of guilt, and separation and scarcity and
Speaker:competition and all all that stuff. Right? That's the ego
Speaker:realm right? It's a cuckoo, kooky monkeys, as I like to say,
Speaker:running around trying to grab all its evidence to prove to
Speaker:prove that the other person is bad. But it doesn't stop at the
Speaker:other person. It will also run that racket on you if you are
Speaker:not careful.
Speaker:So can you please also extend to yourself the benefit of the
Speaker:doubt? You know, today, I woke up this morning. And one of the
Speaker:after I did my my DSP, you know, I do I do a couple of things for
Speaker:my daily spiritual practice. But the first the first thing that I
Speaker:did right after that, I had this thought in my head, like, oh,
Speaker:did I take care of that thing? Did I pay that thing? And I'm
Speaker:like, I know, it was on my calendar, I know that I left
Speaker:myself a reminder. So when I came upstairs, here to my
Speaker:office, I checked my calendar. And I was like, I saw it. I saw
Speaker:it on my calendar from two weeks ago. And I was like, Oh, I must
Speaker:have done it because I left myself a note.
Speaker:And then I went in and I checked, I checked and I was
Speaker:like shiiiit, something it somehow it got past me even
Speaker:though I saw the note and I was like, the first thing I thought
Speaker:and this is this is a habit, right? This is a ingrained,
Speaker:immediate response from my ego. And if we're not vigilant, if
Speaker:we're not vigilant for the quality of our thoughts, the
Speaker:quality of our words, the way we speak to ourselves, our internal
Speaker:voice, right, I'm pointing at my head and my heart, the way that
Speaker:we speak to ourselves first and foremost, but also how we speak
Speaker:to others. If we are not vigilant for the quality of our
Speaker:thoughts, words and actions, we are going to suffer. So before I
Speaker:knew it, right, I recognized that I had made a mistake and I
Speaker:literally blurted out, you're such a "fucking...."
Speaker:And I was like, nope. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I heard
Speaker:it and I caught myself and I was like, Nope, we don't talk to
Speaker:ourselves like that anymore. Because I never talked to myself
Speaker:like that, until an adult in my childhood started talking to me
Speaker:like that. And our little brains when we're little kids, man,
Speaker:they absorb everything. You know, it's an interesting thing.
Speaker:Being a hypnotist. One of the things I often say that I use
Speaker:hypnosis to dehypnotize people, from all the old stories, from
Speaker:all the old beliefs from the old identity, from all the bullshit
Speaker:that they've got running around upstairs in their subconscious
Speaker:because of the things that we heard and were called repeatedly
Speaker:as children.
Speaker:You know, anything that is thought anything that is
Speaker:thought, felt, like emotional like that you feel it, anything
Speaker:that you think about, feel, and focus on and repeat enough
Speaker:times... It's as if it becomes real in your head.
Speaker:So when I caught myself saying that about myself, I stopped and
Speaker:I said, Nope, we don't talk to ourselves that way anymore. And
Speaker:I said to myself, you are allowed to make mistakes, and
Speaker:you are still lovable. You are allowed to make mistakes. Making
Speaker:a mistake doesn't make me stupid. I'm allowed to make a
Speaker:mistake, and I am still lovable. I am still worthy of love.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:I'm not going to let that old racket keep running in my head.
Speaker:So I had to give myself the benefit of the doubt. Like,
Speaker:okay, you're allowed to make a mistake. It doesn't all of a
Speaker:sudden become some gospel truth about you across the board that
Speaker:you're like, You're like as that woman called me an idiot. You
Speaker:know what I mean? It was really, really, really important, and it
Speaker:says, I also wrote this, I want to make sure I said this, "It
Speaker:really behooves us and our entire well being. Right, it
Speaker:behooves us and our entire well being benefits from not assuming
Speaker:the worst about people, including ourselves.
Speaker:Now, here's the caveat part of this. Okay, this is important.
Speaker:It doesn't mean though, extending the benefit of the
Speaker:doubt to others. So this is what I wanted to say. There is a
Speaker:benefit to us to doubt, right? There is a benefit to us to
Speaker:doubt our egos first fear reaction, right? There's a
Speaker:benefit to that going like, Hey, what's that about? Like, I'm
Speaker:making a lot of assumptions here. I don't really know this
Speaker:person, right?
Speaker:And it's like, what happened with that lady in the car. She
Speaker:didn't know me. She didn't trust me. She didn't have any history
Speaker:about me. So she assumed the worst about me. Plus, she didn't
Speaker:have the right perspective... . well, I shouldn't say the right
Speaker:perspective. She didn't have my perspective. She couldn't
Speaker:understand why I was doing what I was doing.
Speaker:Okay. But I am not saying across the board become a doormat,
Speaker:right? When somebody does something awful, just assume
Speaker:that they had good intentions. No, no, no, no, no, no, that's
Speaker:not what I'm saying at all. It doesn't mean that you throw away
Speaker:your common sense. It doesn't mean that you throw away your
Speaker:discernment or your good judgment. Or like I said, you
Speaker:don't just become a doormat for people, right?
Speaker:Especially when there is enough evidence to the contrary. That
Speaker:maybe that person shouldn't be trusted. Maybe that person
Speaker:shouldn't be in that role. After enough times of you seeing a
Speaker:habituated thing or repeated pattern, it might be wise to
Speaker:have a little doubt. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:I'm not saying be a dream killer. I'm not saying put the
Speaker:kibosh on people's excitement about things. I'm not saying
Speaker:walking around being a Negative Nelly, that's not what I'm
Speaker:saying. But there are times in life when we've gotten enough
Speaker:evidence where we go like, yeah, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't
Speaker:trust that. Or maybe I shouldn't invest my money there. Or maybe
Speaker:I shouldn't, you know, trust that this car, which hasn't, you
Speaker:know, had a tune up in 15,000 20,000 miles.
Speaker:But whatever it is, you know, we have to be smart, like be a
Speaker:smarty pants, right? Like do your homework, pay attention,
Speaker:right, assess the situation. So we can still give the benefit of
Speaker:the doubt, and not get to, like get walked all over and have
Speaker:people treating us like crap, right? That's not what I'm
Speaker:saying.
Speaker:But what I am saying is there is a benefit sometimes to not just
Speaker:listening to that first fear reaction, and instead, right,
Speaker:and again, using your breath, using a mantra, tapping, like
Speaker:there's all these different tools that we can use, say a
Speaker:prayer, meditate, slow down, slow yourself down, slow down,
Speaker:there is a huge benefit, right? There is wisdom. As my teacher
Speaker:Easwaran says there is the wisdom of slowing down, take
Speaker:your time, so that you can assess from a place of love.
Speaker:And maybe it's important in that case, to extend the benefit of
Speaker:the doubt, versus always coming from a place of fear, and
Speaker:reacting and spewing out things that you can't take back. You
Speaker:know, if I had maybe been in a different state of mind, or I
Speaker:had been a different person altogether, a total stranger
Speaker:calling me that, especially and this is why I thought it was so
Speaker:fascinating. And how I know I've come such a long way - is that I
Speaker:got called those kinds of negative things. You know, when
Speaker:I was a kid, that if I hadn't done the work that I've done,
Speaker:you know, with myself for myself to heal a lot of my old stuff
Speaker:that could have been really damaging for me. That could have
Speaker:like, maybe not taken me out at the knees. But there are a lot
Speaker:of people who maybe that would have like, really given them
Speaker:that final piece of evidence and proof that they needed to
Speaker:solidify their own self loathing or their own self hatred.
Speaker:Because if somebody had called a person an idiot or stupid or
Speaker:whatever, enough times as a kid and then a total stranger yells
Speaker:that out a window to them, some part of the brain right that
Speaker:younger part of you, can easily say even they this person who
Speaker:doesn't even know me like thinks this.
Speaker:So look, it would also just behoove us to be kind. That's
Speaker:it. Just be kind be kind be kind. When you find yourself
Speaker:getting worked up into a tizzy, about to have a little
Speaker:conniption fit, you get your panties in a bunch, you're all
Speaker:worked up. You better check yourself before you wreck
Speaker:yourself. Because someday sometime you We're gonna say or
Speaker:do something that you cannot take back and it is going to
Speaker:have consequences.
Speaker:And always just keep your mind open to the possibility that you
Speaker:don't know what the fuck you're talking about. That you do not
Speaker:have all the facts, you do not have all the evidence, you do
Speaker:not have a broad enough perspective. And I'm gonna save
Speaker:that for another episode to go into a little bit more deeply.
Speaker:So you guys, thank you so much for spending a little bit of
Speaker:time with me. It's always a pleasure to just kind of share
Speaker:the things that I'm thinking about. And always the you know,
Speaker:the whole, the whole heartbeat of the show is my desire to
Speaker:spread a little more love to do a little storytelling to share
Speaker:some spiritual principles. And to help us all just kind of move
Speaker:through this human experience with less suffering, you know
Speaker:what I mean, just to navigate it with a little more grace and
Speaker:mercy and compassion and ease, and also with a sense of humor.
Speaker:So I hope this was helpful to you in some way. And if you're
Speaker:somebody who is not already on my mailing list, so I will I
Speaker:send out this podcast directly to your inbox, your email inbox
Speaker:every Thursday. If you're watching unconquered TV, you can
Speaker:see it a couple of times a week. But if you want to have access
Speaker:to it, like whenever you can get on my email list and you just go
Speaker:to Karen Kenney, k, e and e y.com. Karen kenney.com/sign, up
Speaker:and you'll be able to like, get all the news, right. So you'll
Speaker:get that on Thursdays.
Speaker:And then sometimes on Tuesdays, usually on Tuesdays, I also send
Speaker:out another email about like, what I'm up to the kind of
Speaker:happenings like sometimes I just send out a little love letter,
Speaker:right? Just saying like, hey, like today, I sent one out
Speaker:today, just talking to people about celebrating the small
Speaker:wins, you know. And that's, like I said, that's a whole whole
Speaker:other thing. So you can get on my email list and just kind of
Speaker:join the family. It'd be really fun. So thank you so much for
Speaker:tuning in.
Speaker:And I know I had mentioned a few episodes ago, about maybe
Speaker:sharing a new way to support the show. A few people have reached
Speaker:out to me and asked me they're like, What was that about? And
Speaker:I'm like, it's coming. I will talk about it a little bit more
Speaker:in the upcoming weeks. So I haven't forgotten to share. But
Speaker:just thank you for your curiosity and thank you for
Speaker:reaching out and I just really superduper appreciate you being
Speaker:here.
Speaker:And as I always end every show, okay. Wherever you go, and this
Speaker:is also I'm like laughing I'm thinking about that lady,
Speaker:because she was the exact opposite of what I was saying
Speaker:Right? Where that lady yelled at me out of her car window, but
Speaker:here's the deal, "Wherever you go, may you leave the people,
Speaker:the place, the animals, the environment and yourself better
Speaker:than how you first found them. Wherever you go, may you and
Speaker:your presence and your love, be a blessing. Bye.
