Coddiewomple Through Life

Karen Kenney: 00:00:01

Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenny show. I just learned that I guess I have my settings set to automatically stop recording as soon as I turn this on. And so I keep going to hit record and it keeps shutting it off. And I'm just like you think I would learn by little thick edit. Okay. Welcome to the show. This is gonna be like a short and quirky little episode. I'm so excited to talk about this word I'm sure if you saw if you saw the title of this show, you were probably like, What the heck is this? And I hope your curiosity brought you here because I know that my curiosity brought me here to record this episode. Alright, let me just say up front. I'm pretty sure this episode is coming out at like the beginning of October. So you might still if you're listening to this, and you've been interested in coming to my four day retreat in New Hampshire, called own your magic retreat in person being held at one of the most grand and historic hotels in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The Mountain View grand Resort and Spa, you guys, it's going to be fantastic. People are already signing up. I'm wicked excited about it. It's going to be from Friday, no Thursday, November 9 to Sunday, November 12. Just go to Karen kenny.com/retreat. And you will find all the details. Okay. Let's dive into so the title of this episode is something about coddy romping. CoddiWompling through life. Okay, I'm going to tell you how this all came to be. So I have a new friend, a new British friend. And we were exchanging emails we were writing back and forth. And he said something so fantastic. In one of his emails, and I practically like leapt out of my body is excited. So I'll just share. He was describing like his plans for the weekend. And he said, you know, we live on the edge of the Moors by the coast and have plenty of places to CoddiWomple. When I read the word CoddiWomple, I could barely contain my excitement you guys. I just fucking love a good word. A cookie word, a word that sounds like it's from a fairy tale word that sounds like it is totally made up. So CoddiWomple is a super fun word. And it's British slang. And what it stands for, right British slang. And what CoddiWomple means is to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague or yet unknown destination. I'll say it again. Kotti one ball to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague or yet unknown destination, it means the destination isn't fixed. Now, this made me laugh even harder, because it reminded me of my friend from California who was an actor, he was a brilliant actor. And he used to do an impression of me walking, okay. And he said, he's like, you kind of just point yourself like, purposefully and this is like a CoddiWomple to me. I was laughing so hard. He's like, you would kind of like, point yourself in like a purposeful direction. And then you would just kind of like, fall forward, and it would just the momentum would just take you wherever it took you. And that's what I was thinking about with this word, CoddiWomple, because think about it. When have you ever gotten in your car, or your truck or your SUV or whatever? Or you've even done it on foot? I imagine, right? But let's imagine you get in your car and you're like, Yeah, let's just go for a drive. So you're purposefully having a plan. We're going to go out for a drive. And like, let's just see where it takes us. Like that's a very CoddiWompley thing. Okay. Have you ever just been like, Yeah, let's just go for a walk or like, let's go to this specific place, like a farmer's market or a flea market or whatever. But then you're like, let's just see where it takes us that is. CoddiWompling. I just love it. And so I started thinking about this. And so these are the little things I came up with I was like, I'm thinking about it like this. It's about wandering with wander, to wander, but with wander right? To set out with no set destination in mind. This is about kinda like having no expectations and just following your curiosity. And I think it's so fantastic and I think it speaks to the little kid in me who just wanted to have like adventures who just wanted to like, you know, wing it the parents when we were kids like my generation Gen X we used to just get kicked out of our house, they'd be like, Get Get the fuck out like in the morning, they'd kick you out of the house, and they'd be like, Don't come back until the street lights on don't come back till it's dark out. Right if you're thirsty drink from the hose or go bother somebody else's mother. Right? Get out of the house, shut the door beat it. And natural we would do is we would CoddiWomple all day long around our neighborhoods, we would either ride our bikes or go off on foot, go climb some trees, get into trouble, be up to shenanigans, go hang out on the train tracks. Don't even get me started with that, like we were highly highly unsupervised as children. Right. And I love this because there was a sense of kind of like just being in the flow of things like seeing where your ideas or your energy or your creativity took you. And we are in a culture that is so obsessed with like making plans and setting goals and checking the boxes and doing the thing and being able to be like, Yeah, I did it, I did it. And I'm gonna I'm gonna do have a to do list. And I think this is kind of like a way of just saying, Yeah, I have some intention, I plan to take a walk, or I plan to take a drive that is the first part of this right? To travel in a purposeful manner. Like, I'm gonna get in my car and do this, or I'm gonna hop on a plane. And I can tell you this, I don't do a ton of traveling. But when I have traveled, right there were just times when you would be like, Okay, I'm gonna go to this new city. And then I'm just gonna, like, walk around and see what I see. That's how I feel. Sometimes when I go into Boston, it's like, I'm gonna go into Boston, like, yeah, there might be one particular place, let's say you'd like we'll go to Faneuil Hall, or we're gonna go wherever, right? And then we're just going to kind of let ourselves kind of be vague in an unknown destination, because maybe I'll end up on Newbury Street, maybe gonna I'm gonna end up downtown maybe I'm gonna end up in the Back Bay, maybe I'm going to end up on calm Abba, Kenmore Square, right, just kind of letting yourself be purposeful. But in a vague and yet unknown destination, I think it's so powerful. Because it invites in surprises and invites in delights, and invites and inspiration and invites in all means of things that maybe you hadn't even thought of yet. I think it's a it's a way to really alight our imagination. And I think that to move to the world, with the with, with the purpose of the journey to be kind of just like finding magic, or stumbling across magic or discovering meaning as you go, it can be really, really powerful. Because I think that so often we're so concerned with the destination was so concerned with getting there, getting the degree getting the title, getting the certification, getting the letters after your name, getting the whatever, I see a lot of young women right sometimes with their like, you know, they just want to hurry up and get married. They want the engagement ring, they want the marriage, they want the wedding, they want the house, they want all the things. And I'm like, Hey, why don't we leave a little room for like, adventure? I'm not saying it's not it's bad to to want those things. But can we allow there to be a little spaciousness where we're not on some fucking timeline, some made up timeline of like, this is the American dream. And this is what it looks like. And these are the things you because you so often you hear Oh, I thought I would have done that by now. And I'm like, why you're 20 something like what are you talking about? You know, like, how about a little bit? spaciousness, a little breathing room. And so I'm gonna hold this up. For those of you at home I'm holding up the you know, the definition right here CoddiWomple. To travel purposefully towards an as yet unknown destination this brilliant, beautiful English St. Slang. Somebody says in the word CoddiWomple is a made up word that is often used to describe a type of traveling where the destination is not a specific location, but rather the journey itself. This is exactly what I'm saying. It can also refer to a journey that's taken without a clear plan or purpose, where the outcome is uncertain. I think we do this. You know, sometimes when we go into

Karen Kenney: 00:09:55

when we write, let me put it that way. Let me let me use that as an example. I think and I know that you know, many famous authors have said things like, I write, to discover what I think. So I think and my friend, My Brilliant Friend and writer Andre De BUSA third just did this fantastic interview where he was talking about how, you know, his character is surprised him all the time. Like he'll say, you know, we have this, we I have this idea, like I have this character, but I don't outline my books because I don't want to feel like locked in. I don't want to dictate or determine what these characters do these characters inform me along the way, which I think is just so fantastic and so exciting. And I think if we write it, you know, he often says if you if you start to write because you have something to say, it's going to be really different than if you just write and allow yourself to discover along the way, what you have to say and that I can speak for myself that like that's been my journey, and writing this memoir. It's been a cotton swab. I have been CoddiWompling for many years, and allowing the story to take me where it wants to take me. I do it purposefully. I sit down and I say now I write, but then whatever comes out of the pen, that is a very kind of writerly thing, this CoddiWompling, which I really love. And it's also I think, something that we can experience CoddiWompling through our experiences, right? Right. Like just just having making a decision and saying, Okay, I'm gonna go do this thing. And I want to see how I feel. I'll discover how I feel when I get there, I'll discover how I feel once I taste that food, or smell that perfume or see that movie that you just go into it kind of open ended and open minded and open hearted and, and open it and open it and just said, like, I can't wait to discover it's an unknown destination. I think it's a way of kind of moving really through the world, with no expectations. Like that would be a way to caddywhompus through life to show up in curiosity and not judgment to show up in I don't know, let's find out, let's see, I have no idea what's going to happen. But won't it be fucking fun to discover along the way. And I was thinking about how I even apply this to myself in in spiritual in my spiritual life, and which is my whole life is my spiritual life. But in my spiritual practice, let me be more specific. You know, one of the prayers that I say every single day, it is purposeful. It is rich with meaning. And it is. It's not a habit so much as it's a ritual that that is rich for me. And the question I pose every day to the Divine, what I ask every day is I say, you know, please have me go where you would have me go? Have me do what you would have me do have me say what you would have me say into whom? Please use me. Do you see the CoddiWomple and that I'm not asking for specific things. I'm not saying make me this or, you know, like, meaning like, you know, get me the job or get me the money or get me this outcome, or I want this I'm not demanding or asking for specific things. I'm saying I am here purposefully to be used by you make me an instrument of love make me you know, an extension of your love. But where do you want me to go? Who do you want me to talk to? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to say into Who do you want me to say it to like, just use me? That is a very Kati wobbly way to pray. And I just love it so much. And I'm just gonna check one more thing to see if I if I were to say, Yeah, I just really think that we could do a little more cotton Khadi wobbling in our life. I think it's it can be a beautiful way. Now this doesn't mean that you don't have any plans. Right? As of course, a miracle says, a healed mind does not plan. But that doesn't mean you don't have a plan. It just means you don't make the plan all on your own from your ego mind from this right? It's really historical place of fear that we can instead embark on our journey and our life from a place of listening internally to our inner teacher listening for the voice of God of the voice of love. To be directed to be used. Right, like use my hands, use my feet, use my mouth, use my mind, use my hat, use use this body, right to to spread love in the world world. And let's see. Yeah, like kind of allowing the divine to direct our steps to direct our words to direct our thinking to direct our action, our actions. So that's it you guys, I told you a quirky, short little thing I wanted to introduce you. Perhaps some of you already know this word. Maybe you've never heard it before. But to CoddiWomple, I am obsessed and I play NT do a shit ton more CoddiWompling. Double Amen hands if you want to join me. So thank you for tuning in. And I would love for you guys, some of you to come join us at the own your magic retreat in November. It's going to be amazing. There will be some CoddiWompling happening there to guarantee it. So thanks for tuning in you guys. Wherever you go on your adventures wherever you go. CoddiWompling through life, right? May you leave yourself in the place and the animals and the environment and the people whoever you come into contact with on your adventure on your journey on the path. May you leave them better than how you found them. Wherever you go. May you be a blessing by happy, CoddiWompling