HAVING HOPE

Karen Kenney: 00:00:02

Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney show, and I'm super duper excited to talk to you today, because I want to talk to you. I'm just going to go right

Karen Kenney: 00:00:12

in. Just gonna go right in, because I'm wicked excited because I'm going to talk to you about something, or is it really a someone that I love, love, love, love, love,

Karen Kenney: 00:00:24

love, okay, all right. Pull it together. Pull it together. Okay. So some of you may know that where I live, I kind of like, live in the woods, and I like, even right now,

Karen Kenney: 00:00:35

even right now as I'm like recording this, I have windows on either side of the computer right, and I can look up on what I call the ridge. We have a ridge behind our house, and

Karen Kenney: 00:00:46

up on the ridge is where I see a lot of animal activity. I'm so lucky. There's like birds and squirrels and chipmunks and turkeys and deer. I one day saw a fox. I

Karen Kenney: 00:00:58

almost left my body. I was so excited. I've seen all kinds of creatures. And there's one particular woodland creature, you know me. You guys know me. Like, I love all animals,

Karen Kenney: 00:01:11

all the animals, all the time, all day long. Like, that's like that. That's just fat. And we have one particular animal that Rome's uh area Ayad, our woods, right? And she's a

Karen Kenney: 00:01:27

little three legged dia. And her name, we call her Trixie. Okay, so she is a tripod, right? She's missing her front left Yes, her front left leg. Now I'll get into that more

Karen Kenney: 00:01:43

in a second, but I'm just setting up the premise of the show. So today we're going to be talking about Trixie, and I'm going to call this sucker having hope, having hope,

Karen Kenney: 00:01:55

and I'm going to connect the dots as to what Trixie has to do with with this. Okay, so let me tell you a little bit about her first and foremost, and then I'll get into the

Karen Kenney: 00:02:05

whole hope thing. So we first noticed her probably about six or seven years ago, and I don't know if I saw her up on the ridge first, but I noticed this dia that was

Karen Kenney: 00:02:17

walking differently than the other dia. So a lot of times I'll see, like, up again, up on the ridge, I'll see, like, a little family, a little herd of animals, a little like, and

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they'll be like, a couple of does, maybe a fawn, like, whatever. And so they'll let go, scaling across and then, like, a little bit lagging behind them. All of a sudden, one

Karen Kenney: 00:02:36

day, I saw this three legged DIA and like, lost my mind. Like I was like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Maybe my sweetie saw her too. I don't we don't remember who saw her

Karen Kenney: 00:02:48

first, but this is, like, my first memory of her. And so over the years, she has, like, obviously, come down the ridge. She cuts through our yard, she nibbles on the thing,

Karen Kenney: 00:02:58

the vegetation around a yard. We see her all the time, and it is always like a super duper treat and a blessing for me when I see her. I'm a little obsessed with her, and I

Karen Kenney: 00:03:12

always have such a visceral, like, physical and emotional reaction whenever I see her, the first thing like it just makes me immediately start to cry. I get so happy at

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such happy tears. One because, first of all, a lot of people in New Hampshire hunt. So we have put up like no trespassing and no hunting signs all along around our acreage,

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because we don't want, first of all, no no, hello vegan. Of like, 23 years you're not going to be hunting on my land, but we can't control, like, what you know, the forests

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around us and like what other people do. So we try to keep her safe, because we love her so much. But a deer out in the wild, never mind a three legged dia but just think

Karen Kenney: 00:04:00

about, like, the snow the woods, tripping over things like it's not it's not always easy to, like, get around. And most deer in their natural habitat, in the wild for a

Karen Kenney: 00:04:11

variety of reasons, hunters, humans included, you know, their lifespan. I've heard people say, even though they can live a lot longer in captivity, etc, etc, but out

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in the wild, they usually last around, like, three or four years or whatever. I've even heard people say two to three years. So the fact that she's been around for this long,

Karen Kenney: 00:04:31

that in itself, is just miraculous. So we hadn't seen her in a while, and then this past summer, you know, anytime we see her, it's like, Oh my God. Thank God. Thank God.

Karen Kenney: 00:04:43

Like, oh my god. Like, I just get so relieved, like, so relieved that she's still alive. She brings me so much joy. But so we saw her this summer in August, and she had

Karen Kenney: 00:04:55

with her for the very first time, her own little fawn, her own. Little Bambi, her own little spot, little white spots on her back, little Fauci. I thought I was going to have

Karen Kenney: 00:05:05

an out of body experience. I was so happy. Oh, my God. Okay, that was then. And then, like, a week or so ago, I saw a little, a little herd of Dia down in the yard. I know

Karen Kenney: 00:05:19

usually because the dogs start going ballistic and they stop backing and scoot, never box, right? But scoot when scoot backs, you know, something's going down,

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right? So I go downstairs, and I'm like, Oh, look, there's three deer, you know, and they look like does. And I'm like, they're so cute. And then all of a sudden I see this

Karen Kenney: 00:05:35

other small idea is, like, not quite still a baby fawn, but still a fawn, like still young. Just if you guys, if you've ever had a pet, you know what the zoomies are, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:05:47

Like, you've seen a cat have zoomies. They just start running for no reason. You've seen puppies and dogs have zoomies, where they just run around and run around. Well,

Karen Kenney: 00:05:54

this little deer had totally the zoomies. So I was like recording, I'm gonna get to the hot beat. Stay with me for the story. I sat recording this little baby deer, like

Karen Kenney: 00:06:05

zipping around. He's like, just running. She's running through the yard, like going into the woods, and then, you know, 10 seconds later, just zipping back around. So

Karen Kenney: 00:06:14

I'm trying to capture this on my phone, and I'm laughing so hot, and all of a sudden, the deer shoots out of the little zoom media shoots out of the woods, runs across the

Karen Kenney: 00:06:25

yard, across the driveway, and kind of out of sight. So I try to, like, pan over and catch it, and all of a sudden I see that it's Trixie fawn. And Trixie, like the

Karen Kenney: 00:06:38

little deer the Zoom media had gone over to like, see their mom. And so I look over and I'm like, oh my god, it's Trixie. And I'm so excited. Okay, this is just recently the

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snow storms, about just snow on the ground, whatever. So I shoot this little video. I have a separate video of all the zoomies and stuff like that. And then I have another

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little short video. It's like 27 seconds long of just her walking across the driveway, not even the baby, just Trixie, okay? And I think, Oh, my God, I love her so

Karen Kenney: 00:07:10

much. I'm gonna post her on Instagram, right? I'm just gonna do, I haven't done a reel in a gazillion years. I'm like, I'll just throw up a, you know, a little thing,

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and let some other people enjoy her. So I put it on Facebook, I put it on Instagram, and I went about my business. Holy Jesus Christ on a cracker. Slowly, slowly. I don't

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know what happened. I don't really give a shit about the algorithm. I don't expect posts to do well, blah, blah, blah, blah, but all of a sudden, the number of views of

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that real starts to, like, take off. And I'm watching it, and I'm like, Oh, look, that's really fascinating. It's had like, 400 views, right? And then I'm not, I shit you

Karen Kenney: 00:07:55

not. I shit you not, you guys. It's goes from like, 400 to 1000 to 2000 and it just keeps going, and then it hits 10,000 and I'm like, This is ridiculous. Like, what is

Karen Kenney: 00:08:05

happening? Lo and behold, here we are now, like, I think, like, a week later, and Trixie is real. Her video has been viewed more than 1.6 million with an M million, I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:08:23

like, of course, it's so like me to have something quote, unquote, go viral that has nothing to do with my business, right? I just laugh and laugh and laugh. Oh, my God,

Karen Kenney: 00:08:35

my spiritual team has the funniest sense of humor, but it may not have anything to do with my business, but it has everything to do with my hat. It has everything to do with

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who I am, and the reason why I shared Trixie video, and why now we're getting to the hot beat of this episode, why I think it's still going up. I mean, it's still going up and

Karen Kenney: 00:08:55

up, right? But I think the reason why so many people are viewing it and sharing it and whatever, and commenting on it, you know. And I've been doing my best to, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:09:05

keep up with commenting back and responding to people, you know. I think there's a number one reason why it's happening, but before I get into that, I want to, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:09:19

just talk about some of the comments, because it has to do with this episode, right? So, alright, actually, I'll back up. Let me say this. This is what I think. I

Karen Kenney: 00:09:30

think when you see this video of Trixie, and if you haven't seen it, or you want to see it, you can see it on my Facebook page, right? Just find me, Karen Kenney, but you

Karen Kenney: 00:09:39

can also on Instagram, I am Karen Kenney, right? L, i, v, e, live. So Karen Kenney live one word, that's my handle, okay, if you want to go see it. And so I think what

Karen Kenney: 00:09:52

it is is that Trixie in a really fucking doc. Time in the world, Trixie is like this little b. Chicken of hope, her resiliency, her ability, first of all, to be around

Karen Kenney: 00:10:07

after six or seven years, to be having her own little herd, her own little family, to be able to have her own little fawn to keep going despite all the odds that are against

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her. I think it's moving people's hats. I think it's it's really like a little beacon of hope. And what I thought, which is so interesting, is, if you take a look right

Karen Kenney: 00:10:32

now, take a look around, right I say this. I've been saying this probably for at least six years that have been on the show and if not before that, but the world is, is in a

Karen Kenney: 00:10:43

really, really, really, kind of a shit show doc space. Now, I am kind of an annoyingly positive person. I look for the good. I look for, you know, I look for the good, the

Karen Kenney: 00:10:58

beautiful and the holy all the time, like, that's my thing. But I don't, I don't prescribe to, like, just the like, Oh my God. Like, everything's great. I don't

Karen Kenney: 00:11:11

believe in some people call it toxic positivity, whatever. I'm kind of what I call like, an idealistic, realistic person, right? So I we in A Course in Miracles, we

Karen Kenney: 00:11:23

would say it like this, right? Look at the crucifixion, but like, Don't stare at it. Do you know what I mean? Like, don't become obsessed with it. So I am not blind to what

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happens in the world, and I try not to let the ego, fearful thought, system of the world dictate everything that's going on inside of me, right? I tend to lean towards

Karen Kenney: 00:11:44

the light like I tend to try to lean more towards love, but I don't deny what's kind of happening here, around in the world. And right now, there's some shit going down,

Karen Kenney: 00:11:54

right? Donald Trump is elected president. There's a bunch of like, just hatred and division and violence and racism is like it never went anywhere. First of all, never

Karen Kenney: 00:12:08

went anywhere. Only got worse when a bunch of white people lost their fucking minds because we elected a black president, right? So many people are collectively just like

Karen Kenney: 00:12:17

losing their minds right now making decisions to, like, and, you know, education and dei and like, all the Deia and just going after groups of like, it's just, it's

Karen Kenney: 00:12:29

a nightmare. It's a nightmare when you, when you, I don't want, I don't want this episode to go in this direction. But I will just say this, I look around amongst all the darkness

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of the world, and I just think, you know, I want to be part of the solution, like I want to be part of the light. And for me, part of the solution is having hope. And I think

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that if you take a look around right now, that's like I'm saying, take a look around right now. Things are a little. Things are a little right now. You know what I mean. But

Karen Kenney: 00:13:08

when it came to Trixie, when I did that post, and I started seeing like, the number of views go up, I also was looking at the comments, and what I found so fascinating is

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is that I would say, like, 97% of people were being positive, love her too. They fell in love with her too, leaving, like, really beautiful comments. You know, there's a

Karen Kenney: 00:13:34

handful of people who are like, Why don't you save her and take her to a sanctuary like, you know, they want the human to like, swoop in, of course, into fear on her

Karen Kenney: 00:13:42

behalf, you know. And for those people, I had to, like, respond and say, like, Hey, she's been doing just fine for six or seven years. I do what I can to protect her, you

Karen Kenney: 00:13:52

know, like, no hunting signs, whatever. But there's a lot of reasons why you shouldn't feed dia like, in your yard. There's a lot, I mean, it's one thing if you live in on,

Karen Kenney: 00:14:01

like, totally protected land, where nobody's on your land and up. But a lot of times, feeding stations for deers can make them really easy prey, because they start to rely

Karen Kenney: 00:14:12

on that food, and then they congregate. And it makes it easier for the preys and the predators, the predators, I mean, to, like, find them. So my whole thing is, Trust me.

Karen Kenney: 00:14:21

Trust me. Trust me. There is a part of me that is just like, I just want to make her life so much easier. Can I just leave her out some food and like, dead, like all the D

Karen Kenney: 00:14:29

I want all the animals to be happy, healthy, healed and and safe, right, free from suffering. But I also try not to do the whole like, I'm just going to be the Savior

Karen Kenney: 00:14:40

in swooping and save her. Save her from I can't save her from nature. I can't save her from all the coyotes or all the awful things that could potentially happen to her, but I

Karen Kenney: 00:14:51

can do what I can on my land. And of course, if I ever found her injured or hurt or look wounded or whatever, I whatever. A we, I should say we My sweetie too. Whatever we

Karen Kenney: 00:15:01

could do, we would help her. But there was like this, this little subsection of people on the internet who just cannot help themselves, right? They have to be, let's

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just call it what it is. They have to be dicks. They have to think. They think they're so clever and so witty and like, nobody had thought of this before, and

Karen Kenney: 00:15:22

they're just going to say the thing to get attention, or to be that one miserable human being who, you know, has to say something to make fun of her to, like all the hunters, a

Karen Kenney: 00:15:35

lot of hunters had to leave comments about, like, bang, next meal. Oh, oh, the Kaya. Like, just you can just imagine, I don't even want to give them time and energy, but

Karen Kenney: 00:15:44

you can just imagine some of the things that people said. I was like, delete, delete, delete, delete, because you have no business here. This post wasn't for you, if that's

Karen Kenney: 00:15:52

how you think. And this is my whole point. Their comments, what they showed me is how they feel and how they think. What it showed me was their mind. Now let's come back to

Karen Kenney: 00:16:07

hope. So for me, when I think about hope and what Trixie was giving us all, which was this, look at this incredibly resilient creature, and let me tell you something, she

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is a walking symbol of us too, because whether you see yourself this way or not, trust me when I tell you we are all incredibly resilient creatures. And because

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of that, she is mirroring back to us what we the potential of us. She is showing us in these tough times where there's going to be some people who maybe don't like you, have

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have shitty things to say to you, or might even want you dead right amongst this time, she continues to go. She continues to thrive. She continues to show up. She

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continues to like create family. She continues to gather together in her little community, her little herd, right? So I have this really strong feeling like she, for me,

Karen Kenney: 00:17:07

is a symbol of resiliency. She's a symbol of hope, and she's spreading a lot of light and love in the world. And I think that when the forces of darkness are at work, man, do they

Karen Kenney: 00:17:16

hate love and light? Do they? And I don't mean like love and light, I mean like fierce like love light, the people who are showing up, the people who are showing up and not

Karen Kenney: 00:17:26

going away, especially when you don't expect them to so many other people would have counted her down, like expecting her like every year she I have an expectation, right?

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I hold a vision every year. Now, of course, you know, at some point, you know we're all gonna die like at some point, there will be a year where we won't see her, and I'll be

Karen Kenney: 00:17:46

crushed, and that'll be a tough one, but I also understand the circle of life, but until that time, until that time, I walk around with the hope in my heart that she's

Karen Kenney: 00:17:58

gonna make it another year, and She might have another fawn, and she might continue right to be the little blessing that in the lesson, she's a blessing and a lesson right

Karen Kenney: 00:18:08

in our lives. So I wanted to talk about hope too because I got curious about it. I'm like, Oh, I'm going to look up the word hope. And the reason why I wanted to do this

Karen Kenney: 00:18:17

episode too is I think a lot of people think of hope is kind of like this lame. It's kind of like lame and naive and Pollyanna ish, like, kind of thing. So

Karen Kenney: 00:18:29

when you look up hope in the dictionary, this is what it says. It says hope is a feeling of expectation for certain things or outcomes to happen. A feeling of expectation

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for certain things or outcomes to happen. Okay? And so I was like, Oh, that's interesting. And then when you just type in hope, there also comes up, like biblical

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hope, like how the Bible meant hope. And the way that I've interpreted like, kind of like biblical hope is that this belief that God will carry through on what he said. And my

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way of interpreting that is, like, this belief that God is going to get shit done, right? Like, you just put it all on God, you have hope, and you're like, Yeah, God's

Karen Kenney: 00:19:07

going to come through or whatever, right? Some Christians out there might be like, No, you got it wrong. KK, I'm open to being wrong, but that's how I was thinking about

Karen Kenney: 00:19:15

it. But I started thinking about this, you know, because some people describe hope as a feeling or an emotion, but I also think that hope is a way of thinking. I think hope is a

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feeling and an emotion, but I also think it's a way of thinking, and hope for me, right isn't about certainty, right? Because when you look at that definition from the

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dictionary, it's a feeling or expectation for certain things, like you really want a certain thing to happen. And for me, it's not about certainty. For me, hope is all

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about possibility. What becomes possible when we align our mind with something greater, not just buying into what. We think the world is showing us right, what the ego

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mind has created in this, what we would call, in A Course in Miracles, small ah, ah, like the little ah letter, Ah right, Q, I S, right, the small Ah, right. This world is

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like, kind of like the small ah, reality. I think that when you tap into hope, what you tap into, is like capital reality, which is beyond this world, which isn't just limited

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to what our eyeballs see or our experience, our physical bodily experience here has shown us, I kind of like to dwell in the realm of possibility, of things that my mind

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maybe can't even understand, and this maybe goes into, you know, the spiritual or the mystical or the magical, right? And I just think there's so much more going on beyond

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what our physical eyes can show us, and it's proof, like so many people see Trixie, so many people wrote with good intention, right? Oh, like teary eyes, like tear like

Karen Kenney: 00:21:05

crying and like poor creature. So many people called her a poor creature, and I let some of them go, but once in a while I would respond, and I'd say, Actually, she's not a

Karen Kenney: 00:21:15

poor creature. We see her as incredibly healthy and resilient and strong. This is a creature that has lasted like, six or seven years. She has a family. She has a fawn. She

Karen Kenney: 00:21:27

looks healthy and strong like, you know, I've seen her, like, hop over things and move pretty quickly when she's had to, you know, this is not a quote, unquote, poor

Karen Kenney: 00:21:37

creature. So what I was going to say earlier is so much of how people responded right in their comments, whether cruel or kind, it was just a reflection of their own mind. It

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was just showing me them. It was showing me not only how they feel, but how they think. And to me, I think if we're not careful, we can get roped into the darkness and the

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cynicism and the hopelessness and the helplessness, you know, like right now, I think there are a lot of powers that be that want the masses, that want the people to be

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divided, to be and, look, there's a lot of reasons to feel divided right now, right there's a lot of us that feel very differently from one another. I understand

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why it happens, right? But part of this is recognizing that they how do I say that? When you say the words, they like that, okay, there's a lot that there is a lot of

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kind of push to have us feel overwhelmed, to have us feel hopeless, to have us feel helpless, that's what the powers that be want. Because when you feel that way, you

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don't fight back, you don't show up, you don't call your congress, you don't call your representatives, you don't gather together in community. You just kind of want

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to stay in your little bubble and other people and not get too involved, because you feel exhausted and overwhelmed, and I get it. We all, we all have to follow our own

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individual curriculum. And there are times, there are times when activists need rest. There are times when we need to take a time out. There are times when you need to just

Karen Kenney: 00:23:18

find a safe place to rest your head and take a few winks and have a good meal and have somebody hug you and let you cry and tell you it's all right. That is all totally

Karen Kenney: 00:23:27

appropriate to the madness. And I always say we need to do these things, and then we need to get back down to the business of love. And I don't mean love and light, right,

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although in my previous episode, I talked about how fierce and powerful love and light can be in the right context, right? But I mean, like we have to, like we have to not

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get hopeless, because when we get hopeless, we tend to feel helpless, and we can start to create reasons or excuses or things that tells us, you know, it's never going to

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change. We can't do anything. It's just how it is. It's like, nope. And to me, Trixie is like, is like, kind of like this bright, shining light of reminding me, reminding me

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of my own strength, reminding me of my own resiliency, my reminding me that no matter even when the odds are stacked against you, and people don't think you're going to make

Karen Kenney: 00:24:23

it through another season. Boom, you show up in the spring, and you don't show up alone. You show up with your herd, you show up with your community, you show up with your

Karen Kenney: 00:24:31

people, right? You know what I'm saying? So she's been absolutely incredible. And I think that you know a lot of people you know, think that to be hopeful, especially

Karen Kenney: 00:24:43

in unprecedented times, or doc times, or whatever you want to call them, that it's naive. And to me, it's not naive at all. I think it's incredibly powerful. It's because

Karen Kenney: 00:24:55

I'm not relying on just myself right to know the answer or to have. Figured out, you know this, to me, is like moving again beyond what my human eyes show me, what we might

Karen Kenney: 00:25:06

call in the Course of Miracles, like, is above the battleground is to take a different POB, to have a POV like, a different point of view, to have a shift in

Karen Kenney: 00:25:14

perception from fear, like, oh my god, Trixie, you know, the predators are gonna get or, like, like, fuck off. You know what I mean, like, there, there's, like, no need.

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I'm like, Why? Why? Why do people insist on going on other people's, you know, pages or threads or posts to just try and take, like, you know, a big shit on whatever they're

Karen Kenney: 00:25:38

saying. It's like, it's just humans are so sometimes exhausting. We're also incredible, but sometimes people, you're exhausting, okay, but so I love having hope. I'm call me

Karen Kenney: 00:25:51

naive. Call me whatever you want to call me, but I love having hope. And I want to share with you. I'm going to share with you a quote, a little passage that is one of the

Karen Kenney: 00:26:04

things that I remind myself of when it starts to feel like, Oh, my God, the bastards are winning, or whatever.

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There's several quotes I think of Gandhi has a quote that I love. I've talked about before, and maybe I'll talk about it on another episode soon. So I rely on, I rely

Karen Kenney: 00:26:23

on a lot of the members of my spiritual team. When things start to get extra weird and extra kooky out there, I draw upon the wisdom of my spiritual team. So in a moment,

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I'm going to share with you this quote or this way of thinking that has been incredibly helpful to me, and it's something that I want to leave you with but I also

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want to say this, like, this is a great time to, kind of like, check yourself right, to just take a moment to just like, slow down and tune in. And to be really honest with

Karen Kenney: 00:26:52

yourself, I always say, like, notice what you notice, but kind of take a moment see if you can do a little moment of inventory. Do this out of curiosity and not judgment. Do

Karen Kenney: 00:27:01

it out of awareness and not shaking your finger at yourself. I always say, be curious, because that's what you're what you need, and what your mind needs is, is your

Karen Kenney: 00:27:11

compassion and your curiosity. What it doesn't need is your contempt, okay, so in your judgment. So let's, let's, like, swing open the love doors and approach this little

Karen Kenney: 00:27:21

exercise in this way. But if you could just kind of like, just kind of notice what it's been like in your head space, what have the quality of your thoughts been? Quality of

Karen Kenney: 00:27:32

your thoughts about yourself, quality of your thoughts about others, quality about your thoughts about the world, right? What have your What has your light the quality of

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your thoughts been? What is the quality of your words been? The things you say to yourself, the things you've been writing, the things you've been speaking power into

Karen Kenney: 00:27:48

right? Just start to notice these things. Start to notice when you start to shift over into that ego side. I think of I often joke about how the ego, how the mind is like a

Karen Kenney: 00:28:00

duplex. And on one side is the right mindedness, right on the miracle mindedness, and on the left side is like where the ego goes to goes to have parties. The Keg is the

Karen Kenney: 00:28:12

wild. Keg is with the sticky floor, right? So people in the nest know what I'm talking about. It's kind of like an inside thing. So when you find yourself spending a little bit

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too much time over on that side, over in the place where the darkness is, or, and again, I'm not talking about like, oh, just be positive all the time, but when you find

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yourself kind of shifting into that hopelessness or that helplessness, or that throwing your hands up, or just being completely exhausted and not having anything

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left to give, because you're not taking like, care of yourself, just like, notice that and know that you can choose differently. Know that you can choose again.

Karen Kenney: 00:28:48

Know that you can take a moment to catch your breath and rest, and then maybe you'll, you'll get your own assignment. We're, I'm going to talk about that on another

Karen Kenney: 00:28:59

individual curriculum or individual assignment soon, because we all have a role to play. We all have a role to play, and you matter. And we need your love. We need your

Karen Kenney: 00:29:09

light. We need your gifts. We need your talent. We need your brilliance. We need your hope. We need your hope. Okay, and it can be really easy right now to not feel

Karen Kenney: 00:29:19

that way. So do you just take a moment with yourself, you slow down, you sit close your eyes, maybe take a couple of good deep breaths into the nose, exhale out twice as

Karen Kenney: 00:29:29

long through the mouth, let that nervous system start to maybe down regulate a little bit, and then just get honest with yourself and ask yourself, like, yeah, what kind of

Karen Kenney: 00:29:37

thoughts have I been Having lately? You know, how, what kind of how? What, what kind of words have I been putting out into the universe? And for me, I think one of the

Karen Kenney: 00:29:49

most resilient things that we can do is to to remain hopeful, to remain joyful, to keep showing up and caring for one another and loving one another and looking out for. Our

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neighbors looking out for people who maybe, maybe look different than us, right? We cannot, we cannot start to see each other as the enemy. And I know, like, Look, I get it.

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There are a lot of people acting in a lot of ways that I am not down with, I am not okay with. You know, if you're somebody who, if you're somebody who is okay with so much of

Karen Kenney: 00:30:26

the racism and the hatred and the violence that's going on in the world, we are not in the same camp, like, just know that, right? They still love you, still help you out if I

Karen Kenney: 00:30:35

can. And right, it's like, Jesus, okay, and we're back. So I want to share something here about this idea that to be hopeful is to be naive. And this is a quote by a guy

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named guru Singh, and he says this, he says this. And it's about this concept. It's about the concept, you know how people say to you, like, Don't get your hopes up. I've

Karen Kenney: 00:31:02

never really liked it when people say to me, don't get your hopes up. I'm like, why don't try to bring you down? I understand that they see it as a way of trying to protect

Karen Kenney: 00:31:10

you. They might even see it as a way of loving you, because they they don't want you to be quote unquote disappointed, right? So people say, Oh, don't get your hopes up.

Karen Kenney: 00:31:18

Like, don't have high expectations of yourself or anybody else. And I'm like, yeah, no, that never really sat well with me. I don't, I don't really like that. Like,

Karen Kenney: 00:31:25

don't, don't, don't be, like, a patty pooper, right? Like, don't be coming on my post about Trixie talking about predators and shooting her at all. Like, just, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:31:37

beat it. Like, just piss off. Like, beat it, you know. Oh, my God. Okay, but listen to this. This is from Guru Singh. I'm going to say it slowly. I might even say it twice,

Karen Kenney: 00:31:46

because sometimes I need to hear things said twice for it to kind of sink in. Okay, so whatever your dream is, whatever your hope is, whatever your dream is, right? We're now

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where you're now entering the realm of possibility. This is like going from the Wizard of Oz, when the Wizard of Oz goes from black and white into color, like we are

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moving into that Technicolor vision, okay? He says, walk as if and fill in the blank, right? Dream, your dream and walk as if, whatever that dream is has already happened.

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Okay, this is what he says, like, walk as if whatever that dream is, get your hopes up, like whatever the dream is, walk as if it's already happened. Dream your dream, not what

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anybody else tells you. Dream your dream, and walk as if whatever the thing is has already come true. And he says this because we know what we want, we know what we want

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and when we know what we want, we receive our expectations. So learn to expect the best. Don't follow that old saying that says Don't get your hopes up, or don't get your

Karen Kenney: 00:32:59

expectations up. You don't want to be disappointed. Because if you don't want to be disappointed, don't be act in a different way. So walk as if, and get your

Karen Kenney: 00:33:12

expectations way up there and you be you and be nobody else. And that's the directive. Walk as if, keep those hopes way up there. So I walk as if I'm going to see Trixie next

Karen Kenney: 00:33:26

year too. I hope I see her a lot more this winter season. I hope she's doing fantastic. I believe in her. And when the time when the sad time comes when I don't see her anymore,

Karen Kenney: 00:33:37

yeah, I will probably cry my little eyes out, right? If I find out, if I hear from somebody, a local neighbor or whatever, who finds her body, because we all know who she

Karen Kenney: 00:33:46

is, right? Our little three legged dia little Trixie, if, if, if the time comes, you know, I'll be really sad. But you know what? I'm not going to focus on the fact

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that that she's had a long life. That's what I'm going to focus on. I'm going to focus not on, oh, she's dead. It's so awful. Like I said, I will cry, but I'm going to focus

Karen Kenney: 00:34:05

on how much joy she brought us, how much hope she brought us. Right? Having hope right now is a really kind of like, rebellious thing, like not getting sucked

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into the undertow of negativity and hatred and throwing up our hands or sticking our heads, no, it's like we're showing up. We're making calls. We're gonna get some shit

Karen Kenney: 00:34:29

done. We are a resilient people. Don't ever forget that. Don't ever forget that. Okay, so you go out there and you walk as if too keep your hopes way up there. Having hope is

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a rebellious act. It is a brave act. It is a strong act, right? It's not naive, because I've seen some things in my lifetime. I have seen some things in my lifetime that I just

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think, like, holy shit, something greater than me got. Involved there, right? Just like, meaning, like, I think that love wins. Maybe I'm an idiot and the jury is still

Karen Kenney: 00:35:09

out, but I think love wins in the end. I think that's a good place to end. All right, you guys, I'm having a lot of hope over here, and I hope you're having hope too. So

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wherever you are in the world, all right, first of all, also

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come join the nest. I've been thinking about this, and I'm like, You know what? Right now, with the world being the way it is, it is such a great time to be around people, to

Karen Kenney: 00:35:37

be in a little community of people, right? Who are noticing, who are paying attention, who are staying hopeful, who are learning right, not just spiritual principles, but

Karen Kenney: 00:35:48

practical tools, practical neuroscience, tools to help us. Like, the nest is such a cool little space. It's like a cool little family like, come join us. Go to Karen

Karen Kenney: 00:35:59

kenney.com/nest, I just had to say that, okay, and we're back. Because if just I'm like, I can't believe more people have wanted to join this thing. And it's not

Karen Kenney: 00:36:09

about me, like, oh, because of me, but it's like, what the nest offers you in these very turbulent times. It is like a beautiful space, a beautiful space. And it's not just

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like, oh, we sit around and theorize, but like, we can get some shit done from the inside out, because that's the only way. That's the only way that the world changes.

Karen Kenney: 00:36:30

It's an inside job. More on that later. Okay, here we go. Wherever you go, may you leave the people, the animals, the place, the environment and yourself better than how

Karen Kenney: 00:36:44

you found it wherever you go, may you and your energy and your presence and your love and your hope be a blessing. Bye. Bye.