HOW TO STOP ABANDONING YOURSELF

Karen Kenney: 00:00:01

Hey, you guys. Welcome to the Karen Kenney

Karen Kenney: 00:00:04

Show. I'm so excited to be here with you today. And let's start

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off with a little question or two. So, let me ask you this:

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Have you ever said yes to something when, like, everything

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in your body was going like, no, no, I don't really want to do

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this, but out of guilt or shame or whatever weirdness is going

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on inside of you, you say yes and you do the thing, okay? Or

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how about, do you ever like suck it up and stuff it down like all

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your feelings in order to keep the peace or not make other

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people uncomfortable or to not seem like odd man out or

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whatever, or do you ever just like continuously go above and

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beyond, and you circus delay yourself into every kind of

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position? You contort yourself, you show up for things, you do

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everything for everybody else, you don't say no, you like

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basically exhaust yourself in service to other people, but you

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don't make your own needs a priority, because if that's the

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case, you might be caught up in this self-abandoning kind of

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behaviors, and I am no stranger to this myself, and I wanted to

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talk to you about this, first of all, because I just think it's

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important, and I think these kinds of behaviors, and I say

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this kind of jokingly, but also I think there's an underlying

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thing to this. This is the kind of shit that leads us to an

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early grave, right? This is the kind of stuff that puts so much

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stress on ourselves when we self-abandon, and we're going to

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talk about this today, because of a couple of things that

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happen. You know me, I love to do a little story time, story

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time. So, two things happened that led me to wanting to talk

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about this today, and the first thing that happened is I saw a

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little story online, so I'm kind of fascinated, and I don't know

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if it's because my mother was adopted as a baby, and she never

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knew her mother. She never knew who her father was. She, you

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know, she - her whole quote unquote, I would say, real

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family. And we can, we can argue about blood relatives versus

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whatever, but I mean her biological family - she didn't

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know them, and this is always kind of struck me, in for

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several different reasons, in several different ways. Is it

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left a little ache in my heart for my mom, and I know on some

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level it, it, it was distressing or bothered her too. We can get

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into that another time, but just for the, for the point, I think

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there's a tender, a tender spot in my heart for that. So I love

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these shows when I see people getting reunited with their

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family members, especially when they wanted to find each other,

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right? Not like when it's awkward or weird, and then it's

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like, but when people genuinely wanted to find their birth

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parents or their siblings. I love that. So, it was a short

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little clip, it was like three minutes long, and I saw this

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story of a guy, and he's talking to the woman who runs the show,

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who like finds the people and helps people reconnect, and this

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one guy starts to find out that his mother is dead, that his

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father is dead, but he comes to find out he has four biological

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siblings that he didn't know anything about, and I assume

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that he was like the first born. I'm like, okay, he must have

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been the oldest, and maybe the mother or whoever gave him up

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for adoption or sent him away, or whatever the thing was,

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because I didn't have all the details yet. But come to find

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out, here's the bottom line of this story. So, not only does

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this guy find out that he had four siblings, but he finds out

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that he had an older brother, and they're all biological, they

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all have the same parents, so just think about what a trip

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this is. So he finds out that is he has an older brother who's 10

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years older than him. So apparently the mother and the

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father had one kid and decided to keep this child, but then he

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was the second born and he was given up.

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Okay, so this is all we know at this point. He's given up, and

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then he comes to find out he has two younger sisters. So, imagine

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being this guy and finding out, okay, well, they chose to keep

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my older brother. They went on to have two youngest siblings.

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Why did they like get rid of me, and so you're watching this

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story, and you find out from the host that his siblings want to

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meet up with him, they want to get to know him, he's overcome

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with emotion, the whole thing, like, I cry every time I watch

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these things, he's like balling, right, oh my god, crying over

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strangers, but that's my daily existence, so he ends up meeting

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with the siblings, and it comes to find out, and I'm sure he had

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so many questions about, like, why me, and there's a whole

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story as to why, right? The father was in the army, and he

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was gone a lot, but I guess the mother hid her pregnancy with

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him, so the older brother. Never even knew that the mother was

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pregnant, and supposedly, as the story goes, is she had the baby

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in a public restroom somewhere, and then she took him and she

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dropped him off. I don't know if it was at a fire station, but at

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a public place. So he is what you considered being a

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foundling. You are a baby that is given up anonymously. Nobody

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knows who your parents are, and he was taken in by whoever,

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like, ended up finding him or taking him into the fight of

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whatever it was. So, when he's meeting with the siblings, and

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the older brother says, I feel so guilty because I didn't know,

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and I'm thinking, oh man, you were 10 years old, man. Your

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mother could have just worn big dresses or hit her belly, or

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what? Do you know? You know, and so this woman delivered this

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baby, unbeknownst. And then the two young assemblings, the two

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daughters, two young, you know, his sisters didn't know about

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him. But when they're all talking about him, the older

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brother says, "I feel really guilty. And one of the youngest

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sisters just starts to cry, and she says, and when I found out

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that you were a foundling, she's like, it just broke my heart,

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and she started to cry, and I just kept thinking about this

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idea of being a foundling. There's something that is.. I

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don't know, maybe I'll write a story about it someday, but it

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just really moved me, this concept of being a foundling,

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and that made me think, and we're going to talk about

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abandoning ourselves, but I want to set this up as to why it's on

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my heart and my mind. So the very same day, and this is how

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it works, right? My spiritual team always has, I always say

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they have a wicked funny sense of humor. So the same day, my

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sister sends me a video in, like, on Facebook in private

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messages, and all she writes is maybe you are related to him

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with a question mark, and I'm like, oh my god, I already

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probably don't know where this is going, but the fact that she

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sends me this video on the same day that I'm crying about this

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guy being a foundling makes me laugh. So, in this video,

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there's two - I wrote down the dialog back and forth between

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these two younger brothers, so it's an older brother, I'd say

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he's probably about 12, and a younger brother, I'd say he's

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probably about like nine or 10 or something, and the older

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brother's in the front seat, and he's looking back at the younger

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brother, and the older brother says, We found you in a garbage

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can, and whether you're an old assembly or a young assembly,

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you might be able to relate to this, but in this scenario, I am

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the youngest sibling, right? So he says, "We found you in a

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garbage can, like dead serious. And the little boy in the back

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seat goes, "I wasn't found in a garbage can. And then the boy in

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the front seat says, "But you was adopted, and that's why you

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don't look like none of us.

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He says, "Somebody just left you on the front porch, and Mama

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just took you in, and the little kid in the back seat goes, and

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he goes, all right, just go ask, right? This is what the older

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brother says, and I was just like, I was cracking up

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laughing, although it wasn't that funny to me when I was a

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kid, but when I was a little kid, my sister used to say to me

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that I was found on the side of the road, that I was adopted,

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that my mother found me on the side of the road, and they felt

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bad for me, so they took me in. Then she would tell me that the

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police were my real parents, that I didn't belong to this

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family. The police were my parents, and they reached out to

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my mother, and she felt bad for me, so she took me in, and while

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you're denying it as a little, little kid, some part of you is

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also like thinking, like, but is it true, it can't be true,

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right? And the funny thing is, is that I have a biological

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sister, my sister Kim, we have the same parents, but then I

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have two half brothers, and we all have the same father, but we

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have different mothers, right, except for my sister Kim and I,

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we have the same exact parents, but BJ and Chris, they have the

Karen Kenney: 00:08:47

same dad as me, but they have different mothers, right? And my

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sister Chris, so it's like Kim, Chris, and BJ, they all have

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what we jokingly say is like these pumpkin heads, they have

Karen Kenney: 00:08:56

bigger heads, they have rounder heads than I do, and I have this

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picture one time, of the four of us together, we were out

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watching my sweetie play. This was years and years and years

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ago, because my brother BJ lives in Illinois, and I like never

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see him, so he was up visiting, or whatever, and we're all out

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at this bar, like watching my sweetie gig, and there's a

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picture of the three of us, and literally, when you see this

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picture, you can just start singing that song from like

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Sesame Street or Electric Company, it's just like one of

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these things just doesn't belong here. One of these things just

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doesn't belong. Yeah, it's me. I look different than them because

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I have a lot of my mother's DNA, right? Like the adopted side of

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the family DNA. It's this whole funny thing, so I start to think

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about this, though, about how you know my sister told me this

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story of me being abandoned as a child. I wasn't wanted by my

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original family, but that I was taken in out of sympathy, or

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whatever, but this idea of abandonment, of being a

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foundling, like this. Stayed with me like throughout my whole

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lifetime, and there have been so many times where I didn't feel

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like I belonged or I didn't feel like I fit in, and that's a

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story for another day, but I want to come back to this

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concept of abandoning, because I think so many of us walk around

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with like this wound of feeling abandoned, and whether it's

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because your parents got divorced when you were a kid, or

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you were adopted, or you were in the foster care system, like

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literally abandoned, right, physically abandoned, or

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emotionally abandoned, like your parents were not emotionally

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intelligent, and they didn't know how to hold you tenderly,

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they didn't know how to be compassionate, they didn't know

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how to see you, and really care for you, and love you in the way

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that you need it. There are ways that we are physically

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abandoned, emotionally abandoned, mentally abandoned,

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all of these things often because our earliest caregivers

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and caretakers did not know how to love us and care for us and

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nurture us and nourish us, but there's also a point where it

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comes where we stop feeling right, it's not so much as

Karen Kenney: 00:11:04

important about what the other people did growing up. It's

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about the patterns that we keep perpetuating to ourselves as

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adults, and I know when we think about this concept of

Karen Kenney: 00:11:18

self-abandonment, it's like, well, what do you mean, K.K.

Karen Kenney: 00:11:20

like I am with myself all the time, like, how can I abandon

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myself? Like, I don't really get it.

Karen Kenney: 00:11:28

But the thing is, is that when we start to do things, let me

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give you an example. I'm going to give you a bunch of examples

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of how we don't trust ourselves, but one of the biggest ones is

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when we diminish or discount our own feelings because we think

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they don't really matter, because that's kind of the

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conditioning that we came up with, right. We especially, I

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always say, like little mass hole kids, we like learn to suck

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it up and stuff it down, right? What we wanted, what we felt,

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our tender feelings, those those parts of us that were sensitive

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in, you know, tender, and needed more mercy and compassion. They

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were not nurtured and nourished, right? It was like, suck it up,

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stuff it down, this is just how it is. I'll give you something

Karen Kenney: 00:12:11

to cry about, stop your belly ache, and all that stuff, right?

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Weren't allowed to feel our feelings. They were not welcome.

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Nobody was asking us to sit down and express ourselves until,

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tell them how what we thought and what we felt, right, like

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that was not a big thing growing up, right, my generation, Gen X,

Karen Kenney: 00:12:27

but also just in certain cultures, right, in Lawrence,

Karen Kenney: 00:12:30

Mass, or Boston, wherever you grew up, right, I know a lot of

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East Coast kids have had this experience, especially Northeast

Karen Kenney: 00:12:37

Coast kids, you know, and I think about that song by Noah

Karen Kenney: 00:12:40

Kahn, where he says, you know, like, please forgive me, I was

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born in little light, or with little light, right? And I think

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about that, it's like, yeah, that northeastern kind of

Karen Kenney: 00:12:50

coldness and toughness, there's a beauty to it, don't get me

Karen Kenney: 00:12:54

wrong, there's a beauty to our resilience and our strength and

Karen Kenney: 00:12:57

our fortitude, our loyalty, these things, they were forged,

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right, but there's also something where the sensitivity

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gets lost, and we get lost to ourselves and our own needs. We

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start to abandon them. So, here's some concepts, right. We

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can abandon ourselves when we don't value ourselves. We can

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abandon ourselves when we don't know how to comfort ourselves,

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to support ourselves, to encourage ourselves. We can

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abandon ourselves when we make choices that aren't actually in

Karen Kenney: 00:13:30

our own best interest, because we become people pleasers,

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because we want to serve other people, because other people's

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needs have become more important than our own. So, here are some

Karen Kenney: 00:13:40

examples. I have a list here, because I wanted to make sure I

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like to make notes, just, you know, sometimes, so I can be

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effective here, because I never, ever, ever want to waste your

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time, and if you're listening to this, I want it to be helpful in

Karen Kenney: 00:13:51

some way. Okay, when you don't speak up for yourself, when you

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don't take a stand for yourself, when somebody is like saying

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things about you that aren't true when somebody's being kind,

Karen Kenney: 00:14:01

when somebody is, you know, just not making your needs a priority

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at all in a relationship. So, when you don't ask for what you

Karen Kenney: 00:14:09

need, when you let other people take advantage of you and your

Karen Kenney: 00:14:14

kindness or your capacity, right? Like, some of us are able

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to work long and hard hours, and so people will kind of just

Karen Kenney: 00:14:21

start to go like, oh, she'll do it, she doesn't mind, or they'll

Karen Kenney: 00:14:24

take care of it, because they always do it, because a pattern

Karen Kenney: 00:14:27

has been established, right. So, when we let other people take

Karen Kenney: 00:14:29

advantage of us, when we don't enforce healthy boundaries, good

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boundaries, learning to say no, when we don't ask for what we

Karen Kenney: 00:14:37

need, that not speaking up for ourselves is one of the ways

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that we can abandon ourselves when we suppress our own

Karen Kenney: 00:14:44

feelings, when we like suck it up and stuff it down, when we

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don't allow ourselves to feel the uncomfortable feelings, or

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the ones that we label bad, like anger or rage, or whatever. I

Karen Kenney: 00:14:56

never want you to be inflicting that stuff on other people,

Karen Kenney: 00:14:59

right, but to. Able to have a safe place to express our

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feelings when we push them away, and we don't allow ourselves,

Karen Kenney: 00:15:06

when we deny ourselves to, as I say, taste the rainbow of your

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full emotional experience, right?

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When we, you know, start to do like the drinking and the

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drugging at extreme levels and stuff like that, when we start

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to alter our mood out officially, because we don't

Karen Kenney: 00:15:22

know how to express ourselves or take care of ourselves. When we

Karen Kenney: 00:15:25

avoid feeling big feelings, all of these things are ways that we

Karen Kenney: 00:15:29

can abandon ourselves when we don't acknowledge that our needs

Karen Kenney: 00:15:33

matter too. Now I'm not saying you have to put yourself first

Karen Kenney: 00:15:37

all the time. There are just times in relationships where

Karen Kenney: 00:15:39

it's a give and take, but when you don't recognize that your

Karen Kenney: 00:15:43

needs matter, that they're valid, that you're allowed to

Karen Kenney: 00:15:46

have them. When you don't take good care of yourself, when

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you're constantly maybe feeling not just that like you don't

Karen Kenney: 00:15:54

deserve it, that you don't feel like you are worthy of self care

Karen Kenney: 00:15:59

and caring for yourself and putting your needs first. These

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are all signs, sometimes, of like maybe abandoning ourselves

Karen Kenney: 00:16:07

when we do things. So, in the nest, we were just talking about

Karen Kenney: 00:16:10

the big three, our core values, and how important our values are

Karen Kenney: 00:16:15

when we find ourselves start to agreeing to things or doing

Karen Kenney: 00:16:18

things that are not in alignment with our own values, when we do

Karen Kenney: 00:16:23

things to please other people, but end up kind of injuring

Karen Kenney: 00:16:26

ourselves. If it's going against your true beliefs and the things

Karen Kenney: 00:16:30

that matter to you, that's a form of self abandonment. The

Karen Kenney: 00:16:35

people pleasing we know about, right? That's when we just,

Karen Kenney: 00:16:37

like, we're always trying to, like, seek validation outside of

Karen Kenney: 00:16:42

ourselves, and we want to be good, and we want the reward of

Karen Kenney: 00:16:45

them, like giving us attention, or whatever. It's like you, when

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you, when you give up your own self interest, like to please

Karen Kenney: 00:16:53

other people, that's a red flag. We want to look at that.

Karen Kenney: 00:16:57

Sometimes perfectionism is a way that we abandon ourselves,

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because we don't allow ourselves to be human, we don't allow

Karen Kenney: 00:17:04

ourselves to have to have flaws, or we don't allow ourselves to

Karen Kenney: 00:17:09

sometimes have character defects, and when we have those

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character defects, of course, we want to work on them and stuff,

Karen Kenney: 00:17:14

but you do not have to be perfect, it's not realistic, and

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it sucks the joy out of life, and if we don't allow ourselves

Karen Kenney: 00:17:22

to feel worthy, unless we're accomplishing certain things,

Karen Kenney: 00:17:25

right, that can be a way of self-abandoning,

Karen Kenney: 00:17:28

self-abandoning. When you put, I did an episode one time called A

Karen Kenney: 00:17:33

You, a high ba jumper, where you don't ever let yourself see

Karen Kenney: 00:17:39

yourself for what you've actually already done or

Karen Kenney: 00:17:41

accomplished, when you set these really high expectations for

Karen Kenney: 00:17:46

yourself, where you can never actually meet your own level of

Karen Kenney: 00:17:49

expectation, so that's kind of that's not soothing, when you're

Karen Kenney: 00:17:52

a wicked hat on yourselves, when you're wicked self-critical,

Karen Kenney: 00:17:56

when you're highly over, like, judgmental, when you tear

Karen Kenney: 00:17:59

yourself down, when you say what's self-deprecating things

Karen Kenney: 00:18:05

to yourself constantly, like as a joke. When you say mean things

Karen Kenney: 00:18:08

to yourself, when you don't ever just acknowledge yourself and

Karen Kenney: 00:18:12

love yourself, and you abandon parts of yourself, right? Like,

Karen Kenney: 00:18:15

we have these younger parts of ourselves that just want to know

Karen Kenney: 00:18:18

that we made it, that we're now in our 30s, 40s, 50s. We

Karen Kenney: 00:18:22

survived it. We're doing well. We have friends, we have people

Karen Kenney: 00:18:25

who love us. We have these younger parts of ourselves that

Karen Kenney: 00:18:27

have been burdened, they've been exiled. Right, it's just like

Karen Kenney: 00:18:31

you are not allowed to show up here, you and your old stories,

Karen Kenney: 00:18:34

and your pain, and your trauma, and your suffering. We just like

Karen Kenney: 00:18:37

stuff it down into this corner until some illness, some

Karen Kenney: 00:18:41

therapy, or some coaching, or mentoring, right? Like, happens

Karen Kenney: 00:18:44

where we're allowed to let those exiled parts of ourselves have a

Karen Kenney: 00:18:47

voice, but up until that, we can really self-abandon a lot of

Karen Kenney: 00:18:51

different parts of ourselves, and we don't trust ourselves.

Karen Kenney: 00:18:55

That's another form of self-abandonment, when we

Karen Kenney: 00:18:57

overthink and we second guess everything, and we ruminate, and

Karen Kenney: 00:19:01

we let other people tell us how we should live our lives, and we

Karen Kenney: 00:19:05

ask them to make the decisions for us, because we don't trust

Karen Kenney: 00:19:08

ourselves when we give away our own power, and when we assume

Karen Kenney: 00:19:13

other people, everybody from your friends, your siblings,

Karen Kenney: 00:19:16

your parents, doctors, whoever, right men, people outside of

Karen Kenney: 00:19:20

you, you give them the authority, and you think that

Karen Kenney: 00:19:23

they know what's better for you than you do. That's a way that

Karen Kenney: 00:19:25

we self-abandon our own brilliance and our own

Karen Kenney: 00:19:28

intuition, and stuff like that. And, like, sometimes we can hide

Karen Kenney: 00:19:31

parts of ourselves. We start to feel like this is why I always

Karen Kenney: 00:19:34

say, in the nest, like, all parts of you are welcome here.

Karen Kenney: 00:19:37

You don't have to show up perfect. You don't have to show

Karen Kenney: 00:19:40

up as a know-it-all. You don't have to show up like not having

Karen Kenney: 00:19:42

any history or flaws. It's like all of your parts are welcome,

Karen Kenney: 00:19:46

right? And when we feel like that's not true, we will hide

Karen Kenney: 00:19:51

aspects of ourselves, and a lot of times, you know, I just want

Karen Kenney: 00:19:54

you to hear this. Even though, as adults, we might still be

Karen Kenney: 00:19:57

grappling with this, a lot of this behavior stuff. In

Karen Kenney: 00:20:00

childhood, it starts when our parents, again, they didn't meet

Karen Kenney: 00:20:03

our emotional needs, our mental needs, our physical needs. We

Karen Kenney: 00:20:07

felt abandoned, and we learned, we learned at a young age that

Karen Kenney: 00:20:12

we didn't feel worthy, we didn't feel lovable. And so then our

Karen Kenney: 00:20:16

actions over time start to be a representation of the beliefs

Karen Kenney: 00:20:20

that we have, and this is how we kind of create identity and all

Karen Kenney: 00:20:22

this other stuff, because we tend to repeat the things that

Karen Kenney: 00:20:26

we learned in childhood. This is why I often say that, as a

Karen Kenney: 00:20:30

mentor and a coach, like, yeah, I work with adults, but really

Karen Kenney: 00:20:33

I'm just working with little kids in adult bodies, because

Karen Kenney: 00:20:36

we're just basically repeatedly repeating the patterns, and

Karen Kenney: 00:20:40

sometimes those patterns turn out to be the relationships that

Karen Kenney: 00:20:43

we also choose, right, because they're mimicking like what we

Karen Kenney: 00:20:47

knew when we were little kids, and as we get older, it's like

Karen Kenney: 00:20:50

we start to just do the things that other people did to us, but

Karen Kenney: 00:20:54

we just start doing it to ourselves, we take on that role,

Karen Kenney: 00:20:57

and it's a learned behavior, and this is wicked good news,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:00

because anything that we learn we can also unlearn, because the

Karen Kenney: 00:21:04

brain has neuroplasticity, and we can put like new neural

Karen Kenney: 00:21:08

networks in place through repetition, through kindness,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:11

and compassion repeatedly over time, right? So all those times

Karen Kenney: 00:21:16

when we like make fun of ourselves, or ridicule, ridicule

Karen Kenney: 00:21:20

ourselves, or put ourselves down, or we become chameleons. I

Karen Kenney: 00:21:24

was a fantastic chameleon when I was younger. I could, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:27

again start to slay myself into whatever I needed to be in

Karen Kenney: 00:21:31

whatever situation, and I'm not saying that that sometimes isn't

Karen Kenney: 00:21:35

a skill set that is beneficial, right? But we don't want to

Karen Kenney: 00:21:38

abandon the truth of who we really are, and I'll often say,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:43

what you see is what you get with me. You might see me on

Karen Kenney: 00:21:46

stage, that's still me, or you might see me on a podcast, or

Karen Kenney: 00:21:50

doing something. I'm like, that's still me. It's just my

Karen Kenney: 00:21:52

personality is dialed up a little bit louder, or bigger, or

Karen Kenney: 00:21:56

whatever, but the core of it is still me. I'm not interested in

Karen Kenney: 00:22:00

circus laying myself or being a chameleon anymore. I like, I

Karen Kenney: 00:22:03

know that there are times, like I talk about it, like with

Karen Kenney: 00:22:06

swearing a lot, right? Like, I'm not gonna probably get in front

Karen Kenney: 00:22:09

of your grandma and start dropping F bombs all the time,

Karen Kenney: 00:22:11

you know? I try to be respectful, I'm not an idiot,

Karen Kenney: 00:22:14

hashtag evolved mass hole, but if I'm just with like people in

Karen Kenney: 00:22:18

my PS, I'm gonna be who I am. Do you know what I mean?

Karen Kenney: 00:22:21

I try to like hashtag read the room, you know what I mean, but

Karen Kenney: 00:22:24

we want to break out these out of these ideas that we aren't

Karen Kenney: 00:22:27

deserving of love and compassion, because it can be

Karen Kenney: 00:22:31

self-destructive, and it can contribute to all kinds of

Karen Kenney: 00:22:34

things, like low self-esteem, right, not feeling like we're

Karen Kenney: 00:22:38

enough, for some people it can, it can cause, or it contribute,

Karen Kenney: 00:22:42

that's a better way to say, contribute to anxiety or

Karen Kenney: 00:22:45

depression, or being choosing partners, or friendships, or

Karen Kenney: 00:22:49

relationships, or jobs, or gigs that are just not in alignment,

Karen Kenney: 00:22:53

and so it's not helpful to do the self-abandoning thing

Karen Kenney: 00:22:57

anymore. So we're going to talk about, let's talk about some of

Karen Kenney: 00:22:59

the ways that we can stop doing this, and I'm going to make

Karen Kenney: 00:23:02

these pretty brief, right, but we start by starting to have a

Karen Kenney: 00:23:07

better relationship with ourselves. And when I think

Karen Kenney: 00:23:09

about what a relationship really needs, it needs trust, right? It

Karen Kenney: 00:23:13

needs trust, it needs love, it needs compassion and kindness.

Karen Kenney: 00:23:17

There needs to be room to grow, there needs to be room to make

Karen Kenney: 00:23:20

mistakes, right, all the things that we might naturally extend

Karen Kenney: 00:23:24

to other people, the freedom to express yourself, the freedom to

Karen Kenney: 00:23:26

be who you are. You know, you got to start showing up for

Karen Kenney: 00:23:29

yourself, and it's like, how do I do that? Like, one day at a

Karen Kenney: 00:23:33

time, man, like, pick one thing, it might be you start to pay

Karen Kenney: 00:23:37

attention to how you talk to yourself, and you're like, "Wow,

Karen Kenney: 00:23:39

I'm really hashed towards myself, I don't want to do that

Karen Kenney: 00:23:41

anymore, right? So you catch yourself, you allow yourself to

Karen Kenney: 00:23:45

have feelings, and you allow yourself to have needs. It's not

Karen Kenney: 00:23:48

selfish, it's not selfish for you to have feelings and needs.

Karen Kenney: 00:23:51

It doesn't mean the whole world has to stop and fulfill those

Karen Kenney: 00:23:55

needs, that they now become like, oh, well, let me, let me

Karen Kenney: 00:23:58

wait on you hand and foot, right? No, it's like everything

Karen Kenney: 00:24:01

with balance, everything with reason, like you know, be I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:24:04

like be a reasonable adult and think about this, but you want

Karen Kenney: 00:24:07

to listen to your feelings, you want to acknowledge that you

Karen Kenney: 00:24:09

have them, then you want to try to meet them in a healthier and

Karen Kenney: 00:24:12

happier way. All right, so just identify your feelings when

Karen Kenney: 00:24:16

they're happening throughout the day. Oh, I noticed that I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:24:18

feeling sad, I'm feeling excited, I'm feeling anxious. I

Karen Kenney: 00:24:21

like anxious is visiting me, as I like to say sometimes. Right?

Karen Kenney: 00:24:27

Treat yourself with compassion. Oh my god, please don't be so

Karen Kenney: 00:24:31

hot on yourself. Everybody, everybody deserves to be seen

Karen Kenney: 00:24:35

and heard, to be met with great care, to be met with, you know,

Karen Kenney: 00:24:40

comfort when they're suffering. Just be kind to yourself, do

Karen Kenney: 00:24:43

your best to do that. Don't judge or criticize yourself so

Karen Kenney: 00:24:46

much. I wrote these down for myself. We weren't taught a lot

Karen Kenney: 00:24:50

of times self-compassion. We were taught compassion for other

Karen Kenney: 00:24:53

people, we were sometimes taught compassion for animals, but we

Karen Kenney: 00:24:57

aren't, weren't a lot of times taught compassion towards

Karen Kenney: 00:24:59

ourselves. Of except if you watched mr. Rogers and if you

Karen Kenney: 00:25:03

watched Bob Ross, some of my heroes. So, here's the thing: we

Karen Kenney: 00:25:08

want to, we want to be kind to ourselves and allow yourself to

Karen Kenney: 00:25:11

be who you are, flaws and all, as they say, warts and all. You

Karen Kenney: 00:25:15

get to be a full picture of a person, not like your mistakes

Karen Kenney: 00:25:19

are not the total sum of you, so you get to be flawed, you get to

Karen Kenney: 00:25:23

make mistakes, you get to make amends, you get to apologize,

Karen Kenney: 00:25:26

you get to grow, and you get to be better, right? But don't be

Karen Kenney: 00:25:29

beating yourself up all the time, okay? It's really

Karen Kenney: 00:25:32

important. So, here's the thing: we got to be paying attention,

Karen Kenney: 00:25:36

notice when we're struggling, notice when we need help, notice

Karen Kenney: 00:25:40

our feelings, notice our bodily sensations. We got to stop

Karen Kenney: 00:25:43

numbing things out and sucking them up and stuffing them down,

Karen Kenney: 00:25:46

right? So start to notice these things. Be kind to yourself.

Karen Kenney: 00:25:49

Recognize that everybody suffers, and you're one of them,

Karen Kenney: 00:25:53

right? So you get to be kind and extend the compassion that you

Karen Kenney: 00:25:56

would naturally extend towards others, also towards yourself.

Karen Kenney: 00:26:00

Okay, learning how to have more self love and self trust.

Karen Kenney: 00:26:04

Here's one of the big ones: having healthy boundaries, not

Karen Kenney: 00:26:07

saying yes when you mean no, not doing things out of guilt and

Karen Kenney: 00:26:11

shame and blame, doing them because you really want to do

Karen Kenney: 00:26:13

them. So, not showing up out of resentment. You're going to get

Karen Kenney: 00:26:16

there, you're going to do the thing you didn't want to do, and

Karen Kenney: 00:26:18

then you're going to resent it, and then you're going to be

Karen Kenney: 00:26:20

like, I abandon my own self, I abandon my own needs once again,

Karen Kenney: 00:26:24

and I know we can be afraid, especially if you've been a

Karen Kenney: 00:26:26

people pleaser for a wicked long time. We can be afraid to say no

Karen Kenney: 00:26:30

to people or to offend them, or we're afraid, like, oh my god,

Karen Kenney: 00:26:34

if why, if I do this, they're not going to love me anymore. So

Karen Kenney: 00:26:37

we become a little doormatty, we kind of let people like walk all

Karen Kenney: 00:26:42

over you a little bit. We don't want to do that. Other people's

Karen Kenney: 00:26:45

needs matter too, but they don't have to be more important than

Karen Kenney: 00:26:49

yours. We get to consider all paths. We get to say, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:26:53

yeah, I'm willing to do this, but not on Wednesday. I'm able

Karen Kenney: 00:26:56

to do it on Thursday. You don't have to keep abandoning yourself

Karen Kenney: 00:27:00

to make other people happy, and if other people are going to

Karen Kenney: 00:27:04

leave you or dump you or not want to be friends with you,

Karen Kenney: 00:27:07

because you put some healthy boundaries in place, that's a

Karen Kenney: 00:27:10

really good red flag, because you start to realize, oh, it was

Karen Kenney: 00:27:13

only a good relationship for them when I kowtowed and did

Karen Kenney: 00:27:16

everything for them and allowed them to take advantage of me,

Karen Kenney: 00:27:19

and usually when you put a boundary in place with a person

Karen Kenney: 00:27:22

who has been benefiting from your lack of boundaries, they

Karen Kenney: 00:27:28

will not like it, and they'll be like, "You've changed your

Karen Kenney: 00:27:32

moment. Yep, I have changed, because I'm having more

Karen Kenney: 00:27:34

self-love and self-trust, and showing up for yourself,

Karen Kenney: 00:27:38

prioritizing your needs, not saying you just, you know, make

Karen Kenney: 00:27:43

yourself number one and become incredibly selfish and arrogant

Karen Kenney: 00:27:45

and all that. I'm not saying that balance people, nuance,

Karen Kenney: 00:27:49

nuance, here, you know what I mean. Use your smarty pants

Karen Kenney: 00:27:52

brain, right? But can you comfort yourself? Can you take

Karen Kenney: 00:27:55

good care of yourself? Can you stop abandoning those younger

Karen Kenney: 00:27:58

parts of yourself, those parts that you've exiled, and give

Karen Kenney: 00:28:01

them a voice, and give them a good listen. These are all of

Karen Kenney: 00:28:04

the little ways that we can stop abandoning ourselves. We don't

Karen Kenney: 00:28:09

want to pick up where people earlier in our life, like, left

Karen Kenney: 00:28:13

off, right? And maybe you had, you know, your family again,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:17

your father didn't show up when he was supposed to pick you up

Karen Kenney: 00:28:20

for visitations when you're in a two, you know, divorced family,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:23

or whatever. Maybe people let you down, maybe you again. We

Karen Kenney: 00:28:27

get conditioned at a young age, but this is such an important

Karen Kenney: 00:28:31

thing. I've always kind of loved this little quote: become the

Karen Kenney: 00:28:34

adult that you needed when you were a child, and self-parent.

Karen Kenney: 00:28:38

This is about re-parenting yourself and really learning

Karen Kenney: 00:28:42

that you matter, what you feel matters, what you think matters,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:45

your experience matters, and we want to stop abandoning

Karen Kenney: 00:28:48

ourselves. You, like I always say, like foundlings, like let's

Karen Kenney: 00:28:52

refined ourselves and let's take extra good care of ourselves,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:56

going back to the beginning, right? I have a soft spot in my

Karen Kenney: 00:28:59

heart for foundlings who, you know, get, get, get, get found.

Karen Kenney: 00:29:04

First of all, and then are taking good care and go on to

Karen Kenney: 00:29:07

lead beautiful lives. So, it's not too late for us. I always

Karen Kenney: 00:29:09

say, if I'm above ground and I'm still conscious and I'm still

Karen Kenney: 00:29:12

breathing, there's an opportunity for me to grow and

Karen Kenney: 00:29:15

change and get better at loving myself and loving others and

Karen Kenney: 00:29:18

loving the animals and stuff. So, don't give up on us yet,

Karen Kenney: 00:29:22

guys. We're still in the fight, we're still in the race. So I

Karen Kenney: 00:29:26

hope this was helpful to you in some way. I hope you have a

Karen Kenney: 00:29:28

fantastic rest of your day. Thank you for listening. And you

Karen Kenney: 00:29:31

guys, I have so many cool things going on right now. I'm doing a

Karen Kenney: 00:29:35

three part series of it's called Podcast Summer School. I'm doing

Karen Kenney: 00:29:40

it with Emily Aborn. It's happening in Concord at the 11th

Karen Kenney: 00:29:43

letter. We're doing a workshop in June, July, and August, all

Karen Kenney: 00:29:46

about starting a podcast.

Karen Kenney: 00:29:48

And then the next one is about growing your podcast, and the

Karen Kenney: 00:29:50

next one is about, do you want to be a better podcast guest and

Karen Kenney: 00:29:53

host? I'm wicked excited. And, of course, we have Right Club

Karen Kenney: 00:29:57

coming back also in June. It's Saturday. June, I think it's the

Karen Kenney: 00:30:00

27th from one to 4pm That's also happening at the 11th Letter

Karen Kenney: 00:30:05

Writing Gallery in Conchid. But if you want to find out about

Karen Kenney: 00:30:08

all these things and get the podcast sent to you directly

Karen Kenney: 00:30:11

into your inbox every Thursday morning, then you just go online

Karen Kenney: 00:30:15

to Karen kenney.com/sign up one word, and you can get on my list

Karen Kenney: 00:30:19

and find out when all the shenanigans are happening. All

Karen Kenney: 00:30:23

the events you can find pretty much online, the Pad Podcast

Karen Kenney: 00:30:27

Summer Series. If you want that direct link to sign up, just

Karen Kenney: 00:30:30

shoot me an email or go to the contact page on my website,

Karen Kenney: 00:30:33

Karen kenney.com/contact You'll find it all. I'm really easy to

Karen Kenney: 00:30:38

find. Shoot me a message, send me a DM online, and I will get

Karen Kenney: 00:30:42

you the link or links, all right. Thank you so much for

Karen Kenney: 00:30:44

tuning in. Wherever you go, may you leave the animals and

Karen Kenney: 00:30:50

yourself and the people around you and the planet and the

Karen Kenney: 00:30:52

environment better than how you found it. Wherever you go, may

Karen Kenney: 00:30:56

your energy, your love, your presence, and your good care

Karen Kenney: 00:30:59

towards yourself. You're no longer abandoning yourself. That

Karen Kenney: 00:31:03

energy you show up with when you are acting in that way, in a

Karen Kenney: 00:31:06

loving way, towards yourself. May all of that be a blessing.

Karen Kenney: 00:31:11

Bye bye.