Hurt People Don't Always Hurt People

Karen Kenney: 00:00:01

Hey, you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenny show. I'm wicked excited to be here, today. And if you're watching this, I just want to say, my hair is not wicked greasy, it's wet. It just got out of the, I just got out of the shower. And I wanted to bang this sucker out, I want to do a fast, a fast little podcast, it's gonna be short, I don't know if it's gonna be sweet. But something that something that just came into my kind of my consciousness is something I, I wanted to talk about because I just heard something and it made me go like, Oh, I want to talk about this. So welcome to the show. If you're a regular, you know, you know if any of you watch the show, cheers. Back in the day, it was a show that was like, based in Boston, about a bar where everybody knew your name, right? Everybody knows your name. And so when people would walk into the bar, especially norm whenever norm would walk to the bar, everybody would yell no, um, that's what I wish I could do here. I wish I knew who was listening. So I could like Romper Room you guys and be like, I see. I see Suzy. I see KT I see Emeline. I see Chris, I wish I could just name names. But if you're here, and you're a regular, oh, God, welcome back. I'm so happy to be here with you. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for giving it a shot. Or I don't know how you found it. I don't know how you're asked God here. But I'm just wicked excited that you're here. And you're listening. And I hope you'll stick around. So I'm going to call this episode. What do I want to call this one? How about this hurt? People don't always hurt people. Let me say it again. Hurt. People don't always hurt people. Okay, so this is what this is what got me a little fired up this morning. So I was listening to somebody tell a story about you know, something that they were going through. And they started to say something like, Yeah, but like, they had a tough childhood. And this happened, and this happened. And this happened. And you know what they say? Hurt people hurt people. Like, like, sometimes. Sometimes there are phrases and sayings and lexicons that become part of the culture that become part of what especially in the coaching and entrepreneurial world, right. It's like, oh my god, you just hear things repeated ad nauseam. And so something that has kind of come into the conversation in the past several years is just kind of this, this phrase that hurt people hurt people. Right. And basically, what it's saying is that this is how trauma and pain generationally gets passed on is that people who had fucked up childhoods, or parents who had parents who had parents, right, that came from the war, or who came from X, Y, and Z or were abused, and you know, the numbers, the numbers for, let's just talk about sexual abuse. The numbers for sexual abuse alone are horrifying. It's like one in three girls, one in three girls under the age of 18, will be sexually assaulted. One in five boys. I mean, the numbers are outrageous. I mean, they're basically saying at this point that there's probably a sexual predator, or, you know, people who have sex, when you have to put your name on the list, right? Because you've you've sexually assaulted somebody, they say, at this point, there's usually somebody within like, every square mile, you can bet that there's at least one that there's millions of people, and not all of them are registered. So there's a lot of people out there, because that's one of those things, right? Let's just just say it, right? That's one of those things that you often see repeated is that people who grew up in homes where there has been physical violence that often gets passed down. And then often you will see the same thing with with sexual sexual assault in so all these all these terrible things, right? So somehow, it's kind of gotten into the culture where we just kind of say this thing like hurt people hurt people. Now, while this can be true, while this can be true, there's a shit ton of people out there who have had adverse childhood experiences, who have had unbelievable trauma, who have had incredible just like and I don't mean incredible in a good way just like unbelievably difficult, horrifying, tragic, awful, brutal, violent, on and on and on and on things happen to them, and they're not out there. perpetuating the same stuff. And I think sometimes, you know, I did a podcast not long ago that said, let's stop normalizing shit. And this is one of those things and look at, I get it, I get it, I totally understand how when somebody is doing something awful, and we look back at their formative years, their childhood years, the times when they were most impressionable, the times when they were most able, right to be conditioned, or manipulated, or to be preyed upon themselves, right, of course, we have compassion, and we go like, Oh, my God, like, yeah, this makes sense. Like, they're, you know, they're abusing X, Y, and Z, like they're doing drugs, or they're, they're substance abusing, fill in the blank, or, you know, they, they're this way, because of that, I totally understand the long math on that right there this way now, because of that. And, and this is the path that I want to say, let's stop making excuses, though. For grown ass adults, who are continuing to perpetuate things and do things to others, especially humans, and animals and creatures that are less powerful than them are not as and I mean, physically, like, not as big as them that don't have a voice. Right? Another statistic that I read, that was horrifying, it was something like that 90% of people who are, and there's different ways to say this, right? But let's just say something like maybe who are developmentally challenged or mentally challenged, or need support or help, right 90% of them will be abused at least once in their lifetime. And when I just think about this, like my head wants to just fucking explode right off my body. And so here's the thing. I'm all for having compassion, right, having having an understanding as to why maybe people might might, like, do something, right, because there's a ton of awful stories out there about what what's happened to people. However, I don't think that we should make it an excuse. And I don't think we should normalize it. Because there are plenty of hurt people out there. People who have been hurt over the years, people who have gone through stuff you can't even imagine. And they are not out there hurting people. In fact, they choose to do the opposite. They choose to have basically, like, they say, like, Nope, I'm going to be the Lincoln it's going to, it's going to end with me. And whether it's the buck stops here, or I'm gonna break the chain of abuser, I'm gonna break the pattern that has been passed down generationally in my family, or in my culture, or whatever, we're gonna stop normalizing this and making excuses for the people who as adult, continued to perpetuate it, because there is so much help out there. Nowadays. There is, again, there's libraries, where you can get library cards for free. Right there. There's YouTube, there's podcasts, there's books, I mean, there's 1000 ways for people, right to know better, learn better, become better and be better. There's so many ways and if we just keep doing that, oh, you know, hurt people hurt people. No, not all hurt. People are out there hurting people, they're actually doing the work to heal themselves. You know. And so there's another phrase that came along after that. And again, I don't know who it gets attributed to, like 1000 people. So it's not even worth saying, you know, like, I could name a bunch of names maybe from googling it. But here's the thing, there's another phrase that says, healed people, heal people.

Karen Kenney: 00:09:25

healed, people, heal people, you know, and it was interesting, because I was thinking about this. And I don't know if I would say, healed people heal people. What I often say to my clients who I work with on this stuff, right? I always say people don't come to work with me because everything's going fantastic. Usually the people who come to work with me, right? They have some stuff in their history that is currently still getting in the way of their life. And I'm not saying they're out there. hurting people, but they might still be hurting. And one of the things that I often say is that happy people tend not to hurt people. Not on purpose anyways, happy people tend not to hurt people, not on purpose anyways. So what I might say instead of healed people heal people, I might say healed people tend to help people, people who have been through the fire, and that's what I often say, like, if you are lucky enough to get out of the fire, and make it to the medical tent, and put out the flames and get healed and get some water, get some emergency blankets, and you spend a little time getting yourself healed from the inside, right, do the inside work, and then also physically be healing right? Then it's kind of like those those kinds of people, we tend to often then want to go back with buckets of water for the other people who are still burning for the other people, right? Who might still be suffering in some way. So the job isn't like, oh, I had a terrible childhood poor me poor me, poor me, poor me. So now I'm just going to have an excuse for why I'm inflicting myself on other people. The gig is, the gig is to wake up. The gig is to notice how you are showing up in the world. How you talking to yourself? How are you talking to others? How are you treating yourself? How are you treating others? How will you thinking about yourself? How are you thinking about others? What is the energy that you are bringing currently, to your relationships to your home, to your job, to your life to the world. Because, again, there's plenty of people who have been hurt, who are choosing actively to get their shit together to do the work. And there's 1000 modalities. I mean, there are so many healing modalities out there. I mean, even just me alone, right? Yoga, breath, work, spiritual mentoring, hypnosis, integrating integrative change work, I don't do EMDR. But there's people who do what's called EMDR, there's tapping, there's like, there's so many taught meditation, prayer, like, there's so many things that people can be doing, to heal the hurt. Instead of just letting all of that suffering, continue to roll downhill, taking out your kids, your friends, your family, other people who have to, unfortunately be in your week be in your path. It's one thing that you've got to pay the consequence of being yourself, it's another thing when other people around you are no longer safe. Because you haven't taken the time to slow down, to take a look around. And to notice your effect on the environment around you, the environment within you. Right because it is cause and effect we do live in a world of duality, right? So many of our thoughts systems, why we practice them is because they expose us to non duality, to not to they expose us to our oneness. But we do live in a world where it's right literally, it's like Sun and Moon, black and white day and night, right, hot and cold. We do live in a world. Right and this illusion that we are in that feels very dualistic. And what I'm trying to say is, alright, just because you were hurt, doesn't mean that you can't do the opposite. You can choose to be better than your parents were, or your guardians were or wherever, whatever system you were in. Can we find it within ourselves, right to transform those old fears? through diligent work. I'm not saying this is for the faint of heart. I'm not saying I always say it's simple, but it doesn't mean it's easy. And when I say simple, what I mean is there's tools out there that clearly simply break down. This is how we stop anxiety in its tracks. This is how we interrupt a pattern. This is how we rewire neurons in the brain. This is how we start to choose something different. But a person is going to want to stop hurting somebody has to want to stop hurting others. And people who usually don't want to stop hurting others beings and creatures are often sociopathic, but I'm not talking about that I'm talking about like, mostly everyday people. So if you're somebody who has been hurt, or is hurting, I highly encourage you to stop. Just take some time, take some deep breaths, take take some self awareness time, take a moment to rest, to allow your nervous system, right to just kinda kind of down regulate a little bit. So you can get some clarity to take a look or let the dust settle. So you can see what's it like to be around you? What's it like to be in your path? What's it like to be in relationship with you or in a family with you? What's your internal environment like because your external world is simply a reflection of what's going on in there? Okay, the identity that you've created, the stories, you tell the beliefs, you've had the experiences, you've had all that stuff. So I just want to kind of interrupt the pattern of just kind of saying, Oh, her, well hurt people hurt people, no, not all hurt people hurt people. In fact, they choose to heal themselves, they choose to have more inner peace, they choose to have more tools in their toolkits. You know, in my group coaching program, the alchemy and also in the one on one work that I do with people, that's a given, but in the alchemy, that starting in September, and I still current, I have six seats currently available, if this speaks to you, you know, we talk about how there's the four levels of healing, and its physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. And a lot of times, it's like, you know, people can be really focused on healing themselves physically. That's kind of in because the body kind of knows how to do that, which is incredible. But we're the ones who often have to make a choice, a conscious choice to say, I'm going to heal myself emotionally, I'm going to heal myself, mentally, I'm going to heal myself, spiritually, I'm going to do the work. And I'm going to gather some tools, or I'm going to choose to work with a coach or a mentor or a therapist or somebody or whatever. Alright, well go to the doctor, because we got a broken leg, we'll go to the doctor because we got a big gash and but we need to make the mental, the emotional and the spiritual, just as important. Because the way that the nervous system works, and the way that the neural network in the brain works, and all the ways that we make choices of who we're going to be how we're going to be how we're going to speak how we're going to show up. We are no longer living in a world where it's okay to just be like, oh, yeah, well hurt people hurt people. It's like, no, because we can have more inner peace, we can be a little bit happier, right? We can choose to not just walk around and flipping ourselves and other people. And I know man, some awful things happens was I always say there's like 1001 ways for people to be cruel to one another, like some awful, brutal, just devastating ways. And, and I think it was Helen Keller that said, I don't know the quote exactly off the top of my head. But it's one of the heartbeats of the work that I do, because it inspires me. And it's something like, you know, the world is full of suffering, I think I'm gonna get it kind of close. She said something like the world is full of suffering. And it's also full of the overcoming of it.

Karen Kenney: 00:19:05

And that's where my work comes in. This is how I love working with people. Because I don't want hurt people to continue hurting people because they quote unquote, don't know any better. They don't know that there's a different way. If you can hear the sound of my voice right now, I'm here to tell you there is a different way. And it is possible, and there are resources. But first and foremost, it has to be the individual who recognizes, number one that they've actually been hurt. Number two, that they allow themselves to feel it because in order to heal it, you got to feel it. We can't just bypass these things. We can't spiritually bypass them. We can't glamorize things. We can't pretend like right, we've got to be willing to be a little uncomfortable. to face our stuff, sometimes we need time, sometimes we need help and support so that we can get to the overcoming of it, Pat. So we can navigate and move through the world where we're not leaving just wreckage behind us. And we're not passing down. Continuing on the hurt, that may have been inflicted on you. And on me I've been tasked, right, I often say I've been tasked with doing doing my own work, continue, as long as I'm alive, I will have work to do. Trust me, you know. But to me, it's one of the most important things that you can do. Happy people healed people tend not to hurt people, not on purpose anyway, hurt people are often so hurt, they're not even thinking about other people, they're only thinking about themselves, they're so caught up, they're mesmerized, they're glamoured by their own suffering, they don't have the energy, the time the wherewithal to even notice that they are like a wrecking ball. So if you can recognize if you can hear the sound of my voice, and you're thinking about this, right, I really do feel like it's part of our duty to heal ourselves. And that doesn't mean you have to do it on your own. But it's that you make this work in your life a priority. And all you have to do is kind of look at your relationships. Look at your own level of inner peace, look at your own level of happiness, look at your own level of contentment. Look at your own level of how you do or don't numb yourself how you try to avoid how intimate how close do you feel with people in your life? How happy are you?