MEANING MAKING MACHINES
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, we’re exploring how we're all "meaning-making machines.”
We dive into how basically, our brains are constantly trying to make sense of everything and everyone that happens to us.
I break down how we both consciously and subconsciously assign meaning to events, experiences, and environments, and often with a negative spin - thanks to our brain's built-in negativity bias.
I also share some powerful insights from Viktor Frankl, a neurologist, psychologist, and Holocaust survivor who taught and wrote in his book - Man’s Search for Meaning - that finding meaning can help us survive anything.
Something that I’ve learned over the years? We actually have a choice in how we choose to interpret our experiences.
We can choose to see things through a lens of love or fear, and that choice can totally transform our perspective.
But here's the crucial part - while we get to choose the meaning for our own lives…
We can't and shouldn't decide the meaning for other people's experiences.
Telling someone, "Everything happens for a reason" when they're grieving or suffering isn't helpful - it's dismissive.
Sometimes things just don't make sense, no matter how hard we try to figure it out, or want to make meaning of it.
So, I encourage us all to be aware of the stories you're telling yourself, choose a perspective that empowers you, and remember that you don't have to or may not be able to understand everything.
Sometimes the mystery is part of the journey.
If we can “work with what happens”, find our joy, and keep moving forward… we can gradually, but inevitable turn our stories into our glory! ❤️
KK’S KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Humans are naturally wired to assign meaning to their experiences, often subconsciously and with a tendency towards negativity.
• We have the power to choose how we interpret the events of our lives.
• Viktor Frankl's philosophy teaches that finding meaning can help us survive almost anything, even in the most challenging circumstances.
• Our brain's meaning-making process is a survival mechanism that helps us feel safer by trying to make sense of our experiences.
• While we can control the meaning we assign to our own life, we cannot and should not dictate meaning for others people’s experiences.
• Saying things like "Everything happens for a reason") - can be harmful and dismissive of genuine suffering.
• Some experiences will never make sense. Sometimes, acceptance is part of the healing process.
• Shifting our perspective from "This happened to me" to "This happened for me" can be helpful and transformative, but this shift must come naturally from within and not be forced.
• Our meaning-making ability is a skill we can develop, improve and update, by gaining new insights, experiences, and personal growth.
BIO:
Spiritual mentor and writer Karen Kenney uses humor and dynamic storytelling to bring a down-to-earth, no-BS perspective to self-development
Bringing together tools that coach the conscious and unconscious mind, Karen helps clients deepen their connections with Self, and discover their unique understandings of spirituality.
Her practice combines neuroscience, subconscious reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis, somatics, spiritual mentoring, and other holistic modalities to help regulate the nervous system, examine internal narratives, remove blocks, and reimagine what’s possible.
A passionate yoga teacher, long-time student of A Course in Miracles, and Gateless Writing instructor, Karen is a frequent speaker and retreat leader. Via her programs The Quest and The Nest, she coaches individuals and groups.
With The Karen Kenney Podcast, she encourages listeners to shift from a thought system of fear to one of love, compassion, and personal responsibility.
KK WEBSITE: www.karenkenney.com
Transcript
Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super
Karen Kenney:duper excited to be here with you today, and you guys. I can't
Karen Kenney:believe I've never done an episode with this title. If I
Karen Kenney:have, I'm totally losing my mind a lot of times I have to google
Karen Kenney:my own show. Oh,
Unknown:it. Oh, my God, I'm
Karen Kenney:totally losing my mind. But I do. I have to google
Karen Kenney:my own show to figure out if I ever did an episode. Look, I'm
Karen Kenney:like 322, episodes in. I do not remember what happened six years
Karen Kenney:ago. So okay, this episode is called, meaning making machines.
Karen Kenney:And I made myself a bunch of notes, because there's so many
Karen Kenney:things. There's so many things I don't want to forget that I
Karen Kenney:wanted to say, Sophia, those of you who are watching, if you see
Karen Kenney:me looking down, that's what I'm doing. But here's the thing, so
Karen Kenney:you've probably have heard me say on this podcast before, that
Karen Kenney:humans are meaning making machines. And what I mean by
Karen Kenney:that is we like to assign meaning to all of the events and
Karen Kenney:the experiences and the environments and the people that
Karen Kenney:have happened to us, like and it's that's way back when we're
Karen Kenney:little kids, because we're trying to figure out, like, what
Karen Kenney:is going on a lot of the time. So we look around at the events
Karen Kenney:that have happened. We look around at the experiences that
Karen Kenney:we're having. We're looking around at the environments we
Karen Kenney:grew up in, the people we grew up around, everybody from your
Karen Kenney:origin family, to the people at school, your church, or, you
Karen Kenney:know, where you played softball, like whatever, the people, the
Karen Kenney:the cast of characters that you come in contact with as a child,
Karen Kenney:right? It leaves a mock it leaves an impression. And so
Karen Kenney:when these things are happening, the way that our brains work,
Karen Kenney:right? Yes, we are meaning making machines. We love
Karen Kenney:meaning. But this is the job of the brain. This is what the
Karen Kenney:brain does. The brain loves to assign meaning to things, and we
Karen Kenney:especially love to try to figure it out and assign meaning to it.
Karen Kenney:I think because to me, when I can assign meaning to something,
Karen Kenney:then it makes me and my nervous system feel a little bit more
Karen Kenney:safe. I don't always like the meaning that I've discovered, or
Karen Kenney:think it is, especially when the meaning I've come come to is
Karen Kenney:that person's just an asshole and they're wicked mean and
Karen Kenney:they're not nice, right? Like, it's not always soothing, but at
Karen Kenney:least it's like, in my brain, there's a thing that's like,
Karen Kenney:make it make sense, right? Like, make it make sense. So our
Karen Kenney:brains really love to assign meaning to things, especially
Karen Kenney:when meaning isn't wicked clear, when something doesn't make
Karen Kenney:sense. So our brains are constantly trying to make sense
Karen Kenney:of the world around us, and sometimes this can lead us into
Karen Kenney:either assigning positive meaning or quote, unquote,
Karen Kenney:negative meaning. So this can lead us to see something, or
Karen Kenney:this person, or ourselves, or whatever, it can leave a
Karen Kenney:positive imprint or a negative interpretation, depending on who
Karen Kenney:you are as a person, depending on how your brain tends to work.
Karen Kenney:It's not the same for everybody. So where this can get a little
Karen Kenney:wonky, and where it gets wonky most of the time is that meaning
Karen Kenney:is getting assigned subconsciously. We're not even
Karen Kenney:aware that we've assigned meaning to a person or a tone of
Karen Kenney:voice or a look or an event or a situation. The brain we I've
Karen Kenney:talked about this before, on on previous episodes, but the brain
Karen Kenney:tends to have a negativity bias, which means we often assign
Karen Kenney:things a negative meaning out of habit or based on past or
Karen Kenney:previous experiences. That's just the nature of us being us,
Karen Kenney:us being human. We tend to lean a little bit more towards the
Karen Kenney:negative. Not all people, but most people, most brains, but
Karen Kenney:the fact that, you know, we could decide one of the other is
Karen Kenney:wicked good news, because ultimately it means that we can
Karen Kenney:choose the meaning that we give to things, to situations, to
Karen Kenney:events, to experiences, and sometimes the meaning that we
Karen Kenney:assign to things can change over time, over the years, with new
Karen Kenney:insight, reading a book, getting a new teacher, getting a new
Karen Kenney:POV, a little point of view, a little shift in perception. It's
Karen Kenney:really powerful. So it's not like we're stuck with the
Karen Kenney:meaning that we assign things. We can update the file. We can
Karen Kenney:update the system. I always say, when we get smarter, better,
Karen Kenney:right? When we get smarter, when we get better, when we get a
Karen Kenney:little more experience. Experience or knowledge or
Karen Kenney:insight or information or whatever we can upgrade or shift
Karen Kenney:or change. And I can't talk about meaning and making meaning
Karen Kenney:without also talking about and I should say that there's like a
Karen Kenney:pot one and a part two to this episode. So please stick around,
Karen Kenney:because I want you to hear about right now, we're talking about
Karen Kenney:making meaning for ourselves, but in part two, we're going to
Karen Kenney:look at how we don't make meaning for other people, and
Karen Kenney:I'll explain that when we get there. But I can't talk about
Karen Kenney:being meaning making machines without talking about one of my
Karen Kenney:people, on my spiritual team, one of my heroes, and he is
Karen Kenney:Viktor Frankl. If you've been around for a while, you have
Karen Kenney:probably heard of Viktor Frankl. He was an Austrian psychiatrist.
Karen Kenney:He was a neurologist, he was a philosopher, he was a writer and
Karen Kenney:author. He was a Holocaust survivor, and he wrote the book
Karen Kenney:called Man's Search for Meaning. He's also the founder of a type
Karen Kenney:of therapy called logo therapy, and it's a school of therapy
Karen Kenney:that actually centers around meaning creation. And Victor
Karen Kenney:Frankel kind of talks about this, and I want to, I want to
Karen Kenney:pause for a second and just ask you to think about this for a
Karen Kenney:second. You can even hit pause on the podcast. Just come back.
Karen Kenney:But think about how you assign meaning to every little thing in
Karen Kenney:your life, because we do it to big things, little things,
Karen Kenney:things that we would think are inconsequential. Okay, so based
Karen Kenney:on, let's I'll just give you a perfect example, if you grew up
Karen Kenney:in a household where you had to walk on eggshells, whatever the
Karen Kenney:experience was, maybe you had a mother or a father or a guardian
Karen Kenney:or somebody who was an alcoholic or had drug substance use
Karen Kenney:disorder, whatever, but you never knew who You were getting.
Karen Kenney:Things were completely unpredictable. You don't know
Karen Kenney:maybe they were. There was sexual abuse in your home,
Karen Kenney:mental, physical abuse, whatever it was. So kids that grew up in
Karen Kenney:those kinds of environments, and we become kind of like hyper
Karen Kenney:vigilant for other people's energy, for the vibe in the
Karen Kenney:room, like we I call it like taking the weather like you're
Karen Kenney:always keeping an eye on the weather, and the way that we do
Karen Kenney:that is by often clocking what other people are doing, saying,
Karen Kenney:feeling, looking, whatever. So I used to say I would always be
Karen Kenney:looking at my stepfather's forehead, because I could tell
Karen Kenney:by the landscape of his forehead what kind of trouble was about
Karen Kenney:to go down. Right? Sometimes it's a mood. Sometimes it's the
Karen Kenney:way they're talking their tone of voice. So if you grow up in
Karen Kenney:that kind of environment, right? And it like I said, it could be
Karen Kenney:the way somebody sighs, it could be the way somebody puts their
Karen Kenney:purse down, like, whatever it is, like you were absorbing all
Karen Kenney:of this as a child, okay? Now you're an adult and you're in a
Karen Kenney:relationship, okay? And your partner, your sweetie, whoever,
Karen Kenney:right, the person you live with, all of a sudden they, like, do a
Karen Kenney:big sigh, or they shut the cabinet door a certain way, or
Karen Kenney:you hear them put their keys in, like, the key bowl by the front
Karen Kenney:door. And all of a sudden you're on alert because you're like,
Karen Kenney:something's off. This person isn't happy. And for those of us
Karen Kenney:who fond, right as a trauma response, fight, flight, freeze,
Karen Kenney:fawn, those of us who fond, it's like, oh my god, oh my god, I
Karen Kenney:gotta fix this. I gotta make it right. Because if you're not
Karen Kenney:okay, I'm not okay. And like, Oh my God. And like, are you okay?
Karen Kenney:Like, you know, somebody like, looks at you a particular way
Karen Kenney:for a second. It could be a split second and you're like, oh
Karen Kenney:my god, I'm in trouble, right? I did a whole podcast on that
Karen Kenney:called you're not in trouble. For those of us who had really
Karen Kenney:sensitive we all have sensitive nervous systems, I think. But
Karen Kenney:some of us are, like, wicked sensitive, highly sensitive
Karen Kenney:people. So double A man hands, if you know what I'm talking
Karen Kenney:about, right? So we hear those things, we feel those things. We
Karen Kenney:sense a shift in the weather in the room, and all of a sudden we
Karen Kenney:start to assign meaning to it, right? So we assign meaning to
Karen Kenney:every little thing from like, again, the way that somebody's
Karen Kenney:talking, walking, what somebody said to us, the fact that they
Karen Kenney:didn't respond to a text right away, like really wicked, big
Karen Kenney:things and very small things. Our nervous systems are always
Karen Kenney:attuning into like, what's going on. And we hate uncertainty.
Karen Kenney:Most people hate uncertainty. We like to know what to expect,
Karen Kenney:because we get a little more safety now, of course, there are
Karen Kenney:exceptions to every rule. Tons of people are like, I don't like
Karen Kenney:I don't like things to be familiar all the time. I like
Karen Kenney:adventure and newness and adrenaline rushes and whatever
Karen Kenney:you know they want. They want things to be mixed up. They
Karen Kenney:don't always want to know what's around the next corner. But most
Karen Kenney:people, the nervous system and the brain really likes what's
Karen Kenney:familiar. Yeah, okay, I wanted to just say that, so I'm sure
Karen Kenney:you can relate on some level to what I'm saying. And if you can,
Karen Kenney:I apologize. Maybe you don't want to keep listening.
Karen Kenney:Okay, but those of you that are still with me, Viktor Frankl,
Karen Kenney:right? So he came up with this school of therapy called
Karen Kenney:logotherapy, which is all centered around meaning making,
Karen Kenney:and I'm going to share with you like so part of his core
Karen Kenney:philosophy was that a person's deepest desire, right? He wrote
Karen Kenney:this in his book, Man's Search for Meaning. A man's deepest
Karen Kenney:desire is to find meaning in his life, and if he can find that
Karen Kenney:meaning, this is wicked important. Listen to this. He
Karen Kenney:says, if he can find that meaning. He can survive
Karen Kenney:anything. And this is coming from a guy who survived three
Karen Kenney:years in concentration camps, right? He's a Holocaust
Karen Kenney:survivor, and he says this, he said that he found meaning in
Karen Kenney:his experiences in the concentration camp by deciding
Karen Kenney:that he was going to use his suffering as an opportunity to
Karen Kenney:make himself a better person. So instead of becoming, you know,
Karen Kenney:feeling like totally doomed, becoming apathetic, he chose to
Karen Kenney:embrace his suffering. Now, Viktor Frankl talks about that
Karen Kenney:there are three ways to find meaning in life. He says, you
Karen Kenney:can find it through work, you can find it through love, and
Karen Kenney:you can even find it through suffering. And I thought that
Karen Kenney:this was so fantastic. And to give you like examples of each
Karen Kenney:of those, his desire to live a meaningful life, even though he
Karen Kenney:was in Auschwitz and he was in a concentration camp and there was
Karen Kenney:no guarantee that he was going to live, he says that he kept
Karen Kenney:himself alive during those three years in the camps by focusing
Karen Kenney:on the potential meanings that he could create for himself. So
Karen Kenney:let's go back to finding meaning through work. So before he was
Karen Kenney:put into the camp, he was working on a manuscript on
Karen Kenney:logotherapy, and the Germans, like took it away from him. The
Karen Kenney:Nazis took it away from him when they put him in the camps. And
Karen Kenney:so he held on to meaning by thinking about the work he was
Karen Kenney:going to create, the manuscript that he was going to rewrite and
Karen Kenney:recreate once he got out of the camps. That was one thing that
Karen Kenney:he focused on. He also focused on Love by he put his faith in
Karen Kenney:in the hope of love by remembering the image of his
Karen Kenney:wife. That he said, the image of his wife and his mind helped him
Karen Kenney:through most of his difficult times. And he also found
Karen Kenney:addition meaning in suffering. And he said, I'm going to,
Karen Kenney:basically, I'm determined to find meaning in this suffering.
Karen Kenney:And here are some quotes that I absolutely love that have helped
Karen Kenney:me over the years when I was going through my own suffering,
Karen Kenney:right? And when I bump up against my own self made
Karen Kenney:suffering, right? Suffering of my own making because of the
Karen Kenney:meaning I'm assigning to things or because of what's going on,
Karen Kenney:and times when things unexpectedly, awful things
Karen Kenney:happen in the world, right? There's just being suffering is
Karen Kenney:part of this human experience. There's no getting away from it.
Karen Kenney:And I always say, like we're gonna suffer. For me, I'm not
Karen Kenney:saying for you. For me, I get to decide how long that suffering
Karen Kenney:is gonna last. Now, sometimes we have physical ailments, so I
Karen Kenney:want to make sure, right, like, I can't cover all the nuances of
Karen Kenney:this. We don't have time, but sure. Of course, there are times
Karen Kenney:when we're going to be physically suffering with
Karen Kenney:something, and we're like, I don't know when this flu is
Karen Kenney:going to end, but what I can do is do all the things that I can
Karen Kenney:possibly do to try and help myself, like, stay hydrated, get
Karen Kenney:rest, you know, like, eat when I can eat. Like, you know, all the
Karen Kenney:shit that you can do to, like, try and like, end your
Karen Kenney:suffering, or shorten your suffering, or whatever. But
Karen Kenney:listen to these quotes. He says, everything can be taken from a
Karen Kenney:man, but one thing the last of the human freedoms to choose
Karen Kenney:one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose
Karen Kenney:one's own way. I love this. Everything can be taken from
Karen Kenney:you, he says, Except this last human freedom, which is to
Karen Kenney:choose one's attitude in any given circumstances, which is to
Karen Kenney:say, no matter what is happening, you get to decide how
Karen Kenney:you're going to respond. And he's famous for saying, like, in
Karen Kenney:between the stimulus, the event, the experience, right, the thing
Karen Kenney:that's happening, um, in between that event and your response,
Karen Kenney:there is a pause. There is a moment when you get to choose,
Karen Kenney:who am I going to be, how am I going to be, what am I going to
Karen Kenney:say, right? And, of course, in miracles, we say that there's
Karen Kenney:but two emotions, love and fear, which is another way of saying
Karen Kenney:that there's two teachers, right? There's the ego, and then
Karen Kenney:there's like, spirit holy. Spirit love, the ego is the
Karen Kenney:voice of fear, the internal teacher, Holy Spirit. Some
Karen Kenney:people might call that Jesus. Some people might call that
Karen Kenney:love. We get to decide in that moment, right, who and how we're
Karen Kenney:going to be, and we'll we'll come back to that in a minute.
Karen Kenney:Okay? He also says, when we are no longer able to change a
Karen Kenney:situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. And to me,
Karen Kenney:this is also a challenge to be able to do what A Course in
Karen Kenney:Miracles calls a miracle, which is a shift in perception, a
Karen Kenney:shift in our mind from fear to love. That's where this concept
Karen Kenney:comes from. Not Viktor Frankl, but in A Course in Miracles, it
Karen Kenney:says a shift in perception from fear to love, like that is the
Karen Kenney:miracle. You know, if we cannot change a situation, we are
Karen Kenney:challenged to change ourselves. We're challenged to change the
Karen Kenney:way that we're thinking about what is happening. And we see it
Karen Kenney:a lot in what's going on in the world right now. There's a lot
Karen Kenney:in the world that I cannot control, but I can choose how
Karen Kenney:I'm going to respond to what's happening in the world. I can
Karen Kenney:choose to how I'm going to contribute to the world. Okay?
Karen Kenney:He also says this, in some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering
Karen Kenney:at the moment. It finds a meaning, such as the meaning of
Karen Kenney:a sacrifice, Wow, I love this so much. Suffering ceases to be
Karen Kenney:suffering at the moment. It finds a meaning. Because
Karen Kenney:sometimes you have to do wicked, hard things, and you'll say,
Karen Kenney:Yeah, this is hard, yeah, this sucks. Yeah, this is awful. But
Karen Kenney:on the other side of this, that person is going to know that I
Karen Kenney:love them, that I showed up, that I kept my word, that I did
Karen Kenney:this thing. If we can find meaning, it changes everything.
Karen Kenney:And this is the last of this. I'll say, I mean, I could talk
Karen Kenney:about Viktor Frankl, on and on and on and on. His book, again,
Karen Kenney:is Man's Search for Meaning. If you've never read it, I highly
Karen Kenney:encourage you to check it out. But he has a final quote from
Karen Kenney:him. He says, Those who have a why, a why to live, can bear
Karen Kenney:with almost any how. So having that why, that understanding, is
Karen Kenney:one of the most powerful things that there is. So we are going
Karen Kenney:to continually search for meaning. And my whole thing is
Karen Kenney:become really aware, like in the work that I do with people, it's
Karen Kenney:always like, know why you do what you do, think, what you
Karen Kenney:think, say, what you say, believe, what you believe, tell
Karen Kenney:the stories that you're telling. Why? Understand causal. We love
Karen Kenney:to focus on effect. Oh, they're doing this, and this is
Karen Kenney:happening. And Murmur, murmur, right? But it's like, if we can
Karen Kenney:get to causal to the why, we can usually figure out the how and
Karen Kenney:deal with the how and live through the how. Okay, so coming
Karen Kenney:back to this, we can choose to give things either a positive or
Karen Kenney:more empowering spin, a more empowering and helpful meaning
Karen Kenney:to things. Or we can choose to look at things in a more
Karen Kenney:negative light. We can use to we can choose to look at something
Karen Kenney:as you know, what? That was really hard, but that was a
Karen Kenney:great opportunity. I gained wisdom. I gained insight. I
Karen Kenney:gained something rather than focusing on the loss or what it
Karen Kenney:costs me, okay, and I'm gonna just stay with me, because this
Karen Kenney:is good, not like what you know, what I'm saying. Stay with me.
Karen Kenney:We can look for ways that something either totally blows
Karen Kenney:and totally sucks, or we can kind of look for okay, this is
Karen Kenney:something that eventually is going to it might be feeling
Karen Kenney:like it's pulling me down right now, but eventually this Sucka
Karen Kenney:is going to build me up. Okay? I grew stronger because of this. I
Karen Kenney:grew more resilient because of this. I surprised myself with my
Karen Kenney:own strength and my own tenacity, right? So even things
Karen Kenney:that sometimes in the moment, the meaning might be like this
Karen Kenney:doesn't feel very soothing, if we It might surprise us when we
Karen Kenney:dig deep, what we discover about ourselves along the way. And
Karen Kenney:here's the thing, I think it was Shakespeare, but there's a
Karen Kenney:saying that says something like,
Karen Kenney:like to paraphrase, it's like things that are both positive
Karen Kenney:and negative, but it's our thinking that makes it so,
Karen Kenney:because I believe that like situations hold both negative
Karen Kenney:and positive aspects within them. They're not all always
Karen Kenney:positive or all always negative, but what we choose to focus on
Karen Kenney:will be right, whether we choose to focus on the positivity or we
Karen Kenney:choose to focus on the negativity of it, that is what's
Karen Kenney:going to create, the meaning that we make and the stories
Karen Kenney:that we continue to tell, and the meaning that we assign to
Karen Kenney:things, the beliefs that we create, the stories we tell,
Karen Kenney:those things become our identity in the long run. Yeah, so it's
Karen Kenney:wicked important to be aware of the meaning that you are
Karen Kenney:assigning to the things in the people, in the events that are
Karen Kenney:happening in your life, right? And again, we can view those
Karen Kenney:things through different lenses, through the ego, in the fear
Karen Kenney:lens, or through the spirit or the love lens, and we get to
Karen Kenney:choose what lens we are using. You know, I used to tell my
Karen Kenney:Course in Miracles people who I used to do A Course in Miracles
Karen Kenney:Study Group A long time ago, and I used to say to them, you got
Karen Kenney:to put your love glasses on, man, you got to put your love
Karen Kenney:glasses on. Because sometimes we're just looking around like,
Karen Kenney:make this make sense. Like this makes no sense, and sometimes
Karen Kenney:it's the lens that we're using to view a person, place or
Karen Kenney:thing, that's making it cloudy, that's making it hard for us to
Karen Kenney:see that there's another possible meaning to this. Now
Karen Kenney:here's something that's really important. I keep using the word
Karen Kenney:choose. You can choose which lens you're going to use. You
Karen Kenney:can choose the meaning you're going to assign to something,
Karen Kenney:but it's a there's a caveat here. Until we are aware that we
Karen Kenney:have a choice, that there actually is even a choice, we
Karen Kenney:are just going to run with the POV, the point of view, the
Karen Kenney:perspective that we're used to, that we were taught, that we
Karen Kenney:grew up with, or that we are familiar with. I talk about this
Karen Kenney:a lot, about how, why reading a return to love? Why discovering
Karen Kenney:Marion Williamson as a teacher and now, of course, later as a
Karen Kenney:as a friend and a spiritual godmother and a mentor, right?
Karen Kenney:Why discovering A Course in Miracles was so incredible for
Karen Kenney:me, in my brain, for me and my mind, right? Is because up until
Karen Kenney:that point, I did not realize that my suffering was a choice.
Karen Kenney:I didn't realize now I want again. I want to be wicked
Karen Kenney:clear. I'm not talking about children. I'm not talking about
Karen Kenney:people who have no power, right? There are times when you are in
Karen Kenney:awful fucking situations and conditions and places and you
Karen Kenney:end up there by no fault of your own. I'm not talking about that.
Karen Kenney:There are true victims in the world. Okay? I'm talking about
Karen Kenney:how once you become aware whether that's again, through
Karen Kenney:meeting somebody new, getting new information, finding a
Karen Kenney:teacher or a mentor who impacts a new way of looking at the
Karen Kenney:world, a new way of looking at yourself, of treating yourself
Karen Kenney:with respect and kindness, of not being caught in the victim
Karen Kenney:loop, etc, etc, right? But until we're aware that we actually do
Karen Kenney:have a choice, we don't think we have a choice. And when I picked
Karen Kenney:up a return to love, and I read that book a gazillion years ago,
Karen Kenney:back in 1992 and Mary Ann basically was breaking down some
Karen Kenney:of the principles of A Course in Miracles, and I realized, like,
Karen Kenney:holy shit, I had a choice. It both. I always say this. It both
Karen Kenney:pissed me off and got me wicked excited. I didn't know. So a lot
Karen Kenney:of people are walking around just playing as we often. We say
Karen Kenney:these terms, like caught in the victim loop, playing the victim
Karen Kenney:cod stuck in their old story because they don't know. They
Karen Kenney:don't know yet it has not occurred to them, or they just
Karen Kenney:don't want to. Sometimes people just don't want to change. They
Karen Kenney:want to stay stuck in it. That's their, that's their that's
Karen Kenney:their, right. They can do whatever they want to do. That's
Karen Kenney:not how I want to live my life, but it's not for me to judge
Karen Kenney:them, right? But until we know we're going to just keep playing
Karen Kenney:the old game, we're going to keep running the old racket,
Karen Kenney:right until we get new information, we update the
Karen Kenney:system, and you'll see it happening around you, if you pay
Karen Kenney:really close attention. I always say negativity can run in a
Karen Kenney:family like a wildfire. You know, I sometimes feel like I'll
Karen Kenney:be around certain, you know, family or whatever, people that
Karen Kenney:I know and you see them, they're all competing to like for the
Karen Kenney:award of fucking. Who has it the worst? Who has the most aches
Karen Kenney:and pains, who has the most ailments, who has the most like?
Karen Kenney:Right? You see it, I'm just saying like out in the world.
Karen Kenney:Just pay attention. Just pay attention. Groups of people that
Karen Kenney:come up together, hang out together, whatever. You'll see
Karen Kenney:there's a certain kind of mindset, a certain kind of way
Karen Kenney:of looking at things and approaching things that's not
Karen Kenney:like racism happens too, right? And this shit gets taught and
Karen Kenney:gets passed down. This is how hate continues to spread in the
Karen Kenney:world. So we need people who start to like, get, get like.
Karen Kenney:They always talk about being woke. I'm like, I don't have a
Karen Kenney:problem with waking up to like how things are, right? Like, I
Karen Kenney:want to be woke. I want to be awakened. You know what I'm
Karen Kenney:saying? Okay, so here's the thing, you got to pay attention.
Karen Kenney:You got to pay attention. And once you recognize and realize
Karen Kenney:that you have a choice, you have to start asserting that
Karen Kenney:authority, that agency, that authorship, that power, right to
Karen Kenney:to go like, Oh, yeah, I. Have to look at it this way, even though
Karen Kenney:this is the way that I've looked at it for a wicked long time, or
Karen Kenney:this is what my family taught me, or this is what my
Karen Kenney:caretakers showed me, or this is what I was taught through this
Karen Kenney:religion or that coach or that person. We have autonomy, we
Karen Kenney:have agency, we have authorship. We can decide, okay, and so this
Karen Kenney:is when we're getting up, but now we're about to come up to
Karen Kenney:pot too. The last however long I've been talking, it's all been
Karen Kenney:like you like you get to decide. You get to decide. You get to
Karen Kenney:choose. Notice how I'm saying you and your your mind, because
Karen Kenney:you cannot. I always say this for the love of all things holy,
Karen Kenney:we want to take control over the meaning making machines of our
Karen Kenney:own mind, of our own mind. But Welcome to part two. Here's what
Karen Kenney:we can't do. We cannot decide for other people the meaning
Karen Kenney:that they make of things. It's not our place and it's not our
Karen Kenney:right. We cannot rob people of their experience or their
Karen Kenney:meaning that they're assigning to something. So let me give you
Karen Kenney:an example. This is what I always say. I'm like, I can flip
Karen Kenney:a script. I would say I can script a flip a script like a
Karen Kenney:motherfucker, like I can find the silver lining, the positive,
Karen Kenney:the positive in anything. I can find the gift. I can find the
Karen Kenney:lesson. I can find the blessing in all kinds of personally
Karen Kenney:difficult things. Okay, maybe I was born that way. I don't know.
Karen Kenney:I see pictures of myself when I was a little kid and I was,
Karen Kenney:like, smiling all the time. However, there was, there was a
Karen Kenney:certain period in my life when I kind of had, like, a wicked
Karen Kenney:negative perspective. I kind of had a little bit of an attitude
Karen Kenney:problem, you know what I mean, and so I wasn't always, you
Karen Kenney:know, I think I was a really happy little kid. And then some
Karen Kenney:stuff went down. Some people got a hold of me, some things
Karen Kenney:happened. And then I went through, like a little dark
Karen Kenney:night of the soul, you know what I mean, I came out the other
Karen Kenney:side. Thank you Jesus, right? Like, thank you spiritual team.
Karen Kenney:Thank you mom. Thank you God. Thank you all the divine
Karen Kenney:helpers, the teachers, the mentors, the books, the
Karen Kenney:cassettes, the pro Thank you anybody, thank you or anybody
Karen Kenney:who's given me some insight into my own insanity, I super duper
Karen Kenney:appreciate it. Okay, so I had to learn how to train my mind. It
Karen Kenney:was after learning how to train my mind which, of course, in
Karen Kenney:miracles was a huge role in which yoga, yoga was a huge
Karen Kenney:thing in all the different tools that I put in my spiritual
Karen Kenney:toolkit. Amen. Thank you very much. Double. Amen. Hands. Okay,
Karen Kenney:so I now have a tendency to lean towards the positive. Okay, I
Karen Kenney:don't turn on my blindness to the awful shit that's going on
Karen Kenney:in the world. But for myself, like me personally, I try to
Karen Kenney:find what I can use, you know what I mean, like, I try to find
Karen Kenney:what I can use in a situation. I I try to find what is helpful
Karen Kenney:for me, even when I don't like it. I try to find what is
Karen Kenney:helpful. And I said this before. I just, actually just said that.
Karen Kenney:I've said it on a other podcast, but I most recently said it on
Karen Kenney:my my friend's podcast, on the it has to be me podcast with
Karen Kenney:test masters. I said I wouldn't be the person that I am today,
Karen Kenney:if my mother had lived, I wouldn't be the person I am
Karen Kenney:today if my mother had lived. Now that right there is me
Karen Kenney:finding right the positive in that. Because this is absolutely
Karen Kenney:true, I don't think I would be the person that I am today if my
Karen Kenney:mother would have lived. But I like to put a positive spin on
Karen Kenney:things. But here's the thing, who knows, who knows? I might
Karen Kenney:have turned out way better. I might have turned out way better
Karen Kenney:if I had had my mother for more than 12 years of my life. I like
Karen Kenney:to think that, you know, I say, Oh, I wouldn't be who I am
Karen Kenney:today. Of course not, because surviving that and all of that
Karen Kenney:is a is a big deal, right? Like, I learned a lot about myself and
Karen Kenney:the world and violence and people, but I don't know. Maybe
Karen Kenney:I would have turned out way better she had lived, right? But
Karen Kenney:I'll never know that. I'll never know that I don't have the
Karen Kenney:opportunity to know that I don't have a choice in that, so I
Karen Kenney:gotta work with what I've got,
Karen Kenney:but that's me. With me. With other people, we have to be
Karen Kenney:wicked careful that we don't try to assign meaning to what's
Karen Kenney:going on for them. And I see people do it all the time. I see
Karen Kenney:it in spiritual communities. I see it in quote, unquote,
Karen Kenney:positive vibes only. I see it in spiritually, like positive
Karen Kenney:talks, like toxic positivity. I think I did a whole podcast on
Karen Kenney:that we it's so important you guys, that we do not spiritually
Karen Kenney:try to bypass away other people's experience or pain,
Karen Kenney:what they're going through. Let me give an example. Yeah, so in
Karen Kenney:in the spiritual community, and we could argue all day on what
Karen Kenney:spiritual really means. I know there are tons of people out
Karen Kenney:there who think spiritual just means like tarot cards and
Karen Kenney:frigging, the Enneagram and human design and incense and
Karen Kenney:psychic readings, right? That that's not how I like define
Karen Kenney:spirituality. I'm not saying it's not that's not a can be a
Karen Kenney:part of it. That's not how so we don't have time for that. But
Karen Kenney:let's just say, in the spiritual community in general, I often
Karen Kenney:hear people say things like this, everything happens for a
Karen Kenney:reason. Everything happens for a reason. I understand why we say
Karen Kenney:that. I understand what people mean when they say this,
Karen Kenney:however, saying that to a person who recently lost somebody that
Karen Kenney:they love, no matter what that loss is, whether, whether it's
Karen Kenney:whether it's a child, whether it's your grandpa who's 97
Karen Kenney:whether it's somebody who had, you know, took their own life,
Karen Kenney:whether it's a tragic car accident, whether it's whatever,
Karen Kenney:when you say to somebody who's really suffering, everything
Karen Kenney:happens for a reason. It is so tone deaf. It's like read the
Karen Kenney:room. Because here's the reality, everything happens for
Karen Kenney:a reason. What that means is you are now putting the impetus on
Karen Kenney:the other person that they're somehow supposed to come up with
Karen Kenney:some positive reason why their child is no longer here, or
Karen Kenney:their loved one is dead, or their dog, who they've had for
Karen Kenney:14 years, who was their best friend or companion, is no
Karen Kenney:longer there, doing all the most beautiful doggy things, right?
Karen Kenney:It's like, we see these things, and it's like, because Americans
Karen Kenney:especially, have this very like individualistic, like, pull
Karen Kenney:yourself up by the bootstraps mentality, and certain parts of
Karen Kenney:the country even more so there's an expectation that you're just
Karen Kenney:gonna suck it up, right? Stuff, it down and get on with shit,
Karen Kenney:right? Everything happens for a reason, kid, yeah, but here's
Karen Kenney:the thing, sometimes the reason is because somebody had
Karen Kenney:uncontrollable rage. It's not like, oh, everything happens for
Karen Kenney:a reason, because somehow this is gonna benefit you. Oh yeah,
Karen Kenney:you're gonna say that to a rape victim. You're gonna say that to
Karen Kenney:a murder victim. You're gonna say that to the people in
Karen Kenney:Palestine, people who are in wars, the people who are
Karen Kenney:starving, the people who are unhoused and homeless.
Karen Kenney:Everything happens for a reason. Okay, let me just go out there
Karen Kenney:with my like, spirituality sprinkles and just like pour
Karen Kenney:pink paint over everything and make this nice. No, sometimes
Karen Kenney:the reason that something is happening again is because
Karen Kenney:somebody had uncontrollable rage, or somebody lost their
Karen Kenney:frigging patience and had road rage, or somebody is out of
Karen Kenney:their mind, or somebody had no frigging tools. Or, as my
Karen Kenney:stepfather used to say when we were kids, they're sick in the
Karen Kenney:fucking head. Sometimes people do really fucked up sick, awful
Karen Kenney:things, and a lot of times when something hap awful happens to
Karen Kenney:somebody, this is not the time to be putting your little
Karen Kenney:spiritual jimmies on things, little spiritual sprinkles on
Karen Kenney:everything. We don't get to decide for other people what the
Karen Kenney:meaning is for them. And you know, people need time to
Karen Kenney:process, to feel their feelings, to ride the waves, to ride the
Karen Kenney:waves of grief, and that might take years, might take forever.
Karen Kenney:So we don't just get to go around silver linings,
Karen Kenney:playbooking everybody, because the reality is, is we try to
Karen Kenney:force that positivity sometimes in other people because we're
Karen Kenney:uncomfortable with other people suffering. We're uncomfortable
Karen Kenney:with other people's grief and other people's emotions and
Karen Kenney:other people's feelings. That's why we say things like, you're
Karen Kenney:not over that yet you think you dealt with that already. We
Karen Kenney:don't get to assign the meaning for other people or the
Karen Kenney:timeline. We don't establish that for other people. Okay, we
Karen Kenney:want to talk about this for a while. We don't get to decide
Karen Kenney:for other people whether or not their loss or their tragedy or
Karen Kenney:their trauma gets a positive spin. That's not our job. We
Karen Kenney:don't get to play DJ on that record. You know what I'm
Karen Kenney:saying? Here's another one. Here's another one. And I've
Karen Kenney:said this before too. I've said it before too. It is like a
Karen Kenney:mindset, self HELP mantra, right? It happened for you and
Karen Kenney:not to you. We love to say that one, don't we? It happened for
Karen Kenney:you and not to you. If you had tried to tell me that, if you
Karen Kenney:had tried to tell me so much, not even just my mother's
Karen Kenney:murder, but so many of the things that I went through in my
Karen Kenney:younger years, if you had tried to tell me that that line back
Karen Kenney:then, I would have. Into karate chop you right in the throat. I
Karen Kenney:would have been like, nope, hi, yeah, not having it. Everybody
Karen Kenney:was kung fu fighting. That's what would have happened. I
Karen Kenney:would not have been having it at all. Because at first, when
Karen Kenney:things happen to you, and especially when you're a child,
Karen Kenney:everything does feel like it's happening to you. Nothing feels
Karen Kenney:like it's happening for you. I don't have the wisdom yet. I
Karen Kenney:didn't have the insight yet. I didn't have the perspective. I
Karen Kenney:didn't have right my 50 plus more years of wisdom or
Karen Kenney:whatever, when you're little kids, everything is happening to
Karen Kenney:you because you don't have a say and you don't have a choice when
Karen Kenney:things are being imposed on you, because people outrank you,
Karen Kenney:outweigh you, have more power than you, sure, maybe with time
Karen Kenney:and experience and a little wisdom, right? People will have
Karen Kenney:a different perspective. But it's not for us to say to other
Karen Kenney:people, and we say it all the time. And the truth is that
Karen Kenney:there are things in life that are going to happen that just
Karen Kenney:make no sense. We try to find the meaning. We're desperate for
Karen Kenney:meaning. We want to understand why did this happen? And this is
Karen Kenney:how sometimes we see people in crisises of faith, right? Deeply
Karen Kenney:religious people, I've seen them crumble when something really
Karen Kenney:big happens to them, and they'll say things like, Why did God let
Karen Kenney:this happen to me? Right? Cuz they'd think that God did this
Karen Kenney:thing to them, to their family, to their community, to their
Karen Kenney:town, to their marriage, to their life, whatever, right? And
Karen Kenney:there are things in life that just make no sense. Like,
Karen Kenney:honestly, I can make no sense of this whole big, beautiful Bill
Karen Kenney:thing. Again, some people might get pissed at me, but, like, it
Karen Kenney:just boggles my mind. It boggles my mind that so many people like
Karen Kenney:when I see all the the White House people praying, praying
Karen Kenney:over this bill, the Christians, all the Christians, praying over
Karen Kenney:this bill. It makes me want to, like, bang my face off my desk.
Karen Kenney:Like, how are so many people supporting legislature that's
Karen Kenney:designed to hurt so many people? And then they're praying over
Karen Kenney:it, and they're clapping and they're celebrating it. I don't
Karen Kenney:get it. Make it make sense. Make it make sense, because I don't
Karen Kenney:think, I don't think my little Christian friends that Jesus
Karen Kenney:would have your back on this one. I don't think so, not for
Karen Kenney:me to say I'm not Jesus, just my point of view. So and we're back
Karen Kenney:and we're back, let's get back to my point. We love to make
Karen Kenney:sense of things. We are meaning making machines. Our brain are
Karen Kenney:meaning making machines. But some things just make no sense.
Karen Kenney:And I know I tried to do it with my mother's murder. Part of my
Karen Kenney:suffering for a wicked long time was me trying to make sense of
Karen Kenney:it, like I spent so much time trying to make sense of what it
Karen Kenney:finally dawned on me was a senseless act, because even
Karen Kenney:though I could come up with all kinds of possible scenarios and
Karen Kenney:reasons and explanations for maybe why this guy did what he
Karen Kenney:did, none of them were sufficient. None of them made
Karen Kenney:any sense. It never made any sense. And this is sometimes
Karen Kenney:where our humanity and our divinity get to meet. This is
Karen Kenney:when we say things like, right, like God works in mysterious
Karen Kenney:ways. There are just things that are going to go down on this
Karen Kenney:planet, in this experience, in this illusion, what some people
Karen Kenney:call the Maya, the illusion, the dream, the human right, the
Karen Kenney:human experience that are just never going to make any sense.
Karen Kenney:We want to make sense. We're desperate to assign meaning. But
Karen Kenney:part of this is accepting the mystery that we don't have all
Karen Kenney:the answers. We don't always know why things happen, and
Karen Kenney:sometimes we will go to our graves not knowing why a thing
Karen Kenney:happens, and then that work becomes how do I make peace with
Karen Kenney:it? How do I still find joy in my life, even though X, Y and Z
Karen Kenney:went down? How do I still find meaning and hope? How do I still
Karen Kenney:find resourcefulness? How do I still maybe find joy or
Karen Kenney:happiness despite what's happened, sometimes we can
Karen Kenney:bounce back from really awful things. I see people miraculous.
Karen Kenney:I see people that inspire me all the time when I think Jesus
Karen Kenney:Christ, like, how did they survive that? And then how did
Karen Kenney:they come out on the other side of it? And sometimes I'm kind of
Karen Kenney:asking rhetorically, because sometimes I know they got
Karen Kenney:through it because of their faith, or because of the tools
Karen Kenney:in their spiritual toolkit, or because they worked with a
Karen Kenney:really fantastic therapist or a hypnotist. This, or a coach or a
Karen Kenney:mentor, or they had an incredible family support or
Karen Kenney:friends that surrounded them, that held them up when they
Karen Kenney:couldn't walk for themselves, when they couldn't feed
Karen Kenney:themselves or clean themselves or take care of themselves.
Karen Kenney:You're surrounded by incredible community who actually cares
Karen Kenney:about you and loves you and supports you. You know, we
Karen Kenney:always want to make meaning, and we always want to understand.
Karen Kenney:But the reality of it is, is that sometimes we don't get we
Karen Kenney:don't get the reason. I'm coming back to my first point, we're
Karen Kenney:going to be like, make it make sense, and we can do that for
Karen Kenney:ourselves. That's part one. We do get to choose. We do get to
Karen Kenney:choose what kind of a spin, what kind of a point of view, what
Karen Kenney:kind of perspective are we going to go for love or fear? Are we
Karen Kenney:going to look for the miracle? Are we going to look for how
Karen Kenney:this empowered me and I grew from it, and maybe even the
Karen Kenney:outcome wasn't what I wanted, but even that outcome I could
Karen Kenney:find, I always say, I you know, like, work with what happens. We
Karen Kenney:got to work with what happens. But it's not our place to tell
Karen Kenney:other people everything happened to our. Reason didn't happen to
Karen Kenney:you. It happened for you. Let them decide that when the time
Karen Kenney:is right, and maybe it will never be right for them. We
Karen Kenney:don't get to decide other people's journeys. You know what
Karen Kenney:I'm saying. So I mean, I could literally talk for hours about
Karen Kenney:making meaning as a storyteller. One of the things that I do as
Karen Kenney:somebody who you know am writing a memoir, is trying to make
Karen Kenney:meaning, trying to understand, not just as my friend Andre De
Karen Kenney:Buse the third says, what happened, but what the hell
Karen Kenney:happened? That's the hot beat of it. As a writer, and I'm
Karen Kenney:actually going to be doing a workshop, an online workshop for
Karen Kenney:writers, that's coming up in August. So stay tuned for that.
Karen Kenney:If you're a writer and somebody who might want to might want to
Karen Kenney:write online with me, I've been invited to lead a calling it
Karen Kenney:fearless flow writing. And I've been leading, you know, I've
Karen Kenney:been leading writing workshops for a gazillion years, but we'll
Karen Kenney:talk more about that later. But in the work that I do with
Karen Kenney:people, a lot of the times when people are coming to me, they're
Karen Kenney:trying to make sense of like, how did I end up here? Why do I
Karen Kenney:feel this way? Why do I think this way? Why can't I get out of
Karen Kenney:my own way? They're trying to understand. They're looking for
Karen Kenney:meaning in their life. They want to have purpose. They want to
Karen Kenney:understand. They want, as I say, get under the under. They want
Karen Kenney:to know, why do I do? What I do think, what I think? How can I
Karen Kenney:how can I shift from feeling this way that I don't want to
Karen Kenney:feel anymore to feeling differently, and whether that's
Karen Kenney:stopping a habit or a pattern or being able to see themselves
Karen Kenney:with more love and compassion or kindness, that's why I call it
Karen Kenney:your story to your glory. It's this transformation. It's a
Karen Kenney:process that we go through, you know, and it's different for
Karen Kenney:everybody. That's why I don't say I solve this one problem,
Karen Kenney:because everybody's journey is unique. Everybody's journey.
Karen Kenney:Yes, there are universal things that we can all point to, but
Karen Kenney:they happen on a very personal level. And that's why I love
Karen Kenney:working one to one person. You know, womano. I always say mano
Karen Kenney:imano, or womano e wamano, or person to person, human to
Karen Kenney:human, hat to hat, right? Because there's so much right
Karen Kenney:now in the world that we are trying to make sense of. And I
Karen Kenney:gotta tell you, a lot of the math is not math, and a lot of
Karen Kenney:the math is not adding up. So who can I be, and how can I be
Karen Kenney:in the world? You know, that maybe feels like it's being,
Karen Kenney:it's adding, it's contributing in a positive way. So I hope
Karen Kenney:your meaning making machine tends to lean towards the
Karen Kenney:positive for your own benefit. Because when we get out of that,
Karen Kenney:you know, being hijacked by fear. We get out of the fight
Karen Kenney:and the flight and the trauma response, we let the amygdala,
Karen Kenney:like have a break, right? We become a little more regulated,
Karen Kenney:feel a little more safe enough to do what we came here to do.
Karen Kenney:That's when we can be helpful to other people and to ourselves
Karen Kenney:and to the animals. So I think I'm going to stop there, because
Karen Kenney:this already feels like it's wicked long. So I hope this was
Karen Kenney:helpful in some way. If you enjoyed it right, share it with
Karen Kenney:somebody. If you found it helpful, share it with somebody
Karen Kenney:who you think you can either who will recognize themselves in it,
Karen Kenney:like, Oh, me too. I kind of know how to find the positive in
Karen Kenney:that. Or maybe there's somebody who's struggling with something
Karen Kenney:and letting them know, right, that you hear them, that you see
Karen Kenney:them, that maybe this will be helpful in some way to them. If
Karen Kenney:you found it beneficial, maybe they will too. And I appreciate
Karen Kenney:that. I appreciate your support. So thank you for being here.
Karen Kenney:Thank you for listening as you always know you can find me how
Karen Kenney:to work with me, what I have. On in my group, mentoring program,
Karen Kenney:the nest, working with me one to one in spiritual mentoring, the
Karen Kenney:quest hot to hot days. There's all kinds of ways to get in
Karen Kenney:touch and stay in touch. So you can just join my newsletter
Karen Kenney:also. Karen kenney.com/sign, up and I'll put you right on my
Karen Kenney:email list. So you can get these you can get these suckers, these
Karen Kenney:podcasts, right into your your email inbox every Thursday
Karen Kenney:morning, bright and early. Okay, thanks for being here. I
Karen Kenney:appreciate you wherever you go. May you leave yourself and the
Karen Kenney:animals and the other people and the planet and the environment
Karen Kenney:better than how you first found it wherever you go, may you and
Karen Kenney:your love and your energy and your presence and the meaning
Karen Kenney:that you make be a blessing. Bye. You.
