Rearranging The Furniture

Karen Kenney: 00:00:01

Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenny show. I'm super duper excited to be here with you today. And I'm just gonna dive right into this. Hopefully this, this second is going to be short, short and sweet. If you listen to my podcast episode with Jordan last week, man, that was an epic two hour conversation, if you haven't checked that sucker out, please, please, I'm telling you, it's an incredible, powerful, vulnerable, impactful conversation. This episode I'm calling, rearranging the furniture, rearranging the furniture. Now, if you are a loyal watcher of this, so for those of you who don't know, this podcast also is on YouTube every week. So 9598, whatever percent of the listeners love to listen, but some of you actually like to watch, you like to see me up here in my office, like doing my thing. And the reason why I'm mentioning this is if you are a watcher of the show, you might notice that my room and my view, my background looks different than it did before. And this is the inspiration for this episode, rearranging the furniture. So let's talk about this. So when I was a kid, so you know, there's always a story, there's always a story that's going to be told. So when I was a kid, there are periods of time when I did or didn't have my own room. We moved a lot. That's a story for another day. But I think by the time I was 40, I had moved like 38 times. So this house that I'm in now is the longest so this is our house, like we own it, you know, we have a mortgage, whatever. And the longest My sweetie and I cuz he also bounced around a lot, as a kid have lived anywhere. Now, while I am so grateful for this house, and I love this house. And there's so many things about this house that are fantastic. If you can see this, for those of you who can't see this, I will describe what I'm saying. So you can see behind me that the angle of this room that I'm in so this room, I think used to be the attic, it got converted at some point into like a bedroom or something. So it is sloped down on the left to the right. And you also can see these incredible wooden beams, right, so we live in a post and beam house. Now there's something really cool about that. And there's some things that are also kind of a pain in the app, which is you have to place things very specifically in the house. Because like every whatever it is every six feet or eight feet, or whatever it is, there's a beam somewhere. So you kind of have to rearrange, you have to arrange the furniture and place things in a very specific way for it to make sense. Which also means we don't also always have a lot of room for like at work are different things. So this this office, this is my writing office, this is my creative space. And so it used to be that my desk was back there against that wall by the closet, right? And so in this room, let me so let me let me circle back. So as a little kid, I used to love to move my furniture around, because I didn't always have my own room. So I think that when I was able to have a space that was my own, you know, we were kind of poor kids. We were like first class poor, not for first world poor. You know, we were like working class poor kids, blue collar kids. You know, we didn't have always the nicest things or the things that everybody else had. We were always making do. So I think part of when I would have my own room, and I was a creative kid and I was a sensitive kid. It's like, I liked to create things and move things around and feel like the energy of like, what happens when I put my bookshelf over there. I put that there. So I used to rearrange my bedroom like I don't know if it was like every month once a month, whatever. It was like small spaces but it's still maybe it was a way of asserting control. Whatever it was, you know, I got bored I don't know whatever it was I used to love to move my friends around so devil Amen hands any other weirdos any other little way? Who can relate? Okay, I used to love to do that. So in this house, I've been a little limited. Because as you can tell post and beam I can't move share route. I'm in a weird awkward space up here. So what will happen is like every couple of years, I'm like that's it. I've got to move. I've got to move this desk into a different position, but there's really only two places I can go. So here's my point. Hey, there's something really powerful about moving shit around. about throwing shit out about making space for something new to emerge or arrive, and I'm not just talking about like creatively, which we will get into. I'm also talking spiritually. I'm talking about in the work that I do as a mentor and a coach, this is one of the things that I'm doing. So I wanted to kind of dive into this idea today of moving the furniture around. So I will sometimes say to my clients, right, I want you to think of your mind. And think of yourself, right, kind of like a house. Now, imagine that there's a front yard, there's a back yard, there's the main living space, there's a basement and there's an attic. Okay. So what a lot of people like to do in their quote, unquote, house, I'll often talk about it like this, I'll say, you know, what most people like to do when it comes to personal development work, or their spiritual work or their growth, their growth stuff, you know, is they like to like vacuum the front near the main living space that like wash the dishes, I'll put shit in the closet, they'll fluff the pillows, I try to make it like nice in case visitors come over, and nobody thinks they're like living like slobs are that, you know that it's a shit show in there. You know what I'm saying? They don't want people to think that it's a shit show in there up in your mind. So they'll fluff the pillows, and they'll get some decorative throws, and they'll make shit look, try to make it look fancy or nice. I'm like, but nobody's volunteering to go down into the basement where the cobwebs. And it's a little damp and dark and moldy. And like, nobody wants to go down there. And nobody really is volunteering to go upstairs in the attic, right where the crazy lady is sitting in the rocking chair. You know, where there's like, bats and critters and shit. Like you're like, I don't even know what's in that box in the corner, right, like, so when I think about us is kind of like being a house. I'll often say to them, Hey, and this work that we're doing together. Sometimes it's not about fancying up the first floor. You know, it's not about making the main living area, I look prisons quote unquote presentable. This is about going down into the basement and taking some of that shit out of the darkness. And nevermind putting it in the living room, we need to bring it out onto the front lawn, where it can get some light where it can get we get a need to bring the darkness to the light, get some sunshine on that shit to lighten things up to take a good look at it. Because as long as it should, is sitting down in the basement just growing and festering, and whether that's your anxiety, your fear, your depression, your addictions, your trauma, your, your patterns, your habits, like all the stuff, it's like shit doesn't get better by ignoring it by pretending it's not there by slapping band aids on wounds, big gaping wounds that I started to get a little gangrene, you know what I'm saying? So we got to take some of this stuff out. And sometimes we also have to go up into the attic, we need to pull that trunk down and we need to go in we need to see like what's going on up there. So it's not about just maintaining that first floor, we get to move some furniture around, we get to move some things around, we get to rearrange some thoughts. We get to rearrange some stories, we got to rearrange some beliefs, this identity that we've created. And we got to be able to take a look at some stuff and say like, Okay, what's worth keeping what's worth refurbishing? What just needs to go what is no longer serving me like that table that you've been keeping for some sort of sentimental reason. But it's got like a broken like leg and it can't even put anything on it and it wobbles and it's just taking up space. Time to go. So when I was rearranging the stuff in this room, right again, because I had to like change things up and where things were gonna go, what was I gonna keep and all this stuff. You know, when what often happens is in my creative process is I get struck by an idea. Okay, like, all of a sudden,

Karen Kenney: 00:09:07

I'll get wicked, excited, and wicked inspired. And I'm like, I'm gonna do this thing. I don't care. I'm telling you, I don't care if it's like six o'clock at night. Most of the rest of the world is like, I want to have dinner. What when an idea strikes, and I want to take action on it. Like, I'm like, let's go. My friend Katie is like this too. She'll be moving shit around like two in the morning cuz she's like, Oh my god, I just had to do it. Okay, so I'll get the inspiration. But again, with this room, it's very challenging because certain things will only fit in certain places. So what I think is really helpful and I'm going to share some quotes from from some writers and some thinkers and writers and thinkers on creativity. And I'm gonna make I'm gonna I'm gonna show you how it applies right to spiritual mentoring and integrative change work in the stuff that I do, and the stuff that will be helpful to you. Okay, so I'm going to kind of do an impression but I will describe again to those of you who are listening and not watching, I will describe what I'm doing. So right now I'm sitting in my, my, my chair here at my desk. It's like a gray chair. It's got kind of like a high back and so I can lean back into it, right and slump, slump, slouching and slump. Okay, so I get the idea. I'm like, Alright, I'm going to move my desk, I'm going to move all the furniture on this room, I'm going to change things up. So I get inspired. And then I take measurements, right, I get out my little measuring tape I keep on right here in my desk drawer, right? And I pull that little sucker out, you guys can see it, maybe you can hear it. Okay, and so I pull it out, I measure a few things. And then I have to sit the fuck down. Shut up, get quiet. And here's when it's like, you feel the what's the word of mouth, say? You think I'm gonna say I need to shut up, sit down, whatever, get quiet and think. But it's not so much about thinking. And this is what I want to share with you. Okay, so I'm going to, I'm going to show you. So this is me. So right now I'm doing an impression of me when I'm thinking about and dreaming about right, because this is the thing. It's not just thinking. All right, so one of my writing mentors, okay, Andre to abuse the third. He's a he's a dear friend of mine, a beloved friend of mine. He's also a brilliant writer. He's had several best selling books, New York Times best selling books. One is the house of sand and fog, which became an Academy Award winning or nominated movie. It was an Oprah book club pick. He also wrote a best selling memoir called townie, which is fantastic. He's he's written so many books, his latest book that just came out is called such kindness. And it's fantastic. Right? So I'm lucky and happy to call Andre my friend, but also one of my writing mentors. And he taught me this quote, he shared this with me. So it's a guy named Richard, Richard Bosch, and it's in a book called Letters to a fiction writer. And Richard Bosch has this quote, and he says, Do not think, dream, do not think, dream. So that's what happens when I get an idea. And then I have to sit down. So I'm sitting in my chair. And I literally just sit here. I let my eyes kind of glaze over. And I just wait. literally sit there. And if you walked into my room, you'd be like, What are you doing? And I'd be like, I'm just sitting here waiting, waiting to know what my next move is waiting to know where that piece of furniture is going to be moved to. Right. It's the same thing in like mentoring and spiritual mentoring and coaching, right? I'm not sitting there with a plan, like, Oh, I'm going to tell my client to do this, and this and this. And this. I'm waiting to receive the words. I'm waiting. Yes, I have a skill set. I have tools in my spiritual toolkit and in my coaching toolkit, and in my yoga toolkit and my hypnosis toolkit, right. And that's great to have them, knowing when to use them, knowing how to use them, knowing the tone of voice I want to speak and all those things. It's part of kind of rearranging the furniture, and knowing what to use with who, how to use it, which one is going to make the best fit in this space when I'm working with this person, right. So when I think upon that, do not think dream, that's the thing about creating this space up here is I didn't want to kind of bully it and say, Well, this is what you got to do. And this is where it's got to go. And like boss myself around. I was like, I want it to arrive. And Flannery O'Connor. And this is also a quote that Andre, shared with me. During one of the times I was studying with him, and it's Flannery O'Connor quote that I love, and she says, there's a certain grain of stupidity that the writer can hardly do without. And this is the quality of having to stare. I'm gonna say this again. There's a certain grain of stupidity that the writer can hardly do without. And this is the quality of having to stare. And what she's specifically says is the writer of fiction, but I think all writers need to have this quality of being able to just sit and stare because she He goes on to say that writing is really waiting. And I think when we're in the creative act of anything, yes, there is action taking. And there's also those moments when you're just sitting, and you're staring. And you're staring into space. Fellow Daydream is raise your hands double Amen hands, if you know what I'm talking about, well, you just kind of sit and pause and you let your mind be open. So when you're rearranging the furniture, whether it's physical like in your physical space outside of you externally, or you're rearranging, quote, unquote, the furniture up in your head, right, when you're making space for new things, when you're deciding what to keep what to get rid of what relationships are working, right, what what, what habits or patterns, or things that are still actually valuable and helpful in what has moved into the harmful column, you know what I'm saying. And so being able to create space, we're not trying to sit there and think it, we want to create room for dreams. And it's almost like this idea that I want to share a quote also that Rick Rubin, so hopefully some of you guys, somebody out there knows who Rick Rubin is. So I've been a fan of his for a really long time, I was a huge fan of the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, a bunch of a bunch of musicians and bands. So Rick Rubin is a producer, really well known, really kind of mellow guy. He's like, really fascinating. And I'm holding up his new book, and it's called, while it's not that new came out, came out earlier in like January, February. And it's called the creative act, a way of being the creative act, a way of being Rick Rubin. And he has this quote that I love, and I'm going to share it with you, because it speaks to what I'm talking about here. He says the ability to look deeply is the route of creativity, to see past the ordinary and mundane and get to what might otherwise be invisible. And I love this so much, because it's not just about creativity. This to me, is also spirituality. This to me, is also integrative change work, this concept is also healing work. Let me say it again, the ability to look deeply into the root of creativity, to see past the ordinary and mundane and get to what might otherwise be invisible. And I wrote down a note to myself about what I thought about this, and I was saying this part of this work as a mentor, a part of this work as a spiritual mentor, as as an integrative coach is a change worker as a hypnotist, yoga teacher, all these things as a right gateless riding instructor all these things, right? It requires us to be able sometimes to imagine something that doesn't exist here yet. It requires that I can imagine something that doesn't exist here now, yet, yet is the key word. But it does exist in what's possible. And that's what I was doing in this room. I was like, where am I going to put shit I have all these moving pieces, I have to I'm not have to I chose to I wanted to rearrange the furniture, I wanted new energy in here, I wanted to create more room more space for creativity, and freedom, right and for inspiration.

Karen Kenney: 00:18:49

And I was like, Okay, I didn't know where I was gonna put everything. I had to just kind of sit here. And with that grain of stupidity and just stare and allow myself to not think on it, but to dream on it to dream into what's possible to think about what becomes possible. Possibly, I can move that over there possibly I can get rid of those things, possibly, I can take this piece of paper with the notes on it and type it up. So now it's digital, possibly, I can let go of that possibly. So I had to move all these things around. So I had to be able to allow imagination, inspiration, creativity, right? Let the spirit move me. And it's the same thing when I'm working with a client. Because I know is A Course in Miracles tells us you know, people can only I'm paraphrasing, but this idea of you know, it's the world is an outward reflection of an inward picture. So if I'm working with somebody, and if I'm envisioning, you know, if I'm thinking on them is only being capable of us certain level of happiness or inner peace or healing or whatever the thing capability, people can only be as good in my presence as they at first in my mind. So part of my job is to hold a vision for who they really are, beyond what may be right be might be showing up right in front of me in this moment. Because there I always say to people, you know, there is a part of you, that has, there is a part of you, that wasn't always anxious, there was a part of you that wasn't always afraid of XY and Z, there was a part of you, that was not at some point, you weren't always addicted, you weren't always fill in the blank, you weren't always anxious or depressed or whatever. I'm not saying this. There aren't exceptions right to these rules. Of course, there's always nuances and exceptions, but I'm saying in general. So first, we have to just create space for to allow something new to emerge. I know this, I hope, I hope I'm conveying what I'm trying to say clearly. I feel like I'm a little all over the place. But I know, I'm saying but I hope I'm communicating it well. Right. So in mentoring, part of my job is to continue to be open and receptive, to not hold on to my techniques, or my tools or my processes, or what I've been taught so tightly, to just kind of have the ability, right to, to allow something to emerge. And sometimes it might be an idea, sometimes I call it word impressions, where all of a sudden, the words are there. And I know what to say. Sometimes you're just kind of waiting for a feeling to emerge. Or sometimes it might be, you know, for other people. I mean, we all receive information. We all are channeling all the time, you know what I'm saying? So whether the inspiration is to rearrange physical furniture in a room, or the inspiration is to rearrange how we've been talking to ourselves, how we've been seeing ourselves in the world, how we've been identifying, like moving all of those pieces around, so that we can have a new perspective. So that we can have a shift in perception, a shift of perspective, it's like why I love Kaleidoscope so much. And I talk about how coaching and mentoring is like that it's like a kaleidoscope. It's like you just turn something a slight bit. And there's a new facet, there's a new way of seeing. And if we're willing to kind of be open and receptive. And this is what a daily spiritual practice does. It's why it's so powerful. It's why is it creating a DSP, a personal DSP, not what I think you should do, but creating space for you to discover what you think about your relationship to the Divine to God, to source to spirit to yourself, to your higher power to the universe, whatever you call it, we have to allow there for there to be for there to be space. Because moving stuff around moving furniture around, and again, whether it's physical in a room, or whether it's emotional, mental, spiritual, right, like inside of you doing mentoring work, or coaching work or healing work or spiritual work or whatever. Okay, it's a creative act. It is a creative act, our whole life is a creative act. I always say to people, your whole life is your spiritual practice, who you're being how you're being, how you're arranging your words, how you're arranging your time, how you're arranging your relationships, how you're arranging, right? Whether you're choosing love or fear, it's all a spiritual act. And I think we are in co creation with the divine all the time we are in constant communion, we are in constant connection with something that is I always say wiser than us, right? smarter than us more loving than us more kind than us. And I want to be tapped into that. But I've got to be an open and receptive channel. And this is what daily spiritual practices do. They allow us to slow down. Even if your body is in motion, even even if you're doing walking meditation, right? We're allowing our internal volume to quiet down. You know, there's a lot in A Course in Miracles that says something like, you know, God speaks to everyone. But you're too preoccupied with your own voice. I'm paraphrasing, right. God speaks to everyone. But you're too preoccupied with the sound of your voice. Oh my God, why enhance? Isn't that true? No, what I'm saying. So you guys, here's the thing. I'm pretty happy with the way the room turned out. It feels really open. Now I'm facing the windows because in the wintertime, right? I know we're still in summer here. But it's going to be fall and it's going to be winter soon enough. And we have this little three legged deer. She's been around for a long time, it might be this might be her seventh year, eighth year. And she hangs out with this little pack of deer. And every year, I'm always on the lookout for her. And she's always she always, at some point in the fall and winter walks across the ridge, right up here behind my house, and I get to see you. So I get tired of staring at a wall and I flipped it around. And now I get to look out the window at all the critters and the green and all that stuff. And so but I was like, I don't know where everything's going to fit. I don't know what I'm going to keep, I don't know what I'm going to get rid of. So I just sat. And I waited for it to emerge. And you know, there's a line of course in miracles that says I make no decisions by myself. I make no decisions by myself. And I always say I don't make decisions by myself anymore. Because I'm I'm I'm now you know, because it's no longer intelligent to do so. So whether you think it's just your subconscious and sending you information, maybe that's it, this is me, I don't give a shit. I don't care if I call it spiritual team on the job sto TJ. I don't care if I think of it like, you know, an inspired idea. I know some people call it I gotta download, like, whatever the thing is, I'll say sometimes Ooh, those words came in hot, you know, wherever they're bubbling up from whether you call it source, or you think the source is just subconscious, I'm cool with that. I don't care. All I know is I have to attune myself, get quiet enough. So that I'll know where to move the piece. I'll know what the next step is. You know, and there's a prayer and A Course in Miracles that a lot of us call the miracle workers prayer, and it starts and it says, you know, I don't have to be I am here only to be truly helpful. I am here only to be truly helpful. I don't have to worry about what to think or what to say. Because he call it he she it I don't care who sent me will tell me. And that's my whole thing. But if I'm too preoccupied with my own voice, I'm too preoccupied with my own ideas I'm too preoccupied with this is the way it's always been done. This is what I got to do, you know, then I might miss out on something new, something exciting, some some some part of me that doesn't often get a voice to emerge. So I'm hoping that something I shared here today will make sense to you. Meaning not because of you. Because it means like hopefully, I communicated it clearly enough that it either sparked curiosity or landed in your heart or got your mind thinking in a new way. But look, sometimes we gotta move shit around, we have to rearrange the furniture in our own life. Right? Sometimes you gotta rearrange the furniture and get our ass out of the chair and get moving, right, move your body in some way drink more water, eat better foods, slow down, get better sleep,