RESERVING JUDGMENT

Karen Kenney: 00:00:01

Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney

Karen Kenney: 00:00:04

show. I'm so happy to be here with you today, and I just want

Karen Kenney: 00:00:09

to talk about something that's been kind of weighing on my my

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hat. In my mind, it's been kind of like ricocheting ricochet.

Karen Kenney: 00:00:18

Remember ricochet rabbit?

Unknown: 00:00:21

Some of you are going to be in the right age group to

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remember that cartoon. Bing, bing, bing, Ricochet rabbit.

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This, these

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thoughts of what I want to talk about today. I've

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been kind of ricocheting around in my hat and in my mind, and I

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know that I've talked about this and other episodes and little

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snippets, like little sip sips, as Linda Ty says here and there.

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But I wanted to kind of dive into this a little bit more,

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because I think now more it's, I always say it's not now so much,

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now more than ever, but right now in the world, we really,

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really, really could use a little bit more of reserving

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judgment, and what I mean by that is, and I'll share some of

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the experiences that I've been having and how this this episode

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came to be. But really it just stems from talking with people,

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you know, not just talking with people, but really listening to

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people, really just kind of being with people and hearing

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them when they talk. You know, a lot of times when we're engaging

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in conversation with people, especially people that we are

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very familiar with or know and love, like relationships that

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are close, and whether that's your sweetie or family or

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friends or whatever, people that we've already kind of created an

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idea of in our mind. You know, we tend to, you know, the brain

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likes to keep things in the familiar. That's how it

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experiences safety, and it feels like it saves time and it's

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efficient, but it also can do us a disservice, because it doesn't

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allow us to kind of see outside the boxes of our own creations.

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So I've been thinking about this idea of reserving judgment,

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because the fact of the matter is, is that we often don't have

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all the information. We do not know the full scope. We don't

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know the whole story of a person and their history and what

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they're currently going through, and the ego loves to judge and

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to slap labels and to determine things when it doesn't have all

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the facts, it doesn't have all the helpful information. And so

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I was at a workshop I was involved in. I led a workshop

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for this five day residency at St Anselm's College, and I'm

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going to talk about that in a second. And but because of that

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residency, and me doing that workshop, I ended up stopping by

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a place where a couple of friends work, and I talked with

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them, and, you know, I've just been interacting with people and

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really listening. And, you know, it's fascinating, because it's a

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powerful, powerful reminder, when you sit down and talk with

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people, that we and I will just talk in the first person. So my

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own experience, I often have no idea what another person is

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going through, and it's really easy to look at another person

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and judge them. It's really easy to hear somebody else talk, and

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you might just hear their accent, or you hear something,

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and you immediately try to label them or judge them, right? And

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we don't look past the surface of things. The ego doesn't like

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to go very deep. It doesn't. It likes to stay on the shallow

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part of life. It likes the brain likes to stay in its conditions

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and its patterns. And we're like, this equals that, right?

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We hear this, we think that, we assume that, right? We label

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that, we judge that. And so often I'm so grateful. Let me

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say this like, I'm so grateful for the reminder that I don't

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know shit. You know what I mean? Like, I'm so grateful for the

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reminder that it's really important that I keep my hat in

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my mind open, I keep my ears open, and I kind of keep my big

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mouth fucking shut. Sometimes, you know what I'm saying, it's

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like to really listen. And because I was interacting with

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all these different people, my sweetie also had a sold out show

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or own almost sold out show at Hampton Beach casino ballroom

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this weekend. So I was just people. Thing this past few

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days, right? I was around a lot of people, listening to a lot of

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people talking with a lot of people, shaking hands, catching

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up, giving hugs, the whole thing. And one of the things

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that I walked away with again is that things aren't always

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obvious on the outside. You know, I was talking with a

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friend, and, you know, we were just kind of like catching up.

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We hadn't seen each other in many months, and as we're

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talking, they just kind of let me know that both of their

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parents had died within days of each other. These are parents in

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their 60s. These were young people, and I just looked at

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them, and I was like, wait, what? Now? On the outside, if

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you just saw this person, you would just think, they're fine,

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they're beautiful, they're bubbly. Life is good, like going

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through, they're working, they're doing whatever. And when

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they told me this, I literally just like, was stopped in my

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tracks, and I said, Wait, what? What did you just say? And I

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realized, you know, again, it's not like this is a new

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realization. This isn't something that you, dear

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listener, haven't thought before or realized before, but we

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forget it. We like let it slip through our fingers. We too

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casually, forget that we do not know what our brothers and

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sisters and fellow humans, right? The other, other gods,

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other kids, right? The other, the other humans and animals

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that inhabit this planet. We sometimes stop really seeing

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them. We stop being curious. And this is, this is one of the

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worst things about judgment, is it kills your curiosity, because

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you show up in a place of assumption, you show up in a

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place of judgment, you show up in a place of I already know

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when we don't know. Again, it's not always obvious on the

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surface, externally, what people are showing us doesn't always

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match what's actually going on inside of them. And, you know, I

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have another friend who lost their precious dog who was like,

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you know, those of you animal lovers are often having a really

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different experience than people who are just like, Oh, it's just

Karen Kenney: 00:07:19

a dog. No, it's not just a dog, right to us. It's like our

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family members. It's our beloved companions. It's they're our

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furry kids. They are part of the family like we love them deeply,

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deeply, deeply. And you know, when you lose a beloved animal,

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a beloved pet, it rocks your world. And I've known people who

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the loss of an animal, for them was worse than the loss of a

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human, a family member, because it's very uncomplicated. The

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love that we have with our animals, there is a sweetness,

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there is an unconditional love that can happen. It's not

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complicated like it is with human relationships. So that

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loss can be such a searing loss, you know. And I was talking to

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this friend who had lost their dog. And, you know, on the

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outside again, they're usually a very bubbly person, a very

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upbeat person, and underneath this, you know, because life

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goes on and people do still have to go to work, and they do still

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have to show up at their jobs, and they do still have to kind

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of participate in life. They can't just, like, lock up in

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their houses for weeks on end. But so many people are moving to

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the world with at the moment, like an open wound, like a

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gaping wound from some searing loss that they just had, you

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know. And I read about how another friend, you know, her

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husband, just got the diagnosis that his cancer treatments, that

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there's nothing else that they can do, that this is it. They've

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now shifted. They're on hospice watch, you know, and yet these

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people are just out in the world walking around. And I often

Karen Kenney: 00:08:54

think, you know, we're not, how do I say this? You know, we're

Karen Kenney: 00:08:58

not damaged goods. It's not like we're broken and we're a mess

Karen Kenney: 00:09:02

and whatever, but we are sometimes temporarily wounded,

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and sometimes we're walking around carrying burdens and and

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and trying to navigate life changing, life altering news or

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situations or whatever. And everybody else is so caught up

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in their own thing, in their own perceptions, in their own

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judgments, and we have no idea what our fellow human beings are

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going through. We make these assumptions and we cast our

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judgment, you know, and somebody might be short with you at the

Karen Kenney: 00:09:35

checkout line at the grocery store, and it's so easy to be

Karen Kenney: 00:09:38

like, well, aren't they a cranky pants, or they're such a bitch,

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or they're this, or they're that, or they're not very nice,

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or they're, you know, somebody just might be simply shy because

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they grew up in an environment where they weren't ever seen.

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And to be seen was to be hurt, right? Was to be attacked or

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abused or maimed in some way. And so they. Withdraw, and then

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people think they're stuck up or they're a snob because they are

Karen Kenney: 00:10:04

not investigating. And there's a quote, I don't know if I'm going

Karen Kenney: 00:10:10

to get it right, but I just I doesn't matter. I might even do

Karen Kenney: 00:10:13

a whole podcast about this and but it says something like,

Karen Kenney: 00:10:18

there is nothing more ignorant than contempt prior to

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investigation. I think I'm getting that right. There's

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nothing more ignorant than contempt prior to investigation,

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and this is what our judgment does sometimes, is we cast

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judgment on another person when we don't have all the

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information because we weren't curious enough to ask, we didn't

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care enough to slow down to actually ask, and we like to ask

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these kinds of questions, like, how are you when we actually

Karen Kenney: 00:10:48

really don't care the about the answer? We don't want to hear

Karen Kenney: 00:10:51

the answer. We don't want to hear about your trauma or your

Karen Kenney: 00:10:54

drama or your stuff. People are just like, I'm too busy. I'm too

Karen Kenney: 00:10:58

bogged down with my own shit. I don't have room or time for your

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shit. And the thing is, is that this, if we could just all,

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like, remember, like, sear this into our brains, like, leave

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ourselves notes somewhere that reminds us that that old phrase,

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right? Everybody is fighting a battle, and I would say an

Karen Kenney: 00:11:23

unseen battle. So like, be kind to one another. Like, I cannot

Karen Kenney: 00:11:28

stress this enough, we have no idea what people's stories are.

Karen Kenney: 00:11:34

We have no idea. Again, we make assumptions based on people's

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like, what the human eyes can see. So when we look at another

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human being, a lot of times, what people are doing with their

Karen Kenney: 00:11:48

eyeballs is they're sizing up what they're seeing in front of

Karen Kenney: 00:11:52

us. They do this by gender. They do this by skin color. They do

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this by body shape, height, weight, form. They look at the

Karen Kenney: 00:12:03

form in front of them, and they make all kinds of judgments and

Karen Kenney: 00:12:08

assumptions about people. And if they just took a little extra

Karen Kenney: 00:12:12

time to actually inquire and get to know, and I'm like, you don't

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even have to like as part of this, right? Because it's really

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easy to then judge yourself for judging, right? And I'm like,

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judging is what the ego does. The ego is just gonna do it. The

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battle isn't about or the work isn't around. You know, stop

Karen Kenney: 00:12:37

judging, because the likelihood of that happening is probably

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not very high, but what we can do is get way better at

Karen Kenney: 00:12:48

recognizing that we are in the process of judging, or that we

Karen Kenney: 00:12:53

have judged, and then to stop and pause and recognize, oh, Oh,

Karen Kenney: 00:12:59

I often say to myself, Okay. Judge Judy,

Karen Kenney: 00:13:08

okay. Judge Judy, what do you have your own fucking TV show?

Karen Kenney: 00:13:11

Why don't you just relax over there a minute. Why don't you

Karen Kenney: 00:13:14

get curious? Why don't you like, like, stop your role, like, just

Karen Kenney: 00:13:18

slow your roll, put a comma in your commentary there Judge Judy

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and pause because you don't know all the facts. And I am showing

Karen Kenney: 00:13:27

this like, I am shown this like, S, T, o, t, J, spiritual team on

Karen Kenney: 00:13:31

the job. I am shown this again and again and again. You would

Karen Kenney: 00:13:37

think. You would think it would get through my thick head. You

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would think that this would just be so like, seared into my brain

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right now. And literally, I feel like this is how, like, Jesus

Karen Kenney: 00:13:48

walked the world like he did not show up in judgment. He showed

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up with love, he showed up with curiosity. He saw his brothers

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and sisters as himself, that we're all just walking around in

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fear. We're all walking around feeling separate. We're all

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walking around feeling like on some level, I have no idea like

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what I'm doing, but we don't want to appear that way, so we

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put on ads, or we pretend, or we blow ourselves up, as you know,

Karen Kenney: 00:14:16

and this is what the ego does. The egos main racket is it loves

Karen Kenney: 00:14:20

to keep you separate. It loves to keep you special. It will

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keep you special in your superiority, your perceived

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superiority, right, your pretend superiority. But it will also

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try to keep you separate and special with your shittiness,

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with your victimization and how bad you have it, right? The ego

Karen Kenney: 00:14:38

is just always running a game. It's always running a racket on

Karen Kenney: 00:14:41

us. And if we don't have some practices, some tools to be able

Karen Kenney: 00:14:47

to put a comma in our commentary, to slow down, to

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pause, to recognize, oh yeah, like I'm running that judgment

Karen Kenney: 00:14:56

racket. I need to stop and I need to. Get a little more

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curious and a little more caring and a little more compassionate,

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you know what I mean. And I was reminded of this too. I met some

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people. So as I was saying, I was invited to do a workshop at

Karen Kenney: 00:15:14

St Anselm's College in Manchester by my friend, the

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brilliant Dr Loretta Brady. And she was doing, it was like a

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five day artist residency, and it was about ludographic

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medicine. It was called ludographic medicine, healing

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stories. And what these artists and peoples and creatives were

Karen Kenney: 00:15:32

coming together to do was to create like a game, and the game

Karen Kenney: 00:15:36

was all around, like trauma stories and healing, trauma and

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healing through writing and the guest, the guest resident,

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artist la flesh, she had written or was working on a graphic a

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full length graphic memoir. So think of it like a memoir, but

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through like panels, like in a comic book, it's fascinating.

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And they created a game, and I think they called, ended up

Karen Kenney: 00:15:59

calling it like the come come back kids story, The Comeback

Karen Kenney: 00:16:03

Kid game. And it was really fascinating. So I was invited to

Karen Kenney: 00:16:07

come to do a workshop, and we called it preparing, preparing

Karen Kenney: 00:16:11

your bodies and brains. And it was like yoga and writing with

Karen Kenney: 00:16:16

trauma. And it was like, how do we prepare ourselves when we

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know that we're going to have to do some work, work that might

Karen Kenney: 00:16:23

hurt to do, right? And whether that's revisiting your trauma,

Karen Kenney: 00:16:27

writing about your trauma, whatever, but it's work that

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might hurt to do, but ultimately heals. And it was so fantastic,

Karen Kenney: 00:16:34

and it was such it was such an honor to do this. It was such a

Karen Kenney: 00:16:38

beautiful group of humans that I got to interact with and and

Karen Kenney: 00:16:42

share with and learn from and teach. And during this workshop,

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I got to meet a guy named MAV. And MAV used to be a prison God,

Karen Kenney: 00:16:52

and I thought this was so fascinating. And he said

Karen Kenney: 00:16:55

something that just like, really, really like, caught my

Karen Kenney: 00:16:58

attention because I was talking about how it's so easy for us to

Karen Kenney: 00:17:04

judge people right, because they had just come and this came up

Karen Kenney: 00:17:08

in conversation, because these people had just come from a

Karen Kenney: 00:17:11

visit to from the YDC, the youth detention center in Manchester,

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and the YDC is going through this major, like, reform

Karen Kenney: 00:17:19

overhaul, because, like, I don't even know it's like over 1000

Karen Kenney: 00:17:23

kids now adults, right? It might even be closer to 1300 or 1500

Karen Kenney: 00:17:28

people have come forward and have filed complaints against

Karen Kenney: 00:17:31

their time in y DC and all of the abuse, and all of the sexual

Karen Kenney: 00:17:35

abuse, the emotional abuse, the mental and physical abuse that

Karen Kenney: 00:17:38

happened to them while they were in the YDC. And it's just

Karen Kenney: 00:17:43

horrifying when you think about it. You know, when he goes,

Karen Kenney: 00:17:45

Joe's goes to prove my point. You know, you might be talking

Karen Kenney: 00:17:48

to somebody, and they might be struggling. You might be over

Karen Kenney: 00:17:51

there judging them, and you have no idea what these people have

Karen Kenney: 00:17:54

survived. You have no idea who these people are, what their

Karen Kenney: 00:17:59

start in life was, and what they have been through and what they

Karen Kenney: 00:18:03

have survived. And so MAV was one of the people who was part

Karen Kenney: 00:18:08

of this group, and he used to be a prison God, and we were

Karen Kenney: 00:18:13

talking about how I said, you know, I said, nobody wants to be

Karen Kenney: 00:18:16

judged for the worst mistake that they've ever made in their

Karen Kenney: 00:18:20

life. And this is something that we do with the incarcerated

Karen Kenney: 00:18:23

people with with people who have made poor choices, and a lot of

Karen Kenney: 00:18:27

times, I'm like, you know, who ends up in prison, people who

Karen Kenney: 00:18:30

have trauma, people who were not given the opportunity to learn

Karen Kenney: 00:18:34

differently, people who did not have good role models or mentors

Karen Kenney: 00:18:38

or coaches, people who grew up Often in poverty or in

Karen Kenney: 00:18:41

situations. I'm not saying everybody in prison, you know.

Karen Kenney: 00:18:44

I'm just saying but a lot of people who end up in prison, our

Karen Kenney: 00:18:47

kids who had trauma, who had no support, who had no guidance,

Karen Kenney: 00:18:51

who had no tools, were not taught any differently, you

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know? And when you think about why DC, think about nine year

Karen Kenney: 00:18:59

old kids being put in a prison like environment when there's

Karen Kenney: 00:19:03

there's cells, nine year olds, 11 year olds, 12 year olds, 13

Karen Kenney: 00:19:08

year olds. Think about what that does to a child and their

Karen Kenney: 00:19:12

development. Right? So MAV and I were talking, and he said

Karen Kenney: 00:19:17

something that struck me so deeply. And he said, a lot of

Karen Kenney: 00:19:23

prison gods, they like to read the files of the people that

Karen Kenney: 00:19:28

they're like, you know, gutting. They like to know their

Karen Kenney: 00:19:31

background. They want to know all the stuff. And he says, I

Karen Kenney: 00:19:33

don't read their files. He says, I don't want to know what

Karen Kenney: 00:19:37

they're in there for, because I don't want to meet them with my

Karen Kenney: 00:19:41

judgment. Man, when he said that, I was just like, it was

Karen Kenney: 00:19:48

just so powerful. He's like, I want to go and talk to them and

Karen Kenney: 00:19:52

meet them like face to face, and get to know them, get to know

Karen Kenney: 00:19:56

who they are. And this is what I started thinking about, is get.

Karen Kenney: 00:20:00

To know who people are, not what they've been or what they've

Karen Kenney: 00:20:04

done in their past, like meeting people right there, and he says,

Karen Kenney: 00:20:08

I don't want to judge them. And I just thought, he's like, based

Karen Kenney: 00:20:12

on what they've done. I just thought, Oh, my God, can you

Karen Kenney: 00:20:16

imagine if we all kind of move through the world this way? And

Karen Kenney: 00:20:21

the thing is, is that we are all born, and we have this ego. And

Karen Kenney: 00:20:25

the ego, again, its main job is to judge, and it loves to based

Karen Kenney: 00:20:31

on only what its eyes like, literally, the physical eyes

Karen Kenney: 00:20:36

see. And the thing about the human eyes is, and I've

Karen Kenney: 00:20:40

mentioned this before in other episodes, is that human eyes

Karen Kenney: 00:20:44

don't really see. Human eyes are just the little cameras, I think

Karen Kenney: 00:20:50

about that record that take the information in it sends the

Karen Kenney: 00:20:53

information up to the brain. It's the brain that interprets

Karen Kenney: 00:20:57

what it's seeing. It's the brain that is going into that

Karen Kenney: 00:21:00

judgment, right? And again, the brain likes to categorize

Karen Kenney: 00:21:04

things. It likes to save time. It likes to be efficient. So it

Karen Kenney: 00:21:07

likes to label and keep things as familiar, and kind of group

Karen Kenney: 00:21:11

things together and to judge things based on past

Karen Kenney: 00:21:14

experiences. So it's like, if somebody gets bitten by a dog,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:18

any dog that it meets going forward, unless we introduce

Karen Kenney: 00:21:22

some sort of pattern interrupt or some new way of thinking

Karen Kenney: 00:21:25

about a thing, right? It's going to perceive all dogs as

Karen Kenney: 00:21:28

dangerous. And we can do this with other groups of humans. We

Karen Kenney: 00:21:33

might label, oh, this person looks different than me. They

Karen Kenney: 00:21:36

must be fill in the blank. There's our judgment, whatever

Karen Kenney: 00:21:39

we judge it with and if we don't have a pattern interrupt, we

Karen Kenney: 00:21:43

just so much of the work that I do with people, right is to

Karen Kenney: 00:21:46

interrupt our own patterns of conditioning and the stories

Karen Kenney: 00:21:50

that we tell and the beliefs that we have. You know, we have

Karen Kenney: 00:21:52

to be vigilant, vigilant about what's going on in our minds,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:57

okay, but the ego doesn't like to kind of do much work beyond

Karen Kenney: 00:22:03

what it only sees. It doesn't like to go, you know, beyond

Karen Kenney: 00:22:07

that. And you know, I've shared this quote before. It's a very

Karen Kenney: 00:22:10

kind of A Course in Miracles thought. It also gets attributed

Karen Kenney: 00:22:13

to like John overdurf, who says, you know, a person can only be

Karen Kenney: 00:22:16

as good in your presence as they first are in your mind, and if

Karen Kenney: 00:22:21

in our mind, all we're doing is walking around and judging

Karen Kenney: 00:22:24

people, of course, we're going to have these experiences where

Karen Kenney: 00:22:28

in our presence, we cannot actually even see who's in front

Karen Kenney: 00:22:33

of us. We can't see them who they really are. Is one of God's

Karen Kenney: 00:22:37

kids as just like us, as one of our brothers and sisters. We're

Karen Kenney: 00:22:41

going to show up with our labels. We're going to show up

Karen Kenney: 00:22:43

with our stuff. And you know, that is one of the fastest ways

Karen Kenney: 00:22:48

that we keep ourselves stuck in that kind of separation, which

Karen Kenney: 00:22:53

just leads to suffering, and our judgment leads to suffering. And

Karen Kenney: 00:22:59

I want to be really clear about this,

Karen Kenney: 00:23:03

about the ego, mind in judgment, and I'm just going to read a

Karen Kenney: 00:23:06

little something from A Course in Miracles, because I'll never

Karen Kenney: 00:23:10

forget when I first read this, how it kind of like it was

Karen Kenney: 00:23:14

literally like, I feel like one of the greatest things A Course

Karen Kenney: 00:23:17

in Miracles has done for me is, if you imagine A house and this

Karen Kenney: 00:23:21

house, the doors and the windows have been sealed, and they're

Karen Kenney: 00:23:24

never open, so no sunlight comes in, no fresh breeze comes in,

Karen Kenney: 00:23:29

nothing new. It's like, it's like, stuffy. It's like, you

Karen Kenney: 00:23:32

know, it's not moldy, but it's just like, it's not a good

Karen Kenney: 00:23:35

environment in there. And it's like, all of a sudden, A Course

Karen Kenney: 00:23:38

in Miracles for me, in my mind in my brain, right? The way that

Karen Kenney: 00:23:42

my my thought system worked, it like blew open, it like opened

Karen Kenney: 00:23:46

all the windows and all the doors and all of a sudden, all

Karen Kenney: 00:23:49

this freshness, these fresh ideas, this like, oh, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:23:54

there's more. There's more to than just what my little ego

Karen Kenney: 00:23:58

perceives, right? And so. And of course, in Miracles is this

Karen Kenney: 00:24:02

phrase, like teachers of God. Teachers of God can be anybody.

Karen Kenney: 00:24:06

It's like all humans can be teachers of God. It's not about

Karen Kenney: 00:24:09

being special. So, and if you don't, I always say, if the word

Karen Kenney: 00:24:11

God upsets you, insert your own happy word there, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:24:15

Universe, love, higher power, whatever. Don't get hung up on

Karen Kenney: 00:24:18

the word. But it says this. It is necessary for the teacher of

Karen Kenney: 00:24:23

God to realize not that he should not judge, but that he

Karen Kenney: 00:24:29

cannot. When I first read that, I was like, what is that mean?

Karen Kenney: 00:24:35

Right? And here's, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go,

Karen Kenney: 00:24:39

I'm going to tell you why we actually cannot judge. We

Karen Kenney: 00:24:43

fucking love to judge. We love to judge, and then we feel

Karen Kenney: 00:24:47

guilty when we do judge, because we think, Oh, my God, I

Karen Kenney: 00:24:50

shouldn't be judging. But it's not that we shouldn't be, it's

Karen Kenney: 00:24:53

that we actually cannot judge, and I'm going to tell you why in

Karen Kenney: 00:24:56

a moment. All right, so stay with me when we. Judge

Karen Kenney: 00:25:01

ourselves, people situations otherwise, from our very limited

Karen Kenney: 00:25:07

POV, from our very limited personal experience and personal

Karen Kenney: 00:25:11

knowledge, what that does is it basically, it basically involves

Karen Kenney: 00:25:18

a certain amount of arrogance that we believe that we know how

Karen Kenney: 00:25:25

it should be, what should be done, how they should be acting.

Karen Kenney: 00:25:28

We believe that we know what's best when, in reality, right? We

Karen Kenney: 00:25:36

do not have the capacity to know all of everybody like, why it's

Karen Kenney: 00:25:44

going down, how it's going down, all the multiple aspects of a

Karen Kenney: 00:25:49

thing, right? What might be influencing a certain person to

Karen Kenney: 00:25:53

be that way? What their history is, what their story is, what's

Karen Kenney: 00:25:56

gone on, what's going to go on, what's about to go on, right? We

Karen Kenney: 00:26:00

do not have that kind of omnipotent vision. Okay? So A

Karen Kenney: 00:26:05

Course in Miracles says it is necessary for the teacher of God

Karen Kenney: 00:26:08

to realize not that he should not judge, but that he cannot.

Karen Kenney: 00:26:12

And then it goes on to say this, in order to judge anything

Karen Kenney: 00:26:17

rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably

Karen Kenney: 00:26:25

wide range of things past, present and to come, one would

Karen Kenney: 00:26:33

have to recognize in advance all the effects of His judgments on

Karen Kenney: 00:26:39

everyone and everything involved in them in any way, and one

Karen Kenney: 00:26:46

would have to be certain that there is no distortion in his

Karen Kenney: 00:26:52

perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone

Karen Kenney: 00:26:59

on whom It rests now, and on whom it's going to rest in the

Karen Kenney: 00:27:03

future. So who is in a position to do this, who's in a position

Karen Kenney: 00:27:12

to do this, who, except in grandiose fantasies, would claim

Karen Kenney: 00:27:19

this for himself, that, and I think of this like right who

Karen Kenney: 00:27:25

would claim for himself that they have omnipotent vision,

Karen Kenney: 00:27:28

that they know exactly why everything's happening and

Karen Kenney: 00:27:31

exactly what that one should be doing and that one should be

Karen Kenney: 00:27:34

doing and that one shouldn't be doing that or should be doing

Karen Kenney: 00:27:37

this. Who can claim that they know of all time and space,

Karen Kenney: 00:27:41

exactly why everything is going down, and hence they can, from

Karen Kenney: 00:27:45

their god seeded place in the world, be able to cast judgment.

Karen Kenney: 00:27:50

Who would do that, except somebody who is completely

Karen Kenney: 00:27:52

fcking delusional, and when you think about it like that, I

Karen Kenney: 00:27:55

cannot help but laugh, because this is kind of what we're doing

Karen Kenney: 00:28:01

when we go into judgment. We are judging everybody and everything

Karen Kenney: 00:28:05

based on our very, very, very tiny, teeny, tiny, weeny point

Karen Kenney: 00:28:12

of view, our little limited scope of perception and

Karen Kenney: 00:28:16

perspective. And yet we think we know. And the thing is, is I am

Karen Kenney: 00:28:23

taught again and again and again, that I know jack shit,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:28

that there are people walking all around me in every single

Karen Kenney: 00:28:33

moment when I'm out in the world, people that I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:28:35

interacting with online, on social media, whatever. And it's

Karen Kenney: 00:28:39

so easy to cast our judgment. It's so easy to be cruel. It's

Karen Kenney: 00:28:44

so easy to be lacking compassion and care and to show up with our

Karen Kenney: 00:28:49

sarcasm and our cutting comments and our judgments. And you

Karen Kenney: 00:28:52

should do this, and you should do that, and why are you doing

Karen Kenney: 00:28:55

that? And we don't know anything. And what a different

Karen Kenney: 00:29:01

world we would live in if we would all just reserve our

Karen Kenney: 00:29:05

judgment. Reserve our judgment for when maybe we have a little

Karen Kenney: 00:29:10

bit more information, and even then, I would hesitate to judge.

Karen Kenney: 00:29:16

You know, in The Great Gatsby, there's a line by one of the

Karen Kenney: 00:29:18

characters Nick, and Nick basically says reserving

Karen Kenney: 00:29:22

judgment is a matter of infinite hope. Reserving judgment is a

Karen Kenney: 00:29:28

matter of infinite hope. To me, when we reserve judgment, so

Karen Kenney: 00:29:34

much more becomes possible, because as soon as you judge,

Karen Kenney: 00:29:38

you literally close down the windows and the doors of

Karen Kenney: 00:29:42

opportunity, they just they slam shut because you are not going

Karen Kenney: 00:29:46

to be able to see past your judgment. You have basically cut

Karen Kenney: 00:29:50

yourself off from your curiosity, from your compassion,

Karen Kenney: 00:29:54

from your desire to know more and understand more and to

Karen Kenney: 00:29:57

really learn about another human being. Being or a situation, you

Karen Kenney: 00:30:02

know? And I want to say this we do as human beings, because I

Karen Kenney: 00:30:09

know somebody somewhere out there is saying like, so what?

Karen Kenney: 00:30:12

We're just supposed to walk around and not judge anything

Karen Kenney: 00:30:14

like so we just let everybody do whatever they want to do. No, of

Karen Kenney: 00:30:17

course not. We have to have certain perimeters in place,

Karen Kenney: 00:30:21

right? This is why we have rules. This is why we have laws.

Karen Kenney: 00:30:24

Because we don't want just total chaos and madness out there. We

Karen Kenney: 00:30:28

do need to, need to set some things in place, like, hey, to

Karen Kenney: 00:30:31

go into another person's house and take their shit, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:30:33

that's not okay, right? This is why we have laws, right? Hey,

Karen Kenney: 00:30:38

you cannot X, Y and Z. This is why we have rules. And even that

Karen Kenney: 00:30:42

can get a little little, you know, sketchy when we kind of

Karen Kenney: 00:30:45

look at the Supreme Court right now and all the all the bullshit

Karen Kenney: 00:30:48

that's like going down in the world and whatever, because

Karen Kenney: 00:30:51

everybody thinks that they're right, and everybody don't get

Karen Kenney: 00:30:54

me started. Okay, let me stay let me and we're back. Let me

Karen Kenney: 00:30:57

stay on track here. Okay, of course, we have to have what I

Karen Kenney: 00:31:03

prefer to call personal discernment. So I get to discern

Karen Kenney: 00:31:09

whether or not a person, a program, a place, a

Karen Kenney: 00:31:13

relationship, a product, is right for me. I don't get to

Karen Kenney: 00:31:19

judge whether it's right for you, right, like, look as a

Karen Kenney: 00:31:24

vegan, like, I always say it's the easiest example I get to

Karen Kenney: 00:31:28

decide what I do or do not want to participate in. I really try

Karen Kenney: 00:31:33

my best not to judge people who make different decisions. I do.

Karen Kenney: 00:31:39

Like to educate people that there are different ways of

Karen Kenney: 00:31:43

being in the world that does not inflict harm and cruelty and

Karen Kenney: 00:31:46

rape and abuse and murder against our poor little animal

Karen Kenney: 00:31:50

friends who don't have a voice and don't have a say and are at

Karen Kenney: 00:31:53

the mercy of our compassion and kindness, right? But walking

Karen Kenney: 00:31:57

around in contempt of other human beings is not how things

Karen Kenney: 00:32:01

change. Walking around, judging other people, is not how things

Karen Kenney: 00:32:05

get done, right? We have to stay open, we have to stay curious,

Karen Kenney: 00:32:08

we have to do our best to try to understand, right? But we do get

Karen Kenney: 00:32:12

to have a certain amount of personal discernment, where we

Karen Kenney: 00:32:15

discern, yes, I'm not going to do that, but if that's your

Karen Kenney: 00:32:19

thing, that's your thing, right? Where we do get to speak up is

Karen Kenney: 00:32:23

when somebody is maybe doing something against a person or

Karen Kenney: 00:32:28

people or animals who have no power, and whether that's

Karen Kenney: 00:32:32

because they're children or they're disenfranchised, or they

Karen Kenney: 00:32:35

don't have a voice, or whatever it is, then those of us right,

Karen Kenney: 00:32:39

do get to, to show up and say, I don't think that that's right,

Karen Kenney: 00:32:43

and we need to intervene here, or whatever.

Karen Kenney: 00:32:47

I think we have to use our personal discernment, but we

Karen Kenney: 00:32:50

also have to be careful when that discernment starts to move

Karen Kenney: 00:32:55

into I'm rightness right, that righteousness like I'm right.

Karen Kenney: 00:32:59

This is how it's supposed to be. This is how it has to be, you

Karen Kenney: 00:33:01

know. And there's that old, that old fable about, you know, the

Karen Kenney: 00:33:06

farmer who's like, son, you know, falls off the horse or

Karen Kenney: 00:33:10

whatever, and breaks his leg. And, you know, the neighbors are

Karen Kenney: 00:33:14

like, Oh, that's too bad. And the farmer says, maybe it is.

Karen Kenney: 00:33:17

Maybe it isn't. And then the army shows up, looking for young

Karen Kenney: 00:33:21

sons, you know, young men to, like, draft into the war, and

Karen Kenney: 00:33:25

the son can't go because he's got a broken leg. And then the

Karen Kenney: 00:33:27

neighbors are like, What good fortune. And then the, you know,

Karen Kenney: 00:33:31

the Fauci, is like, maybe it is, maybe it isn't like the story

Karen Kenney: 00:33:34

continues on with all these examples. The fact of the matter

Karen Kenney: 00:33:38

is, we are not God. We are not omnipotent. We are not all

Karen Kenney: 00:33:41

seeing and all knowing. We don't know. But what if we showed up

Karen Kenney: 00:33:47

with curiosity instead of leading with our judgment, our

Karen Kenney: 00:33:52

judgment towards ourselves, our judgment towards others? How

Karen Kenney: 00:33:58

radical would it be to move through the world. How different

Karen Kenney: 00:34:01

would it feel in your body? You know, one of the fastest ways I

Karen Kenney: 00:34:06

know so many people who are so afraid of being judged, and I

Karen Kenney: 00:34:12

always say, you know, one of the ways that we can help lift that

Karen Kenney: 00:34:15

burden of fear of being judged is to do our best to stop

Karen Kenney: 00:34:18

judging others. Again. Don't beat yourself up for it when you

Karen Kenney: 00:34:24

do it. Don't make yourself guilty and wrong and bad and

Karen Kenney: 00:34:27

sinful and blah, blah, blah, but just catch yourself. Move from a

Karen Kenney: 00:34:31

mindless state where you're just kind of automated and doing all

Karen Kenney: 00:34:34

this shit to becoming more mindful, to slowing down. This

Karen Kenney: 00:34:38

is why a DSP, a daily spiritual practice can be so powerful

Karen Kenney: 00:34:41

because it helps us to kind of create a pause so that we can

Karen Kenney: 00:34:46

choose, we can slow down, and we can see ourselves. We have more

Karen Kenney: 00:34:50

personal awareness, right? And Swami Kripalu, you know ba buji,

Karen Kenney: 00:34:58

so if you've ever been to the Kripalu. Lucenta out in the

Karen Kenney: 00:35:01

Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. You know, I was

Karen Kenney: 00:35:03

trained and I lived at Kripalu, and I was trained there as a

Karen Kenney: 00:35:07

yoga teacher a gazillion years ago. You know, we lived there

Karen Kenney: 00:35:11

for a month, and every day in the hallways, I would walk past

Karen Kenney: 00:35:15

these pictures of Swami Kripalu, who we call lovingly, Bapuji,

Karen Kenney: 00:35:20

you know, kind of like grandfather. And whenever I

Karen Kenney: 00:35:22

would see this one particular picture of Swami Kripalu, I

Karen Kenney: 00:35:25

would always stop, and I would get, like, teary eyed, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:35:28

there's just, there was just something that transcended time

Karen Kenney: 00:35:31

and space. I mean, he died, I think back in, like, I want to

Karen Kenney: 00:35:33

say 1981 or 82 or 83 somewhere in there. So I never got to

Karen Kenney: 00:35:38

personally meet him, but there was something, and the word

Karen Kenney: 00:35:41

Kripalu actually means compassion. And so there was

Karen Kenney: 00:35:44

something about looking at his face. And so in the hallways,

Karen Kenney: 00:35:47

there are these pictures, and they have these quotes. And one

Karen Kenney: 00:35:50

of the things that Swami Kripalu said, or it's attributed to him,

Karen Kenney: 00:35:54

he says, the highest form of spiritual practice there is, is

Karen Kenney: 00:35:59

self observation without judgment, to observe, without

Karen Kenney: 00:36:06

casting our judgment, to observe ourselves to be curious about

Karen Kenney: 00:36:11

ourselves. Right to wonder. And this is so much of the work that

Karen Kenney: 00:36:15

I do. Why do we do what we do? Think, what we think, believe,

Karen Kenney: 00:36:18

what we believe, say, what we say, show how. Why do we show up

Karen Kenney: 00:36:21

the way we show up, right? Why do we tell the stories that we

Karen Kenney: 00:36:24

tell? And how can we maybe tell better ones? How can we come to

Karen Kenney: 00:36:29

really understand ourselves? Because if you don't know,

Karen Kenney: 00:36:32

again, right to exist in ignorance. I always say, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:36:36

you know, confusion is even better than ignorance, and

Karen Kenney: 00:36:40

there's no higher form of ignorance than contempt, prior

Karen Kenney: 00:36:43

to investigation, to thinking that you know how a thing is,

Karen Kenney: 00:36:47

and to turn your nose up at it, to cast judgment on it when you

Karen Kenney: 00:36:50

haven't even asked, well, what's really going on here? What's

Karen Kenney: 00:36:53

going on under? The under. And this is why so many of us cast

Karen Kenney: 00:36:58

judgment on ourselves. We have a lack of self esteem, a lack of

Karen Kenney: 00:37:02

self love, because we have so much self judgment, like I

Karen Kenney: 00:37:05

should be over this by now, and why I thought I already dealt

Karen Kenney: 00:37:07

with this, and why haven't I figured this out? And why am I

Karen Kenney: 00:37:10

this way? What am I just fucked up or broken, or I'm a mess, or

Karen Kenney: 00:37:13

whatever? And it's like, no, just, I always say, and I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:37:18

doing a whole episode on this, you know, we are not really, we

Karen Kenney: 00:37:24

are not really taught how to know ourselves and understand

Karen Kenney: 00:37:27

ourselves, and we certainly, certainly not taught how to love

Karen Kenney: 00:37:31

ourselves. And so much of this work that I love to do, first

Karen Kenney: 00:37:38

and foremost with myself and also with others, is to learn

Karen Kenney: 00:37:43

how to kind of come home to the truth of ourselves. And as long

Karen Kenney: 00:37:47

as we are judging ourselves and each other, love cannot happen

Karen Kenney: 00:37:51

in that state. We need more curiosity. We need more care. We

Karen Kenney: 00:37:56

need more compassion, you know, and so as I think about my

Karen Kenney: 00:38:04

friends who are navigating really difficult things, when I

Karen Kenney: 00:38:07

think about whole communities and whole groups of people who

Karen Kenney: 00:38:12

are navigating really difficult times right now, people just

Karen Kenney: 00:38:18

behoove us all to show up with a little more kindness and

Karen Kenney: 00:38:22

compassion and curiosity and softness and mercy and

Karen Kenney: 00:38:25

tenderness. I'm not saying don't be fierce when fierceness is

Karen Kenney: 00:38:30

called for. I'm not saying that we walk around like big, squishy

Karen Kenney: 00:38:34

marshmallows, right? I mean, right now we are in times when

Karen Kenney: 00:38:38

we need to, kind of like, find that Sanctum Sanctorum, we need

Karen Kenney: 00:38:42

to find some strength. We need to find this inner kind of

Karen Kenney: 00:38:45

resiliency. And we can also do that, though, while reserving

Karen Kenney: 00:38:52

our judgment and making assumptions about others,

Karen Kenney: 00:38:55

because, again, most people aren't walking around with a

Karen Kenney: 00:38:58

billboard that is broadcasting their inner pain and their fear

Karen Kenney: 00:39:03

and their suffering. You know what I mean. So as you move

Karen Kenney: 00:39:07

through you know, maybe this is just another gentle reminder. I

Karen Kenney: 00:39:11

don't think we can hear this enough. We don't know as much as

Karen Kenney: 00:39:16

we think we know. You know we need to realize not that we

Karen Kenney: 00:39:22

shouldn't judge, but that we cannot, because we don't know

Karen Kenney: 00:39:26

all things past, present and future we can't possibly know.

Karen Kenney: 00:39:31

And who's in a position to do this, who, except in the

Karen Kenney: 00:39:34

grandiose fantasies, would claim that they know what's best for

Karen Kenney: 00:39:38

everybody? We can't do it. So you know, maybe it will help

Karen Kenney: 00:39:44

you. And one of the ways, and this is just a little tip, take

Karen Kenney: 00:39:48

it or leave it, I use humor a lot. I use humor a lot towards

Karen Kenney: 00:39:53

myself, like the things that I say to myself, right, even when

Karen Kenney: 00:39:57

I'm kind of wagging my finger at myself a little bit. It, they

Karen Kenney: 00:40:00

make me laugh. And I'm like, oh, okay, Judge Judy, I start to

Karen Kenney: 00:40:04

laugh because even laughter, it's a pattern interrupt, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:40:07

It stops me from being too mean or too harsh for myself when I

Karen Kenney: 00:40:11

catch myself doing exactly what the ego loves to do. And I'm not

Karen Kenney: 00:40:15

trying to fight the ego. I'm just trying to accept how

Karen Kenney: 00:40:19

ridiculous the ego is. And if I can look at my ego and those

Karen Kenney: 00:40:23

behaviors we talk about in A Course in Miracles, is kind of

Karen Kenney: 00:40:26

looking at it with with Holy Spirit, I kind of just like, put

Karen Kenney: 00:40:29

on my love glasses, and I look at it through this lens of like,

Karen Kenney: 00:40:32

Oh, look at that. Ego's doing its thing again, right? I don't

Karen Kenney: 00:40:36

have to contempt, condemn myself, make myself bad. It's

Karen Kenney: 00:40:38

like, okay, Judge Judy has stepped forward. Forward, hit

Karen Kenney: 00:40:43

the gavel, the gavel, and take a lunch break, right? It's kind of

Karen Kenney: 00:40:47

funny, so I use humor to kind of break myself out of the habit,

Karen Kenney: 00:40:52

or the pattern of judging myself too when I slip up, because

Karen Kenney: 00:40:55

we're all going to slip up. It's just human it's just human

Karen Kenney: 00:40:58

nature, right? Human nature? You're going to look at somebody

Karen Kenney: 00:41:01

and be like, Why are they wearing that? And you're like,

Karen Kenney: 00:41:04

Oh my God. Like, where does that voice come from? Like, what?

Karen Kenney: 00:41:08

Like, what? Who do they think they are?

Unknown: 00:41:09

Like, that ongoing chatter.

Karen Kenney: 00:41:14

And it's really just the voice of fear, you

Karen Kenney: 00:41:17

guys. It's the voice of fear that is the ego, but we have

Karen Kenney: 00:41:21

within us also, whether you call it Holy Spirit, spirit, the

Karen Kenney: 00:41:27

inner, inner teacher, the voice for love, the voice for God,

Karen Kenney: 00:41:30

whatever you want to say, the reminder of God's love, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:41:33

That is also in there. And we have a decision maker, and the

Karen Kenney: 00:41:38

decision maker can choose whether we're going to choose

Karen Kenney: 00:41:41

the ego, voice for fear of judgment, attack, blame, shame,

Karen Kenney: 00:41:44

or the voice for love and care and compassion and recognizing,

Karen Kenney: 00:41:49

oh, they're also me. We're in this together. They're no

Karen Kenney: 00:41:53

different than me. I hope this lands in your heart in some way,

Karen Kenney: 00:42:00

or I hope it's helpful in some way. And if you found it

Karen Kenney: 00:42:04

helpful, I would love if you share with somebody else who

Karen Kenney: 00:42:08

might also find it helpful. That would be fantastic. And you

Karen Kenney: 00:42:13

know, these are the kinds of things too. Like, I'm always

Karen Kenney: 00:42:15

inviting you guys into the NASS, my little spiritual group

Karen Kenney: 00:42:19

program, my little mentoring community. It's such a community

Karen Kenney: 00:42:22

of beautiful human beings, and these are the kind of things

Karen Kenney: 00:42:25

that we talk about and contemplate. You know, it's

Karen Kenney: 00:42:27

about more deeply understanding ourselves and how we move

Karen Kenney: 00:42:30

through the world and how we can show up more in love instead of

Karen Kenney: 00:42:34

our fear. You know how we can show up and use these practical

Karen Kenney: 00:42:38

tools of neuroscience and spirituality, and you know these

Karen Kenney: 00:42:42

pattern interrupts and rewiring the subconscious so that we

Karen Kenney: 00:42:46

actually show up as who we are meant to be, which is love. So

Karen Kenney: 00:42:52

if you want to join the nest, it's a monthly commitment. You

Karen Kenney: 00:42:54

don't want to do it. You do it for a month. You don't want to

Karen Kenney: 00:42:57

you don't want to stay like not for me, you leave. No big deal.

Karen Kenney: 00:42:59

But give it a shot. So go to Karen kenney.com/nest and if you

Karen Kenney: 00:43:04

want to work with me together one to one, it's Karen

Karen Kenney: 00:43:06

kenney.com/quest Q, U, E, S, T, and if you want this sucker

Karen Kenney: 00:43:12

delivered right into your inbox every Thursday morning bright

Karen Kenney: 00:43:15

and early, just get on my email list. Karen kenney.com/sign up

Karen Kenney: 00:43:20

one word, and you'll you'll get on that sucker. And just, I

Karen Kenney: 00:43:24

appreciate you so much for listening or watching, and if

Karen Kenney: 00:43:29

you're going through a tough time right now, if you're

Karen Kenney: 00:43:31

struggling, if you're suffering in some way, just know that you

Karen Kenney: 00:43:35

are not alone. My heart goes out to you and that you know this is

Karen Kenney: 00:43:39

how we're going to get through it. We're all going to get

Karen Kenney: 00:43:41

through it together, and it's okay, like I said, use your

Karen Kenney: 00:43:44

personal discernment. Do I want to wear the red shirt or the

Karen Kenney: 00:43:46

blue shirt? Should I eat that food? Of that food? Personal

Karen Kenney: 00:43:49

discernment, right? We need to. We need that to navigate life.

Karen Kenney: 00:43:52

You know, sometimes we have to make a judgment call, as they

Karen Kenney: 00:43:56

say, to do it or not do it. But we want to reserve our judgment.

Karen Kenney: 00:44:00

You know, when it comes to walking around thinking we know

Karen Kenney: 00:44:03

everything, and judging other human beings and sometimes

Karen Kenney: 00:44:06

judging ourselves, because sometimes we were doing the best

Karen Kenney: 00:44:09

we could with what we had at the time. You know what I mean?

Karen Kenney: 00:44:12

Sometimes, sometimes the ego is just really being strong. You

Karen Kenney: 00:44:16

know, the ego voice we say, speaks first. It speaks loudest.

Karen Kenney: 00:44:19

And I always add and it's always wrong. So we want to be

Karen Kenney: 00:44:23

listening for that voice of love. Remember the highest form

Karen Kenney: 00:44:26

of spiritual practice is self observation without judgment. So

Karen Kenney: 00:44:31

let's, let's quiet those judge duties. Reserve our judgment and

Karen Kenney: 00:44:36

just know you guys. I super duper appreciate you. Thank you

Karen Kenney: 00:44:39

for tuning in. Wherever you go, may you leave yourself in the

Karen Kenney: 00:44:43

animals and the people and the planet and the environment

Karen Kenney: 00:44:46

better than how you found it wherever you go, may you and

Karen Kenney: 00:44:50

your presence and your energy and your love and your lack of

Karen Kenney: 00:44:55

hash judgment be a blessing. Bye, you.