SAFE ENOUGH

Karen Kenney: 00:00:01

Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super

Karen Kenney: 00:00:04

duper excited to be here today. If you're watching this, you

Karen Kenney: 00:00:08

might see that my hair is blowing around everywhere

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because I got a fan going in the corner because it's hotter than

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Hades up here in my office. We're in the middle of a heat

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wave here in New Hampshire, and I just wanted to get this sucker

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done. So fingers crossed that my internet stays on, because it's

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been going in and out, and it is just like, hot as shit, which I

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love. Don't get me wrong, you might be able to see my face is

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a little red. I just got out of the shower because I went for a

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little three mile walk outside. I wanted, I love the heat, love

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the heat, but I also want to be smart. So anyways, here we are,

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and we're back. We're going to talk about, we're going to talk

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about this concept of safe enough. Now, this is something

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that I kind of created for myself, for my own brain, for my

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own ability to, like, calm the hook down, which we're going to

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talk about a little bit

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okay, like, what I mean by all of this. So the number one,

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you've heard me say this before on other episodes, the number

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one question that our nervous systems are always asking. Okay,

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so when I talk about nervous system, I'm particularly talking

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about, like, the autonomic nervous system, which is like

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the sympathetic nervous system, which we'll talk about a little

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bit in the parasympathetic nervous system. I'm going to

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keep this really, like pretty much basic, so that you can just

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get a a taste, like a sip, sip, as Linda Ty says, of what I'm

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talking about, I don't need to make it super intricate for you

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to understand the essence of what what's on my hat in my mind

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today, and hopefully it'll be helpful and valuable to you too.

Karen Kenney: 00:01:44

Number one question our nervous system is asking is, Am I safe?

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Am I safe? Am I safe? Okay? So when we are picking up cues from

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the world around us, and this started when we were wicked

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young, that's the thing with little kids and babies like

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little toddlers, little kids were, we were always kind of

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looking up at the adults around us, at the people around us, at

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the environment, and trying to understand, like, is it safe?

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Here are these people safe, right? And this has a lot to do

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with how we end up creating relationships and attaching and

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all these other things, like attaching to our moms, attaching

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to our fathers, like in healthy and good ways. But we can also

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end up having like these dysregulated attachment styles

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too, that they call although, for me, I just think that we

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were in the situations that we were in, and we probably, as

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children, did the best we could with what we had. So I don't

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really like to label ourselves too much, but the nervous system

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is either going to go into sympathetic response, which is

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like that fight and flight, that like, oh shit, something's

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wrong, right? We take a look at our environment or the people in

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it, or whatever, and we go into like, Oh my god. How do I want

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to respond to the information that is coming in that I'm

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perceiving and receiving, right? Do I want to go into fight or

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flight or freeze or what we sometimes call fawn? Now, if

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you're if the threat level feels like this is to me, is just

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common sense, right? If the threat level feels like, okay, I

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can probably overcome this person, this situation, this

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place, we might take a fight like, we might choose fight.

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We're like, Okay, we're gonna fight back if we can't, if we're

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like, oh my god, saber tooth tiger. This thing is gonna kill

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me. It's bigger than me. It can harm me or hurt me, this person,

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etc, this situation. Then we might flight. We might run, take

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off, right? Choose not to, like, put down the Dukes and just rut

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Hall ass, basically, right? If you can't do either of those,

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sometimes we go into what's called the Free State, where you

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literally just kind of shut down and kind of play a possum, you

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know what I mean, where you're just like, can't move. And

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there's more fancy words for these states, okay, but I just

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want to keep it pretty simple. And fawning is when you kind of

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just like, I say, you try to befriend the thing that is that

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is perceived as a threat. Like, please don't hurt me. I'll be

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whatever you want me to be, like, whatever. Okay, so we have

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these different responses, and sometimes we call these also

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trauma responses. Okay, that's sympathetic. That's the fight

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and flight. Then we also have parasympathetic, and

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parasympathetic is what we call the rest and digest state like

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this is when we go into the relaxation response. This is the

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response we can experience when we actually are feeling safety,

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when we're not feeling threatened, when we're not

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scared out of our minds, when we're not anxious or worried or

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stressed or overwhelmed. And this is what a lot of the tools

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right that are out there that people use, like everybody, from

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yoga teaches to therapists to somatic body workers to

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whatever, right. Use. They use different tools that help us to

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return to kind of a more sympath parasympathetic state, okay, and

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that's what we want. What happens sometimes, though these

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days, is, I hear a lot of people saying, well, I want to regulate

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my nervous system. We need to regulate our nervous system

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because we have become dysregulated because of chronic

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stress and social media and our phones and technology and AI in

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the state of the world, in the government, in the wars and all

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all the hatred and violence and whatever, people's nervous

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systems are, like, jacked up beyond belief a lot of the time.

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And so there's a lot of talk about like, oh, I need to be

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regulated. I need to be regulated. I need to return to

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safety. I need to return to safety. Now I am also a teacher

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of some of these things, like some of the tools and stuff that

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we can use to help ourselves become more regulated. But I'm

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also a kid that grew up with, like, a lot of fear. I was also

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a young adult and an adult that has a lot of fear. I've talked

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about this on different episodes where I think one of the reasons

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why, you know, I do the work that I do, is I was trying to

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gather as many different tools as I could to try and help

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myself mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, to

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bring myself back into a state or a sense of safety and calm.

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But here's the reality now, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm not

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saying hashtag. I always say hashtag, not a therapist. I'm

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not saying other therapists and other people will agree with

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this, but this is just what has worked for me, and that's what I

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share on this podcast. I'm always trying to let you guys

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know that while nobody can actually pick up the tools and

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use them for you, nobody can solve your problems for you.

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Nobody can like, quote, unquote, do the work for you. But you

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absolutely do not have to do it alone. So I love to share things

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that have worked for me, tools that have worked for me, books,

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resources, whatever, that have worked for me, so that as you're

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trying to also navigate this whole being human experience,

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you don't feel like, oh my god, I'm all on my on my own, and I

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have to figure it all out. You're not alone. You are loved,

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right? You're not going crazy, right? This stuff is hard. This

Karen Kenney: 00:07:32

being human on the planet right now is hard. And then try to

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imagine doing it as not a white person, as somebody who maybe is

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in a group or a community, right? Whether you're black or

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LGBTQIA or brown skinned or, quote, unquote, right, what the

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world would say is marginalized or different or whatever. Again,

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I don't like to put a ton of labels on people, but we

Karen Kenney: 00:07:57

certainly know that not all of us are starting at the same

Karen Kenney: 00:08:00

starting line. Do you know what I mean? So on top of just like

Karen Kenney: 00:08:04

being human is hard, then we have, you know, economic

Karen Kenney: 00:08:08

disparity. We have socio you know, we just have all the

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things that just make it this, systems of racism, etc, etc,

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that make everything so much harder for certain groups of

Karen Kenney: 00:08:18

people. So one of the things that I can say is that has been

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even more difficult, right? Meaning, more difficult as just

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as a human is being female in this world, being a quote,

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unquote girl or a woman in this world. Because here's the thing,

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while my nervous system keeps asking me, am I safe? Am I safe?

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Am I safe? I cannot bullshit myself, right? Like I know too

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much, I've seen too much, and where I have landed is this,

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this world, this 3d world, meaning the world that we've

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created, although we would call it small, our reality. It's not

Karen Kenney: 00:08:55

capital, our reality, right? Here in the dream, A Course in

Karen Kenney: 00:08:59

Miracles might call it here in the illusion, right? Yoga might

Karen Kenney: 00:09:03

call it the Maya, the illusion, this idea of, you know, we're

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all individual, separate beings walking around on the planet,

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right? Being, being a woman in this world, you do not, almost

Karen Kenney: 00:09:15

ever feel safe. Now, if you're a dude listening to this, and

Karen Kenney: 00:09:20

you're like, What do you mean? What are you talking about? Go

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and talk to some of the women, the girls that you know right,

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the young women, the grown ass adults that you know. And they

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will tell you non stop stories of like not feeling safe enough

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to walk to their car at night, how they use their keys as

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weapons in their hands, how we're always aware of how we're

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dressed. What we're doing is my drink gonna get roofied like Da,

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da, da, da da, to try and move through the world, right? And

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again, this extends beyond. I'm just using woman, because that's

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something I can talk about in my own experience. I can't talk

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about other groups of people's experiences directly, although I

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can certainly listen and try to understand and empathize and

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imagine how fucking hot it is. Do you know what I mean to be,

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to be,

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you know, to be in this world as well. And so we have this

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conundrum, don't we? Because the nervous system is asking for

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safety. And I've like again as a kid of a murdered mother, like

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when you know that something that brutal, that tragic, that

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violent, that somebody can beat another person to death, is a

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reality when you experience it yourself, when you see the

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violence in the world, the way people talk to each other and

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treat each other the way we treat animals, when you just

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look at it overall, right? There's no part of my nervous

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system that is sitting there hunky dory feeling safe. And I

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realized, like, oh, and I was just talking about this on a

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podcast that I was recently on. I was on a podcast called it has

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to be me, and the woman who tests masses is fantastic, and

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it's her, it's her podcast, and I talk about it a little bit on

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that as well. What has occurred to me is that this idea of

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ideal, quote, unquote, safety that I'm hoping to feel here in

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the human experience for me, I've just accepted it's probably

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never going to come because I've just again. I've seen too much,

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I've heard too much, I've experienced too much. I have

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evidence of too much, right, cruelty and brutality and

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violence and hatred and like all these different things. So my

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goal, my goal for me, has been to gather as many tools as I can

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to feel safe enough to feel safe enough to be able to do what I

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came here to do, to be able to follow my individual curriculum,

Karen Kenney: 00:11:56

to be able to answer the call of my divine assignment, to show up

Karen Kenney: 00:12:01

in the world as a creative to speak and use my voice to be a

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teacher, right? To have a podcast, to go out and lead

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groups like, to to help other people as a spiritual mentor, as

Karen Kenney: 00:12:12

a coach, etcetera. Because if I just listened to the fear that

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my ego and my anxiety like, produces all the time, right?

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Practically shouts all the time. I would become completely

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paralyzed. I would probably become housebound. I would

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probably be like, terrified out of my mind most of the time. And

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I'm like, I can't live this way. I have to figure out a way to

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experience as much as much physical and psychological

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safety as possible. I want to be able to move through the world

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without feeling a constant perceived threat that is so

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overwhelming that it keeps me from taking action. And when you

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recognize, oh, the world isn't safe, and your your your

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history, your patterns, your the way your subconscious works,

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right? A lot of us, kids who were had trauma, a lot of

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trauma, we become hyper vigilant, right? Like I'm hyper

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aware of noises, lights, flashes of lights. I'm hyper aware of

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people's body language, their energy, what they're doing with

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their face. Right when you grow up in an environment like I did,

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you are constantly seeking not only verbal but body language

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cues and sometimes even just sounds that alert me to whether

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or not what's about to go down is going to be something

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pleasant or unpleasant, you know what I'm saying. So I'm always

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picking up either cues of safety or picking up danger signs. I

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know I'm not alone in this. So like double A men hands, if you

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can relate to what I'm saying. But one of the things that I see

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is I feel like sometimes we're being sold this bill of goods,

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where it's like, just do these 10 Steps, use these five tools,

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and you will become regulated. You will have a regulated

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nervous system. And I'm like, maybe you pal, maybe you pal.

Karen Kenney: 00:14:15

But that's not my experience. My experience has not been that I

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just exist in this, this little like floaty place of like, Oh,

Karen Kenney: 00:14:25

now we're just

Unknown: 00:14:25

going to put on our floaties and float down the

Unknown: 00:14:28

river and drink, you know, Virgin Penny coladas or

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whatever. Like, no, that is not my experience.

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My experience is that I tend to be, like I said, hyper aware,

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hyper vigilant, and being constantly regulated for me,

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finding constant safety, like where everything is just like,

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oh, like, yeah, I can just, you know how, like an animal, like a

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cat, will all of a sudden give you its belly and open up. And,

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you know, I was recently doing something with some. People,

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where we were trying, it doesn't matter, but just ponies were

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involved, a pony and a little miniature donkey. And I was

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listening to all the horse people, and they were saying

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that, you know, horses out in the wild. And this was a some

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something somebody said to me, I'm not quoting it as a truth,

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but this is what somebody said to me, that horses out in the

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wild will, wild will often walk for like, 18 hours at a time.

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They will not bed down, they will not lay down and rest

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unless they feel safe. And I started to think about this, and

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I'm like, Yeah, that sounds like people too. I know people who

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go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, move, move, move, move.

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Everything's fast. Everything's quick. Don't stop, because if I

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stop, I'm going to have to feel some things. And what I'm going

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to feel is I'm not going to going to feel that I am not

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safe. You know what I mean? So rather than me just trying to

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feel regulated all the time, I discovered that number one, I

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don't have to feel 100% safe all the time. I just need to feel

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safe enough, and I'm not waiting for this perfect like little

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island of regulation in my nervous system. I would rather

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teach my nervous system over time, and this is what it's

Karen Kenney: 00:16:14

been. It's been a journey for me. I've been collecting and

Karen Kenney: 00:16:17

gathering tools for a really long time, tools that I now

Karen Kenney: 00:16:21

obviously share with my one to one clients, people in the nest

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and I oftentimes, you know, try to drop little breadcrumbs here

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and there too. Also on the podcast, some things are just

Karen Kenney: 00:16:31

better taught in person. Do you know what I mean? Some some

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things that I do like Thai Yoga, bodywork, Thai Yoga, massage,

Karen Kenney: 00:16:38

yoga, certain things like that. I just prefer to do them in

Karen Kenney: 00:16:40

person. So, but here are these other hours, right? You know, I

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love alliteration, so I was thinking to myself, Okay, rather

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than being reactive all the time. So if I'm in a state of

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not feeling enough safety, I will certainly be reactive, and

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I will be looking and feel looking for and feeling

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triggered, probably a lot of the time when I move out of

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regulation and I'm in dysregulation, right? And I

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don't feel cues of safety, I don't feel like, okay, I can put

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down my Dukes here. I can't be safe and vulnerable and open for

Karen Kenney: 00:17:18

business, right? If I'm in that state, I'm certainly almost

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going to be more hypersensitive to being quote, unquote

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triggered or having my buttons pushed or being on edge or being

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anxious or worrisome or stressed or overwhelmed, right? So I

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don't want to be in a place where I feel constantly reactive

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to the world around me, and I also don't want to be in a place

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where I am very rigid, right? So for me, what I found is that

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when in my younger years, I would tend to always, quote,

Karen Kenney: 00:17:54

unquote, react in particular ways, I wasn't able to respond

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yet from a place of love, I was always almost reacting out of a

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place of fear. And I would become rigid in my responses,

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meaning, like anything new, like no, I was deeply patterned in

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the way that I re was reacting to the world. And I don't want

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to move through the world in a very reactive and rigid way,

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like so much of like, you know, when I when I think about my

Karen Kenney: 00:18:29

yoga practice and being a yoga teacher, you know, for I don't

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know, like, 25 years or whatever,

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I wanted more flexibility, But I didn't just want more

Karen Kenney: 00:18:41

flexibility in my body, in my muscles, in my fascia, right?

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Like I wanted more mental flexibility. I wanted more

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emotional flexibility. I didn't want to be a person who always

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just reacted to things in the same way, right? I wanted to be

Karen Kenney: 00:18:58

able to choose who and how I was going to be. I wanted to be able

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to have authorship and agency and autonomy right over the kind

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of person I was going to be, what was going to come out of my

Karen Kenney: 00:19:10

mouth, the choices I was going to make. Because a lot of times

Karen Kenney: 00:19:14

when we're in fight or flight, in that sympathetic, sympathetic

Karen Kenney: 00:19:18

state, when we're being reactive, we're not coming from

Karen Kenney: 00:19:21

our highest capital S self. We're coming from one of those

Karen Kenney: 00:19:25

parts of ourselves as trying to protect ourselves. And I always

Karen Kenney: 00:19:29

say, like, it's like, the front of my brain goes offline and all

Karen Kenney: 00:19:32

good decision making goes like, out the door, you know what I

Karen Kenney: 00:19:35

mean. And like, I'm like, I don't want to live that way I

Karen Kenney: 00:19:38

did those years, like I did that time. You know what I mean. So

Karen Kenney: 00:19:42

now, rather than just waiting for like, quote, unquote,

Karen Kenney: 00:19:45

perfect safety, I have trying to create an experience within my

Karen Kenney: 00:19:51

own psyche, my psychological and physical experience where I am

Karen Kenney: 00:19:57

safe enough that I can feel. More regulated, that I can feel

Karen Kenney: 00:20:02

more responsive like I can respond to the world. I can

Karen Kenney: 00:20:07

choose how I want to respond to what I'm seeing, hearing,

Karen Kenney: 00:20:11

feeling, thinking, imagining is a lot of times what we're

Karen Kenney: 00:20:16

reacting to is our fear of what we think is going to happen,

Karen Kenney: 00:20:19

what I think they're going to say what I think this person or

Karen Kenney: 00:20:23

this situation is going to do, right? So I want to be able to

Karen Kenney: 00:20:26

be more responsive. I want to be able to be more resourced. You

Karen Kenney: 00:20:33

know, when we're little kids, we don't have a lot of tools, so we

Karen Kenney: 00:20:36

just do our damn best to survive. And a lot of the things

Karen Kenney: 00:20:40

that we do, those survival strategies that we picked up as

Karen Kenney: 00:20:43

kids, walking on eggshells, fawning, making ourselves small,

Karen Kenney: 00:20:48

trying to be the good kid, trying to be the one that

Karen Kenney: 00:20:51

doesn't need anything, whatever. There's 1000 ways right that we

Karen Kenney: 00:20:55

can like react to our circumstances as children when

Karen Kenney: 00:20:58

we feel out of control, but I wanted to be able to feel more

Karen Kenney: 00:21:02

responsive, more resourced, like I had some tools. I had a bunch

Karen Kenney: 00:21:07

of different tools in what I call my spiritual toolkit that I

Karen Kenney: 00:21:10

could choose to pick up and use on any given day, depending on

Karen Kenney: 00:21:14

what I needed that day. I want to also just not feel, quote,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:18

unquote, regulated. I want to be able to be resilient. I want to

Karen Kenney: 00:21:23

have a resilient nervous system that can have big fluctuations,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:28

but also knows how to return to feelings of safety and calm. So

Karen Kenney: 00:21:36

I'm not always just looking to feel regulated. I'm like no,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:39

because the world doesn't work like that. You know, I know me

Karen Kenney: 00:21:44

personally. I can't speak for you, but me personally, I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:21:46

probably not going to walk around in this totally regulated

Karen Kenney: 00:21:49

ventral state all the time. You know what I mean? It's like, I

Karen Kenney: 00:21:52

am going to have spikes of energy where my hat starts to

Karen Kenney: 00:21:56

thump and, you know, I become aware that it's a little harder

Karen Kenney: 00:21:59

for me to swallow, and I'm like, a little more hypersensitive to

Karen Kenney: 00:22:03

my environment. And then it's like, okay, what do I need right

Karen Kenney: 00:22:05

now? And that's when I go looking for the tools. Because

Karen Kenney: 00:22:09

if I can experience physical and psychological safety, then I

Karen Kenney: 00:22:14

will feel more connected to myself, my true capital, s self,

Karen Kenney: 00:22:19

and just myself like like my body, me also. I'm not my body.

Karen Kenney: 00:22:24

But you know what I'm saying, I will feel more connected to

Karen Kenney: 00:22:27

others that I am in relationship to, and I will feel more

Karen Kenney: 00:22:31

connected to the world around me. And if I am never feeling

Karen Kenney: 00:22:35

safe, if I'm always running scared, if I'm always in a state

Karen Kenney: 00:22:38

of overwhelming anxiety, and I can never get regulated. That's

Karen Kenney: 00:22:43

that's not soothing. So not soothing. Don't want to live

Karen Kenney: 00:22:46

like that. But I'm not actually expecting the world to be a

Karen Kenney: 00:22:51

particular way so that then I can feel safe. And that's why,

Karen Kenney: 00:22:56

like, for a long time, I used to say things like, Oh, I'm trying

Karen Kenney: 00:22:59

to create a safe space for you, this is a safe space. And I

Karen Kenney: 00:23:02

realized, like, one day I'm like, I can't say that. Like,

Karen Kenney: 00:23:07

it's not for me to determine what feels safe for somebody

Karen Kenney: 00:23:10

else. All I can do is to do my best to create an environment

Karen Kenney: 00:23:16

and an experience of safety. But I don't know everybody's

Karen Kenney: 00:23:21

subconscious triggers. I don't know everybody's backstory and

Karen Kenney: 00:23:24

their history and what they've been through, so all I can do is

Karen Kenney: 00:23:27

do my best, and are there going to be times when I might blow it

Karen Kenney: 00:23:31

or screw up or whatever? Yeah, because a I'm human and again, I

Karen Kenney: 00:23:35

don't know everybody's, you know, biography. I don't know

Karen Kenney: 00:23:39

everybody's history and what they've been through, and what

Karen Kenney: 00:23:42

the things are that trigger them or upset them, a particular tone

Karen Kenney: 00:23:45

of voice, a smell, it could even be a color, like whatever it is,

Karen Kenney: 00:23:50

right? A tone of voice at certain energy level. You know,

Karen Kenney: 00:23:54

people can get quote, unquote, triggered by like, 1000 little

Karen Kenney: 00:23:58

things. So all I can do is try to do my best. Okay, so again,

Karen Kenney: 00:24:03

what I want to experience in my own body is safe enough. I want

Karen Kenney: 00:24:09

to be able to drop into parasympathetic when I find

Karen Kenney: 00:24:13

myself going into sympathetic, that fight and flight and freeze

Karen Kenney: 00:24:17

and fawn because it's guaranteed that it's going to happen. This

Karen Kenney: 00:24:20

is not a safe world. I don't even like saying that out loud,

Karen Kenney: 00:24:25

but it's the truth. It's not a safe world. It's not a safe

Karen Kenney: 00:24:28

world for the animals. It's not a safe world for a lot of

Karen Kenney: 00:24:33

different people. And if you are lucky enough to move through the

Karen Kenney: 00:24:38

world where you never feel scared or threatened, or like

Karen Kenney: 00:24:42

you have no power or you have no voice or you have no authority,

Karen Kenney: 00:24:46

then I hate to say it, but you're probably some old white

Karen Kenney: 00:24:48

guy not to pick on the old white guys, just saying, You know what

Karen Kenney: 00:24:54

I mean. But the rest of us, we sometimes tend to feel like we

Karen Kenney: 00:24:58

gotta have eyes in the. Back of our head. You know what I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:25:01

saying. So here's the thing that I have found to be a little bit

Karen Kenney: 00:25:06

helpful. Okay, here are some things. They're not all tools.

Karen Kenney: 00:25:10

But number one, I gotta know my own triggers. I have to be aware

Karen Kenney: 00:25:15

of the kinds of places, the kinds of people, the kinds of

Karen Kenney: 00:25:19

environments where maybe I'm going to get a little antsy, I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:25:22

going to get a little suspicious, I'm going to get a

Karen Kenney: 00:25:25

little on edge, I'm going to get a little like I need to know

Karen Kenney: 00:25:28

thyself. And this is so much of the work that I do with people.

Karen Kenney: 00:25:33

We got to know why we do what we do, think, what we think,

Karen Kenney: 00:25:36

believe, what we believe, say what we say, do what we do. As I

Karen Kenney: 00:25:39

said, we have to know ourselves. We have to be curious enough as

Karen Kenney: 00:25:44

about our own patterns, our own habits, our own stories, our own

Karen Kenney: 00:25:47

beliefs, our own identity, how we're showing up in the world,

Karen Kenney: 00:25:51

why we're showing up that way, and if we don't like the

Karen Kenney: 00:25:54

experience, what maybe can we do to tweak it, to adjust it, to

Karen Kenney: 00:26:00

transform it, to change it, to develop it, to have personal

Karen Kenney: 00:26:04

growth, self development, right? This is the work that I do with

Karen Kenney: 00:26:08

people. So we gotta know our triggers, and it's not like, oh,

Karen Kenney: 00:26:12

avoid them. My hope is that I can experience them and know how

Karen Kenney: 00:26:17

to come back to safety more quickly, that I can get a little

Karen Kenney: 00:26:21

dysregulated by something, and then go, oh. I know how to be

Karen Kenney: 00:26:24

responsive. I know how to do that breath, where I breathe in

Karen Kenney: 00:26:28

through my nose fully and deeply and then exhale out through my

Karen Kenney: 00:26:33

mouth twice as long with a little bit of sound. I wear a

Karen Kenney: 00:26:38

watch. I don't have it on right now. I took it off to take a

Karen Kenney: 00:26:40

shower, but if I have on my Apple watch, I can just hit that

Karen Kenney: 00:26:43

little hat icon and it will show me what my heart rate is. The

Karen Kenney: 00:26:47

other day, my heart rate was up around like 74 Okay, I just sat

Karen Kenney: 00:26:52

and did the breath that I just described to you, inhale through

Karen Kenney: 00:26:55

your nose, fully and deeply, exhale out twice as long,

Karen Kenney: 00:27:00

through the mouth with a little bit of sound. This helps to down

Karen Kenney: 00:27:04

regulate the nervous system, move us from sympathetic to

Karen Kenney: 00:27:07

parasympathetic into the relaxation response. And I

Karen Kenney: 00:27:10

literally watched my heart rate drop down within a minute, like

Karen Kenney: 00:27:15

six beats per minute. It went down from like 76 or whatever it

Karen Kenney: 00:27:19

was, to 70 and then I got it down to like 64 just from

Karen Kenney: 00:27:25

breathing. That's one simple tool that pretty much everybody

Karen Kenney: 00:27:30

can do. Okay, so I want to know my triggers, the other ways, the

Karen Kenney: 00:27:34

other incredible. And I wouldn't even call it a tool so much as I

Karen Kenney: 00:27:38

don't even know what to call it, but let's call it a tool. Is

Karen Kenney: 00:27:42

building relationships with people that you feel like you

Karen Kenney: 00:27:46

can be yourself with people that see you, I would say your

Karen Kenney: 00:27:50

balcony people, right? The people who love you. And this

Karen Kenney: 00:27:53

might be one other person, if you're lucky, it's two or three

Karen Kenney: 00:27:56

or four, where you have your people for some of you, that

Karen Kenney: 00:28:00

might be your family. For some of you, your family is the place

Karen Kenney: 00:28:03

where you do not feel safe at all. Right? For some of you,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:07

it'll be your sweetie or your partner or your best friend. For

Karen Kenney: 00:28:11

some of you, maybe it's a sibling, I don't know, but for

Karen Kenney: 00:28:14

whoever it is, it's like building relationships with

Karen Kenney: 00:28:17

beautiful people who see you, who try to understand you, who

Karen Kenney: 00:28:22

get you, who celebrate you, who support you, who say, come here,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:26

right? Let me give you a hug. I'm listening. You don't have to

Karen Kenney: 00:28:29

do this on your own. Sometimes we have to hire those people,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:33

coaches and mentors and whatever. And there's no shame

Karen Kenney: 00:28:37

in that. And there's nothing wrong with that, because

Karen Kenney: 00:28:39

sometimes the environments that we find ourselves in, they are

Karen Kenney: 00:28:42

not supportive. They are not supportive. And you need to have

Karen Kenney: 00:28:47

somebody who can be in your corner, like Rocky to like, I

Karen Kenney: 00:28:51

always say in the Rocky movie, Mick, mix in his corner like,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:54

you know what I mean? He's like, cheering him on. He's pointing

Karen Kenney: 00:28:56

out some ways to help him grow and develop and become better,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:59

right? The other thing is so one, knowing your triggers,

Karen Kenney: 00:29:04

knowing what might upset you, and then gathering some tools to

Karen Kenney: 00:29:08

be able to when you do get triggered or dysregulated, to

Karen Kenney: 00:29:11

bring you back to psychological and physical safety, to

Karen Kenney: 00:29:15

relationships and people. And then another thing is that body

Karen Kenney: 00:29:18

awareness, right? Body awareness techniques are incredibly

Karen Kenney: 00:29:22

helpful, whether that's somatics, whether that's yoga,

Karen Kenney: 00:29:26

whether that's breath work, pranayama, breathing, whether

Karen Kenney: 00:29:29

that's EFT, tapping, Emotional Freedom Technique, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:29:33

Whether that's bilateral stimulation, whether that's

Karen Kenney: 00:29:37

like, you know, peripheral vision and going out, whether

Karen Kenney: 00:29:41

it's hypnosis. I mean, there's a shit ton of tools out there to

Karen Kenney: 00:29:46

help us learn, but I want to say this to me, and again, I might

Karen Kenney: 00:29:52

be wrong. I don't want to just blame like my I don't want to

Karen Kenney: 00:29:58

ever have to blame my behavior. Behavior on my trauma and say,

Karen Kenney: 00:30:02

Well, I'm just reactive, because it might be true, but I want to

Karen Kenney: 00:30:07

be able to be aware enough that I am noticing that I'm being

Karen Kenney: 00:30:12

reactive, and then I can choose to respond instead. I don't want

Karen Kenney: 00:30:17

to be stuck in rigidity, in my patterns, and my habits and my

Karen Kenney: 00:30:21

ways of being that are causing my own suffering or inflicting

Karen Kenney: 00:30:26

myself on other people. I can't tell you how many times I heard

Karen Kenney: 00:30:31

growing up, that's just the way he is, that's just the way she

Karen Kenney: 00:30:35

is, that's just the way that they are, like everybody else

Karen Kenney: 00:30:38

had to fucking suffer because this person had no emotional

Karen Kenney: 00:30:42

intelligence. This person never bothered to take a look in the

Karen Kenney: 00:30:45

soul mirror. This person never bothered to pick up a book and

Karen Kenney: 00:30:48

read it. The person never went to therapy. They never got a

Karen Kenney: 00:30:51

coach. They never fucking took two seconds to look at

Karen Kenney: 00:30:53

themselves and realize that their way of being was bullying

Karen Kenney: 00:30:58

and traumatizing and awful for other people to have to be

Karen Kenney: 00:31:01

around double A men hands, if you know what I'm talking about,

Karen Kenney: 00:31:05

right? So part of how I also try to experience safety is creating

Karen Kenney: 00:31:12

more safety in the world for animals and for other humans to

Karen Kenney: 00:31:17

to find their way home. To Do you know what I mean, we can try

Karen Kenney: 00:31:22

to be a safe place for other people to show up in curiosity

Karen Kenney: 00:31:26

instead of judgment, to listen, maybe more than we talk, which I

Karen Kenney: 00:31:30

know it's funny right now. Me saying that because I'm talking,

Karen Kenney: 00:31:32

talking, talking, but it's a podcast, right? But to be able

Karen Kenney: 00:31:36

to quote, unquote, hold space for people when they're going

Karen Kenney: 00:31:40

through a thing and to just be there, you might not always need

Karen Kenney: 00:31:43

to know the quote, unquote right thing to say that, can I hold

Karen Kenney: 00:31:47

the space? Can I be there? Can I be a container for somebody

Karen Kenney: 00:31:51

else? So I hope that this is landing for you in some way,

Karen Kenney: 00:31:56

that this resonates for you in some way, that this concept of

Karen Kenney: 00:32:00

being safe enough that we're not waiting to feel perfect safety

Karen Kenney: 00:32:05

before we go after our dream, before we say yes to being on

Karen Kenney: 00:32:10

the podcast, before we say yes to starting to write the book or

Karen Kenney: 00:32:14

join the club or start the project or start a business, or

Karen Kenney: 00:32:19

say yes and go on the date. You know, I had a friend the other

Karen Kenney: 00:32:22

day write to me out of the blue, and they just said, I'm going on

Karen Kenney: 00:32:26

a first date. They're like, Karen, Karen, I'm going on a

Karen Kenney: 00:32:30

first date, Karen. I don't like first dates, right? I just

Karen Kenney: 00:32:34

started laughing, and I wrote back, and I was just, you know,

Karen Kenney: 00:32:37

trying to be a safe space for them and say some things and

Karen Kenney: 00:32:40

make them laugh and loosen up and try to enjoy the experience,

Karen Kenney: 00:32:44

because you never know that date could lead to falling in love.

Karen Kenney: 00:32:47

And how exciting is that, right? But the ego mind gets involved,

Karen Kenney: 00:32:51

and it goes into like a time travels into the future and it

Karen Kenney: 00:32:54

starts to worry and get nervous, or it time travels into the past

Karen Kenney: 00:32:58

and it goes into shame and blame and guilt and weirdness, and I

Karen Kenney: 00:33:01

blew it that last time, and it's not going to work out. And I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:33:04

like, dude, like, let's be in the present moment. Like, let's

Karen Kenney: 00:33:07

just experience this. You know, this is kind of exciting. Tell

Karen Kenney: 00:33:11

me more. You know, it was pretty cool. So we're not always going

Karen Kenney: 00:33:16

to experience perfect safety, but if we can use some tools, if

Karen Kenney: 00:33:21

we can find our people, if we can become aware of our own

Karen Kenney: 00:33:24

triggers, our own anxieties, our own fears, and use right use

Karen Kenney: 00:33:30

these things. And if you're like, I don't know how to do

Karen Kenney: 00:33:32

this. KK, please, for the love of of all things holy, join the

Karen Kenney: 00:33:36

nest. It's 50 bucks a month. I can probably help right. Sign up

Karen Kenney: 00:33:41

if you hate it. You leave after one month, right. Find out more

Karen Kenney: 00:33:45

about working with me one to one in the quest. You know, I love

Karen Kenney: 00:33:49

helping people navigate this whole being human experience

Karen Kenney: 00:33:53

using, you know, spiritual principles, spiritual practices

Karen Kenney: 00:33:57

and subconscious reprogramming and hypnosis and neuroscience

Karen Kenney: 00:34:01

and practical tools to interrupt our patterns when we're getting

Karen Kenney: 00:34:05

reactive, you know, oh, my God. So the goal for me now, and

Karen Kenney: 00:34:10

maybe it is for you too, is to feel safe enough so that we can

Karen Kenney: 00:34:14

do what we came here to do, so we can be who we are meant to

Karen Kenney: 00:34:18

be, who the divine and you know, just you, maybe you don't

Karen Kenney: 00:34:22

believe in anything greater, right? Maybe you're just like, I

Karen Kenney: 00:34:25

just want to be my best self. Perfect, great. Run with it. But

Karen Kenney: 00:34:29

it's hard to be our best self when we are getting hijacked all

Karen Kenney: 00:34:33

the time by fear, right? We want to learn how to operate from a

Karen Kenney: 00:34:38

place of love. And here's just the facts. Sometimes, right, we

Karen Kenney: 00:34:43

are not going to feel safe, and sometimes we have to do it a

Karen Kenney: 00:34:46

little bit scared. I do, if you knew how many things I did

Karen Kenney: 00:34:51

scared, right? I think a lot of people perceive me as like, you

Karen Kenney: 00:34:55

know, I am tough, okay, right? Like, and I don't mean like, Oh,

Karen Kenney: 00:34:58

I'm tough. Like, I'm gonna beat you up. I am wicked resilient. I

Karen Kenney: 00:35:01

am pretty tough. I am strong and right. And I have a lot of

Karen Kenney: 00:35:07

patterns and habits in my nervous system of being scared,

Karen Kenney: 00:35:10

and those things rear up. They they present themselves, but now

Karen Kenney: 00:35:14

I have enough tools to be able to help myself to come back to a

Karen Kenney: 00:35:20

state where maybe I'm not feeling 100% safety, but I feel

Karen Kenney: 00:35:25

safe enough to take the leap of faith to know that my spiritual

Karen Kenney: 00:35:28

team comes with me. My ancestors come with me, my mom comes with

Karen Kenney: 00:35:32

me. God, Holy Spirit, my inner teacher, because so much of

Karen Kenney: 00:35:37

safety for me is learning how to trust myself. I can't always

Karen Kenney: 00:35:43

trust other people. I can't always trust the rest of the

Karen Kenney: 00:35:46

world, but I can trust myself. I can trust the inner voice, the

Karen Kenney: 00:35:50

inner teacher. I can trust God and source in the Divine, or

Karen Kenney: 00:35:53

whatever you happen to call it, the universe. I can trust a

Karen Kenney: 00:35:57

handful of people around me who I know have my back, who love

Karen Kenney: 00:36:01

me, who cheerlead me, who champion me, and who want the

Karen Kenney: 00:36:04

best for me. And if you can gather these people, these

Karen Kenney: 00:36:08

things, these tools, keep listening to the podcast, maybe

Karen Kenney: 00:36:11

join the NASA. However, it is, read some good books, look up

Karen Kenney: 00:36:15

some of the tools that I mentioned, right? And you too,

Karen Kenney: 00:36:19

because this is the goal for me, is to feel safe enough.

Karen Kenney: 00:36:26

And I've I've made my peace with that. I've made my peace that,

Karen Kenney: 00:36:30

like this is the body and the nervous system that I have, and

Karen Kenney: 00:36:34

as long as I'm alive, right, I will be trying to help myself

Karen Kenney: 00:36:37

and reparent myself and be kind to myself and compassionate. And

Karen Kenney: 00:36:42

there's going to be times when we just have to feel safe enough

Karen Kenney: 00:36:46

and maybe do it a little bit scared. But you don't have to do

Karen Kenney: 00:36:50

it alone. I'm here hopefully you have some people around you who

Karen Kenney: 00:36:55

also love you and support you. Okay, I gotta go. I gotta go

Karen Kenney: 00:36:59

teach a yoga class. But I hope this has been helpful in some

Karen Kenney: 00:37:01

way and valuable. And if you listen to this and you thought,

Karen Kenney: 00:37:04

Oh, my God, this is great, or whatever, this was valuable.

Karen Kenney: 00:37:07

This was helpful. Please share it with somebody. Send it to a

Karen Kenney: 00:37:11

cousin, a girlfriend, a best friend and a sister, whoever

Karen Kenney: 00:37:14

your auntie. Send it to somebody you love. Okay, wherever you go,

Karen Kenney: 00:37:19

may you leave the animals in the other humans and yourself in the

Karen Kenney: 00:37:24

environment and the planet better than how you first found

Karen Kenney: 00:37:28

it wherever you go, may you and your energy and your presence

Karen Kenney: 00:37:33

and your love and your safe enoughness be a blessing. Bye,

Karen Kenney: 00:37:38

you.