THE MISSING PIECES

Unknown: 00:00:01

Hey, you guys. Welcome to the Karen Kenney Show. I'm

Unknown: 00:00:05

really happy to be here with you today, and just please forgive

Unknown: 00:00:09

me, my brain's a little discombobulated, and I'm going

Unknown: 00:00:12

to do my best to try to make this helpful to you and also

Unknown: 00:00:18

helpful to myself, because one of the things I know for sure is

Unknown: 00:00:22

that everything that I say on this show is also for my ears,

Unknown: 00:00:26

my mind, my heart, my well-being, as well. You know,

Unknown: 00:00:30

at the end of the show, I always say, you know, may we leave the

Unknown: 00:00:36

people, the animals, ourselves, whatever, better than how you

Unknown: 00:00:39

found it. That's me too. I'm always hoping baby Jesus in a

Unknown: 00:00:46

walnut shall help me. I'm always trying to leave myself better

Unknown: 00:00:50

than how I first found me as well. So I'm going to try to

Unknown: 00:00:55

connect a couple of different thoughts that occurred to me

Unknown: 00:00:57

over the last last, I don't know, 24 hours. I'm going to

Unknown: 00:01:02

start, of course, with a little bit of a story, and then

Unknown: 00:01:04

hopefully some of the stuff that I share will be, will be helpful

Unknown: 00:01:08

to you as well in some way. So, there was, so we had a death, we

Unknown: 00:01:14

had a death in the family, and it wasn't a person that I had

Unknown: 00:01:21

the opportunity to know or to meet, and yet I find myself just

Unknown: 00:01:28

really deeply sad. So I've been thinking about this, and a

Unknown: 00:01:33

couple of the things that have occurred to me, and I want to

Unknown: 00:01:37

share these thoughts with you, because I think that they're

Unknown: 00:01:40

relatable. I think that other people are going to be like,

Unknown: 00:01:44

yeah, me too. But this is something, the thing that I'm

Unknown: 00:01:49

going to talk about today. I, me personally, maybe it happens in

Unknown: 00:01:52

other communities, or whatever, in other groups of people, but

Unknown: 00:01:56

for me, this isn't something that gets talked about a lot. I

Unknown: 00:02:01

think, in a big way, or publicly. So, I'm going to start

Unknown: 00:02:05

with this, this idea, and like a little story, and then I'll get

Unknown: 00:02:09

into what, what the hell I'm talking about. So, I think I'm

Unknown: 00:02:11

going to call this episode The Missing Pieces, and as soon as I

Unknown: 00:02:16

thought that word, The Missing Pieces, right, it made me think

Unknown: 00:02:20

of Shel Silverstein's book, so Shel Silverstein is a children's

Unknown: 00:02:24

writer, but also his books have, I feel like, adults as well, you

Unknown: 00:02:29

know what I mean. And he had this book that I've thought

Unknown: 00:02:32

about for a really long time, you might know him for, like,

Unknown: 00:02:34

Where the Sidewalk Ends or The Giving Tree, or whatever, but

Unknown: 00:02:38

this, this, there's two books, I think, I think it's two books in

Unknown: 00:02:41

this series, and the first one is called The Missing Piece, and

Unknown: 00:02:45

The Missing Piece is kind of like this philosophical fable

Unknown: 00:02:48

about this little - I call him this little guy, but he looks

Unknown: 00:02:52

like a little Pac Man. I think of him as like a little rock or

Unknown: 00:02:55

a stone, and he's like, think of him as a circle who's missing a

Unknown: 00:02:59

wedge, he's missing a piece of himself, like a piece of pie has

Unknown: 00:03:02

been cut out, right, like that kind of a shape, and it feels

Unknown: 00:03:07

this lack, it feels this missing piece, and so it sets off on

Unknown: 00:03:10

this journey to kind of find its perfect fitting missing piece,

Unknown: 00:03:15

and of course, as it rolls around, it tries to, like, you

Unknown: 00:03:17

know, pick up missing pieces, and some of the pieces are too

Unknown: 00:03:20

big, some of the pieces you know are too small, some of the

Unknown: 00:03:25

pieces go in backwards. There'll be a piece that gets picked up,

Unknown: 00:03:30

and then whatever, right? And so it thinks it's finding, you

Unknown: 00:03:34

know, this perfect missing piece, but once it gets that

Unknown: 00:03:37

perfect missing piece, it starts to roll too fast, and then it

Unknown: 00:03:40

can't sing and do all the things it like to do anymore. It's a

Unknown: 00:03:42

really interesting book about the journey, the like being on

Unknown: 00:03:48

the journey rather than trying to have this perfect outcome.

Unknown: 00:03:52

And then there's, I think, there's a second piece it calls

Unknown: 00:03:55

like the missing piece meets the big O, or something like that.

Unknown: 00:03:58

But really, why I'm telling you this is this: there's this

Unknown: 00:04:00

premise of like we're rolling around in the world, right?

Unknown: 00:04:04

We're just going about our business, we're like trying to,

Unknown: 00:04:06

trying to do this whole being human thing, this big ass

Unknown: 00:04:10

experiment in life school that we're in, and a lot of us are

Unknown: 00:04:14

walking around with like these big missing pieces, and it got

Unknown: 00:04:18

me to thinking about this idea of trauma, and how, like, you

Unknown: 00:04:23

know, these days, like, trauma is everywhere. People are

Unknown: 00:04:26

talking about it, people are using the word wrong. Oh, it's

Unknown: 00:04:28

traumatized because my, my, they made my coffee wrong. No, no,

Unknown: 00:04:32

you weren't traumatized by that. Sorry, but it's just a word that

Unknown: 00:04:36

kind of gets used a lot, and it's thrown along, or thrown

Unknown: 00:04:38

around a lot. But one of the things that we often talk about

Unknown: 00:04:42

in trauma is what happened, these things that happened, but

Unknown: 00:04:48

what gets like the conversation that I think that is often

Unknown: 00:04:53

missing more often than not is talking about those missing

Unknown: 00:04:57

pieces, so let me explain, so. I remember when I had Linda Ty.

Unknown: 00:05:01

Linda Ty is a brilliant teacher and speaker and storyteller, and

Unknown: 00:05:07

she's a trauma therapist. She's about to start writing a book.

Unknown: 00:05:12

She flies all over the world, educating people, people, and

Unknown: 00:05:16

doing psychodrama experiences. Like, she does so much. She's

Unknown: 00:05:19

incredible. And I've been lucky enough to have her on my show

Unknown: 00:05:21

twice, and I'll never forget the first time I had her on my show.

Unknown: 00:05:26

And you can just, if you want to listen to, I highly recommend

Unknown: 00:05:29

going back and listening to those episodes. I think the

Unknown: 00:05:32

first one was Our Bodies Hold Our Stories, or something like

Unknown: 00:05:35

that, but you can just find a Karen Kenney Show, Google Linda

Unknown: 00:05:39

Ty, T H A I, and I'll never forget talking to her, and all

Unknown: 00:05:44

of a sudden she said something that I had never ever heard

Unknown: 00:05:46

before, and she said, you know, trauma isn't just what happened,

Unknown: 00:05:52

it's not just all like the bad things that happened. So her

Unknown: 00:05:55

quote was, trauma isn't just what happened, it's also what

Unknown: 00:05:59

didn't happen that should have happened. I remember when I

Unknown: 00:06:05

heard that, I was like, whoa, whoa, like, stop. Can you please

Unknown: 00:06:10

repeat what you just said, not only for my listeners, but like

Unknown: 00:06:13

I needed to hear it again too. She said, trauma isn't just what

Unknown: 00:06:17

happened, like it's what didn't happen that should have

Unknown: 00:06:21

happened, and I was like, oh my god, and it would just like hit

Unknown: 00:06:26

me like a ton of bricks. It was like, trauma isn't just the bad

Unknown: 00:06:29

things that happen to us, it's also like the emotional support,

Unknown: 00:06:34

the protection, the validation, the unshaming witnessing, the

Unknown: 00:06:41

unconditional love, the, you know, all of it that should have

Unknown: 00:06:46

happened but didn't happen. So, I think of it like this. So,

Unknown: 00:06:50

trauma doesn't only result from these bad, tragic, awful,

Unknown: 00:06:55

abusive, whatever things that happen. Sometimes it's also a

Unknown: 00:06:59

result of the good things that didn't happen, and so often we

Unknown: 00:07:06

talk about, we fixate on the events, right? Whether it was, I

Unknown: 00:07:10

mean, there's a million ways we can get traumatized, right? It's

Unknown: 00:07:14

like, whether it's a war, or you had to flee your country, or

Unknown: 00:07:19

somebody got killed, or a parent died or there was a murder or a

Unknown: 00:07:24

rape or a physical, emotional, mental, sexual abuse. I mean,

Unknown: 00:07:28

this, there's so many bad things that can happen, and we talk a

Unknown: 00:07:35

lot about those things, and we talk about the interventions to

Unknown: 00:07:38

those things, we talk about the therapy for those things, the

Unknown: 00:07:41

healing for those things. How you can go about like finding

Unknown: 00:07:45

support groups or seeing a counselor or finding whatever

Unknown: 00:07:49

you know, but so much less attention is paid to the very

Unknown: 00:07:57

real and the deeply. what's the word I'm looking for?

Unknown: 00:08:04

Significant, I guess, effects of what was missing, like, yeah,

Unknown: 00:08:10

this event happened, this thing happened, we can talk about

Unknown: 00:08:13

those things, but it's like the things that were missing.

Unknown: 00:08:16

Sometimes it's called, like, some.. sometimes we'll say,

Unknown: 00:08:19

like, well, there was childhood neglect. I remember somebody

Unknown: 00:08:22

talking to me about that, saying that I was.. they described me

Unknown: 00:08:26

as, as being, being neglected, and I kept, like, looking at

Unknown: 00:08:30

them, like I always use this example, you know, when a dog,

Unknown: 00:08:33

he has like a funny sound and they tilt their head, right? I

Unknown: 00:08:36

was like, wait, what, like neglected, because my ideas of

Unknown: 00:08:41

neglect, right?

Unknown: 00:08:42

I was like, well, I had like a roof over my head, like I was

Unknown: 00:08:46

fed, there were like clothes on my back, you know, like holy

Unknown: 00:08:50

shit. So a lot of times neglect can be like difficult to see,

Unknown: 00:08:56

and if you were a kid who like kind of grew up like feeling

Unknown: 00:08:59

invisible or your needs weren't met, or you weren't allowed to

Unknown: 00:09:04

have needs, or your distress, or your fear, or your whatever was

Unknown: 00:09:10

not met with compassion, or kindness, or a listening ear, or

Unknown: 00:09:13

somebody to console you, or comfort you, or see you, or

Unknown: 00:09:17

support you, or love you, right, like, like that was a really big

Unknown: 00:09:20

deal, and again, when we think about trauma, we're looking for,

Unknown: 00:09:26

we're looking for the presence of these like really harmful

Unknown: 00:09:29

experiences, but it's also somebody once said it like this,

Unknown: 00:09:36

I wrote this down, it says neglect requires us to notice

Unknown: 00:09:41

the absence of the necessary ones, it's like we have to

Unknown: 00:09:46

notice the absence of the necessary experiences that we

Unknown: 00:09:51

also needed, you know, so they sometimes call this the trauma

Unknown: 00:09:57

of a mission, the trauma of omit. And it's they call it

Unknown: 00:10:01

there's a deficit, there's a deficit that can happen in our

Unknown: 00:10:04

childhood that really, really shapes us, and it shapes not

Unknown: 00:10:08

only us, it shapes our behaviors, the way we think

Unknown: 00:10:11

about ourselves in the world, it shapes our nervous system, you

Unknown: 00:10:14

know, so well, you know, they say active abuse, or like, you

Unknown: 00:10:19

know, those big traumatic abuses, and all the different

Unknown: 00:10:22

ways, of course, it can cause direct harm, but the absence of

Unknown: 00:10:28

those necessary experiences, like examples, could be like

Unknown: 00:10:33

being soothed when you were scared, or worried, or upset, or

Unknown: 00:10:38

like again, you were taught that your feelings didn't matter.

Unknown: 00:10:43

There was no unconditional love, like all those things, right?

Unknown: 00:10:47

These things also create these invisible wounds. So, the things

Unknown: 00:10:52

that didn't happen that should have happened also leave a mock.

Unknown: 00:10:56

They also have an impact. It's these missing pieces where maybe

Unknown: 00:11:01

we again we didn't get the emotional support, the physical

Unknown: 00:11:04

support, the nourishment that we needed, the nurturing that we

Unknown: 00:11:09

needed, you know, and this can really, this can have an impact,

Unknown: 00:11:14

and the reason why I'm talking about this, as we go back to the

Unknown: 00:11:17

beginning of what I said, is that, you know, there are just,

Unknown: 00:11:21

we, I did, we just had this loss, and I was like thinking

Unknown: 00:11:25

about, like, well, I didn't know this person, I didn't have a

Unknown: 00:11:28

chance to meet them, like, and I was so sad, and I was like

Unknown: 00:11:32

crying, and.. and it occurred to me, it occurred to me that what

Unknown: 00:11:40

I'm about to say next is tied to this idea of the missing pieces,

Unknown: 00:11:45

you know, the things that didn't happen that should have

Unknown: 00:11:47

happened, and now I realize the grief that I'm feeling is for

Unknown: 00:11:54

the things that now won't happen, because that person is

Unknown: 00:11:58

no longer in the world, and it's like, you know, there have been

Unknown: 00:12:03

so many times, maybe you can relate to this, but there have

Unknown: 00:12:06

been so many times, you know, where I've been out driving, or

Unknown: 00:12:10

in the car with my sweetie, or whatever it is, and let's say

Unknown: 00:12:14

it's the holidays, it's around the holidays, like Thanksgiving,

Unknown: 00:12:17

Christmas, right, so it gets dark a little bit earlier, so,

Unknown: 00:12:20

of course, you know, I prefer, I prefer a high sun, high light,

Unknown: 00:12:24

high summer, right? Like, that's my time of year, but when those

Unknown: 00:12:28

warmer, I mean, when the colder months, the darker months start

Unknown: 00:12:31

to show up, you know, some of the nice things that help me to

Unknown: 00:12:35

get through it, you know, and I don't, I actually don't have

Unknown: 00:12:37

seasonal depressive disorder, those seasonal affective

Unknown: 00:12:41

disorder SADS, I don't have it, but I crave, I crave the light,

Unknown: 00:12:46

right?

Unknown: 00:12:47

I know this, but the reason why I'm saying this is a lot of

Unknown: 00:12:49

times you drive around in neighborhoods at night and

Unknown: 00:12:51

you'll see the lights on right around the holiday, you see that

Unknown: 00:12:54

warm glow coming from the inside and you see all the holiday

Unknown: 00:12:59

lights up and you see, like, 1000 cars, like, packed in the

Unknown: 00:13:03

driveway or along the road, because everybody's getting

Unknown: 00:13:06

together, and everybody's, you know, enjoying the holidays

Unknown: 00:13:09

together, and there is a part of me that sees that, and what I

Unknown: 00:13:16

feel like, I, for so long, I was like, why do I get teary-eyed

Unknown: 00:13:19

whenever I see that, and yes, there's a part of me that is

Unknown: 00:13:23

like, I love that. I love knowing that families are

Unknown: 00:13:26

getting together. I love that it looks so warm and cozy, it's

Unknown: 00:13:29

nostalgic, it's beautiful, whatever. But I also realize

Unknown: 00:13:33

there's a part of me in there that has like this longing,

Unknown: 00:13:37

there's like this desire for that kind of like connection

Unknown: 00:13:41

with family, or you know, just that scene, and who's to say it

Unknown: 00:13:45

could be a shit show inside that house, right? Everybody could be

Unknown: 00:13:49

drunk and fighting, who knows, right? Always it's the outside

Unknown: 00:13:52

looking in, but we have this idea in our mind of what it

Unknown: 00:13:55

could be like, and I was thinking about this, so we

Unknown: 00:13:59

sometimes think of this sadness, or this longing, or this grief

Unknown: 00:14:05

that we're feeling a lot of times. It's like for the things

Unknown: 00:14:09

that we wanted that never happened for us. You can think

Unknown: 00:14:14

of it like people call it different things, but you can

Unknown: 00:14:16

call it like the never life. You know, the never life is the life

Unknown: 00:14:20

that didn't happen, or the things that didn't happen, those

Unknown: 00:14:23

missing pieces that didn't happen, and I think Cheryl

Unknown: 00:14:28

Strayed, the writer Cheryl Strayed, she calls it the quote

Unknown: 00:14:32

unquote the sister life, right? So think of it like the path you

Unknown: 00:14:36

never went down, the life you dreamed of having that didn't

Unknown: 00:14:40

happen, for whatever reason, it just didn't happen, right? It

Unknown: 00:14:43

never came to be. Your ideas, your dreams, your thoughts of

Unknown: 00:14:46

how it should be, or you wanted it to be, or whatever. It didn't

Unknown: 00:14:49

happen. It's the thing that we, we hoped for, or the thing that

Unknown: 00:14:53

we thought about, or the thing that we dreamed about, or maybe

Unknown: 00:14:56

for some people it's even like what they expected to happen.

Unknown: 00:15:00

But wouldn't happen, didn't happen, couldn't happen, and now

Unknown: 00:15:03

won't happen, and the, the never life is a deep grief, you know,

Unknown: 00:15:09

it's like, and it could be about anything, it could be about your

Unknown: 00:15:12

career, like, oh, I always thought I was going to be right,

Unknown: 00:15:15

I've seen this happen to people who thought that they were going

Unknown: 00:15:18

to be like professional athletes, people who thought

Unknown: 00:15:23

that they would be in a different place by now, whether

Unknown: 00:15:26

it's in corporate or in their career, or somebody who's an

Unknown: 00:15:31

artist of some kind, a musician, a singer, whatever, a writer,

Unknown: 00:15:35

right. It's the things that didn't get explored, the things

Unknown: 00:15:40

that I would say didn't get their time in the sun, the

Unknown: 00:15:42

things that didn't come to fruition. Maybe it's the

Unknown: 00:15:46

relationship ended, there was a divorce, or you never had kids,

Unknown: 00:15:50

weren't able to have kids, or I mean, the reality of it is, is

Unknown: 00:15:53

that it can show up in so many different forms, and it's

Unknown: 00:15:57

really, it's really individual, right? Like any grief that I

Unknown: 00:16:03

might be feeling about those missing pieces, or about the

Unknown: 00:16:07

never life, the life that didn't happen, or the sister life.

Unknown: 00:16:11

Cheryl Strayed says that a sister life is like the life you

Unknown: 00:16:14

didn't live, but could have lived if you had made different,

Unknown: 00:16:17

different choices, or there had been different circumstances.

Unknown: 00:16:20

It's, it's, she says, quote, well, I'm quoting, but I don't

Unknown: 00:16:23

know if it's her exact quote, but it says it's the version of

Unknown: 00:16:26

you that exists in theory, but not in reality, and I think a

Unknown: 00:16:30

lot of us, as adults, you know, we sometimes get confused about,

Unknown: 00:16:34

like, why am I feeling this way, why did that picture, that song,

Unknown: 00:16:37

that sound, that scene, right? Like, sometimes you'll, I mean,

Unknown: 00:16:41

mine can be very obvious, right?

Unknown: 00:16:43

My mother, you know, being killed when I was 12, like, I'll

Unknown: 00:16:47

sometimes see a commercial or whatever, and there's a mother

Unknown: 00:16:51

and daughter doing things together, and I just start

Unknown: 00:16:53

crying, and I'm like, oh my god, because you're thinking about,

Unknown: 00:16:57

like, for me it's the things that won't happen, and when I

Unknown: 00:17:01

think about this person who just died, it's like now the things

Unknown: 00:17:04

that won't happen, I'll never get to meet them, they'll never

Unknown: 00:17:06

get to be a moment of fill in the blank connection, knowing

Unknown: 00:17:11

that person, reconciliation for what was possible, for the

Unknown: 00:17:14

things that never happened that didn't happen, and now can't

Unknown: 00:17:17

happen, you know, and so, like, I was saying, we'll see, we'll

Unknown: 00:17:23

see these, we'll hear a snippet of a song or a smell or

Unknown: 00:17:26

whatever, and we have these feelings that well up inside of

Unknown: 00:17:29

us, and it's like, yeah, like 5057 year old me can totally

Unknown: 00:17:34

rationalize it and be like, well, you don't need those

Unknown: 00:17:39

things, you have a life you love, right? You have your

Unknown: 00:17:42

sweetie, you have all your furry kids, you do work that you love,

Unknown: 00:17:46

you have friends that you love, etc. etc. right. And, and yet,

Unknown: 00:17:51

there's a part of you that there's a kind of grief and pain

Unknown: 00:17:55

that the quote unquote never life like brings up, because

Unknown: 00:17:58

you're really aware of what's now missing, you know, I think

Unknown: 00:18:03

about it. It's like my mother didn't get to see me, you know,

Unknown: 00:18:06

graduate from like junior high and high school. She didn't get

Unknown: 00:18:10

to see me go to college and graduate from college, didn't

Unknown: 00:18:14

get to see me start my own business or get married, or like

Unknown: 00:18:18

all the, you know, million and one things that have happened

Unknown: 00:18:21

since, since she's been gone, you know, all these years, like

Unknown: 00:18:26

45 years, you know, it's just crazy, and it's there's a

Unknown: 00:18:31

loneliness that comes to this kind of grief, I think, the

Unknown: 00:18:34

missing piece grief that nobody ever really talks about, because

Unknown: 00:18:39

I get it, you know, we're kind of told, like, focus on what you

Unknown: 00:18:42

do have, and I 100% agree with that. Like, we want to be

Unknown: 00:18:45

grateful for what we do have. We want to be grateful for all the

Unknown: 00:18:49

dreams that did come true, all the life that did happen. And I

Unknown: 00:18:54

think we would be remiss if we didn't talk about those

Unknown: 00:19:00

invisible pieces, those missing pieces, the longing that's still

Unknown: 00:19:04

there, you know, and it's, I mean, in death can feel like

Unknown: 00:19:09

this very final thing. It's like, oh, well, now this is

Unknown: 00:19:12

never going to happen, you know. And sometimes, sometimes we find

Unknown: 00:19:16

out more about people, we get to know them through talking with

Unknown: 00:19:20

others or seeing their home or doing research or whatever, and

Unknown: 00:19:25

yeah, we can still find out and try to fill in some of those

Unknown: 00:19:28

gaps, fill in some of those missing pieces, but there's also

Unknown: 00:19:32

going to be this like the longing for the unknown, right,

Unknown: 00:19:41

this thing that now it's just not ever going to happen, and I

Unknown: 00:19:45

just wanted to talk about that, because it can, this kind of

Unknown: 00:19:49

feeling, this kind of grief, call it, and those kinds of

Unknown: 00:19:53

traumas that we talked about earlier, they can really easily

Unknown: 00:19:58

be overlooked because. Kind of unseen, and people will just be

Unknown: 00:20:02

able to just focus on the good stuff, focus on what you do

Unknown: 00:20:05

have, right? Yes, and we want to be able to, we want to be able

Unknown: 00:20:11

to kind of give, give voice, I think, to the Neva life, to the

Unknown: 00:20:16

sister life, to the things that now, first of all, to the things

Unknown: 00:20:20

that didn't happen that should have happened, you know, but

Unknown: 00:20:22

also to the things that now won't happen, those missing

Unknown: 00:20:25

pieces that are never going to be able to get filled in the way

Unknown: 00:20:28

that you had hoped or dreamed or wanted, and it's a real mourning

Unknown: 00:20:32

process, right? It's like, first of all, there's grief, grief,

Unknown: 00:20:36

right? And when I was thinking about this today, like, why are

Unknown: 00:20:38

you so sad, and I was like, okay, well, again, I can

Unknown: 00:20:41

rationalize and justify that new grief, it stirs up old grief.

Unknown: 00:20:46

I was like, yes, I'm like, that's true, so I get it, and I

Unknown: 00:20:50

was just like, oh, I realized, like, I'm really, really sad now

Unknown: 00:20:54

for the things that are never going to happen, and so the

Unknown: 00:20:59

advice that I gave myself, that if you find yourself also

Unknown: 00:21:02

experiencing this again, whether you're going through, you know,

Unknown: 00:21:08

a miscarriage, or you haven't been able to get pregnant, or

Unknown: 00:21:12

you know, again, your relationship ended, or your

Unknown: 00:21:14

career took a turn, you didn't get fired, or you didn't get the

Unknown: 00:21:18

job you wanted, or the book didn't sell, or whatever, right?

Unknown: 00:21:22

You want to buy land, and you want to build a like there's

Unknown: 00:21:25

1001 ways that we can find ourselves with missing pieces.

Unknown: 00:21:31

So I was like, okay, number one, what do I want to do with this?

Unknown: 00:21:34

I said, well, we're not going to push it away, right? We're not

Unknown: 00:21:37

going to abandon ourselves, right? I just did an episode

Unknown: 00:21:39

about that a few episodes ago about not abandoning ourselves,

Unknown: 00:21:42

so I'm like, "Alright, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna abandon

Unknown: 00:21:44

myself. I'm gonna sit with this, and I'm going to be with these

Unknown: 00:21:48

feelings, because I want to feel these feelings. And then the

Unknown: 00:21:51

other thing is, one of the, one of the missing pieces of my

Unknown: 00:21:54

childhood was tenderness and mercy. I don't think I got

Unknown: 00:21:57

enough of it. I don't think many of us, a lot of us like mass

Unknown: 00:22:02

holy blue collar kids, didn't get enough of it. It was the

Unknown: 00:22:04

whole, we're the whole suck it up and stuff it down kids. You

Unknown: 00:22:07

know, I'm like, alright, be gentle with yourself. It doesn't

Unknown: 00:22:10

have to make sense. You feel how you feel. It doesn't have to

Unknown: 00:22:13

make sense. So, so let's just be with it. Let's be gentle with

Unknown: 00:22:17

ourselves. Let's be like tender and merciful and compassionate

Unknown: 00:22:22

with our feelings, and then you know, slowly, and I'm not saying

Unknown: 00:22:26

it happens quickly, I mean, I can turn things over pretty

Unknown: 00:22:29

quickly, I've had a lot of experience at this, but it

Unknown: 00:22:33

doesn't mean that I always should. Do you know what I mean?

Unknown: 00:22:36

So I'm trying to give myself grace, and I'm trying to give

Unknown: 00:22:38

myself that space to like sift through the ashes of of the

Unknown: 00:22:43

never life, the thing that is burned down with with this with

Unknown: 00:22:46

this death, so it's like, okay, being in the acceptance of it,

Unknown: 00:22:51

moving towards that acceptance, sometimes it will come quickly,

Unknown: 00:22:55

right, sometimes it takes some time, and then after that, for

Unknown: 00:22:59

me, it's always like that question. This is me. I'm not

Unknown: 00:23:02

saying this is how you should do it, but like step one, let's be

Unknown: 00:23:06

with it, be with your feelings, sit with it, spend some time

Unknown: 00:23:08

with it, you know. Be gentle. Number two, be gentle with

Unknown: 00:23:12

yourself, compassionate, be tender, be merciful, like

Unknown: 00:23:17

nurture and nourish those younger parts of you that are

Unknown: 00:23:19

doing the grieving that didn't get what they needed, and now

Unknown: 00:23:22

are thinking about the things that now won't happen, or can't

Unknown: 00:23:25

happen, or didn't happen, or whatever, you know, and we move

Unknown: 00:23:28

towards acceptance, and part of the acceptance, there might be a

Unknown: 00:23:31

lot of different practices in there, right? Maybe you journal,

Unknown: 00:23:35

maybe you do whatever, right, maybe you write it down, maybe

Unknown: 00:23:38

you see, seek therapy, whatever the thing is, but we're moving

Unknown: 00:23:41

towards the acceptance of this is how it is. A lot of times our

Unknown: 00:23:45

suffering is coming from the resistance to what actually is

Unknown: 00:23:49

and what happened, so we're, you know, being with that. And then

Unknown: 00:23:53

the next step is the one that I always call now what? Yes, these

Unknown: 00:23:58

things happened. Yes, this is the new reality, whether we like

Unknown: 00:24:01

it, don't like it, confused by it deeply, and mourning, grief,

Unknown: 00:24:04

whatever. And then for me, it's always like, now what? And it's

Unknown: 00:24:08

another way, like this is like, because what happens is when

Unknown: 00:24:11

we're in the missing piece pot, it's all of the what ifs, it's

Unknown: 00:24:15

all of the what ifs, what could have been, what didn't happen,

Unknown: 00:24:18

what we wished happened, it's all those what if that, what if

Unknown: 00:24:21

I had done that, what if I didn't say this, what if I

Unknown: 00:24:24

didn't do this. It's like all of that, the never life stuff,

Unknown: 00:24:26

right?

Unknown: 00:24:28

But at some point we get to focus on call it new pieces or

Unknown: 00:24:35

the new dream, or now that this is how it is, now what? What can

Unknown: 00:24:40

I focus on now, like, where can I put my energy now, or how can

Unknown: 00:24:44

I reconcile this now, or whatever the thing is, but we

Unknown: 00:24:47

get to move on, we get to move, and that doesn't mean you get

Unknown: 00:24:50

over it, doesn't mean you just go like, move on, get over it,

Unknown: 00:24:53

it's not that, it's like, you know, when I think about, you

Unknown: 00:24:56

know, we were outside the other day, down in the. And we have

Unknown: 00:25:01

these milkweed plants, I didn't even know they were milkweed.

Unknown: 00:25:04

Hello, City Kid, like a few years ago we had these two

Unknown: 00:25:08

rando, like, like little flowers, tall flowers, and I

Unknown: 00:25:11

took a picture and I put it on the internet, because, yeah, I

Unknown: 00:25:14

know I can Google, I know I can Google it, but I like to ask my

Unknown: 00:25:17

smarty pants friends, so I put it on Facebook or something, I

Unknown: 00:25:19

was like, hey, hey, nature people like God, and is what the

Unknown: 00:25:22

hell out of these things? And everybody wrote back, it's

Unknown: 00:25:24

milkweed, you're so lucky, the butterflies love them, blah blah

Unknown: 00:25:27

blah. Well, I can tell you that over the next last two years,

Unknown: 00:25:31

last two years, there's now like a shit ton of them, and we're

Unknown: 00:25:34

just kind of giving up a portion of our yad to them, because we

Unknown: 00:25:37

love the butterflies, so we're like, okay, but when we were

Unknown: 00:25:41

down in the yard looking at him, that was a little side, that was

Unknown: 00:25:44

a little side quest. I apologize, and I'm back, but my

Unknown: 00:25:47

sweetie said, 'Look at them, they're all leaning towards the

Unknown: 00:25:50

sun, and they were where the sun was in the sky. The plants had

Unknown: 00:25:53

all kind of like turned, and they were like, 'How sunflowers

Unknown: 00:25:55

do, and they were like leaning towards it. And when we get to

Unknown: 00:25:59

this, this last step here, the new dreams, the now what that to

Unknown: 00:26:04

me is like my leaning towards the light. It's like I'm not

Unknown: 00:26:07

going to run from the dark, but I'm going to drag this darkness,

Unknown: 00:26:10

these feelings that I have, and I'm going to bring them into the

Unknown: 00:26:12

light. That to me is like how I think of the healing process. I

Unknown: 00:26:16

always say I don't want to sit in the shitty diaper, I don't

Unknown: 00:26:18

want to sit in the pain and the remorse, and the regret, and all

Unknown: 00:26:22

the stuff. It's not that I can't be with it. I personally don't

Unknown: 00:26:28

believe in being with it any longer than I need to. Like,

Unknown: 00:26:33

it's more like, and it doesn't mean that it doesn't still flash

Unknown: 00:26:37

in my mind, or things don't come up. I'm not like wiping my hands

Unknown: 00:26:41

and tying these things into neat little bows. I don't think life

Unknown: 00:26:44

is like that. I think there's always going to be like residual

Unknown: 00:26:49

grief. I think that's just the way it is, right. Life is life

Unknown: 00:26:52

is intense, a lot of things happen, but what I'm saying is,

Unknown: 00:26:55

at some point we turn back towards hope and we start to

Unknown: 00:26:58

turn towards what could be, right? So, instead of that never

Unknown: 00:27:02

life or that sister life or those missing pieces, we start

Unknown: 00:27:05

to create the new life, a different life.

Unknown: 00:27:09

I can't always say if it's going to be better or not better, but

Unknown: 00:27:13

there's still, there's still so much to look forward to, and so

Unknown: 00:27:18

I hope this has been helpful for you in some way, I mean, for me

Unknown: 00:27:21

it was really about just acknowledging that there's these

Unknown: 00:27:25

lonely kinds of grief about grieving the life that didn't

Unknown: 00:27:28

happen and now can't happen, right, but it's also right that

Unknown: 00:27:32

trauma, because trauma is not just the bad things that

Unknown: 00:27:36

happened, it's also the good things that didn't happen that

Unknown: 00:27:39

should have happened, you know, and it could be everything from,

Unknown: 00:27:42

like, you know, if you're a little kid and you're a child

Unknown: 00:27:44

of, like, divorced parents, and one parent is supposed to pick

Unknown: 00:27:47

you up on certain days of the week, but then they would just

Unknown: 00:27:49

ghost you, or they were, like, deficit dads or missing moms, or

Unknown: 00:27:53

whatever the thing was, and they didn't keep their word, or they

Unknown: 00:27:56

always let you down, or whatever it was, you know, there's really

Unknown: 00:28:00

real, I mean, there's really real and significant effects to

Unknown: 00:28:03

the things that are missing. So, my hope for you, you guys, is

Unknown: 00:28:07

that you start to find those missing pieces within yourselves

Unknown: 00:28:13

and within your hopefully loving and fruitful, and what's the

Unknown: 00:28:19

word I'm looking for, reciprocal relationships, healthy

Unknown: 00:28:24

relationships, where the love you give is also the love you

Unknown: 00:28:26

receive. This is how we heal. We're not islands, we don't heal

Unknown: 00:28:32

on our.. we, I mean, not that we don't have the capacity, our

Unknown: 00:28:34

bodies can heal on their own a lot of times, and I think a lot

Unknown: 00:28:38

of times we can do the work to heal, quote unquote, ourselves,

Unknown: 00:28:42

but I also think that it doesn't happen in a vacuum. I do think

Unknown: 00:28:45

we need each other, and I do think this is one of the

Unknown: 00:28:47

greatest gifts of, like, good family and good friends, is that

Unknown: 00:28:51

we, that we help each other on our healing journey, and

Unknown: 00:28:54

sometimes it's just somebody's very present presence, somebody

Unknown: 00:29:00

who can really be with you, who really sees you, can listen and

Unknown: 00:29:04

can support you and love you. So, if you are in a season of

Unknown: 00:29:09

mourning the never life, or if you are in a season of mourning

Unknown: 00:29:13

the things that should have happened that didn't happen, you

Unknown: 00:29:15

know, if you didn't have an unshaming witness, if you didn't

Unknown: 00:29:18

have somebody to protect you, if you didn't have family members

Unknown: 00:29:22

to step in to stop it, if you had people who everybody just

Unknown: 00:29:25

turned a blind eye, you know, 1001 ways where we harm and hurt

Unknown: 00:29:30

each other. My heart is with you, and I'm sorry, and I'm

Unknown: 00:29:33

hoping that you know that you know I always say this, like

Unknown: 00:29:39

just to my example of this person who I didn't get to know,

Unknown: 00:29:41

who, who died, and I'm grieving that, you know, it's like I

Unknown: 00:29:45

don't have to know you, quote unquote, personally, like we may

Unknown: 00:29:48

have not have met in real life, but I still care about you, and

Unknown: 00:29:53

I still love you, and if you're out there and you feel alone,

Unknown: 00:29:56

just know that there's another person in the world who I. Hold

Unknown: 00:30:00

you in my thoughts, even if again I've never met you, or

Unknown: 00:30:04

whatever. My love, my love extends to you wherever you are

Unknown: 00:30:08

in the world. And I hope that you can sit with yourself and be

Unknown: 00:30:12

gentle with yourself and your feelings, and as time allows,

Unknown: 00:30:16

and tools are available, and you have hopefully a soft, gentle

Unknown: 00:30:20

listening ear, that there's an acceptance to the things that

Unknown: 00:30:23

have been missing, and now we can go about to finding and

Unknown: 00:30:27

filling our own missing pieces in a beautiful, in a beautiful

Unknown: 00:30:32

and loving way. So that's what I have for you today, guys. Thank

Unknown: 00:30:36

you so much for being here. I super duper appreciate you. I

Unknown: 00:30:40

never take for granted that you're spending some time with

Unknown: 00:30:42

me, whether we're in the car together or walking your dog or

Unknown: 00:30:45

out in nature, or wherever you're listening to this or

Unknown: 00:30:48

watching this. Just thank you for spending some time with me.

Unknown: 00:30:51

I really appreciate it, as always. Just go to my website,

Unknown: 00:30:55

Karen kenney.com if you want to get on my mailing list. I'd love

Unknown: 00:30:58

to have you join us.

Unknown: 00:30:59

If you want to find out what kind of shenanigans I'm up to

Unknown: 00:31:03

with Right Club and yoga classes and Thai yoga body work and the

Unknown: 00:31:07

nest and working and mentoring or coaching, if that's your

Unknown: 00:31:10

thing. This just, you can find me, Karen kenney.com And just,

Unknown: 00:31:15

thank you for so, for being a part of the Karen Kenney Show,

Unknown: 00:31:18

our little community. I really appreciate it. Okay, wherever

Unknown: 00:31:22

you go out in the world, may you leave the animals and the planet

Unknown: 00:31:27

and the other people in yourself better than how you first found

Unknown: 00:31:30

it. Wherever you go, may you and your presence and your energy

Unknown: 00:31:34

and your love and even your missing pieces, right, the parts

Unknown: 00:31:38

of us that we are slowly, I always say gradually, but

Unknown: 00:31:41

inevitably, healing. May it be a blessing. Bye bye.