Under Pressure

Karen Kenney: 00:00:02

Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenny show. I'm so happy to be here with you to get to spend a little time together, I've already decided I'm going to try to keep this sucker wicked short and sweet. It's really just a little love letter from my heart to yours, to spread a little love and to also look at, you don't need my permission for jack shit. Okay, you don't, you don't need my permission. But one of the things that I think is helpful for us as humans, is to hear another human say that was, Hey, it's okay. Look, have you thought about it like this or consider this or it's just like, you know, I jokingly will say to my clients, sometimes who are having a hard time, fill in the blank, right? Whether it's getting more rest or drinking more water or being kind to themselves or saying notice something like, you know, we can, we can give ourselves such a hard time. And sometimes I'll pull out. And if you're watching the show, you'll see like, I keep this little, I have this little pink pink set of post it notes. I remember when we were little kids in school, and you had to go to the bathroom, and they would give you like a hall pass or whatever. And that's what I think of these like, like, not pink slips, like you're getting fired, but the little pink hall passes. And I'll pick up a pen and pretend I'm writing I'll go like, okay, look, I'm gonna give you permission, I'm gonna give you a little permission slip, here's your permission slip, to take a nap or to rest or to say no, or to not go to the thing or to change your mind or like, whatever. Okay, so here's my whole point. And we're back he is my whole point is that this episode, you don't need my permission for jack shit. And I think it can be so helpful to our nervous systems and just hear another human being say like, Hey, it's okay. You have permission to what you want, feel what you feel. Alright, etc. So I just want to say that upfront before we before we dive into this episode, also, before I forget at the end, if you're not already on my email list, you guys, it is a great way to stay in touch to find out what kind of shenanigans I'm up to what classes I'm offering, what events are happening. I have a lot of fun, exciting things going on right now where I'm returning teaching to yoga. Each week where this has not happened in like five years, I'm doing some events with my sweetie. It's just like wicked fun stuff. So you just go to Karen kenney.com/sign up, get on that suck up. And you'll be in the know, and that'd be fun. Okay, so I think I'm gonna call this episode under pressure. And if you are a loyal listener, you have heard me say before that my inspiration for this show in these episodes, and what I talk about on here, you know, there's always a combination of like storytelling and spirituality and just kind of navigating this human. This whole being human experience. Couldn't we all use a little help? Couldn't we all use a little hand holding sometimes navigating this whole fucking human being thing? Oh, my God. And I always say like, this being human is an ongoing problem. And so this show is kind of in response to that to like, what it's like to be a human and, and so many of the things that happen in this experience, and I just think it's so helpful to know that we're not alone when we're going through it when we're in the muck when we're in this stuff. And also, we're not alone in celebrating, you know, our brilliance and the good things that happened to but this episode came about because I was listening to one of my favorite songs under pressure, and David Bowie and you know, queen, and it's like, you know, of course, the vocal genius. That is Bowie and Freddie Mercury. And the words of this song, I'm sure I'm sure you have heard it. I mean, if you're in my age bracket, there can be no way you haven't heard the song on depression. If you have never heard it, please for the love of all things. Oh, Jesus Christ. Go and listen to that suck up Spotify by the hour. I don't know. Get your hands on it. Okay, but these are these are some of the words right? It starts I'm not going to read all the lyrics, but these are some of the lyrics and I thought they were fascinating. pressure pushing down on me pressing down on you know, man asked for, and it goes on to say, you know, these are the days it never rains, but it pours there's a terror and knowing what this world is about and it's just talking about the kind of pressure that can even bring a building down it can split a family into we can put people on streets. And I think these days, a lot of us are feeling a particular kind of pressure. And I think this is coming from so many any different areas of life, economics, finances, you know, jobs, race, division, politics, like just all the ways that the World War, disparity and so many ways hatred, right? There's just so many things in this human experience that can feel like there's a lot of pressure on us time. Machines, devices, all this stuff, but I want to speak about a particular kind of pressure. And this is something that's been coming up for me lately, and I've talked about this before, in written form, but I haven't done a podcast about it yet. And so I wanted to share, I wanted to share what I had been thinking about, and maybe maybe this will resonate with you too. And maybe you suffer from the same affliction that I suffer from. And part of it is, I'm a super, I'm a hyper responsible person. I am a hyper responsible person. And I think that this is a character character trait that might be might be partly innate. But I think it also, if I were to guess, is a response to my chaotic child. Thank you trauma. Thank you. There are so many I will say this, though, I often say we're gonna blame our trauma. And we're gonna blame our parents and our past and our childhood trauma. You know, on all the bad things we've experienced, we also have to be willing to look at you know, I often say I would not be the person I am today, I would not be who I am, how I am the way that I think the way that I respond to life like, this would not have happened if I did not have the pressure, you know, how like diamonds are created, they say it's by this pressure being pushed on them. You know? And so I think, I think, you know, I heard Jesse it slow on say, Jesse once said, pressure is a privilege. I think it's a really interesting perspective. And you can Google that. And see he did he was talking, doing a little talk one time when he said that, but I want to talk about this particular kind of pressure, I'm finally getting to my point, which is this, something that's been coming up a lot for me lately, and I think it's it has really been highlighted with the every time there's a new like, you know, app, or a new phone device or a new thing, like the the electronics man, it got wicked bad with the electronics. And this is the thing, how much pressure I put on myself to quickly respond to other people. Let me say that, again, how much pressure I put on myself to quote unquote, quickly respond to other people and other people's needs. Now I did, I did a show before, called when you're squeezed. And on that show, I was talking about how one of my old mentors and friends Bill Baer and my business, my business coach, and now friend, he, I was telling him one time about how, you know, this is back when I was like putting some things together in my business, I was creating some stuff. And I was feeling a little overwhelmed with all the moving parts, and whatever the way that was supposed to be doing it are supposed to be marketing, and I'm doing little air quotes around supposed to, and we'll get back to that. And I was just feeling all this pressure. And it felt like it felt like the pressure was coming from the outside towards me. Like there was this demand, there was this pace or something that I had to keep up with? And my nervous system was just not having it. I was like, I do not like this. I'm shaking my head. No, I do not do not. First of all, I don't like other people telling me what to do. And I certainly hate to be rushed. I hate when people are trying to make me hurry up to make a decision to do a thing or whatever. I have a particular way that I need to do things, you know what I mean? In order for it to feel good in my body in myself. But I was telling him this about this pressure I was feeling and he paused and he said something to me that is there's never left me obviously I'm still talking about it to this day. And he said to me that all pressure comes from the inside.

Karen Kenney: 00:09:28

All pressure comes from the inside. And when he said that, it was like boom, man, it just like snapped my head. It's like my brain. My brain got a little like, a little like, wake up, you know? And I really stopped and I was like, oh, like That's so incredible. And it's wicked good news. Because if this pressure that I feel and in this case, this pressure that I put on myself to respond quickly to other people in their needs. You know if it's inside of me He, I'm the boss of me, I'm the boss of inside of me, I'm the one who gets to decide and determine right, and to discern how I want to respond when I want to run, when I want to respond, what pace I want to respond, etc. So, it goes back to this character trait, right of me being not only a hyper responsible person, but I was able to get sensitive kid and I was always aware, you know, I was always aware of other people's needs other people's suffering, same things with animals, I'm not saying I'm special, I think all of us are sensitive, you know, some of us might be more finely attuned to it. Because of the work we do, or the work we've done on ourselves, or the fact that we try to feel our feelings and try to pay attention. And this is, again, this isn't a judgment on anybody, I'm not making myself special, I'm just saying, this is this is how I kind of feel things in navigate things in the world. And I've always been able to kind of feel even the slightest shift of like somebody's mood, right, their body language, their energy, like I'm really, really aware of it. And it's what made me when I was a personal assistant, it's what made me a really great assistant is because I could often sense a change in quote, unquote, temperature, you know, what I mean? I could anticipate and meet, I can anticipate, oh, this person is probably getting hungry right now, or this person person probably needs a drink or, and knowing what they liked, knowing what they needed. And, and being able to think a couple of steps ahead, you know, sometimes, you know, being that kind of level of sensitive is it allows you to anticipate what other people need sometimes even before they do, right. And it's a gift, it's a gift that is also it may have been a gift that came out of like, like a diamond, right? It's something that came out of a lot of pressure in my childhood, I felt very fucking squeezed as a child. And I could either crack under that pressure, or I could become something, right. And I think that the things that I felt under pressure became became resources for me that make me an effective spiritual teacher and a mentor, a spiritual mentor, and a coach and a hypnotist and a yoga teacher and all these things, because because I pay attention so closely, not not a lot gets by me, I'm not saying I'd see everything, and I feel everything. And I get everything I don't but not a lot gets by me, and I'm pretty aware. And but because of that, because I'm so sensitive, and because I am aware, it is led to at times, right, I am a chronic helper, I admit this to myself, if there was if there was like a 12 step meeting for chronic helpers, I could probably go. And it's not that I'm always trying to fix everything for everybody else. But I have a compulsion to help. Right? If somebody is suffering, if somebody is struggling, if an animal is suffering or struggling, I have I have an innate drive to help people. And, you know, it's it's a beautiful thing. I think that that compassionate part of my nature is is is something I love about myself, I appreciate about myself. But we also have to know that it can have a shadow side to helping being a quote, unquote, help, I can have a shadow side, if you don't allow people, if you if you try to swoop in and fix everything, you're not letting people first of all have the full gamut of their emotions, like they start to cry, and you immediately try to fix it and stop it. And so it's like we you know, or you don't let your kids are whoever figure out they're resilient on their own, because you swoop in and you try to fix everything. So we're not going to go down that whole rabbit hole. But I just want to say like being a chronic helper is sometimes you know, a way that we respond to our own sense of helplessness. And I think that it's a beautiful thing to want to be to be a helper, I love being a helper. But there's also this thing that, you know, the world is never going to be short of people or animals that need our help. And if we're not able to, if we're not able to choose how quickly we respond to things, which is the heartbeat of this whole episode, you know, something that gets amplified for me is that there's a constant especially with the news, right with the Internet. We are constantly bombarded with all the awful shit that is happening everywhere all the time. And yes, there is so much beauty and love and kindness and grace and compassion and helpers and good people. There's a lot of that in the world too. But do you ever notice how that stuff doesn't get nearly as much clicks, likes views attention or shares as when people are doing really fucking good stuff? And I think that you know That bombardment of of need that bombardment of other people's needs, their suffering their GoFundMe is their tragedies, their losses, their, their emails, they're needing they're needing your attention, right? Oh my gosh, you can tell even just talking about like, I can feel my chest like, I can feel my hat getting a little constricted, like that energetic area of my chest. And that's when I know like, Okay, you need to just, like slow down, take a breath. But even when I talk about it, I can feel this. And, you know, it makes me think back to when we were kids. You know, and when we were kids, the only way a person could quote unquote, get in touch with you, is they either had to call your house, right? When we're little kids, we didn't, they didn't even really let us use the phone. But when you're little kids, right, you the only way you could really a person to get in touch with you is they would have to walk over to your house after school and knock on your front door. And they'd be like, Um, can you come out and play? Or, or they would call your house? And they'd say, you know, they'd asked for you, whatever. So people people can get to you like, yeah, maybe when you left for school, like maybe when you were at school, they could get in touch with you there. And then they either had to call your ass on the phone. And there was a time you guys when we didn't even have answering machines. We didn't even have those little devices with the little tapes in them that record and shit where you would come home and there'd be a flashing light. Like there was a time when we just had phones and a house phone connected to the wall in the phone. You know, the phone would ring in your house? Not not not? Not not one of these things, right? Not not a little like device, not not a mobile phone, right? We had phones plugged into the wall attach to the damn wall with wicked long, stretchy coins. This is for my younger listeners. Okay, might sound like I'm making this shit up. But I'm not. And the only way people could reach you is they would call and either you answered or you didn't. And if you didn't answer, it would just ring and ring and ring and ring and ring and ring because there was no voicemail. Right? So we didn't want to pick up you didn't put one you didn't pick up or you just unplugged your phone. Okay, so your house, your home was truly like your sanctuary, it was your safe place. Now look, I get it. Some of us grew up in homes where we couldn't get away from the shit that was happening inside our house. So our homes were not always safe places they were not always places where you could get away from the atrocities and the abuse and the awful, brutal things that might have been happening in your home. But I think you get the point of what I'm saying though, as far as people outside of your family or out of your family of origin or whatever, or your foster parents or whoever your guardians, whoever's taking care of you. I had both parents, step parents, biological parents and, and foster, you know, guardians, I had guardians growing up as well. But for the most part, if people wanted to get a hold of you to ask you for something because they needed something or whatever. You know, if others wanted to connect with you is what I'm trying to say you had a choice as to how available you wanted to make yourself be, you could go out and meet the world, on your own terms.

Karen Kenney: 00:18:19

But nowadays, it's like there's literally there's dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of ways for people to get a hold of you. And just think about that turn of phrase, getting a hold of you, like getting their hands on you, right like grabbing you like there is this like getting a hold of you. And this is what can happen sometimes, if we don't have good boundaries in place, boundaries that we set for ourselves, and nervous systems, a pace that works for us a timeline or a schedule or response time that feels actually good for you. And the way things are kind of designed now is that even when you're at home, because of email because of text messaging, because of direct messaging, because of FaceTime because think about all the different ways that people can get a hold of you because now the world is kind of designed to invade your personal space your privacy, the world kind of rushes in it you with its demands. And I was thinking about how and this has happened to me many times right because life people be people in life is lifing like life is always happening and and as I was sitting recently to just kind of process the news of the death of a friend, a former client and a friend who I just adored is that was trying to sit in process that you know, of course feeling my feelings crying do you know all this stuff? I was just knocked on my ass shocked by the news of my friend His passing was totally unexpected. It was awful. And in that period of time, as I was just taking, taking some moments for myself, I got a bunch of emails, I got some text messages, I got some boxes, I got a couple of Facebook messages. And it was all things that were vying for my attention. And I get it. This is just how the world is those people aren't bad for sending those things they didn't know you know, what was going on at my house, or in my world, it's just life. And life is not slowing down. For us life is just happening. So we have to be the ones who pump the brakes. We I guess this isn't going to be that short of an episode after all. Apologies. I misspoke. But sometimes, you know, when I'm like trying to concentrate or get something done, this is why I have to leave my phone away from my desk, like right here where I'm recording sometimes, right? I mean, when I'm on my part, when I'm doing my podcast, it's not that big of a deal, because I just turned my phone off, right, turn it down in silence, and I don't look at it, and I don't see it. But there are times when I'm trying to do something, and I might need to make a phone call. So my phone is up here. And I don't have my notifications turned on my phone is almost always on silent. However, there are days when I just flip it open, and all of a sudden I see and it's like 15 emails, seven boxes, you know, a text message that and I just think like, oh my god, I just want to take my fucking phone. You guys can't see what I'm seeing out my windows. So outside these windows, there's like this big ledge, right? It's like it goes. It's like trees, and it goes up into the woods, right. And I see deers and turkeys and everything. It's amazing. But it makes me just want to open up this window, pop off the screen and chuck that motherfucker, like up on the hill. I'm like, get this phone out of here and get it's like an alert system, right? It's like my nervous system just starts telling, I'm making this phase where I'm like, I close my eyes and I'm shaking my head. It's just like, ah, too much, man too much, too much. But the good news is, is I have tools. Now I have tools to regulate my nervous system. I have tools like tapping and bilateral stimulation and physiological sigh in breath work. And I can do some yoga postures. And I know a lot of somatic stuff. And I know a lot of yoga stuff. And I know a lot of breathing stuff. And I know, right, I have a lot of resources, but a lot of people don't. That's why I hope to be doing a couple of workshops this year to teach people some stuff to help themselves learn how to regulate themselves, their vagus nerve, their nervous system, their breathing their energy, right, so that we can choose to respond not only with good boundaries, not only in a timeline that feels good for us, but so that we can respond and represent ourselves as who we truly are. And not the insane people that feel gripped by the Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. You know what I'm saying the hurry monster. Right. Sometimes I feel like I'm being chased by the hurry up monster. And I don't like it. But I've learned some tools to help me, you know, and I hope to be able to share them with you guys too. And sometimes one of the things you just do is just need to pause and you take a nice big belly breath, what we called Dear to God, Dear God, pranayama and yoga, and nice, full three part breath like a full breath, like fill up, fill up the top of your chest, fill up your lower lungs, expand your belly on that inhale, right try to breathe in through your nose nice long, double, double, long, double extra long exhale through your mouth. It can work wonders. Do that a few times, so that you don't snap so that you don't say a thing you can't take back so that you don't do or say something you're going to regret. So being able to choose how we want to be and choose how we're going to respond is really important. Because think about it right? If we're in a state where we feel agitated, where we feel angry, well, we feel rushed, where we feel like, Oh, this is unfair, or I'm just overwhelmed. And you squeeze me at that point. When you squeeze a tube of toothpaste, right when there's that pressure when you squeeze a tube of toothpaste, what comes out whatever's in that tube, right toothpaste. So if you squeeze a person when they're not at their best when you squeeze a person who does not have resources regulation, right, if they don't have any tools in their spiritual toolkit, if they don't have any ways to calm themselves so that they can respond from a lesson, same place, right? And I don't I use the word insane. Like we all go a little crazy when we were hangry when we're right tired when we haven't gotten good rest when we when this agitation maybe in your relationship or your marriage or whatever, when finances are tight, whatever. When people are stressed the fuck out and you squeeze them, you're probably not going to get their best. So it's up to us as individuals to maybe learn some tools to slow down so we can choose our response rather than just react. Right just react from our history and our stress and our fear. So We get to choose to respond from a place of love instead of reacting from a place of fear. And it occurred to me when I was thinking about right under pressure in this whole thing. We often think like the world is putting its demands on us. But we forget, we forget that this is just how the world operates. This is how the rest of the world operates. Right? Every time there's a new update, what are they trying to do? They're trying to get things to work faster and faster and faster and faster. And we are not machines. I cannot stress this enough. Right? We are not machines, we are not artificial intelligence. We are intelligence, we have brains. We are thinking feeling creatures, we are not machines. And so to expect us and our nervous systems to act like machines, is not going to end well for anybody. We need to stay in touch with our humanity. Never lose sight of our divinity but also understand that these bodies these these Soma, right, they need kindness, love support, rest, plenty of water, movement, exercise, good food, nourishment and nurturing what we don't need is this demand snapping my finger like Go Go, go, go go like that is not even remotely interesting to me. Can you tell a man hands if you know what I'm talking about? If you can sense that pressure, that tightening of like, oh my god I ever i There's too many things to do and not enough time. And I gotta get it all done. Because everybody needs something from me. And I get it. Right. I get it. You know, I'm talking about how we have the freedom to respond. And sometimes you might say, but KK I'm in this job, and my boss is the dick. And he demands thing on a schedule. That is just unreasonable. Well, yeah, so if I cannot change my situation, what can I do? I'm not I'm not saying that's not a tough spot to be in. But maybe you can find little ways. Even if you just take you know, a few minutes to go in the bathroom, sit on the toilet with the lid down, and whatever. And just, you know, breathe. Take a few breaths, spend a little time with your spiritual team and say a little prayer, repeat your mantra, whatever it is, to bring your mind back on line to bring yourself back to love so that you show up taking good care of yourself as best you can. In a difficult situation. The reality of it is is that we get to make our own rules, we get to decide. And while my natural proclivity is often to like to rush to the aid of others, and to hurry up and respond. You know, I often feel this need to answer correspondence, emails, texts, like like super fast, again, going back to being like hyper responsible, you know, I like to be helpful to people who need something from me. And what I'm realizing more and more and more and more lately is that I really just need to ease up by myself, I need to ease off the gas pedal a little bit. And I need to keep my focus on my own stuff, right? Like I need to, it's not that I don't want to help people. I

Karen Kenney: 00:28:10

mean, I'm in the helping business, you know what I mean? As a spiritual mentor, as a hypnotist, as a, as a yoga teacher, as a coach, like all the things, you know, even this podcast is my desire to spread more love and help people right to help end some suffering for humans and animals. But I need to do a better job at keeping my focus on myself and to respond to requests in a way that is soothing. From my nervous system. When I'm able to like when I'm able to, and not at some Huber super, you know, I wouldn't, I was gonna call like a superhuman pace, but I would even say a machine pace, because it's not going to happen. And just because people ask or demand does not mean that you have to answer. I'm gonna say that again. Just because other people ask or demand doesn't mean that you need to answer not at the pace that maybe they are demanding. And again, I know we can go back to the boss thing or a situation that look there are going to be times in life when somebody does need a quick answer, right? Somebody's waiting to hit the button on printing your flyers or whatever and you need to get back to them or like sometimes some decisions right are wicked important and they do need to be made. But by and large, I think we put a lot of importance on shit that actually doesn't even really matter. And why so many people lack the patience to wait for a response is because their nervous systems are dysregulated they're uncomfortable sitting in the uncertainty in the unknown and this is a note to self and I know error on my my podcast, my podcast help no one is gonna write this down for me right note to self do a whole podcast on uncertainty and being in the unknown. Look, and here's the other thing too. I want to say I'm not even saying that other people are always being wicked demanding not on me or not on you. It's not Like everybody out there is demanding that things happen, it's probably not even a big part of the equation for them. They're just doing what they do, right? They're writing to you, they're sending you an email, they're sending you a text, they're sending you a boxer or a DM or whatever. They're posting a story and tagging you in it, right? There's a thought, like I said, it's just that sometimes, you know, more than one person is doing that sometimes is multiple people, or 20, other people or whatever, that are all vying for your attention at once. And, and sometimes it's like, there's only one of you. I'm sure parents get this parents with more than one kid. And even if even one kid, right, even one kid, we know how demanding that can be. But if you got more than one kid, Jesus Christ, God bless you, God bless you, because their needs feel so big. But again, I want to remind us the pressure that we feel is almost always coming from inside of ourselves. It's not invading from out there. It's invading from in here, and I'm touching my mind, I'm touching my brain, right? This shouldn't say my brain, but it's coming from our thoughts. And our thoughts create physical responses in the body. So if the phone call is coming from inside the house excuse me, and the only one who can control in here is me, then that's good. I got to talk to my boss, I got to talk to the person in charge, right, I got to talk to the head honcho and be like, Hey, Chief, like, what's the deal here? Can we can we maybe choose to slow down a little bit and respond at a pace like take the pressure off myself, dial it way back, is dial it way back. And this is great self hypnosis, things that you can do to? And these are things I like to do with clients sometimes, right? Some people call it visualization, like all the big athletes and all the the CEOs and all the people, right? They talk about their visualization process, all it is is self hypnosis, right? It's self hypnosis. And we'll just leave it at that, right? But you can actually like put yourself in a room where there's, whether it's pedals, or gears, or knobs. And you can envision turning things down, slowing things down. It's really, really, really powerful. And no harm. Just know this, no matter how much your ego mind is going to try and get you to like Hurry up, try to convince you that your speedy recent response is wicked necessary. It's usually not. Right, it will try to convince you like you gotta hurry up, like you gotta get back to them. If you don't get back to them, they're gonna be mad at you and debit. Right? Ah, it's gonna try to convince you number one that a speedy response is necessary. It's usually not, it's also going to try to make you feel irresponsible for for taking too long to get back to people. And that's a big nope, again, right. And it's also here we go. Now we get into the hot Pete of the suppose twos. Remember I talked about the suppose twos a little while ago, it's the ego mind is also going to try and get you to do like, I tell you that you should, you should be able to do everything all day, you should be able to get it all done in one day. And that is like a no way Jose. The truth of the matter is this, the world is not going to fall apart. Without me. The world is going to keep just moving on. Well, even when I'm dead. God bless. Hopefully, some people are going to miss me. I mean, I don't mean it that way. I don't want people to be lamenting when I'm gone. But the world is going to be just fine. When when I am no longer physically here in a body, you know what I'm saying? I'm just not that important. I don't mean that in a, you know, self depreciating way. I mean, I love myself I you know, I try to be a good person. But the world is gonna go on just fine, you know, after after I'm dead. So here's to slowing down he is to putting my attention and maybe your attention to where it's really needed. Which is listening to the call of your own heart, listening to what your body needs responding in a way that feels good for you. So responding from a place of love and knowing that it's okay to take a little bit of time. Now look, I'm not saying shirk your responsibilities and not answer the important things. But these days, I've just committed to, you know, and here's the other thing note, this is an important note. Sometimes somebody will write something to me, and it requires more bandwidth and I have available that day or the next day or the one after that. They're in the Nate in the very nature of my work. You know, people will often write to me and share trauma or very difficult tragedies or brutalities or things are going through as a human right. I don't always just get like, Hey, are we meeting at six Write a lot of times people and sometimes people I don't know I've never met I've never talked to will send me things. And I need time to just sit with it. I need time to think about it. You know, it makes me think of Cheryl Strayed used to have this. This, what do you call it? Not an article she had a, in I think in the paper where people would write, like think like Dear Abby, write a column, Jesus Christ, menopause brain. She had a column and called DHEA sugar. And people used to write to her and I used to think to myself, Oh, my God, like, how did she do that? Well, she certainly wasn't answering. Let's call it week one. So week one, she would get you know, a bunch of emails, or, or letters or whatever. You know, let's fast forward that was called week four. So on week four, she gets email, she's not answering week, four emails on the week for show or in the week four column, right? She probably took a good ass long time. Maybe she's responding to week fours on column number eight, you know what I'm saying? Because sometimes we need time to digest things, and especially the way that I am, you know, the way that my emotions are, I can respond to something you know, sometimes will jokingly say like today me, today, me would like to thank me three days ago for not saying yes to that. And sometimes I'll say today, me, is pissed at me from four days ago for thinking that was a good idea. So I need to learn how to give myself a little time to feel a full emotional expansion, like a full wave of emotion. Because if I say yes to something when I'm on a high, and I don't let the full like, you know, and this is like, if you're if you're an impulsive shopper, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You see something, you get lit up, you're on that high. And then like three days later, you're like, why did I buy that? So now I need time to just respond to things. And I do my best to get back to people. But I'm no longer interested in the shoulds. Right. And so often when we think about why we do things, the way that we do them. And this is a big part of the work that I do, the big part of the work that I do isn't necessarily telling people what the answers are to everything. But it's it's asking them to question everything. What happened to you? Why do you think? Not not in bad? Like, why do you think you're like this? I don't mean this, but like, what was it like growing up in your household? Like, what did your parents think about like, what were you taught? What was your conditioning? Because we are highly conditioned, habitual people, right? So much of what we think of as the shoulds, I should respond in this amount of time, I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't do that. Those are other people's rules that were impressed upon us that were kind of drilled into us. I think one of the greatest gifts of being an adult, is that you have the freedom to decide what's true for you what's right for you what feels good for you. So like,

Karen Kenney: 00:38:04

when you find yourself caught up in the shoulds, slow down and ask yourself, Is this something that I believe because if it's something you believe that is true for you, that's one thing, but if you feel like this pressure is coming from out there, meaning it originated from out there by what your grandmother said, your grandfather said to your mother, your auntie, your siblings, or your teacher or your coach or your priest or whoever the fuck? Right? If something is truly yours, you will know it. I'm doing this because it's right for me. Not because I'm going to feel guilty because I'm afraid that so and so is going to judge me or they're not going to like me, or they're going to abandon me or reject me, right. So as an adult, we got to get wicked clear. That's another whole that's a whole another whole podcast right on the shoulds other people's rules. So question everything and get really clear on it. So this is just my invitation. You know, to to join me in the not putting yourself under so much pressure, not putting yourself under the kind of pressure that tears buildings down and splits splits families apart. Right, going back to, to that. And I love this. I want to read this. I printed out the lyrics to the song because I I have it right. Yeah. And I love this app at the end where where it's saying, you know, I sat on the fence but it but it don't work. I keep coming up with love, but it's so slashed and torn. Why? And it says you know, and then Freddie Mercury says Can't we give ourselves one more chance? Why can't we give love one more chance? And this I always cry? I always cry. I love this song so much. And I always cry when we get to this verse. And if you know this song, right? You can hear it in your head. Like it's so visceral. You can hear it in your head. And Bowie responds to Freddie Mercury screaming like why can't we give Love, give love, give love, give love, right? And you just saying it again and again and again, why can't we give love. And Bowie says, Because love is such an old fashioned word. And love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night. And love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves. And then he says, This is our last dance, this is ourselves. And this is ourselves, the pressure is coming from inside of us. And love is daring us to change the way that we care for the people on the edge of the night. And sometimes that's us. And love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves. And one of the ways that we can care about ourselves is to take ourselves out from under so much pressure. So I hope this was helpful to you in some way. Thank you so much for listening. I'm not shitting when I say that, I mean, you could be doing anything, maybe you're walking your dog right now maybe you're folding laundry, maybe you're driving in your car, maybe you're taking your kids to soccer, whatever basketball whatever, whatever season you're in, however you however you got here. Thank you so much for taking time to listen whether a friend sent you a link and shared it with you, whether whatever, but if you're listening to this, and you get some benefit from this show, if this is helpful to you in some way, then I guarantee you it will be helpful to somebody else you love. So please help me to spread the good word in the Love by sharing this episode by sharing the show when when you feel inspired to write that means a lot to me, and I really appreciate it. I appreciate your time and your energy and your presence. And I appreciate you being here. So thank you so much. And wherever you go out in the world go that keep it low and slow, man just keep it at a pace that feels good to you feels good to your nervous system, so that you can respond from a place of love instead of reacting from a place of fear. Wherever you go, leave the place. Leave yourself leave the animals leave the people leave the environment. Leave the earth better than how you found it. Wherever you go. May you be a blessing. Bye

Unknown: 00:42:22

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