WHEN HELPING HURTS
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I’m exploring the concept of "when helping hurts."
And how even our well-intentioned efforts to help others can sometimes do more harm than good.
I springboard off of the idea from the old quote, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
And I highlight how the outcomes we hope for, can differ from the original intent behind our “helping” actions.
I also share a few examples of misguided help, and how it can affect both humans and animals.
We’ll explore how helping can even become enabling or codependent - preventing people from facing the consequences of their choices and learning from their experiences.
Karen also discusses how helping can sometimes be a distraction from one's own personal issues, rather than a genuine desire to assist others.
I love humans that want to help, and…. we need to be self-aware about our own motivations and the negative impact that sometimes arises from well-intentioned help.
KEY POINTS:
• Unsolicited Help
• Intervening + Interventions
• Codependence + Enabling
• Help as a Distraction
• Relying on AI
• Setting Boundaries
• Maintaining Dignity
• The Nest - Group Mentoring Program
Karen Kenney is a certified Spiritual Mentor, Writer, Integrative Change Worker, Coach and Hypnotist. She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-BS, down-to-earth approach to Spirituality and transformational work.
KK is a wicked curious human being, a life-long learner, and has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years! She’s also a yoga teacher of 24+ years, a Certified Gateless Writing Instructor, and an author, speaker, retreat leader, and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.
She coaches both the conscious + unconscious mind using practical Neuroscience, Subconscious Reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis/Change Work, and Spiritual Mentorship. These tools help clients to regulate their nervous systems, remove blocks, rewrite stories, rewire beliefs, and reimagine what’s possible in their lives and business!
Karen encourages people to deepen their connection to Self, Source and Spirit in down-to-earth and actionable ways and wants them to have their own lived experience with spirituality and to not just “take her word for it”.
She helps people to shift their minds from fear to Love - using compassion, storytelling and humor. Her work is effective, efficient, memorable, and fun!
KK’s been a student of A Course in Miracles for close to 30 years, has been vegan for over 20 years, and believes that a little kindness can make a big difference.
KK WEBSITE: www.karenkenney.com
Transcript
I hit the button too soon. Hello. Welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super duper excited to be here with you, and let's see this episode. Okay, I'm calling
Karen Kenney:this Sucka when helping hurts. When helping hurts and you might be thinking to yourself, What do you mean? Isn't Mr. Rogers told us to look for the helpers. KK, isn't helping.
Karen Kenney:Isn't helping. What we want to do, we want to help the people. We want to help the animals. We want to help the planet and the environment and trees and the oceans and the
Karen Kenney:little fishies, like all of it, yes, yes and more, yes and and there are some times when our helping can actually be not so soothing, not so helpful. In fact, sometimes helping
Karen Kenney:can hurt. And let's dive into this a little bit. I've been thinking about this for several different reasons, coming at it from a bunch of different points of view, and
Karen Kenney:I'll give you, I'll tell you a little story, and I'll give you some examples and stuff like that. But one of the quotes I couldn't help but think of, and I think this goes
Karen Kenney:back to I want to say his name is Saint Bernard. I know he was a French theologian like 12th, mid 12th century. I'm pretty sure he's the one who coined this phrase. He
Karen Kenney:might not have said it exactly like this, but this is where the hot beat of this phrase comes from, which is the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So this
Karen Kenney:idiom, this proverb, is often attributed to him, and then, of course, other people beyond like in the 16th century, you know, went on to say it in their own ways. But the
Karen Kenney:road to hell is paved with good intentions. And what that really means is that there is often, sometimes a difference, like an outcome that is other than what the person
Karen Kenney:intended, right? So what they intend to do, they quote, unquote, intend to be helpful, but then whatever actions or outcomes that that come from those intentions are not
Karen Kenney:exactly what they had planned. So sometimes even our great desire to be helpful can have tragic or not so soothing, or sometimes even awful, like outcomes instead of the good
Karen Kenney:intentions that inspired those actions. You know what I mean, and so I know for myself, I really do identify, in some ways as a helper, right? I love to help people. I love
Karen Kenney:to help animals. I love to problem solve. I love to be healthy. I'm a healthy, healthy, healthy person, and that's nice. And we also have to keep an eye on where does the
Karen Kenney:impulse to help come from? And maybe we'll get we'll dive a little bit more deeper into that, but sometimes, right? And I tell people this when, when we when we first
Karen Kenney:meet, or when we first you know are starting a friendship, or when we first start working together, one of the things I will often tell them is in my in my desire to be
Karen Kenney:helpful, and in my enthusiasm to be helpful, I might sometimes come across as Like a little pushy or a little bossy or whatever, just know that that is not my intention, and
Karen Kenney:if that is how it's feeling for you, please do tell me, because it really does come from a desire to be helpful. It comes from a loving place. But I never want to take away
Karen Kenney:somebody else's opportunity to learn something or to have their own experience. You know what I mean? So I kind of try to, like, cut it off at the past, like to meet
Karen Kenney:it, to meet it right away and just say, hey, just be on the lookout for this. Because sometimes in my enthusiasm to be helpful, like, I don't want to be stepping on
Karen Kenney:people's toes or robbing them from their from their own experience, and I'm sure, at some point in your life, and just double Amen hands, if you can relate to this, you
Karen Kenney:have utter the words, well, I was just trying to help. I was only trying to help, but the help given was not the help received, or how it was perceived was not
Karen Kenney:helpful, because sometimes my people might be feeling like, well, I didn't ask for your help. I didn't ask for your damn help. So here's an example. Okay, let me give you an
Karen Kenney:example. Um, so there is, I'll give you a human I'll give you a human story, and then I'll give you some animal stories. Okay, so here's one of an example of like, the wrong
Karen Kenney:kind of help. One of the wrong kind of help is that the helper, the one who is doing the helper, assumes that they know what is best, so they just dive right into helping. They
Karen Kenney:get a plan of action. They start to help. They try to help. Okay? But. They're assuming that they know what is best for the healthy and a lot of times they don't ask
Karen Kenney:first. So for example, you know how if somebody is somebody has a death in the family, or somebody's kid is sick, or somebody gets a cancer diagnosis, or there's
Karen Kenney:some sort of thing that happens and people will start, and there's different things. Sometimes people will do like a GoFundMe or something like that. But sometimes people
Karen Kenney:often will do like these. I think they call them meal trains, or like meal planner things where people will post it somewhere, and then other people can sign up and say,
Karen Kenney:Oh, I'll do Monday dinner. And somebody else is like, Oh, I'll bring dinner over to this family, this whatever, you know, on Tuesdays. And that's really lovely. It's
Karen Kenney:incredibly generous, it's incredibly kind, it's compassionate, it's all of those things. It's wonderful. However, if that person or that family or that organization
Karen Kenney:or whatever didn't ask for the help, didn't ask for it for whatever reason, maybe they have food allergies. Maybe they need their food prepared in a very particular way.
Karen Kenney:Maybe they're really proud. Maybe they don't want to be seen as somebody who is sick or whatever, right? And so I think that in those cases, our desire to be helpful can
Karen Kenney:actually be more harmful, because that person gets aggravated. Agitated is like, I don't have a place to put all this food. I don't want this food. I don't like this
Karen Kenney:food, right, like, whatever. So the kindness and the gesture is there. But what if we just asked first and got permission and said, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this
Karen Kenney:thing, rather than just assuming the person, the place, the family, whatever, is going to want that thing, because sometimes, and it's not for you to judge or to whatever, for
Karen Kenney:whatever their own reason, they don't want to damn help, right? So we can be a little encroaching, a little pushy, right? Because we we make the assumption, oh, well, I would
Karen Kenney:want that help, or that's what I would want to do, or I wish somebody did that for me, but we're all individuals, and we all have preferences, and we all have different
Karen Kenney:needs, and we all are willing to have different levels of involvement from outside sources. So it can be really helpful to, just like, ask first, right? That a little,
Karen Kenney:a little, can go a long way in this area. You know, when it comes to animals, I think I mean, and I've heard stories about this, and I've also they're just things that I've
Karen Kenney:been told and that I know is like, you know, so many people like, if you try to help a baby bird, let's just use a chicken, for example, if you try to help a chick who is
Karen Kenney:struggling to hatch, If you try to speed up their hatching process, right? And I don't even like to think about I mean, I love baby chicks. They're the most cutest, beautiful,
Karen Kenney:gentle little things, but so often it's because they're in fucking hatcheries, which don't even get me started about the chickens and the poor chickens and what they go
Karen Kenney:through, and the baby chicks and the male chicks, like, it's horrifying, but, but let's just say, like, whatever you you, you somehow stumbled across right some eggs, and
Karen Kenney:there's a baby chick that's trying to hatch. If you try to force that and speed it up, because you're like, Oh my God, look, he's he's struggling. I'm gonna try and, like,
Karen Kenney:peel back the egg and pluck him out of there. Well, if you don't know what you're doing, it is incredibly dangerous, and it can cause harm. You can cause that little
Karen Kenney:baby chick to, like, literally bleed out. You can force it and rush a process instead of allowing the natural evolution of that process to happen. It's the same thing with
Karen Kenney:butterflies. You know, you see people who think they're being helpful by trying to, like, help a butterfly, like, come out of its cocoon or whatever. But the way that a
Karen Kenney:butterfly gains its wing strength and its its ability to survive out in the world is it needs to go through that struggle first. So it's actually not helpful at all to try
Karen Kenney:and help them by speeding up the process, right? It'd be like, any different than, like, you're not going to try and, like, speed up a woman's like, you know, you're
Karen Kenney:not going to like, when somebody is, I mean, of course, there are situations when a baby is born too soon, right? Preemies, whatever happens, right? Medical complications,
Karen Kenney:whatever happens. But you're not going to go into like, a pregnant woman who wants to have a child, right? And be like, Okay, five months. Let's speed this up. Like, let's go.
Karen Kenney:You know what I'm saying? So we've got to let things kind of take their natural evolution sometimes, and it's usually our own discomfort of being like, Oh, I don't
Karen Kenney:know, blah, blah, blah. I don't like to watch this struggle. But sometimes the struggle is exactly. What a being or a creature needs. Now, of course, I'm
Karen Kenney:not talking about there use your use your common sense. There are going to be times when an animal is struggling, like when we when you see a turtle or something heading
Karen Kenney:towards a direction where you like or like, this is not going to end well, right? There are times, of course, when we should intervene, but we better do our homework,
Karen Kenney:and we better know what we're doing and not just make assumptions. We should not make assumptions about animals because they cannot speak. They cannot, you know, raise
Karen Kenney:their little paw, their little fin or the little feather and say, Please put me down, or stop this, or whatever, right? So educate yourself. Call a wild have a wildlife
Karen Kenney:rehabilitator, right? Don't assume that, like, you know what to do, because a lot of times, like I said, I desire to be helpful can actually be harmful. And it's the same
Karen Kenney:thing with people, right? Maybe talk to them first, and I get it. Sometimes it's like, sometimes it's like, you want to do the right thing, or you want to be seen in a
Karen Kenney:particular way, right? And that's when we get down to, you know? So I wrote down some examples of when helping is more harmful than helpful, and one of these is when it's
Karen Kenney:about you and your ego, when it's about your arrogance, right? How you want to be viewed, how you want to be seen, how you well, you like again, if you have the identity as a
Karen Kenney:helper. You really get off on, like, helping. Sometimes it's like, that dopamine hit. It's like, oh yeah. Like, I'm feeding into this idea I have of myself. So it's
Karen Kenney:more sometimes about our ego and our arrogance, and it is really about the other person. And that's the thing, is, like, I think back. So, you know, I often will say,
Karen Kenney:like, because of a lot of the stress and trauma that I had as a kid, it it created a little bit of what I would say at times, and maybe even still have a little touch. And I
Karen Kenney:don't mean it condescendingly when I say, like, it's a touch of touch of OCD, right? I certainly have certain behaviors that I do when I start to feel a little more stressed
Karen Kenney:or overwhelmed. And whether that's like cleaning or organizing or straightening things out, and, you know, and we don't, it's this isn't all about me, but like,
Karen Kenney:just, you know, I identify. Sometimes I can notice that, you know, I like to organize things now. I used to, like, go into like, I did it to my sister all the time. I used to,
Karen Kenney:like, go into her house, and I'd be like, Why is the toast there? It's gonna work. Wait now, here's the thing. I was a professional organizer. I basically turned
Karen Kenney:my compulsion to help and my compulsion to organize into a gig. But you know, when you do it without getting somebody else's permission. When you just go in and you're
Karen Kenney:like, this should be here, and this should be here, and I would move shit around, and people will be like, What the fuck? And I'd be like, Oh, but I'm just helping, like, I'm
Karen Kenney:just trying to be helpful. And it's like, but that's not where we want it. In our in our world, for you to put that there, it doesn't make sense, because my kids do X, Y
Karen Kenney:and Z, or my sweetie does X, Y and Z, right? So a lot of times our desire to be helpful is about our own arrogance, our own ego, rather than about the other person. So we
Karen Kenney:kind of try to disguise it under like, oh yeah, I was just helping. I was just organizing. I was just X, Y and Z, and the other person is like, no, it's that way for
Karen Kenney:a fucking reason. And if you would just ask, instead of assumed and just went ahead, did you think, oh my god, okay, here's another couple of examples when helping is more
Karen Kenney:harmful, when it hurts, it's when you're helping goes too far. Because when our helping goes too far. It crosses into enabling, right? And sometimes our enabling
Karen Kenney:behaviors actually keep somebody trapped in the victim loop that they're in or in the sickness that they're in or in the addiction or whatever that they're in. You know, we
Karen Kenney:try to, we try to, quote, unquote, be helpful to lessen their suffering. And again, though sometimes that suffering, or what they'll sometimes say in 12 steps,
Karen Kenney:right, is like communities is hitting bottom, or, you know, hitting rock bottom, or, you know, we try to keep somebody from having to deal with the consequences and the
Karen Kenney:ramifications of their choices. And if you keep doing that, if you keep making excuses for them, if you keep, you know, calling into work sick for them, if you keep filling
Karen Kenney:the blank for them, right, trying to make things right for them, apologizing on their behalf, right, they never get the opportunity to own their own shit and to get
Karen Kenney:better for the right reason. And it made me think about like we used to. I don't know if the show is still on. I guess I could have googled that, but like back in the day,
Karen Kenney:there was a show called interventions. I don't know if you've ever seen one of those shows. You know. But an intervention, as many of you know, is when either your family
Karen Kenney:members or your friends or your sweetie, your partner, whoever it is you know, get together because they feel like they need to intervene on your own behalf for yourself,
Karen Kenney:because you're doing something, usually something that has to do with an addiction of some kind, and they sit down and they basically just kind of pull you into a
Karen Kenney:space, and usually they spring it on you. You think you're going to a patty or your meal or going to somebody's house, and you get in there, and there's like a little
Karen Kenney:kumbaya circle of people with their letters and their stories of things that they want to say to you. And I've heard a lot of interventions. I've heard about a lot of
Karen Kenney:interventions not going well, not going well, and I think it kind of has something to do. And I'm not saying all interventions are bad. Like I am not a I am not a sobriety
Karen Kenney:coach. I am even though, you know I, I know a lot of people. I've been to Al Anon, I know a lot of people in recovery and stuff like that, but I leave the substance use
Karen Kenney:disorder stuff to the professionals, right? Not that I can't, and I have worked with people who were going through that process, but I I'm not somebody who does
Karen Kenney:interventions, you know what I mean, but I have heard of some people who have been intervened upon, and it sometimes does not go well. In fact, it pushes people away from
Karen Kenney:any kind of help. And i It's because, like, I believe part of it, part of it is you can't force people into doing things that they're not ready for. And it's same in my
Karen Kenney:line of work, like, as a spiritual mentor, it's like, I can't convince people that this doing this kind of work, personal development, spiritual work, etc, mindset
Karen Kenney:work, whatever you want to call it, you can't force it on people. You can't make people do it, right? There's that old saying you can lead a horse to water. You can't
Karen Kenney:make them drink, right? And you if somebody is trying to get sober for you and not themselves, it's not going to last very long. And so I've heard stories of people
Karen Kenney:like having interventions, and so they decide to go to rehab or to do whatever, and then, you know, they're out for 10 days, and they're they're using again, and because it
Karen Kenney:wasn't about them, it wasn't their choice, they're doing it out of guilt or shame, or because the whole family got together and said, You're such a up. Or this is the
Karen Kenney:consequences of what we've been dealing with because of you and your habits and whatever I'm good. I'm not saying that an intervention can't be successful. I'm just
Karen Kenney:saying again, there are times when in our desire to be helpful, we can be a little more harmful and sometimes even do more hurt. You know, we can it can be more
Karen Kenney:debilitating than it is, more negative than it is positive. So sometimes our desire to be helpful, you know, again, anybody here double A man hands, if you've were raised by
Karen Kenney:somebody with who was an alcoholic or a drug, drug abuser, drug user, or if you were loved somebody or dated somebody, or have a sibling or a friend.
Karen Kenney:You know, we know that sometimes that codependency, that codependent relationship that gets formed, especially if it started when you were a young kid, it will often
Karen Kenney:then continue in with like if one of your parents or caretakers, right, it will often continue into your adult relationships as well. And so we have to be keeping an eye on
Karen Kenney:what it is in us that the fear in us that comes up right the patterns in us that come up when we feel the compulsion to like fix things for other people, especially adults.
Karen Kenney:We've got to sometimes just let adults be adults. Which leads me to my next example, when we're always fixing things for people, especially kids, if you never let a kid fall
Karen Kenney:down and hurt themselves, if you never let I'm not saying please again. I know common sense is not always common, but let's do our best to put our common sense caps on. As I'm
Karen Kenney:talking today, you're not going to let a kid run into traffic. I'm not talking about that kind of of falling or hurting, right? Those things are deadly, really dangerous. But I'm
Karen Kenney:just saying, if we're always fixing things, if you don't let your kids suffer the consequences of not doing their homework, if you don't let your kid try out for a team
Karen Kenney:that you're pretty sure he's probably not going to make if you never let your kid feel disappointed, let down, right? Whatever that, to me, ends up turning into a
Karen Kenney:disaster, because one of the things that you're taking from them is their ability to you take away their opportunity to learn, to learn about themselves, to learn about the
Karen Kenney:world, to learn about just what they're capable of. And if you are always trying to make it easy for them right, then they never learn that they can handle what life is
Karen Kenney:going to throw at them. And I see it a lot. I see a lot of younger kids, you know, kids that are going off to high school or then going off to college. College, and then out
Karen Kenney:of college, trying to create their their next steps in life. They're not capable. They they feel completely overwhelmed and stressed out by life. Because if we keep
Karen Kenney:handing things to kids, if yes, there are times when it's totally appropriate to help your children, and there are other times when it's like they need to learn, that they
Karen Kenney:can figure things out, that they're really smart, that they're good problem solvers, that they're tougher than and I'm not I'm not talking like tough love all the time.
Karen Kenney:I'm just saying I think kids need to learn a certain amount of tenacity, right, to be tenacious and to to be what's the word I'm looking for, resilient, and to know that
Karen Kenney:they have some grit and that they can bounce back, and that they can fall down and get knocked on their ass and get back up again. I think these things are, like, really,
Karen Kenney:really important, of course, all of that, mixed with a lot of attaboy, at a girl, at a kid, you know, a lot of like, you know, bolstering up of their like, letting them
Karen Kenney:know that they matter, that their love, that they're capable of course, of course, balance with kindness and stuff. But you can't. We can't, like, what are the bubble
Karen Kenney:wrap parenting, the the helicopter parenting, the I'm so afraid that my poor kid is going to skin their knee, whatever it is. It's like, no, not every kid makes the
Karen Kenney:team, and not every kid gets the pad and the play. Not every kid gets into the college, not every kid gets the boy or the girl or the person that they're attracted to, or
Karen Kenney:whatever the thing is, right? And it's that lack of ability to navigate life that you know can cause a lot of problems. It can be way more hurtful and harmful for them as
Karen Kenney:they grow and mature, leave the protection of your home and have to go out into the world, and they realize like, Oh no, but not everybody caters to my whims and my needs
Karen Kenney:and my preferences, right? This is where we talk about a lot of the privilege, like can come from a lot of that expectation that the world is supposed to bend to their will,
Karen Kenney:right? So we want to set them up for success, and part of that sometimes is not helping them, right? Is not always helping them, no, again, there's a time when, when
Karen Kenney:to help them. Can basically take them out at the knees rather than strengthen them. Again, we already talked about the next one, when, when you when it's about you and your
Karen Kenney:ego and really not about the other person. Okay, this is a big one, this next one, and please, I hope if you recognize yourself in any of these that you don't take it
Karen Kenney:personally, like you're being attacked or feel the need to defend anything or anything like that. This really is just self awareness. And as I always say, everything
Karen Kenney:that I'm talking about is always for my ears first. A lot of times. This is me reminding me so like today me wants to remind future me to keep an eye on the shit. You know what
Karen Kenney:I mean. So sometimes we like to get all healthy, healthy and up in other people's business. Excuse me how to take a drink, because we want a distraction. Because who
Karen Kenney:here has ever known somebody, and I was this person a long time ago. You like to have a project, right? You like to have a project. I still like to have projects. I just don't
Karen Kenney:want them to be people. I am not interested in having people as projects anymore, right? I'm not here to save anybody. I am not here to fix anybody. I am not here to convince
Karen Kenney:anybody again of anything. It's like so many people, oftentimes, love to get up in everybody else's business as a distraction, so that they don't have to take a look at
Karen Kenney:themselves, so they don't have to focus on their own, like burning pile. I'm like, Hey, your own house is on fire, you might want to take that hose that you're trying to help
Karen Kenney:put out everybody else's fires, right? Hey, take that toolkit, take those band aids, take that shit back over there, right to your own address, your own longitude,
Karen Kenney:latitude, because it is lacking over there. That's where you need to put your yourself. But for a lot of people, they stay wicked busy, and they stay up in like, you know,
Karen Kenney:volunteering for this, or going this, or teaching that, or doing that, and they're doing 18,000 things because, oh, so and so needs my help. Or, oh, they can't do it
Karen Kenney:without me. Or oh, I need to be on this, this board, or this thing or that thing. And it's because they don't want to have to sit in their own skin. They don't want to have
Karen Kenney:to face their own life. They don't have to face their own whether it's their marriage, their health, their own relationships, their kids, don't want whatever the situation is,
Karen Kenney:right? They use it as a distraction. They use it as a way to to not have to face what is in front of them, in within them. A lot of times it's within them. Because if I just
Karen Kenney:stay so busy and I just stay so focused on everybody else, I don't have to take a look at the dumpster fire that is that is burning inside me or around me at my own in my own
Karen Kenney:situation. You know what I mean. So sometimes people would rather have a project than than to focus on their own shit and. Again, don't this isn't about making anybody
Karen Kenney:feel bad. This is about just an opportunity to recognize, like, oh yeah, man, I kind of do that and and just getting a little more clarity on where your energy and your
Karen Kenney:efforts and your enthusiasm and stuff would be better spent. You know, we really can't help people that effectively if we, if we are not taking care of our own stuff, it's
Karen Kenney:just, it's just something to consider and to think about, Okay, another time when to be like, super duper helpful is, is, is harmful or hurtful is when we try to help beyond our
Karen Kenney:own means or our own resources. If you become the person that everybody else is always like, Oh, she'll fix it, she'll do it, she'll take care of that. Call her, call
Karen Kenney:this, do this, do that, right? You become that go to person for everybody, and nobody else is doing it for you. It's really easy to kind of slip into resentment and into
Karen Kenney:anger, and there's nothing wrong. Sometimes anger is totally appropriate, but we can start to slip into that kind of matter role, and when it's really imbalanced in that way,
Karen Kenney:that's not very healthy. And if we start to develop the kind of that feeling of being taken for granted or taken advantage of, or why am I always the one that has to do
Karen Kenney:everything? Or, you know, if it really starts to become where you're helping beyond your means, right? Like, there's so many scams nowadays, like elderly people are
Karen Kenney:being scammed all the time, where, like, some young and attractive person will reach out to them on the internet and convince them that they want to have a relationship
Karen Kenney:with them, and they'll do the long game, man, this will go on for months and months and months, and then they innocently, innocently, quote, unquote, I'm doing air
Karen Kenney:quotes. Will ask for just a little help, a little money, just until Tuesday, when they get their paycheck, or whatever bullshit racket they're running, you know?
Karen Kenney:And I see a lot of people end up losing all of their savings and a desire to be helpful. And if you're giving beyond your means your resources, that's not great for anybody. You
Karen Kenney:see it with churches. Sometimes you see it when you know people feel like they have to tie. They're always give. Every week when they go to church, they have no money to in
Karen Kenney:their own friggin pocket or savings account, but they're like giving away, giving away. And look at there's, there's a lot of ways to help. Doesn't always have to be monetary.
Karen Kenney:You might mentor somebody. You might volunteer. You might, you know, make, make little, uh, blankets for preemie babies. You might volunteer at the animal shelter,
Karen Kenney:whatever, right? Sometimes our resources can be our time. But even then, if you're giving more than you have to give, you can get sick. You can get exhausted. And some of the
Karen Kenney:some of the things that you were put on this earth to do, some of the your own individual curriculum and your own assignment will get neglected because you're so busy, right,
Karen Kenney:keeping your focus out there and doing more than you. You are actually, truly, truly, genuinely able to give. And we see this is why so many women end up with autoimmune
Karen Kenney:disorders. Because they don't say no. They constantly give. They say they say yes, when they mean no, you know what I'm saying. So that's another way when being helpful can be
Karen Kenney:harmful. And look, I could probably do this all day. There's probably a list of like, 25 easy, but I'm going to stop it. I'm going to stop at eight. And here's the last one,
Karen Kenney:number eight. Sometimes when helping hurts is when it's when it diminishes somebody else's dignity, or when you see it on online all the time, right? And look, I don't want
Karen Kenney:to judge these people, because I have no idea what's really in their hat, what's really their intention, what's really in their mind, but, and you know, some people
Karen Kenney:will make the argument that, like, for example, the people who go out and like film film them giving money to people they're in a financial bind, or somebody who is
Karen Kenney:houseless, or, you know, without housing, somebody living on the streets, or, like, whatever. And you see people like walking up and like doing this whole thing, like, oh,
Karen Kenney:whoever was going to be kind to me first? And here's $10,000 or here's this, here's that, and people are always filming it, and sometimes it leaves a little bit of a bad
Karen Kenney:taste in my mouth. And I understand the argument of, well, if they film it and other people see it, maybe other people will be inspired to do it. But I think that we can
Karen Kenney:do those things. And I think that we can do those things without needing the recognition for it, or without needing to document it, and without needing to broadcast it. Every
Karen Kenney:once in a while, I'll see one, and it's really sweet, like a little kid getting to meet their favorite, favorite, favorite, like pop singer or athlete or whatever.
Karen Kenney:Like, there's certain things you think that's really great, and sometimes I. Watch them, and I'm like, this is really it doesn't feel so good, like it just just, you
Karen Kenney:know, some, some my spidey, my spidey senses get tingly, like an alarm goes off inside me. That bullshit alarm goes a little like, man, what's this really about? And again,
Karen Kenney:it's not for me to judge. I don't know what people's true intentions are, but if you feel like you're helping in a way that can be degrading to somebody else, or it
Karen Kenney:diminishes their autonomy, or their authority or their own agency, if you are diminishing their dignity, we might want to take a step back and say, like, you know,
Karen Kenney:I'm doing this, because a lot of times people are doing things out of their own discomfort, out of their own inability to sit with something that's challenging or
Karen Kenney:difficult, and a lot of times, like, I just need to do something I was just trying to help. Well, you helping sometimes makes it worse. And if we're not aware of that, if
Karen Kenney:we're not aware of what is going on inside of us that compels us, or or we have a compulsion to be helpful. Now, having said all that, I want to say that I love helping.
Karen Kenney:I like, I'm getting better at receiving help. It's really nice. Like, if you drop something out in public and a stranger, like, picks it up, or, like, my friend KT
Karen Kenney:was just visiting Paris, and, you know, somebody, she had, like, an app on her phone, and somebody would like, was lost, and they asked for help, and she
Karen Kenney:immediately, like, step because she's a nice person, right? So look, I'm not saying don't help, right? Be the helpers. Be the helpers. I think I did a whole podcast on that called
Karen Kenney:be the helpers, and let's be mindful about the quality of our help. If our help is wanted, what's the real intention? Get under the under. Why am I feeling like I need to
Karen Kenney:help in this situation? Educate yourself sometimes before stepping in. Just don't make the assumption that Your help is wanted or needed, or that you know best for another
Karen Kenney:being, whether it's human or animal. Of course, if somebody is struggling, if it's very evident, right? And sometimes you're going to have to make a judgment call,
Karen Kenney:right? When I I'm about to, oh, by the time you guys hear this, I'll already be working at flexible but, you know, when I just recently had to get my CPR updated again, so
Karen Kenney:I did my little CPI test, you know, go take the course the whole thing at the American Red Cross, you know. And there are going to be times you're going to find somebody
Karen Kenney:unconscious. You're not going to know if unconscious, and you're not going to know if they have, like, an NDR or like some, you know, they're like, a stranger somewhere,
Karen Kenney:and you're all you know is like, Hey, I have the skill set. They're not breathing. I need to, like, jump in, right? Of course, they're going to be times in your life when you have
Karen Kenney:to make a judgment call, and hopefully the choice that we make is actually helpful and not harmful. But you know, sometimes we just need to slow down a second and of course, of
Karen Kenney:course, there's going to be situations where it's an emergency and you have to make a split second decision. I'm not talking about many of these things that I talked about
Karen Kenney:today. It's just a matter of like, slowing down, getting really clear, why am I doing this? What's this really about? Do that? Does that other per Who am I helping? You
Karen Kenney:know, I'm like, if you want to help somebody so bad, like, help yourself. Like, start with yourself. You know, start with yourself. Start being a little more
Karen Kenney:proactive and helping get your mind right, your body right, your finances and bills, right, your relationship, right, your health and well being, your mental health, right,
Karen Kenney:right? Your spiritual life, right? Like spend a little more time worrying about you know ourselves before we stop badging into being the the self professed. You know
Karen Kenney:authority, like when be just be mindful when our helping is coming from a place of arrogance versus humility, and here's a little list of like different ways when you
Karen Kenney:might start to notice when it's best to stop helping another person or whatever if you've been whether it's an organization, whether it's a group of people, whether it's like
Karen Kenney:whatever It is a person a particular friendship or relationship is when you, when you start to get emotionally exhausted, right? When you're like, This is just way
Karen Kenney:too much output. Like, I cannot keep this up, right? It's going to, it's going to be detrimental to myself when there is repeatedly, when you create a boundary, and
Karen Kenney:that boundary gets crossed or violated, when somebody is not recognizing or respecting, when you say, Hey, I'm willing to give this much, but nothing more. And if they keep,
Karen Kenney:keep making demands and stuff like that, when there's a. Lack of balance when there's no reciprocity, reciprocity, reciprocity, when it's not a good give and receive, when
Karen Kenney:you're always the give a give a give a give a give a give a give a give a and the other person is always taking, taking, taking, taking, taking the help, and they're not
Karen Kenney:acknowledging it. They're not, you know, they're not taking a chance to say thank you. They're not reciprocating in any way. And look, we don't give. We don't give to
Karen Kenney:get the Thank you, right? Just we put our heads down. We do the work. We do. What we know is the right thing to do, right? Um, but at the same time, you know, it's a good
Karen Kenney:it's a good virtue, it's a good virtuous thing, right? To give that's wonderful, but we also have to be mindful when it's totally out of balance and it's not reciprocal. The
Karen Kenney:other time is the Oh yeah, when you when you start to realize, like, Oh, if you start to get a sneaking suspicion that you're being manipulated, you might want to pump the
Karen Kenney:brakes. Be like, Ah, this is something pu something stakes right? Something's a little bit off here, like, this doesn't feel good. This doesn't feel healthy.
Karen Kenney:If you know your help is again, if it's allowing somebody to do like, harmful behavior, if you're you know you're helping is keeping them, like, stuck in a cycle of
Karen Kenney:whatever that that isn't good for them. And then my big thing is, and this really also applies, you know, to me as a mentor, to me as a coach, as a yoga teacher. Like, just as
Karen Kenney:the work that I do, I always say, like, I'm not interested in creating codependent relationships. I'm also not interested in trying to convince people of anything right.
Karen Kenney:Like I am not here. Like I always say, I only really want to work with people who want to help themselves, who are willing to help themselves. So I don't want to work
Karen Kenney:with clients, or I don't want to work with groups of people or whatever, who are unwilling to help themselves, who don't want to, you know, invest, invest their own
Karen Kenney:whether, whether it's their energy, their finances, whatever it is if they don't want to learn, if they don't want to grow, if they are unwilling to help themselves, then
Karen Kenney:I'm just going to, like, slowly moonwalk out of the room, you know? And I jokingly say, like, by the time you hear this, I will be 56 years old, right? I'm like, I'm slowly
Karen Kenney:marching towards 60. And I'm like, Oh my God. Like, what do I have left? What do I have left? Like, maybe, maybe on a wicked good day, like, 2830 is left, I don't know.
Karen Kenney:And I want to be around people in both my personal and professional life that, like, want to, you know, really kind of live out what they're here to do, and they recognize
Karen Kenney:that they have some some some bullshit and some blind spots. They also recognize their brilliance. Like, that's the fun. Like, I want to be around people that recognize both
Karen Kenney:their brilliance and their bullshit, that recognize, like, oh yeah, like, I'm here to spread some love. And I got a few places where I got a few speed bumps, right?
Karen Kenney:There's a few hiccups, there's a few rough spots I'm working on. And it's not to say like you need to be fixed, or you're always going to be fixed. It's not that that, to
Karen Kenney:me, is not what personal development and stuff is to me. Spiritual work is about recognizing who you already are, right? It's about recognizing that you are already an
Karen Kenney:extension of the Divine, that you are a child of God, that you are the You are the love and the light of the world. That, to me, is so much about what this work is. It's
Karen Kenney:about removing the blocks and the barriers we have to our own brilliance, to our own innocence, to our own good, beautiful and holy. You know what I mean. But if other
Karen Kenney:people are not willing to like, put in some time, put in a little effort, energy, resources, whatever it is, if they're not willing to invest in themselves in some way,
Karen Kenney:like we can't drag people, kicking and screaming towards their own I was going to use the word salvation, but I don't mean it in a religious way, to them helping
Karen Kenney:themselves. You know what I mean? So it's like, that's not that interesting to me. These days, I really appreciate it when people are like, Yeah, I recognize that I'm
Karen Kenney:kind of stuck in this pattern. I'm stuck in this habitual way of being and thinking and seeing and experiencing myself like I am kind of stuck in this story. And you know,
Karen Kenney:and you know I talk about the work that I do is like this transforming your story to your glory. It's like moving out of those old patterns and subconscious programming and
Karen Kenney:the ways that we have identified and thought of ourselves and and kind of turning on the light. You know what I mean? It's like not fighting the darkness, as Swami Kripalu
Karen Kenney:says, It's like turning on the light and going like, oh yeah. So that's another thing for me. Like, these days, it's like, if you're not interested in helping yourself,
Karen Kenney:I'm not going to keep pouring forth energy and resources and curating things and doing things. I'm like, Oh, you're this, this person or this group of people, whatever it
Karen Kenney:is, actually doesn't want this help. So why should I, like, bust my as we. Said, Why should I bust my balls? Right? Trying to help people who don't want to be helped? Oh,
Karen Kenney:my God. Now look sometimes, sometimes somebody might be not realizing that they need help. And again, that's when it's really hard, right? And that's when, again,
Karen Kenney:things can become a little intertwined and codependent. When you're trying to say, I always say, like, I cannot save people from themselves. I cannot save people from
Karen Kenney:themselves. They've got to want to, you know, do it. And that goes for all of us. It's not just me. I when I say, Me, I can't save you. It's like, you can't, right? We
Karen Kenney:can't we cannot save people from themselves. Sometimes people are hell bent on destruction, and all we can do is try to love them. And sometimes the most loving
Karen Kenney:thing we can say is, no, you know, and that's wicked hot. I'm not. That's wicked hard. I've known, I've known a lot of people who have had to, you know, not let their
Karen Kenney:kids in the house anymore, or to turn away from loved ones, and, you know, not not be in touch with their families in some cases. And it's not easy. This being human man,
Karen Kenney:it's not easy. And we, I think it's a beautiful thing that we often have a natural propensity and a natural desire to help, but we also have to be able, sometimes to stand
Karen Kenney:back, to zoom out, to open up the aperture, and kind of look at the bigger picture, and start to see like, oh, in my doing this, it actually hasn't been helpful at all, and we
Karen Kenney:want to try to stop it and catch it before it becomes hurtful or harmful to them or to ourselves. Okay. I hope that this has been helpful and not hurtful. I hope this has
Karen Kenney:been helpful just kind of talking this out and saying some things out loud, because sometimes we don't recognize it right, sometimes we don't see it, and we just think
Karen Kenney:like, and then you get a little pissy, like I was only trying to help, but don't they see that I was only trying to be helpful. But if that's not how they're experiencing
Karen Kenney:it, you have to take that into account, right? We gotta be able to kind of put our ego aside and say, like, Okay, but what is this person really? Really want or need or
Karen Kenney:whatever? And sometimes it's not us getting up in their business or being all healthy, you know what I'm saying. So but I love the I love the natural desire. I think, I think,
Karen Kenney:by and large, humans really are goodness. I think that we are good. And some somewhere along the way, we get caught up in the racket of things and trying to, excuse me,
Karen Kenney:hustle and make money the priority instead of love or power, the priority instead of love and the ego really deals in the market, the black market of Fia, you know what I
Karen Kenney:mean? So, yeah, alright, I think I'm gonna end it right there. Thank you so much for tuning in, for spending a little time together. I appreciate you, and I love you.
Karen Kenney:You can always get on my email list. That's one of the best things to do if you just want to kind of keep, keep in up to date, or like, whatever's going on when I'm offering
Karen Kenney:fun things. Like, we just wrapped up that 30 day challenge, the good, the beautiful, holy, that was wicked fun and those kinds of things. If you want to find out about those
Karen Kenney:things right, get on my email list. Karen kenney.com/sign up. You could also come hang out with us in the nest. We're having a blast over there, and that's Karen
Karen Kenney:kenney.com/nest N, E, S, T, and if you want to support the show, please, by all means, right, help me feel. Feel free to help me by sending me a little tip. That would be
Karen Kenney:awesome. That is a welcome help. PS, by the way, and that's just Karen kenney.com/tip Cha. And just, thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate you, and I'm thinking of
Karen Kenney:you, and I'm blasting you with so much love wherever you go. May you leave yourself and the people and the animals and the planet and the environment better than how you
Karen Kenney:found it wherever you go. May you and your presence and your helpfulness be a blessing. Bye, bye.
