YOUNGER YOU
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I tell a story about how I often talk about “Today me, thanking ‘younger me’ – for decisions that I’ve made.”
Which led me to discussing the powerful process created by Richard Schwartz - called Internal Family Systems (IFS) – also known as “Parts work.”
I share how it’s so important for us to have self-compassion when reflecting on our younger selves.
I also dive deeper into the different categories of our various “Parts”, why they often get created, and removing the blocks and barriers that prevent us from accessing our true “capital S” Self.
I also highlight the significance of the true Self and break down the eight qualities it embodies, like curiosity, calm, clarity, courage and more!
By applying these IFS principles, we can cultivate a deeper understanding and acceptance of our past selves.
This self-compassion can then empower us to integrate those younger parts and move forward with more wholeness and self-love. It's a powerful process of inner healing and growth.
If you want to learn more about how to better understand and compassionately engage with the younger you – whether that was the you from 20 minutes or 20 years ago – this episode is for you!
KEY POINTS:
• Embracing Younger You
• Cultivate Compassion, Not Criticism
• Understand Your Exiled Parts
• Unburden Your Protective Parts
• Embody Your True Self Qualities
• Investing in Your Own Growth + Healing
• The Nest - Group Mentoring Program
BIO:
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
Hey you guys. Welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm wicked excited to be here with you today, and for those of you who listen all the time, thank you so much.
Karen Kenney:From my hat to yours, I super duper appreciate you. Yay. I just made little hats come up on the screen if you're new to the show. Oh my god. Thank you so much. So I'm
Karen Kenney:not sure how you got here. Maybe somebody referred an episode to you. You might have no idea, like, Who is this broad, no idea who you are. So I'm going to do a wicked
Karen Kenney:fast introduction. So my name is Karen Kenney. I grew up in Lawrence mass in Boston. I'm a Masshole little evolved hashtag evolved Masshole kid. I now live in
Karen Kenney:New Hampshire, via LA. I spent some time in California as well. So I'm a lot of things. I'm a multi passionate person, so I'm a certified spiritual mentor. I am an
Karen Kenney:integrative change worker. I'm a writer and a storyteller and a speaker. Obviously, I have a podcast. I'm a hypnotist. I'm an integrative change worker. I've been a yoga
Karen Kenney:teacher for 25 some odd years. I've been an entrepreneur for like 25 years. I do Thai Yoga, massage, I stretch people, I do all kinds of things. So I basically use this
Karen Kenney:podcast to share both stories and spiritual principles. So I'm really into down to earth, practical applications of tools that help us move in the direction of our own
Karen Kenney:liberation and our own wholeness. And so I kind of use, like I said, neuroscience, subconscious reprogramming, and a bunch of different tools. So the spirituality in the
Karen Kenney:science, I like to bring them together, the somatic, and, you know, I'm like the somatic, meaning the body, the spiritual, the emotional, the physical, all of it, I
Karen Kenney:lamental, right? Our mindset and the ways that we kind of navigate the world, the way that I always ask these questions, like, Why do I think? What I think, believe, what I
Karen Kenney:believe, say, what I say, do, what I do. This is what fascinates me about our humanity, and so I use this podcast as a way to kind of bring together some personal
Karen Kenney:stories that have universal appeal, and then also share maybe some practical tips or tools or things that are helpful, and US navigating this whole human experience,
Karen Kenney:which these days, feels a little extra. You know what I mean? Okay, so today's episode, I want to talk about just something that I often say. So I kind of jokingly say to
Karen Kenney:people in the nest, my spiritual group, mentoring program, or my best friend Katie or my sweetie or whatever. So there were just times when, like, let's say I have
Karen Kenney:something to do today, or maybe I said no to something. Maybe I got invited to something, or whatever the thing is, but an earlier version of me made a decision one way or the
Karen Kenney:other, and I will often say today me would like to thank me from three weeks ago for saying no to that, because if I had said yes, I would be completely overwhelmed right
Karen Kenney:now, right? And sometimes I'll say today me has a bone to pick or has something to say to me from four days ago, for thinking that this was a good idea, right? So I kind of
Karen Kenney:use this joke about what current me is experiencing based on what previous me decided to say, Do think whatever you know, whatever story I was telling myself back
Karen Kenney:then, like, oh yeah, that's a good idea, right? So sometimes today me is really happy about what me from 20 minutes ago or 20 days ago or 20 months ago, whatever did or
Karen Kenney:thought, and sometimes I'm not so impressed with the earlier choices that I made, which kind of is the hot beat of what I want to talk about today. Because if you've never
Karen Kenney:heard of ifs or internal family systems, when I make that comment today, me wants to whatever. I'm kind of pointing back to what I have ifs talks about, which is often
Karen Kenney:commonly known as pots work, P, A, R, T, S, right, pots, pots work. So there, and I'm going to get into that in a second with, with some like, hashtag clarifications, but,
Karen Kenney:but what I'm really trying to get at is a lot of times, especially in the work that I do as a spiritual mentor and helping people with change work or call it, call it
Karen Kenney:personal development, call it whatever you want to call it. A lot of times we can be wicked hard and really hash towards younger versions of ourselves, and we'll often,
Karen Kenney:like, look back with like, shame or regret or guilt or blame and be like, how could I do that? How could I think that? Why did I think that was a good decision? Like, blah,
Karen Kenney:blah, blah, blah, blah. And whether it's anything from like, overcoming an addiction, like, you know you're in recovery now, or you're looking back. Or, you know, something
Karen Kenney:is this big change your foot, and you look back and you just think these awful things that inner critic, right, which is one of those pots, that inner critic gets really
Karen Kenney:loud in your head and can really kind of look back with contempt and disgust, and, like a lot of things. And just the other day, I was thinking about a younger version
Karen Kenney:of myself, you know. And a lot of times, people will ask me how I get into the work that I currently do, and I'll often say, really, you guys, this all started in an
Karen Kenney:attempt from me to save myself, from me, like I was my own first client, like I went first to try to help myself, to shift my perspective from fear to love, although at
Karen Kenney:that time, I wouldn't have like. In the very beginning, I wouldn't have like, used that language. All I knew is that I was fucking suffering, and I did not want to feel that
Karen Kenney:way anymore, and I wanted some not just hope that there was possibility to feel differently, to maybe feel better. I just wanted some tools. Like, that's why I'm a
Karen Kenney:very practical teacher. I'm not interested in just sitting around and discussing theories and spiritual theories. I'm like, I'm like a blue collar kid, like, I want to
Karen Kenney:get my hands dirty. I want to be able to take something and apply it to my life and then possibly, right? See a difference. Hopefully, see a difference in the way that
Karen Kenney:I'm thinking, in the way that I'm relating, in the way that I'm talking to myself and others, shifting, shifting my perspective into a realm of like all is lost, right?
Karen Kenney:Remember the little opusions? You remember the little was out the, I think it was on the banana splits. You might be too young. If you don't know the TV show the banana
Karen Kenney:splits, right? They would often do these little, like, short snippets of different shows. And there was always this show, and it was like, based on, like, it was
Karen Kenney:Gulliver's Travels. And Gulliver was, like, this full size, grown man, and he got washed ashore. He was a sailor or something, and he got shipwrecked on this little island where
Karen Kenney:everybody was like, teeny, teeny, tiny, the little Lilliputians. And there was this one little character on the Lilliputians who I always laugh when I think about, and his
Karen Kenney:whole attitude, everything, everything, like everybody else would come up with a plan, and his response was, always we'll never make it. We're doomed. And I think we all
Karen Kenney:have probably a part of ourselves that's like that we'll never make it. We're doomed like meaning. I'm stuck with this way of thinking. I'm stuck with this way of being.
Karen Kenney:I'm stuck with this trauma. I'm stuck with this fucking dysfunctional family. I'm stuck with this whatever, and I just don't believe it. I just don't believe it. I know why we
Karen Kenney:feel that way. I have often thought to myself, oh my god, am I ever going to be able to change this thing, right? Am I ever going to be able to fill in the blank? Shift
Karen Kenney:it, change it, transform it, heal it. Sometimes I don't really like the word fix it, but sometimes that's our energy. I need to fix this thing. You know, we're just over
Karen Kenney:it. We're just, like, done, like, we want something different. So, so where was I going with all of that? So there's often, like, times when we look back on our younger
Karen Kenney:selves with contempt, I guess that's the word I'm looking for, and not a lot of compassion. But recently, I was looking back on younger parts of myself, you know, a
Karen Kenney:friend of mine was asking me about, like, like, how did you survive your childhood? Like, knowing who you are now and how you are now, like, you just randomly will tell
Karen Kenney:me, like, these stories and like, I'm kind of horrified for you, you know, and I think, like, Yeah, I mean, I guess I didn't really, like, back then, I was just trying to
Karen Kenney:survive. I wasn't thinking of so much about, necessarily, what I was going through. I didn't have time to have a pity party. Do you know what I mean? Now, there have
Karen Kenney:certainly been times in my life where I felt sorry for myself, I totally felt victimized. I just felt like, Oh my god. Why does all this stuff keep happening to me? You know?
Karen Kenney:But since then I can look back, obviously, with a totally different lens and a new perspective. This is the gift of doing this kind of internal work and spiritual work,
Karen Kenney:learning how to shift my perspective and see through a new lens, right? So nowadays I kind of look back, and I just had this moment, and this is where you guys kind of
Karen Kenney:come in, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about pots work and IFS in a second, but there's a part of me that was like looking back. So here what I just said,
Karen Kenney:there's a part of me. So this, this, um, this more now, like, more true self, right? This, I'm
Karen Kenney:older, I'm hopefully wiser. I have more tools in my spiritual toolkit. I have more tools to help, like, help with my brain science and helping my brain to, you know,
Karen Kenney:create, create better, better connections and neurons, like neurons, as Rick Hansen says, neurons that fire together, wire together. So I'm trying to wire together
Karen Kenney:some better thoughts and habits and patterns, you know, but so this more true self of me and. We'll talk about the self in this in a sec too. Was looking back with
Karen Kenney:such great not just compassion for the younger parts of me, the younger versions of me, but really with deep appreciation and also, like, it's not, it's not awe, because
Karen Kenney:I reserve my awe for, like, the divine, right? But just like, like, wow. Like, man kid, like, I look back at that younger version of me and I'm really kind of
Karen Kenney:impressed, like, I think to myself, like, yeah, were all my decisions? Great, no, however, that younger me that knew to go and follow my instinct to practice yoga, that
Karen Kenney:curious part of me that love to read books and find things out and explore and not wasn't afraid to face difficult things about myself, others, shit that had happened,
Karen Kenney:stuff that had gone down right, like the part of me who is still alive and well and isn't afraid to kind of look at this world and look at this country, and look at some
Karen Kenney:difficult truths about the way right? Don't get Don't get mad at me, because if we don't start to face some things, it's never going to change. But kind of looking at America
Karen Kenney:and a lot of systems that have been in place that have not been kind of compassionate to all, like all men are created equal. So it says, right, but does our behavior as a
Karen Kenney:culture and a nation reflect that? No. So there's this part of me that has always been on the side of justice, and there's a part of me that was and I don't I wasn't so much
Karen Kenney:stubborn as I was determined. There was a part of me that had a lot of fight in her that was resilient and was was tough and was gritty and was tenacious, you know what I
Karen Kenney:mean? And so instead of looking back at those pots of myself and like, like going, like, oh God, like, right, like looking back and kind of being like, cringy and, like,
Karen Kenney:whatever, I look back and I think, like, wow, those younger parts of me were doing the best that they could. And man, did they do some good work. Man, I'm like, those pots
Karen Kenney:are what got me here. I wouldn't be me without them. So rather than looking back in a way that is unkind, and this is where I want to invite you as well, to be able to
Karen Kenney:just stop and pause and see if you can with what you know now as an adult, right, with some of the work that you've done, whether it's been through therapy or going to AA or
Karen Kenney:getting sober or recovery work, or, you know, you know, whatever kind of spiritual mentoring, whatever kind of work that you've done, you know, from a new perspective,
Karen Kenney:being able to look back with deep compassion but also appreciation. And I think it can be a really powerful practice, because it helps us to forgive. Right? That self forgiveness
Karen Kenney:piece, which is so important in our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well being, is being able to go back and hold those younger pots close to us and to not
Karen Kenney:abandon them or exile them. And we're going to talk about that in a minute, because those younger pots, first of all, if we put it in perspective and we look back and we're
Karen Kenney:like, what was the environment that I was coming up in? What kind of support did I have? Did I have any kind of compassionate witness, right? Who, who, even if they
Karen Kenney:weren't there to protect me or couldn't stand up for me, right, but they were able to listen to and once they heard that story, were able to say, I'm so sorry that this
Karen Kenney:happened to you or I believe you right. You know what I mean. And a lot of times when we look back, we realize that those younger parts of us were highly uncared for, highly
Karen Kenney:unsupervised, highly unsupported and no wonder why they made the choices that they made, whether out of desperation, ignorance, thinking that like like as a last ditch
Karen Kenney:effort to save themselves or to desperately wanting to feel differently, to not be in The suffering and the misery right to numb themselves whatever they thought was, and
Karen Kenney:that's the thing a lot of times, when people look at other people's choices and they suck like, right? They suck their teeth or wag their finger or be like, Oh my god. How
Karen Kenney:could you do that? What they're not able to do is put themselves in another person's shoes and look at the resources that were available to those younger versions of
Karen Kenney:people, and this is why I love doing the work that I do, because you really get to see how people's stories, belief systems and identities are built based on where they
Karen Kenney:came from and the kind of or for the kind of support or lack. Of support that they maybe had. So I just want to invite you to be able to sit down and see if you can open your
Karen Kenney:mind and open your heart and widen, like, shift out the aperture right of your mind. Like open right that that lens of your mind to take a really honest and kind look at
Karen Kenney:where you were at what time, right, what time in the world, the age you were, what was your support system or lack of you might have been missing, right? What was happening
Karen Kenney:in your home, what was happening in your neighborhood, what was happening in your culture, what was happening right in the world, in the larger context of the world at
Karen Kenney:the time. And now I'm not saying, you know, you've often heard me say that trauma explains a lot of things, but at this day and age, if we're still running the same
Karen Kenney:racket and we're still doing the same shit, right, I always say trauma explains a lot of things, but it doesn't excuse things, because in this day and age now we do have
Karen Kenney:access to so many tools, right? But here's the thing. So what I'm trying to say is we don't get a free pass to continue acting out in ways that are no longer helpful, you
Karen Kenney:know, to us and to others. We don't just get a free pass. We have to have some accountability. And I always say, you might not be able to afford working with a coach
Karen Kenney:or working with a spiritual mentor or going to therapy or whatever. The thing is, the different ways, right? Where there are paid ways. But I often say, and I highly
Karen Kenney:encourage everybody to have a library card, because books at the library are free. Okay, you also have the internet if you have access, and if you don't have it in your own
Karen Kenney:home, you and I'm not saying, Look, I'm not saying every single person on the planet has access. This is that would be a gross misrepresentation, but I'm just saying most
Karen Kenney:people, there are, of course, exceptions and nuances to every rule, but most people have access, right to the internet or to a phone of some kind. Not all, I want to be very
Karen Kenney:clear, right? But there's podcasts, there's books, there's free downloads, there's all these things where we can at least start to but the key part is, first of all, is that
Karen Kenney:shame and blame and regret and all that stuff is going to make us contract, withdraw, go into fear, and a lot of times we just want to, like, build a wall right
Karen Kenney:with no door in it and just say, I'm not going back there. I'm not looking back there. But what if we could look back with appreciation, and look back on some certain
Karen Kenney:situations and say, You know what? At the time, that wasn't the best decision, but that part of me was doing the best that it knew how to do, and that part of me held on,
Karen Kenney:that part of me kept moving forward and got me where I am today. And I think it's important, like I said, in this self forgiveness piece and this self forgiveness
Karen Kenney:work, it's not my job to tell people when to forgive, if they should forgive. All I know is that forgiveness as A Course in Miracles, tells us is a key to happiness. It is one of
Karen Kenney:the keys when we kind of let ourselves off the hook, when we kind of look back with compassion, and now we can become the compassionate witness to what we were going
Karen Kenney:through back then and how we were doing at the time. It may have been the best we could now we might have more tools and more if you listen to this podcast, I'm sharing tools
Karen Kenney:with you all the time. So if you listen to this podcast consistently, then I know you're the kind of person that actually wants to I don't even want to say like be
Karen Kenney:better, but you want to be the most fully realized version of yourself, capital S self, not the small s self, like our personality and our ego and who we identify
Karen Kenney:here, but like who you truly are inside each of us there is what we call, what I call like the true self. And this is what I would can say is all different kinds of tradition,
Karen Kenney:spiritual traditions. Call it different things. You can call it the God Self, or your extension of the Divine Self, or the beloved, or the divine intelligence or your
Karen Kenney:higher power, whatever you want to call it. But this self that is has this quality of pureness and awareness in you, right? And so in pots work, in internal family systems,
Karen Kenney:which was created by Dick Schwartz, that's an important thing for you to know. Richard Swartz,
Karen Kenney:it's internal family systems. Ifs pots work. He talks about the eight qualities of the true self, and these, when you are coming from this true self, which I would consider
Karen Kenney:the UN fractured self, not the self that is made up of all these paths, but the true, whole and holy self, right, this perfect Oneness of who we really are, that capital S
Karen Kenney:self, right, when we can lead our. Lives from this self. And look, we don't all do it all the time. We do get triggered. We do get bumped out. We do stumble, we do make
Karen Kenney:mistakes. We do screw it up sometimes. But if we can always remember that there is this true self that exists, and this is why, when A Course in Miracles says a cloud does not
Karen Kenney:put out the sun, meaning that the sun, aka the true self, is always there, shining, but sometimes our choices, our behaviors, our thoughts, our patterns, our habits, our
Karen Kenney:whatever the thing is, is like those dark clouds that is just sitting right in front of our radiance, right in front of our brilliance, that bullshit is blocking the
Karen Kenney:brilliance right of the true self and the sun. But just because the clouds are there, the behavior was there, the pattern, the habit, whatever it could be there. I don't
Karen Kenney:care if it's been there for 40 years. The sun is always shining right behind it, that true self. So so much of this work in spiritual mentoring is removing the blocks,
Karen Kenney:the barriers, those clouds. It's removing that, that dark weather, right, the storm that is blocking the radiance and the trueness and the warmth and the love of that
Karen Kenney:true self, son, okay, so so much of this work is removing those blocks and barriers so that you can recognize so that you can be reintroduced, so that you can remember who
Karen Kenney:you truly are, the reality of who you truly are, right, just because you've had these patterns, these ways of being, these thought systems of fear or anxiety or worry or
Karen Kenney:whatever, for a wicked long time. It does not mean that the true Self does not exist. So holding on to the belief that that self is in there that you can access it. This is,
Karen Kenney:to me, what is so wicked exciting. So when we're a leading from that true self. And this is what Schwartz calls the 8c of self leadership, meaning self capital, else s
Karen Kenney:leading all the other parts of us. And I want you to think of your pots as, like, I kind of think of them, you know, those of us who grew up watching there was a show, so,
Karen Kenney:like, I'm 56 right? So way back in the day, there was a TV show, and I think it was called, I don't remember what the show was called, but the main character was a girl
Karen Kenney:called Sybil. And Sybil suffered from multiple personally personality disorder, meaning she literally fractured off. And different personalities would like step
Karen Kenney:forward and present themselves when I talk about different pots, quote, unquote, I'm doing air quotes. I'm not talking like we have multiple personality disorder, but we
Karen Kenney:do have our minds, have different parts of us, different parts of our personality, that were often created to play roles in times of severe trauma, or just everyday trauma or
Karen Kenney:stress, or whatever was happening in our environment. So and I'm going to break down kind of a little bit now, I want to be wicked clear. Hashtag, not a therapist.
Karen Kenney:Hashtag. I have been hoping for a wicked long time to get trained in pots work, but it's not even interesting. There was a pot. There was a portion of time where you had to
Karen Kenney:enter a lottery to get picked to be able to take the training. And they were shifting from not just training therapists, but allowing coaches and other people to take
Karen Kenney:this training. I put my myself in for the lottery several times, but there was such a huge demand. Literally, it's like, like, picking, you know, a bingo ball out of the
Karen Kenney:thing. So unfortunately, I, during that time window, I wasn't able to get picked, even though I slotted my I threw my hat and my name in the ring and the hat in the ring. So
Karen Kenney:it had nothing to do with credentials or whatever. It was, just literally luck of the draw. And unfortunately, during that time window, I did not get picked during several
Karen Kenney:of the lotteries. However, I have read many books. I naturally kind to, kind of came to this because if you've ever heard me talk on the show, or you've been to one of my yoga
Karen Kenney:classes or one of my retreats, or one of my workshops, or you've worked with me one to one, or whatever, you've heard me talk about this, about ifs and pots work, and if you've
Karen Kenney:been on the show, and you've heard me talk about Vicky with 2k from Lawrence, I say she's one of my protectives, right? Vicky with 2k is one of my pots Vicky with two
Karen Kenney:K's, though, one of her roles is protecting one of my exiles, which we're I'm going to explain all this in a second, but I'm just setting you up for it, right, which is
Karen Kenney:another part of me that I call the little bunny. And this is going to make more sense in a second, but what I mostly want you to remember is that there is a true self, a
Karen Kenney:capital S self. Here are the 8c of the self, and when we are. Living with these eight C's, we can lead ourselves, self leadership in a much better way. So they're all They're
Karen Kenney:all like, obviously they sat with C's, the letter C. So it's coming from a place of curiosity, calm, clarity, connectedness, confidence, courage, creativity and
Karen Kenney:compassion. And I'll say those again for those of you who like to take notes, okay, curiosity, calm, clarity, connectedness, confidence, courage, creativity and
Karen Kenney:compassion. And so when we can move through the world with these eight C's, right? These are the qualities that are. Help us to be really present, help us to be really loving,
Karen Kenney:help us to move through the way through the world with more awareness and to truly reflect who we really are, which is kind of the the wholeness of these eight C's, you
Karen Kenney:know what I mean? Okay, so basically, I want you to think about, you know, a lot of times in like therapeutic work or mentoring work or coaching work or whatever, people will
Karen Kenney:often exclaim how it's kind of like peeling an onion and we're peeling back the layers, and we're peeling back the layers, and we're getting down to the core, where that core
Karen Kenney:seed is right. And I love that analogy, and I love that and I do think it's true, it does feel that way, right. But in internal family systems, instead of thinking it like
Karen Kenney:an onion, Richard Swartz kind of talks about it like thinking about it like a clove of garlic. And if you've ever opened up a clove of garlic, you see it's one whole unit. But
Karen Kenney:when you open it up, there's all these little sections, there's all these little pots within that clove of garlic. So you take that garlic head and you open it up and
Karen Kenney:there's like eight cloves, or however many cloves, right? So that's kind of it. So internal family systems recognizes that each person kind of has like an ecosystem within
Karen Kenney:them. There's the core self at the center, and then there's all these multitude of pots that kind of like exist around it. To me, it's also like the spokes on a bicycle. You
Karen Kenney:have that hub in the center, and then shooting off from that are all these different pots of the spokes. So at the center of who you truly are, which is that
Karen Kenney:loving self, right, that self that has all those eight C's, and then we kind of go out into the world with our pots and that outer rim is kind of the world, and how we're
Karen Kenney:showing up in the world, and how these different parts of ourselves are kind of navigating and having relationships and responding and having triggers and having
Karen Kenney:strengths and having places where we protect Okay, so And ifs what, what they really do when you're seeing a therapist or somebody who's working in internal family systems,
Karen Kenney:what we're trying to do is kind of instead of not wanting to look at those pots, because a lot of times we have pots that we have shame around or regret around, like
Karen Kenney:Especially those exiles, which I'll break down in a second, right? But part of what we want to do is to befriend those different parts of ourselves and to kind of unburden
Karen Kenney:them from the roles that they got assigned in those times of stress or uncertainty or trauma or whatever. Because we want to kind of come back to wholeness, to our inner
Karen Kenney:peace, to the truth of who we are, that inner happiness, that inner calm right, that inner curiosity and clarity and connectedness and confidence and courage and
Karen Kenney:compassion, all that stuff that is always there, but the pots make us feel, sometimes a little bit fraction. Now, if you've ever heard yourself say, there's one part of me
Karen Kenney:that wants to go to the potty, or there's one part of me that wants to go to yoga class, another part of me that just wants to stay home. You already know that you have
Karen Kenney:pots because you say it, we say it all the time. Well, one part of me wants to take the job, and I'm really excited about it. Another part of me is scared shitless. You
Karen Kenney:know what? I mean? There's one part of me that wants to put this in my past and forgive it and move forward. Another part of me is like, I demand justice, like it wasn't
Karen Kenney:fair, right? So we know we have these different pots within ourselves. Okay? So pots are in ifs are classified into four different main categories. And if you're
Karen Kenney:taking notes like I said, you can write this down again. I have to keep saying I'm not a I'm not a therapist, but I know enough about ifs because I use it for myself and I
Karen Kenney:introduce it to my clients, because I think it's a really powerful framework to work within and to discover. And it explains so much, you guys, it explains so much. Okay,
Karen Kenney:so there's four main categories. There's the capital S self, which I already talked about. And this is the core of who you are, right? Sometimes this part of you gets
Karen Kenney:described as like the captain, the true captain of your ship. Okay, all right, then you have what are called manages. Now, the manage. Is are a protector, so they're kind
Karen Kenney:of like these protectors. There's two kinds of protectives, so you have the capital S self, that's the true self, with all of those great qualities, right? That's who you
Karen Kenney:really are. And then you have protectives, and there's two kinds of protectors, there's manages, and then there's firefighters. Okay? Now the managers are the proactive
Karen Kenney:protectives. These are the ones that kind of like avoid stuff. They prevent stuff, or they try to control things. Type a control freaks, double Amen. Hands. Raise your
Karen Kenney:hands. You know who you are, right? Those of you who try to control your environment, control outcomes. Want certainty, try to control other people. Worry about things,
Karen Kenney:right? You're very proactive. You like to get shit done. You're type A you're like, let's go. Like that, proactive energy, okay, those are the managers. They're one of your
Karen Kenney:protectors. Then you also have the firefighters. Now, the managers are proactive, but the firefighters are reactive. And these are the ones that
Karen Kenney:respond to perceived threats. And these are the ones it could be anything from like, you know, perceived threat of and I'm just making this up. I'm not saying you should
Karen Kenney:think this way about yourself. I'm just saying like, Oh no. Like, you look in the mirror, you're like, oh, and you start grabbing your fat or whatever, right? And
Karen Kenney:you're like, Oh, God, I'm
Karen Kenney:getting fat. I better get my ass to the gym. I gotta start working out. I gotta start. I gotta start, right? They're reactive to the triggers and the things that are coming up
Karen Kenney:in your life. So the managers are proactive. They try to get ahead of stuff, and they try to, like, plan and, you know, plan and have everything in order and control everything,
Karen Kenney:because otherwise they don't feel safe. Firefighters are reactive, and they're kind of responding to, like, triggers and like, oh shit, and I better do this. And they tend
Karen Kenney:to, like, overdo, and they kind of respond sometimes and maybe aggressive or obsessive way, if that makes sense, what I'm saying. But these protectives, these two groups of
Karen Kenney:protectors, they basically, we have to ask ourselves, what are they trying to protect? And what they're really trying to protect is the other set of pots that we call the
Karen Kenney:exiles. And the exiles are the parts of ourselves that we try to deny, we try to push away, because often it's just too painful to go there. Have you ever yourself
Karen Kenney:said, I don't want to go there? Or you'll be talking if you're like, Oh, I try to talk to my mother about this thing that happened, but she doesn't want to go there, so her
Karen Kenney:protectors are in place, and they're saying, Nope. We are not going back and looking at those exiles. We are not going back and looking at those pots of ourselves that we
Karen Kenney:have abandoned, that we have said, Nope. Like, this is a very New England thing, right? I call it. I write about this in my book. I call it, suck it up and stuff it
Karen Kenney:down. So we kind of tell those younger, really younger, they tend to be the much younger parts of ourselves that really experience things, traumas, dramas, awful
Karen Kenney:things, all the awful things that can happen when you're young and you're innocent and you're vulnerable and you're at the mercy of bigger people, people who can do things to
Karen Kenney:you, right? And that's everything from, of course, sexual assault to divorce to poverty to not having enough food to being parentalized too soon, like all the things
Karen Kenney:that we know can happen to little kids growing up in a violent system, a sexist system, a racist system, a misogynistic system, a system that doesn't love you,
Karen Kenney:tells you you're not good enough, that ignores you, that abuses you, like all the things that can happen when you are young and vulnerable as a child. And so we have
Karen Kenney:these exiles, and we just kind of go like, Nope, we're not going to deal with that. And you can think of the exiles as everything from, you know, the angry teenager, all the
Karen Kenney:way down to the terrified toddler or the hungry baby or whatever, these different parts of ourselves that did not get their needs met, that were not seen, that were not
Karen Kenney:cared for, that were told to suck it up, that were told to stop whining, those parts of ourselves that didn't feel like we had a right to feel what we feel, and we didn't
Karen Kenney:have a voice. And, you know, people could do things with to us and get away with us. We weren't believed. We were abandoned, abused, all the things right? So we have these parts
Karen Kenney:of ourselves that we deny and push away because it's too painful to look at them. So when I was saying earlier, Vicky with 2k from Lawrence, she basically, one of her
Karen Kenney:main jobs is kind of like protecting the little bunny. But not only does she like to protect the little bunny, she likes to protect everybody else's pots, vulnerable
Karen Kenney:pots, too. And that's the part of me, I think very much part of you know my veganism and being a vegan, and why I care so much about animals. And first of all, I just love
Karen Kenney:them. How could you not. Yeah, I don't get it. I'm not being mean. I don't unless, like, I understand. Sometimes people have stories as to why they're afraid of dogs or
Karen Kenney:whatever, but for the most part, I just don't get people who don't like animals. It just blows my mind in some way, but that's a story for another day. Now, I'm not trying
Karen Kenney:to be judgy. I'm just saying, like, I have such a deep love for them. I'm like, I don't get it. But there's a part of me that my veganism is really driven by a desire for
Karen Kenney:justice, and that's kind of like Vicky with two K's. I don't like bullies. I don't fucking like bullies. I don't like people, and I understand bullies are made, right?
Karen Kenney:Not born. A lot of times bullies are made because they come at the environment. It's not that I don't have compassion and I can't psychoanalyze it and look at it of like, why
Karen Kenney:they're that way, but I still don't like the behavior, and I don't tolerate it, right? I can tell you a story. I'll tell a story on another podcast episode of something that
Karen Kenney:recently happened, where I was like, yeah, no, not on my watch, right? So I don't like, I like. I like helping the voiceless to have a voice. I like standing up for me. What is
Karen Kenney:right? I like to care for other people's exiles, and so much of the work that I do, what we're doing is not only reclaiming the true self, right, but we're kind of, you
Karen Kenney:know, sometimes in in order to claim the true self, we have to kind of go back a little bit. This is part of the whole your story to your glory process, right? We have
Karen Kenney:to kind of go back a little bit and get in touch with those exiles a little bit, not saying we have to go back and stay there and psychoanalyze everything, but part of
Karen Kenney:knowing where you're going is knowing where you're coming from. You know what I'm saying. So it's like, okay, so why do these behaviors, these protectors, right? Why do
Karen Kenney:these firefighters and these managers exist? It's because they're trying to protect this is the big question. If you recognize that you are your true, whole, holy self, then
Karen Kenney:there's nothing to protect. I always say, try to move through the world with nothing to attack, defend or prove. But until we start doing this work, right until we start
Karen Kenney:doing this work, and whether you do it with me and one to one mentoring, or join the nest or some community or group like that, or you go to therapy or whatever, get a
Karen Kenney:coach of your own right until we start to do this work. You know, a lot of times it's like we are just reacting to life instead of coming at we're reacting out of fear and ego
Karen Kenney:and patterns and habits, and we don't question why we believe it. We think, believe what we believe, and think what we think, and say what we say, and do what we
Karen Kenney:do. But I'm really curious about, like, Well, how did we get here, number one, but then, then the most important question is, like, now what? And I'm going to do a whole
Karen Kenney:podcast on, now what? Okay, so this is, I just think, really helpful. And I'm just introducing the idea of this stuff because some of you may have never heard of it
Karen Kenney:before. Some of you in the nest, or people who have worked with me, I know you've heard of this before, but if you're more curious about it, right, there's some great books
Karen Kenney:out there. There's, you know, Introduction to internal family systems, by Dick Schwartz, no bad pots, by Dick Schwartz, we all have pots. That's another great book.
Karen Kenney:But you can look these up and get curious, but you're going to discover and all of a sudden you'll be like, Oh my God, this makes so much sense, right? So we all have these
Karen Kenney:exiles that we kind of push to the to the past, and we don't want to look at but man, do those parts of ourselves need a compassionate witness. And sometimes, when I
Karen Kenney:do hypnosis work or practical neuroscience work with my clients, part of what we're doing is we're allowing your wisest self now, the advocate for yourself, the true
Karen Kenney:self now, to be able to go back and help those to update, to give those younger selves an update, like, Hey, we're not back there. Because what happens a lot of times,
Karen Kenney:you guys, in case you didn't know this, a lot of times when there's trauma or something that happens, or even this happens sometimes in addictions, parts of us get
Karen Kenney:frozen in time at the time of the offense, at the time of the abuse, at the time of the murder, or the death of the divorce, or whatever's going on at the time of the stat
Karen Kenney:of the substance use, right parts of our personality. And remember, these are not like, we're not like have multiple personality disorder. These are pots that
Karen Kenney:were created to often survive situations that we were going through, and some of those situations were temporary. Some of those situations were ongoing for long
Karen Kenney:periods of time, and these pots were created to help us to survive. What happens, though, is those survival mechanisms that we created when we were younger, they start to get in
Karen Kenney:the way as adults. They get in the way of the things that we actually want the most, right? They get in the way of us being vulnerable. They get in the way of us having
Karen Kenney:intimate connections. And intimacy doesn't just mean sex. It means really being able to be open, to be vulnerable, to share what you feel. To be seen, to ask for what you want,
Karen Kenney:right? To be able to know that it's okay that you have needs, and to share those with people outside of you, right? So so much of this work, you know that that I do is about
Karen Kenney:this return to self, but it's also looking back and understanding how we got where we are now and where do we want to go? And really where we want to go is to reclaim the
Karen Kenney:liberation of self from these old patterns and habits and feeling held hostage by these things that
Karen Kenney:happened, right? So there's just so much like I could go. I geek out on this. I love this. It has helped me to understand myself and other people in my life. I often say
Karen Kenney:like, mentors are fantastic. Mentors are so important, but your torment is. Your torment is take you a long way too. And what I mean by that is, if we can go back and understand
Karen Kenney:who we are now is the as the result of what we went through, maybe sometimes at the hands of those torment is right. It's it's a very powerful thing to reclaim our power
Karen Kenney:back and to not continue to feel victimized by our life, by others, by what happened, or what earlier versions of us chose to do out of mere survival. So these are not like
Karen Kenney:fractured off pots and we have multiple this is just that there were, there were assignments that were given to different parts of our personality to keep us alive,
Karen Kenney:to help us to survive whatever we were going through and now we want to unburden them. We want to befriend these parts of ourselves. We want to unburden them from these roles so
Karen Kenney:that they can relax, so our nervous system can find safety, and we can start to move through the world with curiosity and calm and clarity and connectedness and confidence
Karen Kenney:and courage and creativity and compassion. We want to be self LED. We want to have self leadership. And this is one of the things that I love, to help people with. So if any
Karen Kenney:of this resonates with you, please, right? And again, I'm very aware of people's budgets. I think now more than ever. Though I really believe this, we need to be
Karen Kenney:investing in ourselves and getting the help that we need, because, trust me, take a look around the world. All the world is right? Is a conglomeration. It's made up of
Karen Kenney:individuals. So when individuals start to do their internal work. This is how the external world changes. The internal work creates a different external world. And so
Karen Kenney:now more than ever, I think it's amazing. And look, working with me one to one, it is an investment, I don't lie, but it's called the quest, right? You work with me one to
Karen Kenney:one in the quest, it's a four month program, and you can find everything on my website, Karen kenney.com but you can literally go to Karen kenney.com/quest you can think about
Karen Kenney:joining the nest, my spiritual mentoring group program, which is like collective learning. It's like coaching and mentoring, but in a group setting, and you that's Karen
Karen Kenney:kenney.com/nest right? There's lots of different ways, if you live locally, come to a yoga class on Tuesday nights at six, right? You know what I'm saying. So there's
Karen Kenney:different ways to work with me, but I hope this has been helpful in some way, and just started to if you're aware of this, this whole time, you might be shaking your head,
Karen Kenney:yes. You know about this. You read some books, you did some work with your therapist, whatever, amazing, great. Keep going. If this is new to you, I hope you
Karen Kenney:also found it helpful in some way that it made you go like, Oh, or you discovered something, or you're like, double A man hands. That makes so much sense, right? So I
Karen Kenney:think what I was trying to say though to come back to it today, me wants to thank two year old me, four year old me, six year old me, 12 year old me, eight year old me, 21
Karen Kenney:year old me, I look back at because I know a lot of the pots that I carry within me were created at those different stages and places based on what was going on in my world. And
Karen Kenney:now part of my work with myself is going back and informing some of those pots that maybe got stuck at two and four and eight and 13 and 12 and whatever, and say, Hey,
Karen Kenney:I'm here. And there's certain questions that we can ask those parts, and there's ways of kind of like I call updating the system. You know when, whether it's zoom or any app that
Karen Kenney:you're on, and they send an update, and the whole system gets updated. It's really helpful to go back to those exiled pots of ourselves, because those pots are frozen in
Karen Kenney:time. They don't know that I'm now 56 and happily married, and I have a home and I do work that I. Love, and I'm writing a book, and you know what I mean, they don't know
Karen Kenney:that we're safe. So this works. Sometimes is me going back, and if you ever listen to my podcast where I talk about I ask the question, How old are you? How old are you?
Karen Kenney:So when you feel sorry something's going on, my sometimes, my, do ever see me doing something weird with my jaw when I'm talking or rubbing my ear like this? It's sometimes
Karen Kenney:my ear gets blocked in like my my voice echoes in my own head, and I can't stand it makes me crazy. Okay, so if you ever listen to my podcast episode, how old are you? The
Karen Kenney:question I want you to ask when you get quote, unquote triggered, or you find yourself like reacting like, wow, like that was out of character, or reacting a lot of
Karen Kenney:times I'll say jokingly, oh, I got hijacked by one of my pots, or one of my pots is going into protective mode. So when I ask myself, How old am I right now? A lot of
Karen Kenney:times I realize is that some younger version of myself is crying out for help, is crying out for love, or has triggered one of my protectors, one of my managers or one of my
Karen Kenney:firefighters, and so to be aware that that is often a response, and to meet it with compassion instead of contempt, to meet it with Curiosity instead of judgment, to meet
Karen Kenney:it with calm instead of chaos, and to be able to say, oh, something's coming up from me right now, and then take a moment to get quiet and ask that part of myself, first of
Karen Kenney:all, how old am I right now? What part of me is feeling scared? And then asking the question from the wise advocate, from the true self, right? Like that, your yourself,
Karen Kenney:your divine intelligence, part of yourself, your God Self, your higher power, whatever you want to call it, right, just knowing that your capital S self is never put out.
Karen Kenney:It is always there. It exists. And this whole idea is we can help these pots to not feel so separated. It's about coming back into full integration into our wholeness and
Karen Kenney:our holiness. And so if we can spend a little time asking those younger parts of ourselves, you know, is there something you want me to know? What is it that you need?
Karen Kenney:And letting them know I'm here for you, and starting that inner healing process, that shifting of perspective, that shifting of consciousness, from fear to love, from body
Karen Kenney:identification to spirit identification. So there's so much like I said, I could keep going on and on and on, but I think I'm going to wrap things up here. But I hope
Karen Kenney:that you enjoyed this. I hope that you learned something, or it triggered some of your own it brought up or inspired some of your own curiosity to dig into this a little
Karen Kenney:bit more, or to maybe come work with me. So remember Karen kenney.com/the quest, or slash the nest or slash sign up if you just want to get on my email list and get this
Karen Kenney:podcast delivered right into your inbox every Thursday morning. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a fantastic rest
Karen Kenney:of your day, night, week, whenever you're listening to this, and if you found this helpful in some way, I would love to hear from you. You can always shoot me an email,
Karen Kenney:send me a DM on social media like whatever, come find me, and then just let me know what Pat really stood out for you, or what you discovered about yourself. I love that. And
Karen Kenney:also, if you want to support the show in any way you can make a love donation at my tip jar. Just Karen kenney.com/tip, ja, Alright, you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. I
Karen Kenney:appreciate you as you in all your pots, as your true self in your pots, you know, go out into the world, wherever you go, may you leave yourself in all your pots and the
Karen Kenney:animals in the place and the people in the environment better than how you first found it wherever you go. May you and all your pots your true self, be a blessing. Bye.
Karen Kenney:Bye.
