Latest / The Karen Kenney Show / BABY BIRDING OURSELVES
Transcript
- 0:00Karen Kenney: It's the Karen Kenney Show. Hey, you guys,
- 0:04welcome to the Karen Kenney Show. I'm super duper excited to
- 0:07be here with you today. And today is like kind of an
- 0:10interesting episode in that it has to do with a lot of bees,
- 0:13like the letter B, so it has to do with baby birds and bugs, it
- 0:18has to do with our bodies, a book, and a band. I swear, I
- 0:26swear, it's all gonna make sense if you just buckle up for
- 0:30safety, stick around, find out where all this is going. So, of
- 0:34course, it's going to start with a couple of stories. Okay, and
- 0:37I'm going to bring all of these elements together. Remember,
- 0:40baby birds and bugs are bodies, a book and a band. Okay, but
- 0:45stay with me. I promise it's gonna make sense. Okay, so I'm a
- 0:50Gen X kid, right? Like, I'm about to be 58 and so the
- 0:54millennials are kind of like the group that's like right behind
- 0:57us. These are the people that were born, I think, from like 81
- 1:01to whatever, I don't know what that is, 95 or something like
- 1:04that. Oh my god. Okay, so you know how on the internet people
- 1:09put up like little memes or they make little graphics with quotes
- 1:14or whatever, right? And I'll never forget seeing. Oh my god,
- 1:22I'll never forget seeing, and I'm not going to name names or
- 1:26do anything like that, but I just remember seeing one day
- 1:29this person who was a quote unquote coach of some kind, and
- 1:34they're, they're younger, right, they're in the millennial group,
- 1:37I don't know their exact age, and they put up a quote, kind of
- 1:42like making, making it like look like it was their quote, like
- 1:46it's an original thought, right? And literally, this is what it
- 1:49said. It said, quote, "Hold on loosely, but don't let go, hold
- 1:57on loosely but don't let go, right? And I was just like, I
- 2:02saw it, and I just started. First of all, I was looking
- 2:06immediately for the attribution, right, to give credit to, like,
- 2:10who actually, where this phrase and saying actually came from,
- 2:14but they never did, and right away, like, I go to the comment
- 2:17section, because I know those of us who are old enough to know
- 2:23where this quote comes from. Those of us who are old enough,
- 2:27as soon as we hear that phrase, hold on loosely, but don't let
- 2:31go, our brain automatically fills in the rest, right? If you
- 2:35squeeze too tightly, you're going to lose control. So this
- 2:39was, if you're not aware, if you don't know the band 38 Special,
- 2:44this was like a huge hit that they had back in like 1981
- 2:48right? It's like the opening line is like you see it all
- 2:52around you, good loving gone bad. Oh my god. Okay, so this
- 3:01person is putting up like this little piece of wisdom, right,
- 3:04as if it's their original thought, and everybody in the
- 3:07comments were like, you know, putting the 38 special quotes
- 3:10into it, like, dude, this is a song from, like, 81 or whatever,
- 3:13oh my god, it was so freaking funny, but I want to talk about
- 3:17this, because the essence of this message is, you know, what
- 3:21this, what this episode is about today, and the song, and I'm
- 3:27gonna, it's all gonna make sense, the baby birds, the bugs,
- 3:30whatever. Okay, but it goes on to say this in the song, because
- 3:34this will come into play later. It says your baby needs someone
- 3:38to believe in, and then this is the key line, and a whole lot of
- 3:44space to breathe in, right. So this is all about this concept
- 3:51of being in a relationship and not being like suffocating, like
- 3:55yes, be supportive, right, but don't be suffocating, and this
- 4:00is about in relation to others, like when you're around others,
- 4:04and this is how a lot of relationships go bad, is people
- 4:07get weird, or people get jealous, or people try to get
- 4:10controlling, and they try to control everything, right, but
- 4:13they, they're too suffocating, it's like too much, and this is
- 4:16how a lot of relationships can end, right, so see it all around
- 4:20you, good love and good bad, but okay, so it starts with this
- 4:23meme in this band of 38 specials saying hold on loosely but don't
- 4:27let go.
- 4:28This is really great advice in a lot of ways that we can apply
- 4:32towards ourselves, right? But what, what made me want to do
- 4:37this episode is first of all I was thinking about that story.
- 4:40My sweetie is a professional musician, right? So I will often
- 4:43try, and I quiz him, like I'll just yell down from up here in
- 4:47my writing office, and I'll be like, I'll go over the, like,
- 4:50there's a tiny little balcony right there, and I'll be like,
- 4:52sweetie, right, like, who's this, and I'll play like two
- 4:55seconds of a song for him, or whatever, and I'm always
- 4:57quizzing him, because he freaking knows it's so hard for.
- 5:00Me to like stump them, you know. Okay, so hold this idea in your
- 5:05mind, hold on loosely, but don't let go. And I started thinking
- 5:09about this again, because we live here out in the woods, so
- 5:13like every time you open the door, especially in the later
- 5:16hours of the day, something flies in, whether it's a moth,
- 5:21right, a mosquito, a bug, or whatever, and I try not to kill
- 5:25anything. I'm gonna do a whole episode on that. I have my
- 5:28panties in a bunch right now about people killing spiders,
- 5:32right? Like, I'm like, "Oh, so I'm gonna do a whole podcast at
- 5:35some point about that, but so whenever something flies into
- 5:38the house, a lot of let's just say it's a moth, I tried to
- 5:41rescue them and get to them before Bunchy does, because
- 5:44Bunchy is not.. I don't even think he.. I don't know if no,
- 5:46if he'll eat them, but he tries to like step on them and grab
- 5:50them with his mouth, and I'm like, oh my god, no. But the
- 5:52thing is, when you're trying to rescue something, when you're
- 5:55trying to save something, you cannot hold it too tightly, so
- 6:00if I can capture whether it's a fly or a moth or a bug of some
- 6:03kind, right, you've got to hold it loosely, but because if you
- 6:08hold it too tight, you're going to kill it, you're going to
- 6:10crush its wings, right. So, a lot of times when we think we're
- 6:13trying to be helpful and it's like, oh, I'm going to grab this
- 6:16thing and I got to make sure that I get it, you know, I get
- 6:19it outside, but it's like, if you're not careful, if you're a
- 6:23little too aggressive in your efforts, then you're going to
- 6:26cause more harm than you're going to do good, and we do this
- 6:30to ourselves as well. And when I started thinking about, right,
- 6:34like the whole song and the band 38 special, and thinking about
- 6:37the bugs and stuff like that, I was like, a lot of times this is
- 6:40us in relationship, you know, to like other things, like when
- 6:43we're, we put too much pressure on other people, we put too much
- 6:47pressure on the relationship, we put too much pressure on people
- 6:50to be a certain way, or whatever, and it comes back to
- 6:53that whole thing, right, your baby needs a whole lot of space
- 6:57to breathe in, there has to be room for, you know, for them to
- 7:02be themselves, that's really the heartbeat of that, but when
- 7:05we're applying it to ourselves, it is so often that we put so
- 7:12much pressure on ourselves to change, to heal, to figure it
- 7:18out, to process it. I got to do it, I gotta do it, but the
- 7:21reality is, is that we also need room and time. We need space,
- 7:27and we need time to grow, and to change, and to process, and to
- 7:31heal.
- 7:32And if we're not careful, and if we put too much pressure on
- 7:35ourselves, we're actually doing more harm to ourselves than we
- 7:39are being helpful, and this comes to this idea of the baby
- 7:43birds, so I remember learning about because we, again, I've
- 7:50talked about this in the past, like many, many, many episodes
- 7:53ago, that my sweetie and I, but you know, will often stop if
- 7:57there's an injured animal, if we see something on the side of the
- 8:00road, and my sweetie has found a couple of baby birds, like
- 8:04little birds that needed to be rescued and helped, and the
- 8:08thing is, again, when you're picking up a bird that has been
- 8:11hurt, and especially baby birds, you have to hold them in your
- 8:16hand in such a way that if you cannot hold it too tight, you
- 8:22got to hold it tight enough to secure it, so it doesn't fall
- 8:26out of your hand and fall on the ground and get hurt, or
- 8:28whatever, get injured or more injured. You have to hold it
- 8:32firmly enough and tightly enough to secure it and to make it
- 8:35safe, but if you squeeze it too tightly, you're going to harm
- 8:40it, right? You want it to be, yes, warm and held and secure,
- 8:44so it feels safe in your hands, but you don't want to suffocate
- 8:48it. So we want safety, but we do not want suffocation, right?
- 8:52Just like in relationships, you want to be supportive, but you
- 8:55don't want to be suffocating. So we need to baby bird ourselves
- 9:00sometimes, right? We need to learn how to hold on in such a
- 9:04way where it's like I talk about this sometimes when we're giving
- 9:10feedback to somebody, or we're setting a boundary with
- 9:13somebody, or we have to have a difficult conversation with
- 9:16somebody, and we're like, "Ah, this is going to be wicked
- 9:18awkward, and I don't know how I'm gonna do this, you know,
- 9:21it's like, how can I have this conversation, and I kind of
- 9:24think about it like this. It's like, we want to be loving but
- 9:30firm, so we want to be nurturing, we want to be
- 9:33nourishing, we want to be caring, but we also want to be
- 9:36firm, and we want to have good boundaries, and we want to be
- 9:41not like, what's the word I'm looking for, not swept up in our
- 9:45emotions. We want to be a little bit more rational, or maybe,
- 9:49maybe the better word is like pragmatic. Do you know what I'm
- 9:52saying? We want to be relational, but we don't want to
- 9:55be like, we don't want to come out of the gate wicked hot,
- 9:57right? Like, that's what I always say. Let's say, when
- 9:59we're trying to. Neck with people, we're trying to set a
- 10:03boundary, or to have a conversation, or to give you
- 10:07know feedback, loving but firm. And so there is a really great
- 10:12case for going gently, right? Don't hold too tight, hold on
- 10:18loosely, but don't let go, you know what I'm saying, and it
- 10:22made me also think, so now we have the band, and we have we
- 10:27have the bugs and the baby birds, and I don't know what
- 10:29I'll call this episode, maybe I'll call it baby birding
- 10:31ourselves, right, because I think so often when we're trying
- 10:35to heal something, and whether it's a physical ailment, right,
- 10:39like oh, I tweak my back or I hurt my knee or my foot, my
- 10:42ankle, whatever the thing is, right. We just want to feel
- 10:46better, and we want it to heal fast. We want it to heal quick.
- 10:50We want it to get it over with. It's like, what can I do? Should
- 10:53I ice it? Should I do this? Should I take it? You know,
- 10:56should I take some Advil? Should I do this? Should I? Should I
- 10:58stretch it? Like, we're like, I don't want to feel this way
- 11:01anymore, and I want results now, like fast. And we do that
- 11:05physically to our bodies, but we also do it to ourselves
- 11:10emotionally. So, let's say, because we cannot separate the
- 11:14mind and the body, they are always affecting one another,
- 11:18right?
- 11:19And when we look at things like chronic pain, or we look at
- 11:21things like long-term conditions, when we look at
- 11:25things like everything from like migraines to urinary, urinary
- 11:30afflictions, right, or conditions, IBS, irritable bowel
- 11:34syndrome, etc. anxiety, right, when we have these things that
- 11:38tend to stick around for a long time, that they're no longer
- 11:41just acute moments, that they become chronic. We get a little
- 11:46fed up, we get a little tired of feeling exhausted, or feeling
- 11:52uncomfortable in our own bodies, or feeling anxious, or feeling
- 11:55scared, or whatever, whatever the symptoms that come up in
- 11:59your body are, and we tend to try to force things, we tend to
- 12:05respond in a way where we're not very kind to ourselves. And how
- 12:11do I say this? The medical profession are not always
- 12:15trained also in being gentle with us and really knowing how
- 12:20to listen or having good bedside manna, right, and stuff like
- 12:23that. So, there's a fantastic book. Here's the book pot that
- 12:27I'm reading that I love. I've recommended it to several people
- 12:31already, and it's by Dr. Sula Wingasen, and it's called It's
- 12:36All in Your Body. I'm holding the book up right now. It's such
- 12:39a cool cover. So, it's called It's All in Your Body, and it
- 12:43says a practical road map to healing through the mind body
- 12:47connection, and the title is in response to she had some chronic
- 12:53stuff going on, and so many, and I can tell you this, as somebody
- 12:59who has IBS, how many times, or I should say, somebody who is
- 13:03healing from, and you know, navigating my IBS symptoms and
- 13:06stuff, are like 1000 times better than they used to be, but
- 13:10I still have flare-ups, and I still have incidents, you know.
- 13:13But right on the back of this book, she says the thing that so
- 13:17many of us have been told so many times, that it's all in our
- 13:19head, and this book is the premise of says it's not all in
- 13:23your head, and she talks about whether you suffer from burnout,
- 13:26long-term fatigue, IBS, chronic pain, and trauma, or mystery
- 13:30symptoms. Dr. Sulla uses the mind-body social model of
- 13:35psychotherapy to help you understand what's happening in
- 13:38your body and to take practical positive steps forward, so you
- 13:43guys, I recommend this book. It's really fascinating. It's
- 13:46really interesting, and you learn so much about how your
- 13:49body affects your mind and how your mind affects your body. And
- 13:54why I want to talk about this is like in this idea of like baby
- 13:57birding ourselves, or when you're picking up a bug that you
- 14:00want, or you know that you want to help, and let it heal, but we
- 14:04don't want to do harm to it. We have to kind of take the same
- 14:07approach to our own health and healing, right. And I made a
- 14:11note to myself here, it says we also need this approach towards
- 14:14ourselves for our health and our healing, and even also I'm going
- 14:18to add, as a writer, your creativity and your craft,
- 14:21because sometimes we hold on to an idea and we insist on playing
- 14:26it out, whether this is in your business too, you've seen it
- 14:29before, when something just isn't working and you're so
- 14:33attached to something being a particular way, so you keep
- 14:36trying to make it work, and you keep trying to do the marketing
- 14:39for a thing, and you keep, like, whether it's working with a
- 14:42human being, like a partner, whether it's implementing a
- 14:45marketing plan, or trying to do a program, or a project, or
- 14:50whatever. Sometimes, if we hold on too tight, there's no room
- 14:54for the thing to take its natural progression of growth or
- 14:57expansion, or, you know.
- 15:00In the case of bodies healing, and so I love this book for a
- 15:04lot of different reasons, and I want to share something that she
- 15:07says, because I know for myself, like right now I'm back in the
- 15:10gym, right, and my sweetie and I have been going to the gym, and
- 15:14sometimes you feel like you're starting at ground zero again,
- 15:17you're like, oh God, I'm feeling just a little mushy, I'm getting
- 15:20a little older, like, blah blah blah, and your self-talk might
- 15:23not always be, you know, so great, but for me, I understand
- 15:28that I have restarted, like, building muscle, you know, so
- 15:32many times in my life, because for a time, you know, I was
- 15:35really into lifting and stuff, and then I found yoga, and then
- 15:39I was really into yoga, and I had to like getting back in the
- 15:43gym, like rebuilding muscle for strength was like, because yoga
- 15:47strength is a little bit different, right, than having
- 15:50like, how do I say it, it's just a different kind of strength.
- 15:55So, when you're trying to like really build muscle and put on
- 15:57muscle, it's like a different approach, right? Of course, is
- 15:59hopefully you can imagine what I'm saying, and but you can be
- 16:03really discouraging, and you can be really hot on yourself if
- 16:06you're used to, quote unquote, looking a certain way, or
- 16:09feeling a certain way, or just not wanting to look or feel the
- 16:13way that you feel. Let's say you're somebody who has anxiety,
- 16:17and you're like, I just want to stop feeling like this, and you
- 16:21will go balls to the wall, trying everything you can to
- 16:26just eradicate this feeling inside of you. Right, that is
- 16:30not a.. that is not going gently. It's the same thing in
- 16:33the gym. You can go into the gym, and you can push, push,
- 16:35push, push, push too hard, too fast, too soon. You don't give
- 16:39your body and your muscles, enough time to recuperate, and
- 16:43you end up doing more harm than you are helpful in doing good.
- 16:46You know what I mean. So, in Dr. Sulu's book, she's something
- 16:51she's talking about, about this, and she says, so when you think
- 16:56about going back to that quote, right, hold on loosely, but
- 16:59don't let go. Part of that is about not trying to control
- 17:02everything, not trying to control the other person, not
- 17:04trying to control the relationship, and not trying to
- 17:07control the outcomes. And when it comes to our health, when it
- 17:10comes to our well-being, whether that's your physical health or
- 17:12your mental health, or whatever, we sometimes have a way,
- 17:16especially if we've been dealing with something for a really long
- 17:20time, and we just don't understand why the symptoms
- 17:23aren't changing, and again, whether that's anxiety or
- 17:26depression or tummy aches or having to run to the bathroom,
- 17:31you know, or what, the 1001 ways the body can go squirrely, you
- 17:35know what I mean, and so here's something that she wrote that I
- 17:39think it's really, really fantastic. She's like, she's
- 17:43talking about how sometimes you feel like frustrated because
- 17:50you're like things aren't changing as fast as you would
- 17:52like, and she says, you know, sometimes your sense of control
- 17:56may fluctuate every day. You have a distinct show. She says
- 17:59this: there's a distinct feeling of quote, I'm going to master
- 18:02this, so I'm going to redouble all my efforts, and then that
- 18:06turns into these extremes, right? And then you fall away
- 18:09into what's the point, nothing seems to work, and she says
- 18:14these kind of thoughts underpin the all or nothing patterns that
- 18:18we tend to fall into as humans, and we do see this right, so the
- 18:24quote, like, hold on loosely, but don't let go. It's this idea
- 18:27of moderation, it's this idea of approaching things gently, of
- 18:31not flip-flopping from those two extremes, like, oh, I went to
- 18:34the gym, like, for a month every day, and like, nothing happened.
- 18:37It's like, yeah, nothing happened, probably because your
- 18:39muscles didn't get a chance to recuperate. There were no rest
- 18:41days. You weren't eating that great, right? And you were
- 18:44exhausted, right? You just like broken down. You broke down a
- 18:48lot of muscle. You didn't build it because you weren't. You, you
- 18:50went two balls to the wall, right? You did not. You did not
- 18:55go gently towards yourself.
- 18:58And so she says, right here in this next piece, this next
- 19:00passage, she says, let's right now make an intention to find
- 19:04the middle ground. The middle ground is powerful, so instead
- 19:08of grasping for complete certainty and control, try to
- 19:13embrace what feels empowering now. So, rather than over
- 19:18committing to test the extent of your control, try taking things
- 19:22gradually with curiosity and an openness to learn, so that goes
- 19:29back to this idea of right needing a whole lot of space to
- 19:33breathe in, we need to have room to be curious, to try things, to
- 19:38make mistakes, to get back up, we want, don't want the feeling
- 19:42of suffocation on ourselves. We want supportive measures. We
- 19:45want to try things right. We want to find that middle ground.
- 19:50And she says, you know, that openness to learn and listen to
- 19:54this. She says the benefits of people's openness, or a
- 19:58patient's openness, the. Far outweigh the often temporary
- 20:03relief of fast tracking of trying to do everything all at
- 20:06once, right, and she says this openness, this openness, this is
- 20:13how you make your mind and body feel safe from that place of
- 20:18safety, everything you wish to achieve comes easier, so, so,
- 20:23some, so many times we think, well, if I just double down, if
- 20:26I just fast track, right? So we are not baby birding ourselves,
- 20:30we.. I don't know what the opposite of that would be. We
- 20:32would be like adult, I don't even know how to do it, opposite
- 20:38of that, but we put way too much pressure on ourselves, we're
- 20:41squeezing way too tightly, and it's when you squeeze too
- 20:44tightly, as the words of 38 special tells us, that's when
- 20:47you lose control. When you're trying to over control
- 20:50everything is when things shit goes out of control, things just
- 20:53go kooky monkeys. If you have ever been an over controlling
- 20:56person trying to control everything, you know how that
- 20:59shit ends. You know that it does not end well for us, right.
- 21:03Double a men hands. I'm like, I should be in the, the, you know,
- 21:09when people say they're recovering Catholics, I'm like,
- 21:11I'm a recovering over controller wanting to control everything.
- 21:16Okay. And then I love it. I love this line too. So this is from
- 21:19chapter four again of Dr. Sula Win Gaston's book, it's all in
- 21:23your body, just a little, just a little snippet. She says she's
- 21:28talking about her condition, she had a bladder condition, and
- 21:30she's talking about how, and I think you can apply this to
- 21:33anything, whether it's my marriage isn't going well, I'm
- 21:36having headaches, like whatever the situation is, right? Listen
- 21:39to this, she goes, although day by day I was highly functional,
- 21:42there were times I'd rage or despair breaking down in tears
- 21:47as I wonder why I wondered why things weren't changing when I
- 21:51was trying so hard. Oh my god, have you ever felt that way? I
- 21:56can tell you, as somebody who had her first IBS attack at 15,
- 22:00I tried everything under the sun. You have no idea, and I
- 22:05would try so hard, so hard, right, to control things and to
- 22:09fix things, and to do take this supplement and try that diet,
- 22:13and like, do all these different things to try and help myself.
- 22:15And you would get so frustrated when you'd be like, but I'm
- 22:18trying so hard, and it's not changing. And she says, "This
- 22:22listen. She says, "I wondered why things weren't changing when
- 22:25I was trying so hard. I was still fixated on the magic fix.
- 22:30The fact that all my endeavors were falling short of magically
- 22:34fixing things was causing immense stress and bodily
- 22:39reactivity. This is so important. I'm going to reread
- 22:43it, because I really want you to hear this. Listen, the fact that
- 22:48all my endeavors were falling short of magically fixing things
- 22:52was causing immense stress and bodily reactivity. She goes on
- 22:58to say it was a year or two later, having been immersed in
- 23:00my PhD in research role, learning about the
- 23:05transformative effects of pacing, that's that time thing
- 23:10of pacing and acceptance, that's that space thing, whilst
- 23:15continuing my mindfulness practices. She goes, it was
- 23:19through the transformative effects of pacing and acceptance
- 23:22that I mastered the balance of pacing my efforts to nourish my
- 23:27body while letting go of what I could not control.
- 23:32Right, so think about this: if you're somebody who wants to
- 23:38make a change, whether it's an identity change, a habitual
- 23:41change, a change in your body, a change with your anxiety, some
- 23:44sort of transformation thing, personal development, spiritual,
- 23:47physical, mental, whatever it is. Right, we have to understand
- 23:52that gradual change gets the job done, as Linda Ty says, right,
- 23:58the great teacher and storyteller and trauma
- 24:02therapist, right, Linda Tai says sip, sip, sip, sip, or all the
- 24:07episodes I've done on the Kaizen philosophy, one tiny small
- 24:10change, gradual change is enough, it gets the job done, we
- 24:16think it needs to come hot, it needs to come fast, we got to
- 24:18make it swift, we got to, I want it now, because we've suffered
- 24:21for a long time, whether it's in a relationship or with physical
- 24:25symptoms or with anxiety, or whatever the thing is, it's like
- 24:28we need room and time to grow, change, process, and heal. We
- 24:34cannot grip too tightly. We must baby bird ourselves. We must do
- 24:40a gentle approach, not everything. What I did, an
- 24:44episode a couple of, whatever, weeks ago, maybe a month ago,
- 24:48and I said, in the spiritual practice, in spiritual life,
- 24:53every amount of effort counts, even the smallest, tiniest
- 24:57efforts count, as long as we're trying. As long as we're trying
- 25:01to experiment and explore and be curious and stay open and not so
- 25:06fixated and not so tight and not so controlling, right, we go
- 25:11into over control, we go into criticisms, criticism, we go
- 25:14into urgency, we go into unkindness and harshness towards
- 25:20ourselves, especially, it's like, what's wrong with me? Why
- 25:23isn't this changing? Why can't I fix this? Why can't I figure
- 25:26this out? Why does.. and I try to tell clients that I've worked
- 25:30with in spiritual mentoring, look, it took you 3040, 5060,
- 25:35whatever years to get here, to get this way, to create these
- 25:39patterns, these habits, these conditions, this way of
- 25:42thinking, these beliefs, this identity. It does not change
- 25:46overnight. And I've always said that's why I don't make promises
- 25:49to people, right? In marketing, they're always like, what's the
- 25:51promise? How are they going to be different? What are they
- 25:54going to get from this? I'm like, look, I cannot determine
- 25:57the safe pace for this person, meaning like, I can't give you,
- 26:02I can't write a script and a prescription and say, oh, in
- 26:05three weeks you're gonna not be anxious anymore. This shit takes
- 26:08time. We learned a lot of things over the years, and it takes
- 26:13time to unlearn, but the good news is, is that we can unlearn,
- 26:18we can loosen our grip a little bit right, and here's another
- 26:23thing that's really, really interesting that I learned from
- 26:26Dr. Sula and from other people too, like Melissa Tiers and
- 26:30other teachers about neuroscience, but they actually
- 26:33have done what's called neuro imaging, and the research and
- 26:36neuro imaging, right, literally like looking at your brain and
- 26:38stuff like that, is that when you respond to yourself
- 26:42reassuringly, and reassuringly, that might sound like, oh, it's
- 26:46okay, you're gonna figure it out, like, yeah, that sucked,
- 26:50but we're gonna get there. Let's see what we can do when you
- 26:54respond to yourself reassuringly, not clenching, not
- 26:58gripping, not forcing, not being mean, right, not insisting that
- 27:04it's this way, the only way, right now. Magic fixes. I want
- 27:06the cure, right? When you respond to yourself
- 27:09reassuringly, she says this. It activates identifiable,
- 27:14identifiable neural pathways that are distinct from when we
- 27:20respond critically, so how many times? So the other day, like I
- 27:25did something, and I said to myself, you know, well, that was
- 27:28stupid, and I just stopped myself immediately, and I said,
- 27:32no, it wasn't stupid, you're just human, and you're allowed
- 27:35to make a mistake. I will tell you that that feels 1000 times
- 27:40better in my body and in my head and in my gut than me calling
- 27:43myself stupid, calling myself an idiot. So, the way that we talk
- 27:48to ourselves, it really does make a physiological difference,
- 27:53like your body, the way we think affects our body.
- 27:56Our body is also always sending messages up to our brain, so our
- 28:00brain and our bodies are so intertwined, and for so many
- 28:03years, so many people have been told it's all in your head, but
- 28:07it's not, it's also all in your body. Okay, so listen to this:
- 28:12self-critical responses activate threat processing circuitry in
- 28:19you. Think about that. Self-critical responses activate
- 28:24in your brain and in your body physiologically threat
- 28:29processing circuitry, but self-assurance activates
- 28:34soothing circuitry. So, when we practice compassion towards
- 28:39ourselves, you are literally helping the immune system.
- 28:44You're helping to, let's see, it says the more practice of
- 28:49compassion, the more protected the inflammatory response to
- 28:53stresses is. So, the more that we practice being gentle with
- 28:56ourselves, being kind to ourselves, baby birding
- 28:59ourselves, right, the power of being gentle with ourselves
- 29:05literally has a physical effect on our body. So this is just
- 29:12really big, right? I just want to talk about this because I
- 29:16know so many of us are so hot on ourselves and we demand so much
- 29:20of ourselves in our bodies, and when things aren't changing, and
- 29:24things are uncomfortable, and we're just so sick of feeling a
- 29:28particular way, or thinking a particular way, and we want
- 29:30change now, we forget, like we get kooky, we become like, you
- 29:35know, like cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, and we get a little like
- 29:39intense, and we start to insist that things change now, and this
- 29:43is just not how things change, so we want to hold on loosely.
- 29:50We don't want to lose a grip, right? Don't let go, but like we
- 29:53need to hold on a little bit loosely. There are times when we
- 29:56do need to totally let go, because we've become obsessed,
- 29:59and it becomes a little. Bit too much, you know what I'm saying.
- 30:01We're insisting, we're obsessing, we're forcing, and
- 30:05that's not it. We need to remember, we need room and time
- 30:08to grow, we need room and time to change, we need room and
- 30:11time, space and time to heal. And it goes back to that whole
- 30:16thing, right? Your baby needs someone to believe in, you need
- 30:20to believe in yourself. You need to believe in your body. You
- 30:22need to believe in your smarty pants brain, that there is a
- 30:25natural capacity for healing, and a lot of times we are the
- 30:30thing that is getting in the way. We don't do it on purpose,
- 30:33and it totally makes sense why we do these things, but
- 30:37hopefully you'll remember this line, right? Your baby needs
- 30:40someone to believe in, and a whole lot of space to breathe
- 30:44in. We need to give ourselves space to, you know, figure these
- 30:49things out, to practice these things, to stay curious, and to
- 30:52stay open. We need to baby bird ourselves. So, I hope this has
- 30:59been helpful in some way. Maybe it's a message that you needed
- 31:02to hear. I know it's a message I needed to be reminded of. Maybe
- 31:06it's something that will be helpful to a cousin or a friend
- 31:09or a sweetie or a co-worker, or whatever. If you just know
- 31:12somebody who's really hard on themselves or somebody who puts
- 31:15way too much pressure on themselves, and when we do that,
- 31:18here's the thing: when we have a tendency to like put a lot of
- 31:22pressure on things, we also tend to put a lot of pressure on
- 31:26ourselves, but also other people, and we can be really
- 31:29hard on other people, but we can also be like wicked, wicked,
- 31:32wicked hard on ourselves, and we don't want to do that, we want
- 31:36to be creating circuitry in our brain that sends like loving
- 31:41messages, healing messages to the body, and vice versa. Okay,
- 31:45so I hope this has been helpful. I hope it made sense. We brought
- 31:48together baby birds and bugs, we brought together our bodies, a
- 31:51book, and a band. We somehow did it, you guys. We did it. So I
- 31:55hope this was helpful to you. I appreciate you. Also, just in
- 32:00terms of other things that are going on, because I always like
- 32:02to let you guys keep you guys in the loop of the shenanigans that
- 32:05I'm up to. We just had another fantastic Wright Club on
- 32:09Saturday. It was so, so, so good.
- 32:11If you're somebody who lives local to New Hampshire, and you
- 32:14can live by care, like Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine,
- 32:17right, you can travel, travel to Concord, New Hampshire. For this
- 32:20summer, we're going to keep doing Write Club in person. It's
- 32:23generative. It's a half day generative writing workshop.
- 32:26It's a four hour workshop. It's so fantastic. It's at a
- 32:28beautiful space, the 11th Letter Writing Gallery. We have just
- 32:32been having such a fantastic time doing it, and I would love
- 32:36to have you join, join us, even if you're not.. what's the word
- 32:40I want to use? I don't want to say confident, but maybe you
- 32:43suspect that you're a writer, maybe you're somebody that jots
- 32:46down notes on napkins, or maybe you're somebody that journals,
- 32:49or you have a story to tell. You've always dreamed of writing
- 32:52a book, whatever it is, right? I hope you come check out Write
- 32:55Club at some point, and just know everything I'm talking
- 32:57about. You can always find it online on my website at Karen
- 33:01Kenney K E N N E y.com There's always the NES, which is my
- 33:05spiritual mentoring group and community. Those folks are
- 33:08fantastic. I love them so much. We meet online every every two
- 33:14weeks, so like twice a month we meet online, and a lot of what
- 33:18goes on in the NES is kind of like what happens on the
- 33:20podcast, is we talk to each other, I do some mentoring and
- 33:23coaching, I share stories, I share ideas, we follow, we go
- 33:28through a set of modules and lessons that are jumping off
- 33:31points, but it's just like, basically, it's like group
- 33:34coaching is what is really helping happening in a really
- 33:37beautiful community, of course, I always work one to one, and
- 33:41then locally I also do a yoga class. I do yoga classes and
- 33:45private yoga and Thai yoga massage, so I do all kinds of
- 33:48stuff, and I'm also writing my book. Speaking of books, I'm
- 33:52also writing my book, so all kinds of shenanigans. And if you
- 33:54want to know how to find out what's happening, just sign up.
- 33:57You're not going to get a bunch of crazy emails, right? You're
- 33:59going to get this podcast in your inbox on Thursday mornings,
- 34:02and then you'll also hear from me when I have an offer or
- 34:05something that I think might be helpful, and that's the thing
- 34:08with my emails - I don't write just to write, I send when I
- 34:11have something that I think is like my offerings, anything that
- 34:15I create are like little love letters from my hat to yours, so
- 34:19people might call them marketing emails or sales emails,
- 34:23whatever. I don't think of them that way. I'm literally saying,
- 34:25hey, I created this cool thing because I needed it, or at least
- 34:29at one point, or now I know it's helpful and beneficial. I've
- 34:32seen it have really great results, and I'm offering it.
- 34:35I'm literally just offering it to people and inviting people to
- 34:38come join me. So, I'm not super salesy, I'm just like, here's
- 34:42what we're doing, come join us. I think it's fun. I hope you
- 34:44come. Right, that's kind of how it is. So you can just go to
- 34:47Karen kenney.com backslash sign up, and that's it. And come see
- 34:52us, come hang out with us, come spend some time together in
- 34:54person. It would be wicked fun. All right, you guys, one more
- 34:57time. Here's the book, Dr. Sula Wingasen. It's all in your body,
- 35:01it's so fantastic. Like I said, I've been referring it to
- 35:04people. I'm going to do a post about it on social media soon,
- 35:07too. But I have found it - I'm finding it wicked helpful. Just
- 35:11re what's reaffirming some things that I've learned before,
- 35:16reminding me of some things, and also teaching me some new ways
- 35:18of looking at things, and I always love getting a new point
- 35:21of view. Okay, that's it. Wherever you go in the world,
- 35:25whether it's the rest of your day, your week, whatever, right?
- 35:28Wherever you go, may you leave the animals and the other people
- 35:32and yourself and the planet, the trees, the rocks, the rivers,
- 35:37the environment better than how you first found it. Wherever you
- 35:41go, may you and your presence and your energy and your love
- 35:45and your baby birding, your gentleness, may it be a
- 35:49blessing. Bye.
- 35:52Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show. I really
- 35:55love spending some time together. Now, if you dig the
- 35:58show or know someone that could benefit from this episode,
- 36:01please share it with them and help me to spread the good word
- 36:05and the love, and if you want to be in the know about all of my
- 36:08upcoming shenanigans, head on over to Karen kenney.com/sign up
- 36:14and join my list. It'll be wicked fun to stay in touch.
- 36:19Bye.