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SAFE ENOUGH · The Karen Kenney Show

0:01
Karen Kenney: Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super
0:04
duper excited to be here today. If you're watching this, you
0:08
might see that my hair is blowing around everywhere
0:11
because I got a fan going in the corner because it's hotter than
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Hades up here in my office. We're in the middle of a heat
0:17
wave here in New Hampshire, and I just wanted to get this sucker
0:21
done. So fingers crossed that my internet stays on, because it's
0:23
been going in and out, and it is just like, hot as shit, which I
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love. Don't get me wrong, you might be able to see my face is
0:31
a little red. I just got out of the shower because I went for a
0:34
little three mile walk outside. I wanted, I love the heat, love
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the heat, but I also want to be smart. So anyways, here we are,
0:42
and we're back. We're going to talk about, we're going to talk
0:45
about this concept of safe enough. Now, this is something
0:50
that I kind of created for myself, for my own brain, for my
0:55
own ability to, like, calm the hook down, which we're going to
1:01
talk about a little bit
1:02
okay, like, what I mean by all of this. So the number one,
1:06
you've heard me say this before on other episodes, the number
1:10
one question that our nervous systems are always asking. Okay,
1:15
so when I talk about nervous system, I'm particularly talking
1:18
about, like, the autonomic nervous system, which is like
1:22
the sympathetic nervous system, which we'll talk about a little
1:25
bit in the parasympathetic nervous system. I'm going to
1:27
keep this really, like pretty much basic, so that you can just
1:31
get a a taste, like a sip, sip, as Linda Ty says, of what I'm
1:35
talking about, I don't need to make it super intricate for you
1:38
to understand the essence of what what's on my hat in my mind
1:41
today, and hopefully it'll be helpful and valuable to you too.
1:44
Number one question our nervous system is asking is, Am I safe?
1:49
Am I safe? Am I safe? Okay? So when we are picking up cues from
1:56
the world around us, and this started when we were wicked
1:59
young, that's the thing with little kids and babies like
2:01
little toddlers, little kids were, we were always kind of
2:04
looking up at the adults around us, at the people around us, at
2:08
the environment, and trying to understand, like, is it safe?
2:12
Here are these people safe, right? And this has a lot to do
2:15
with how we end up creating relationships and attaching and
2:18
all these other things, like attaching to our moms, attaching
2:21
to our fathers, like in healthy and good ways. But we can also
2:24
end up having like these dysregulated attachment styles
2:27
too, that they call although, for me, I just think that we
2:31
were in the situations that we were in, and we probably, as
2:34
children, did the best we could with what we had. So I don't
2:37
really like to label ourselves too much, but the nervous system
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is either going to go into sympathetic response, which is
2:46
like that fight and flight, that like, oh shit, something's
2:50
wrong, right? We take a look at our environment or the people in
2:53
it, or whatever, and we go into like, Oh my god. How do I want
2:56
to respond to the information that is coming in that I'm
3:01
perceiving and receiving, right? Do I want to go into fight or
3:05
flight or freeze or what we sometimes call fawn? Now, if
3:10
you're if the threat level feels like this is to me, is just
3:14
common sense, right? If the threat level feels like, okay, I
3:17
can probably overcome this person, this situation, this
3:22
place, we might take a fight like, we might choose fight.
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We're like, Okay, we're gonna fight back if we can't, if we're
3:28
like, oh my god, saber tooth tiger. This thing is gonna kill
3:31
me. It's bigger than me. It can harm me or hurt me, this person,
3:33
etc, this situation. Then we might flight. We might run, take
3:39
off, right? Choose not to, like, put down the Dukes and just rut
3:42
Hall ass, basically, right? If you can't do either of those,
3:46
sometimes we go into what's called the Free State, where you
3:49
literally just kind of shut down and kind of play a possum, you
3:53
know what I mean, where you're just like, can't move. And
3:56
there's more fancy words for these states, okay, but I just
4:01
want to keep it pretty simple. And fawning is when you kind of
4:05
just like, I say, you try to befriend the thing that is that
4:09
is perceived as a threat. Like, please don't hurt me. I'll be
4:12
whatever you want me to be, like, whatever. Okay, so we have
4:16
these different responses, and sometimes we call these also
4:19
trauma responses. Okay, that's sympathetic. That's the fight
4:24
and flight. Then we also have parasympathetic, and
4:27
parasympathetic is what we call the rest and digest state like
4:32
this is when we go into the relaxation response. This is the
4:36
response we can experience when we actually are feeling safety,
4:40
when we're not feeling threatened, when we're not
4:43
scared out of our minds, when we're not anxious or worried or
4:45
stressed or overwhelmed. And this is what a lot of the tools
4:51
right that are out there that people use, like everybody, from
4:55
yoga teaches to therapists to somatic body workers to
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whatever, right. Use. They use different tools that help us to
5:03
return to kind of a more sympath parasympathetic state, okay, and
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that's what we want. What happens sometimes, though these
5:13
days, is, I hear a lot of people saying, well, I want to regulate
5:20
my nervous system. We need to regulate our nervous system
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because we have become dysregulated because of chronic
5:29
stress and social media and our phones and technology and AI in
5:35
the state of the world, in the government, in the wars and all
5:39
all the hatred and violence and whatever, people's nervous
5:42
systems are, like, jacked up beyond belief a lot of the time.
5:46
And so there's a lot of talk about like, oh, I need to be
5:49
regulated. I need to be regulated. I need to return to
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safety. I need to return to safety. Now I am also a teacher
5:57
of some of these things, like some of the tools and stuff that
6:00
we can use to help ourselves become more regulated. But I'm
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also a kid that grew up with, like, a lot of fear. I was also
6:08
a young adult and an adult that has a lot of fear. I've talked
6:12
about this on different episodes where I think one of the reasons
6:16
why, you know, I do the work that I do, is I was trying to
6:20
gather as many different tools as I could to try and help
6:23
myself mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, to
6:29
bring myself back into a state or a sense of safety and calm.
6:35
But here's the reality now, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm not
6:39
saying hashtag. I always say hashtag, not a therapist. I'm
6:42
not saying other therapists and other people will agree with
6:46
this, but this is just what has worked for me, and that's what I
6:50
share on this podcast. I'm always trying to let you guys
6:53
know that while nobody can actually pick up the tools and
6:58
use them for you, nobody can solve your problems for you.
7:02
Nobody can like, quote, unquote, do the work for you. But you
7:06
absolutely do not have to do it alone. So I love to share things
7:11
that have worked for me, tools that have worked for me, books,
7:14
resources, whatever, that have worked for me, so that as you're
7:17
trying to also navigate this whole being human experience,
7:21
you don't feel like, oh my god, I'm all on my on my own, and I
7:25
have to figure it all out. You're not alone. You are loved,
7:29
right? You're not going crazy, right? This stuff is hard. This
7:32
being human on the planet right now is hard. And then try to
7:36
imagine doing it as not a white person, as somebody who maybe is
7:40
in a group or a community, right? Whether you're black or
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LGBTQIA or brown skinned or, quote, unquote, right, what the
7:50
world would say is marginalized or different or whatever. Again,
7:55
I don't like to put a ton of labels on people, but we
7:57
certainly know that not all of us are starting at the same
8:00
starting line. Do you know what I mean? So on top of just like
8:04
being human is hard, then we have, you know, economic
8:08
disparity. We have socio you know, we just have all the
8:11
things that just make it this, systems of racism, etc, etc,
8:15
that make everything so much harder for certain groups of
8:18
people. So one of the things that I can say is that has been
8:22
even more difficult, right? Meaning, more difficult as just
8:26
as a human is being female in this world, being a quote,
8:29
unquote girl or a woman in this world. Because here's the thing,
8:33
while my nervous system keeps asking me, am I safe? Am I safe?
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Am I safe? I cannot bullshit myself, right? Like I know too
8:42
much, I've seen too much, and where I have landed is this,
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this world, this 3d world, meaning the world that we've
8:51
created, although we would call it small, our reality. It's not
8:55
capital, our reality, right? Here in the dream, A Course in
8:59
Miracles might call it here in the illusion, right? Yoga might
9:03
call it the Maya, the illusion, this idea of, you know, we're
9:07
all individual, separate beings walking around on the planet,
9:10
right? Being, being a woman in this world, you do not, almost
9:15
ever feel safe. Now, if you're a dude listening to this, and
9:20
you're like, What do you mean? What are you talking about? Go
9:23
and talk to some of the women, the girls that you know right,
9:28
the young women, the grown ass adults that you know. And they
9:32
will tell you non stop stories of like not feeling safe enough
9:38
to walk to their car at night, how they use their keys as
9:41
weapons in their hands, how we're always aware of how we're
9:45
dressed. What we're doing is my drink gonna get roofied like Da,
9:49
da, da, da da, to try and move through the world, right? And
9:53
again, this extends beyond. I'm just using woman, because that's
9:57
something I can talk about in my own experience. I can't talk
10:00
about other groups of people's experiences directly, although I
10:04
can certainly listen and try to understand and empathize and
10:07
imagine how fucking hot it is. Do you know what I mean to be,
10:12
to be,
10:14
you know, to be in this world as well. And so we have this
10:18
conundrum, don't we? Because the nervous system is asking for
10:22
safety. And I've like again as a kid of a murdered mother, like
10:26
when you know that something that brutal, that tragic, that
10:30
violent, that somebody can beat another person to death, is a
10:33
reality when you experience it yourself, when you see the
10:37
violence in the world, the way people talk to each other and
10:40
treat each other the way we treat animals, when you just
10:43
look at it overall, right? There's no part of my nervous
10:47
system that is sitting there hunky dory feeling safe. And I
10:51
realized, like, oh, and I was just talking about this on a
10:55
podcast that I was recently on. I was on a podcast called it has
10:59
to be me, and the woman who tests masses is fantastic, and
11:05
it's her, it's her podcast, and I talk about it a little bit on
11:09
that as well. What has occurred to me is that this idea of
11:14
ideal, quote, unquote, safety that I'm hoping to feel here in
11:18
the human experience for me, I've just accepted it's probably
11:22
never going to come because I've just again. I've seen too much,
11:25
I've heard too much, I've experienced too much. I have
11:27
evidence of too much, right, cruelty and brutality and
11:32
violence and hatred and like all these different things. So my
11:36
goal, my goal for me, has been to gather as many tools as I can
11:43
to feel safe enough to feel safe enough to be able to do what I
11:51
came here to do, to be able to follow my individual curriculum,
11:56
to be able to answer the call of my divine assignment, to show up
12:01
in the world as a creative to speak and use my voice to be a
12:06
teacher, right? To have a podcast, to go out and lead
12:09
groups like, to to help other people as a spiritual mentor, as
12:12
a coach, etcetera. Because if I just listened to the fear that
12:18
my ego and my anxiety like, produces all the time, right?
12:23
Practically shouts all the time. I would become completely
12:26
paralyzed. I would probably become housebound. I would
12:29
probably be like, terrified out of my mind most of the time. And
12:33
I'm like, I can't live this way. I have to figure out a way to
12:37
experience as much as much physical and psychological
12:42
safety as possible. I want to be able to move through the world
12:48
without feeling a constant perceived threat that is so
12:52
overwhelming that it keeps me from taking action. And when you
12:57
recognize, oh, the world isn't safe, and your your your
13:03
history, your patterns, your the way your subconscious works,
13:07
right? A lot of us, kids who were had trauma, a lot of
13:10
trauma, we become hyper vigilant, right? Like I'm hyper
13:14
aware of noises, lights, flashes of lights. I'm hyper aware of
13:19
people's body language, their energy, what they're doing with
13:23
their face. Right when you grow up in an environment like I did,
13:28
you are constantly seeking not only verbal but body language
13:33
cues and sometimes even just sounds that alert me to whether
13:38
or not what's about to go down is going to be something
13:42
pleasant or unpleasant, you know what I'm saying. So I'm always
13:46
picking up either cues of safety or picking up danger signs. I
13:51
know I'm not alone in this. So like double A men hands, if you
13:54
can relate to what I'm saying. But one of the things that I see
13:58
is I feel like sometimes we're being sold this bill of goods,
14:02
where it's like, just do these 10 Steps, use these five tools,
14:07
and you will become regulated. You will have a regulated
14:10
nervous system. And I'm like, maybe you pal, maybe you pal.
14:15
But that's not my experience. My experience has not been that I
14:20
just exist in this, this little like floaty place of like, Oh,
14:25
now we're just
14:25
Unknown: going to put on our floaties and float down the
14:28
river and drink, you know, Virgin Penny coladas or
14:32
Karen Kenney: whatever. Like, no, that is not my experience.
14:34
My experience is that I tend to be, like I said, hyper aware,
14:38
hyper vigilant, and being constantly regulated for me,
14:43
finding constant safety, like where everything is just like,
14:46
oh, like, yeah, I can just, you know how, like an animal, like a
14:50
cat, will all of a sudden give you its belly and open up. And,
14:55
you know, I was recently doing something with some. People,
15:00
where we were trying, it doesn't matter, but just ponies were
15:02
involved, a pony and a little miniature donkey. And I was
15:08
listening to all the horse people, and they were saying
15:11
that, you know, horses out in the wild. And this was a some
15:15
something somebody said to me, I'm not quoting it as a truth,
15:18
but this is what somebody said to me, that horses out in the
15:20
wild will, wild will often walk for like, 18 hours at a time.
15:24
They will not bed down, they will not lay down and rest
15:27
unless they feel safe. And I started to think about this, and
15:31
I'm like, Yeah, that sounds like people too. I know people who
15:34
go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, move, move, move, move.
15:37
Everything's fast. Everything's quick. Don't stop, because if I
15:39
stop, I'm going to have to feel some things. And what I'm going
15:42
to feel is I'm not going to going to feel that I am not
15:45
safe. You know what I mean? So rather than me just trying to
15:50
feel regulated all the time, I discovered that number one, I
15:56
don't have to feel 100% safe all the time. I just need to feel
16:00
safe enough, and I'm not waiting for this perfect like little
16:06
island of regulation in my nervous system. I would rather
16:10
teach my nervous system over time, and this is what it's
16:14
been. It's been a journey for me. I've been collecting and
16:17
gathering tools for a really long time, tools that I now
16:21
obviously share with my one to one clients, people in the nest
16:24
and I oftentimes, you know, try to drop little breadcrumbs here
16:27
and there too. Also on the podcast, some things are just
16:31
better taught in person. Do you know what I mean? Some some
16:34
things that I do like Thai Yoga, bodywork, Thai Yoga, massage,
16:38
yoga, certain things like that. I just prefer to do them in
16:40
person. So, but here are these other hours, right? You know, I
16:45
love alliteration, so I was thinking to myself, Okay, rather
16:49
than being reactive all the time. So if I'm in a state of
16:54
not feeling enough safety, I will certainly be reactive, and
16:59
I will be looking and feel looking for and feeling
17:03
triggered, probably a lot of the time when I move out of
17:06
regulation and I'm in dysregulation, right? And I
17:10
don't feel cues of safety, I don't feel like, okay, I can put
17:14
down my Dukes here. I can't be safe and vulnerable and open for
17:18
business, right? If I'm in that state, I'm certainly almost
17:23
going to be more hypersensitive to being quote, unquote
17:27
triggered or having my buttons pushed or being on edge or being
17:31
anxious or worrisome or stressed or overwhelmed, right? So I
17:36
don't want to be in a place where I feel constantly reactive
17:40
to the world around me, and I also don't want to be in a place
17:44
where I am very rigid, right? So for me, what I found is that
17:50
when in my younger years, I would tend to always, quote,
17:54
unquote, react in particular ways, I wasn't able to respond
18:01
yet from a place of love, I was always almost reacting out of a
18:05
place of fear. And I would become rigid in my responses,
18:10
meaning, like anything new, like no, I was deeply patterned in
18:16
the way that I re was reacting to the world. And I don't want
18:21
to move through the world in a very reactive and rigid way,
18:26
like so much of like, you know, when I when I think about my
18:29
yoga practice and being a yoga teacher, you know, for I don't
18:33
know, like, 25 years or whatever,
18:37
I wanted more flexibility, But I didn't just want more
18:41
flexibility in my body, in my muscles, in my fascia, right?
18:45
Like I wanted more mental flexibility. I wanted more
18:49
emotional flexibility. I didn't want to be a person who always
18:54
just reacted to things in the same way, right? I wanted to be
18:58
able to choose who and how I was going to be. I wanted to be able
19:03
to have authorship and agency and autonomy right over the kind
19:07
of person I was going to be, what was going to come out of my
19:10
mouth, the choices I was going to make. Because a lot of times
19:14
when we're in fight or flight, in that sympathetic, sympathetic
19:18
state, when we're being reactive, we're not coming from
19:21
our highest capital S self. We're coming from one of those
19:25
parts of ourselves as trying to protect ourselves. And I always
19:29
say, like, it's like, the front of my brain goes offline and all
19:32
good decision making goes like, out the door, you know what I
19:35
mean. And like, I'm like, I don't want to live that way I
19:38
did those years, like I did that time. You know what I mean. So
19:42
now, rather than just waiting for like, quote, unquote,
19:45
perfect safety, I have trying to create an experience within my
19:51
own psyche, my psychological and physical experience where I am
19:57
safe enough that I can feel. More regulated, that I can feel
20:02
more responsive like I can respond to the world. I can
20:07
choose how I want to respond to what I'm seeing, hearing,
20:11
feeling, thinking, imagining is a lot of times what we're
20:16
reacting to is our fear of what we think is going to happen,
20:19
what I think they're going to say what I think this person or
20:23
this situation is going to do, right? So I want to be able to
20:26
be more responsive. I want to be able to be more resourced. You
20:33
know, when we're little kids, we don't have a lot of tools, so we
20:36
just do our damn best to survive. And a lot of the things
20:40
that we do, those survival strategies that we picked up as
20:43
kids, walking on eggshells, fawning, making ourselves small,
20:48
trying to be the good kid, trying to be the one that
20:51
doesn't need anything, whatever. There's 1000 ways right that we
20:55
can like react to our circumstances as children when
20:58
we feel out of control, but I wanted to be able to feel more
21:02
responsive, more resourced, like I had some tools. I had a bunch
21:07
of different tools in what I call my spiritual toolkit that I
21:10
could choose to pick up and use on any given day, depending on
21:14
what I needed that day. I want to also just not feel, quote,
21:18
unquote, regulated. I want to be able to be resilient. I want to
21:23
have a resilient nervous system that can have big fluctuations,
21:28
but also knows how to return to feelings of safety and calm. So
21:36
I'm not always just looking to feel regulated. I'm like no,
21:39
because the world doesn't work like that. You know, I know me
21:44
personally. I can't speak for you, but me personally, I'm
21:46
probably not going to walk around in this totally regulated
21:49
ventral state all the time. You know what I mean? It's like, I
21:52
am going to have spikes of energy where my hat starts to
21:56
thump and, you know, I become aware that it's a little harder
21:59
for me to swallow, and I'm like, a little more hypersensitive to
22:03
my environment. And then it's like, okay, what do I need right
22:05
now? And that's when I go looking for the tools. Because
22:09
if I can experience physical and psychological safety, then I
22:14
will feel more connected to myself, my true capital, s self,
22:19
and just myself like like my body, me also. I'm not my body.
22:24
But you know what I'm saying, I will feel more connected to
22:27
others that I am in relationship to, and I will feel more
22:31
connected to the world around me. And if I am never feeling
22:35
safe, if I'm always running scared, if I'm always in a state
22:38
of overwhelming anxiety, and I can never get regulated. That's
22:43
that's not soothing. So not soothing. Don't want to live
22:46
like that. But I'm not actually expecting the world to be a
22:51
particular way so that then I can feel safe. And that's why,
22:56
like, for a long time, I used to say things like, Oh, I'm trying
22:59
to create a safe space for you, this is a safe space. And I
23:02
realized, like, one day I'm like, I can't say that. Like,
23:07
it's not for me to determine what feels safe for somebody
23:10
else. All I can do is to do my best to create an environment
23:16
and an experience of safety. But I don't know everybody's
23:21
subconscious triggers. I don't know everybody's backstory and
23:24
their history and what they've been through, so all I can do is
23:27
do my best, and are there going to be times when I might blow it
23:31
or screw up or whatever? Yeah, because a I'm human and again, I
23:35
don't know everybody's, you know, biography. I don't know
23:39
everybody's history and what they've been through, and what
23:42
the things are that trigger them or upset them, a particular tone
23:45
of voice, a smell, it could even be a color, like whatever it is,
23:50
right? A tone of voice at certain energy level. You know,
23:54
people can get quote, unquote, triggered by like, 1000 little
23:58
things. So all I can do is try to do my best. Okay, so again,
24:03
what I want to experience in my own body is safe enough. I want
24:09
to be able to drop into parasympathetic when I find
24:13
myself going into sympathetic, that fight and flight and freeze
24:17
and fawn because it's guaranteed that it's going to happen. This
24:20
is not a safe world. I don't even like saying that out loud,
24:25
but it's the truth. It's not a safe world. It's not a safe
24:28
world for the animals. It's not a safe world for a lot of
24:33
different people. And if you are lucky enough to move through the
24:38
world where you never feel scared or threatened, or like
24:42
you have no power or you have no voice or you have no authority,
24:46
then I hate to say it, but you're probably some old white
24:48
guy not to pick on the old white guys, just saying, You know what
24:54
I mean. But the rest of us, we sometimes tend to feel like we
24:58
gotta have eyes in the. Back of our head. You know what I'm
25:01
saying. So here's the thing that I have found to be a little bit
25:06
helpful. Okay, here are some things. They're not all tools.
25:10
But number one, I gotta know my own triggers. I have to be aware
25:15
of the kinds of places, the kinds of people, the kinds of
25:19
environments where maybe I'm going to get a little antsy, I'm
25:22
going to get a little suspicious, I'm going to get a
25:25
little on edge, I'm going to get a little like I need to know
25:28
thyself. And this is so much of the work that I do with people.
25:33
We got to know why we do what we do, think, what we think,
25:36
believe, what we believe, say what we say, do what we do. As I
25:39
said, we have to know ourselves. We have to be curious enough as
25:44
about our own patterns, our own habits, our own stories, our own
25:47
beliefs, our own identity, how we're showing up in the world,
25:51
why we're showing up that way, and if we don't like the
25:54
experience, what maybe can we do to tweak it, to adjust it, to
26:00
transform it, to change it, to develop it, to have personal
26:04
growth, self development, right? This is the work that I do with
26:08
people. So we gotta know our triggers, and it's not like, oh,
26:12
avoid them. My hope is that I can experience them and know how
26:17
to come back to safety more quickly, that I can get a little
26:21
dysregulated by something, and then go, oh. I know how to be
26:24
responsive. I know how to do that breath, where I breathe in
26:28
through my nose fully and deeply and then exhale out through my
26:33
mouth twice as long with a little bit of sound. I wear a
26:38
watch. I don't have it on right now. I took it off to take a
26:40
shower, but if I have on my Apple watch, I can just hit that
26:43
little hat icon and it will show me what my heart rate is. The
26:47
other day, my heart rate was up around like 74 Okay, I just sat
26:52
and did the breath that I just described to you, inhale through
26:55
your nose, fully and deeply, exhale out twice as long,
27:00
through the mouth with a little bit of sound. This helps to down
27:04
regulate the nervous system, move us from sympathetic to
27:07
parasympathetic into the relaxation response. And I
27:10
literally watched my heart rate drop down within a minute, like
27:15
six beats per minute. It went down from like 76 or whatever it
27:19
was, to 70 and then I got it down to like 64 just from
27:25
breathing. That's one simple tool that pretty much everybody
27:30
can do. Okay, so I want to know my triggers, the other ways, the
27:34
other incredible. And I wouldn't even call it a tool so much as I
27:38
don't even know what to call it, but let's call it a tool. Is
27:42
building relationships with people that you feel like you
27:46
can be yourself with people that see you, I would say your
27:50
balcony people, right? The people who love you. And this
27:53
might be one other person, if you're lucky, it's two or three
27:56
or four, where you have your people for some of you, that
28:00
might be your family. For some of you, your family is the place
28:03
where you do not feel safe at all. Right? For some of you,
28:07
it'll be your sweetie or your partner or your best friend. For
28:11
some of you, maybe it's a sibling, I don't know, but for
28:14
whoever it is, it's like building relationships with
28:17
beautiful people who see you, who try to understand you, who
28:22
get you, who celebrate you, who support you, who say, come here,
28:26
right? Let me give you a hug. I'm listening. You don't have to
28:29
do this on your own. Sometimes we have to hire those people,
28:33
coaches and mentors and whatever. And there's no shame
28:37
in that. And there's nothing wrong with that, because
28:39
sometimes the environments that we find ourselves in, they are
28:42
not supportive. They are not supportive. And you need to have
28:47
somebody who can be in your corner, like Rocky to like, I
28:51
always say in the Rocky movie, Mick, mix in his corner like,
28:54
you know what I mean? He's like, cheering him on. He's pointing
28:56
out some ways to help him grow and develop and become better,
28:59
right? The other thing is so one, knowing your triggers,
29:04
knowing what might upset you, and then gathering some tools to
29:08
be able to when you do get triggered or dysregulated, to
29:11
bring you back to psychological and physical safety, to
29:15
relationships and people. And then another thing is that body
29:18
awareness, right? Body awareness techniques are incredibly
29:22
helpful, whether that's somatics, whether that's yoga,
29:26
whether that's breath work, pranayama, breathing, whether
29:29
that's EFT, tapping, Emotional Freedom Technique, right?
29:33
Whether that's bilateral stimulation, whether that's
29:37
like, you know, peripheral vision and going out, whether
29:41
it's hypnosis. I mean, there's a shit ton of tools out there to
29:46
help us learn, but I want to say this to me, and again, I might
29:52
be wrong. I don't want to just blame like my I don't want to
29:58
ever have to blame my behavior. Behavior on my trauma and say,
30:02
Well, I'm just reactive, because it might be true, but I want to
30:07
be able to be aware enough that I am noticing that I'm being
30:12
reactive, and then I can choose to respond instead. I don't want
30:17
to be stuck in rigidity, in my patterns, and my habits and my
30:21
ways of being that are causing my own suffering or inflicting
30:26
myself on other people. I can't tell you how many times I heard
30:31
growing up, that's just the way he is, that's just the way she
30:35
is, that's just the way that they are, like everybody else
30:38
had to fucking suffer because this person had no emotional
30:42
intelligence. This person never bothered to take a look in the
30:45
soul mirror. This person never bothered to pick up a book and
30:48
read it. The person never went to therapy. They never got a
30:51
coach. They never fucking took two seconds to look at
30:53
themselves and realize that their way of being was bullying
30:58
and traumatizing and awful for other people to have to be
31:01
around double A men hands, if you know what I'm talking about,
31:05
right? So part of how I also try to experience safety is creating
31:12
more safety in the world for animals and for other humans to
31:17
to find their way home. To Do you know what I mean, we can try
31:22
to be a safe place for other people to show up in curiosity
31:26
instead of judgment, to listen, maybe more than we talk, which I
31:30
know it's funny right now. Me saying that because I'm talking,
31:32
talking, talking, but it's a podcast, right? But to be able
31:36
to quote, unquote, hold space for people when they're going
31:40
through a thing and to just be there, you might not always need
31:43
to know the quote, unquote right thing to say that, can I hold
31:47
the space? Can I be there? Can I be a container for somebody
31:51
else? So I hope that this is landing for you in some way,
31:56
that this resonates for you in some way, that this concept of
32:00
being safe enough that we're not waiting to feel perfect safety
32:05
before we go after our dream, before we say yes to being on
32:10
the podcast, before we say yes to starting to write the book or
32:14
join the club or start the project or start a business, or
32:19
say yes and go on the date. You know, I had a friend the other
32:22
day write to me out of the blue, and they just said, I'm going on
32:26
a first date. They're like, Karen, Karen, I'm going on a
32:30
first date, Karen. I don't like first dates, right? I just
32:34
started laughing, and I wrote back, and I was just, you know,
32:37
trying to be a safe space for them and say some things and
32:40
make them laugh and loosen up and try to enjoy the experience,
32:44
because you never know that date could lead to falling in love.
32:47
And how exciting is that, right? But the ego mind gets involved,
32:51
and it goes into like a time travels into the future and it
32:54
starts to worry and get nervous, or it time travels into the past
32:58
and it goes into shame and blame and guilt and weirdness, and I
33:01
blew it that last time, and it's not going to work out. And I'm
33:04
like, dude, like, let's be in the present moment. Like, let's
33:07
just experience this. You know, this is kind of exciting. Tell
33:11
me more. You know, it was pretty cool. So we're not always going
33:16
to experience perfect safety, but if we can use some tools, if
33:21
we can find our people, if we can become aware of our own
33:24
triggers, our own anxieties, our own fears, and use right use
33:30
these things. And if you're like, I don't know how to do
33:32
this. KK, please, for the love of of all things holy, join the
33:36
nest. It's 50 bucks a month. I can probably help right. Sign up
33:41
if you hate it. You leave after one month, right. Find out more
33:45
about working with me one to one in the quest. You know, I love
33:49
helping people navigate this whole being human experience
33:53
using, you know, spiritual principles, spiritual practices
33:57
and subconscious reprogramming and hypnosis and neuroscience
34:01
and practical tools to interrupt our patterns when we're getting
34:05
reactive, you know, oh, my God. So the goal for me now, and
34:10
maybe it is for you too, is to feel safe enough so that we can
34:14
do what we came here to do, so we can be who we are meant to
34:18
be, who the divine and you know, just you, maybe you don't
34:22
believe in anything greater, right? Maybe you're just like, I
34:25
just want to be my best self. Perfect, great. Run with it. But
34:29
it's hard to be our best self when we are getting hijacked all
34:33
the time by fear, right? We want to learn how to operate from a
34:38
place of love. And here's just the facts. Sometimes, right, we
34:43
are not going to feel safe, and sometimes we have to do it a
34:46
little bit scared. I do, if you knew how many things I did
34:51
scared, right? I think a lot of people perceive me as like, you
34:55
know, I am tough, okay, right? Like, and I don't mean like, Oh,
34:58
I'm tough. Like, I'm gonna beat you up. I am wicked resilient. I
35:01
am pretty tough. I am strong and right. And I have a lot of
35:07
patterns and habits in my nervous system of being scared,
35:10
and those things rear up. They they present themselves, but now
35:14
I have enough tools to be able to help myself to come back to a
35:20
state where maybe I'm not feeling 100% safety, but I feel
35:25
safe enough to take the leap of faith to know that my spiritual
35:28
team comes with me. My ancestors come with me, my mom comes with
35:32
me. God, Holy Spirit, my inner teacher, because so much of
35:37
safety for me is learning how to trust myself. I can't always
35:43
trust other people. I can't always trust the rest of the
35:46
world, but I can trust myself. I can trust the inner voice, the
35:50
inner teacher. I can trust God and source in the Divine, or
35:53
whatever you happen to call it, the universe. I can trust a
35:57
handful of people around me who I know have my back, who love
36:01
me, who cheerlead me, who champion me, and who want the
36:04
best for me. And if you can gather these people, these
36:08
things, these tools, keep listening to the podcast, maybe
36:11
join the NASA. However, it is, read some good books, look up
36:15
some of the tools that I mentioned, right? And you too,
36:19
because this is the goal for me, is to feel safe enough.
36:26
And I've I've made my peace with that. I've made my peace that,
36:30
like this is the body and the nervous system that I have, and
36:34
as long as I'm alive, right, I will be trying to help myself
36:37
and reparent myself and be kind to myself and compassionate. And
36:42
there's going to be times when we just have to feel safe enough
36:46
and maybe do it a little bit scared. But you don't have to do
36:50
it alone. I'm here hopefully you have some people around you who
36:55
also love you and support you. Okay, I gotta go. I gotta go
36:59
teach a yoga class. But I hope this has been helpful in some
37:01
way and valuable. And if you listen to this and you thought,
37:04
Oh, my God, this is great, or whatever, this was valuable.
37:07
This was helpful. Please share it with somebody. Send it to a
37:11
cousin, a girlfriend, a best friend and a sister, whoever
37:14
your auntie. Send it to somebody you love. Okay, wherever you go,
37:19
may you leave the animals in the other humans and yourself in the
37:24
environment and the planet better than how you first found
37:28
it wherever you go, may you and your energy and your presence
37:33
and your love and your safe enoughness be a blessing. Bye,
37:38
you.