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SOMEONE IS YOU · The Karen Kenney Show

• 0:01
  Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super
• 0:04
  duper excited to be here with you. And I just got done from
• 0:08
  doing a little bit of a project, which I'm wicked excited to tell
• 0:12
  you about. It kind of happened in a weird, quirky way. Like all
• 0:17
  things in my life tend to do. I always say s, t o, t, J,
• 0:21
  spiritual team on the job. Okay, so let me just dive right into
• 0:25
  this sucker. You might tell if you're watching this, I'm still
• 0:27
  a little shiny and sweaty from what I was just doing. Okay, so
• 0:33
  my sweetie and I at least about five days a week, we run. I he
• 0:38
  runs. He runs like eight miles. I run walk, right? So I kind of
• 0:43
  do whatever. But we have certain routes that we tend to do. And
• 0:47
  like anything, when you're running a certain route
• 0:51
  continuously, or often, you tend to see things if you're paying
• 0:56
  attention, if you're not zoning out, right, like sometimes when
• 0:59
  you're running like, you get in the zone and you're hyper focus,
• 1:02
  but a lot of times, if you're just even paying attention, you
• 1:05
  will start to notice things. And one of the things that I notice
• 1:09
  along so there's different routes in my neighborhood that
• 1:12
  that I run on, but there's one particular stretch of road
• 1:16
  called Oak Hill Road, and we live off of that street, and I
• 1:21
  often see trash, like, alongside the road, like in the bushes.
• 1:28
  Now, it's a very wooded area, right? So it's like, not even
• 1:31
  it's rural. I will say it's rural, it's not even Suburban. I
• 1:34
  mean, like, you know, you get your neighbors and stuff like
• 1:36
  that, but we're out in the woods, basically. And so I often
• 1:41
  see like, trash and stuff on the side of the road, and like,
• 1:44
  something inside of me, like, if you're watching my face right
• 1:46
  now, like I'm like, gripping my fingers and I'm squinting one of
• 1:49
  my eyes, like, oh, like, it hurts me. It hurts me when I see
• 1:52
  trash on the ground. And you know, the first, of course, the
• 1:56
  first thing that the ego mind likes to do is it likes to stop,
• 2:00
  like, judging people and be like, Oh, those damn little bugs
• 2:04
  and people just throwing shit out their windows. And how can
• 2:08
  they do that? You get, like, wicked judgy, like, super duper
• 2:11
  judgy in your head. And one of the things I had to stop myself
• 2:14
  is ask myself, like, Well, hey, because whenever you're tempted,
• 2:18
  this is a good exercise. PS, whenever you attempted to judge
• 2:22
  other people, you know, of course, in miracles, I'm
• 2:25
  paraphrasing, of course, in miracles kind of taught me, you
• 2:27
  know, this, this thing, this idea of, whenever you're tempted
• 2:31
  to judge somebody else, ask yourself, would I ever accuse
• 2:33
  myself of the same thing?
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  Oh, my God. Like, have you Hey, hey, knucklehead, hey, judgy
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  mcjudgy pants over there. Have you ever done this, right? And I
• 2:50
  remember back in the day when I was a smoker, you know, and we
• 2:53
  would just flick, I'm doing the little flicking that we would
• 2:55
  just flick our butts right out the window, you know, like, and
• 2:59
  we had no regard, we had no regard for Mother Earth, you
• 3:02
  know? I mean, then obviously we got a little smarter, hopefully,
• 3:05
  and we started using our ashtrays in the car. And what's
• 3:08
  so funny is, when you think about it, it's like you had
• 3:11
  ashtrays in cars back then, which probably sounds foreign to
• 3:14
  some young people listening, right? We had ashtrays in cars.
• 3:17
  And I'm like, so we had ashtrays in the car, and we still flicked
• 3:21
  it out the window. Why? Because we didn't want the butts in our
• 3:24
  car. Why? Because they were kind of gross, and it's like, oh,
• 3:26
  okay, so we had the habit, and then we would still flick our
• 3:30
  butts out the window. Like, what the were we thinking? We weren't
• 3:32
  thinking. That's the answer. We weren't thinking. So whenever I
• 3:37
  get a little tempted, a little extra tempted to try to start
• 3:40
  judging people, because this is just what the ego mind does,
• 3:43
  right? It loves to keep us separate, like, from our
• 3:46
  brothers and sisters, from, you know, fellow beings. It loves to
• 3:49
  keep us separate from everything, and it loves to keep
• 3:51
  other people in guilt and shame and blame and then, because,
• 3:55
  then we get to be right, and we get to be special. So I know the
• 3:57
  racket that my ego likes to run. So I'm vigilant, right? Like, I
• 4:02
  vigilant, like, I keep a wicked close eye on that. Now, what I
• 4:05
  will say about this, though, is what I found really interesting,
• 4:09
  a couple of things that I thought were really interesting.
• 4:11
  The other thing, okay, well, the other thing is, we live in a
• 4:15
  town where you have to bring your trash yourself to the dump
• 4:19
  in conced, you know, they have trash pickup CON Kids. Whole
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  rack of concats got another whole racket going on, because
• 4:25
  they force the residents of Concord to buy especially
• 4:28
  colored garbage bags that you have to go and buy. And they
• 4:31
  cost a certain amount, and that's the only way they'll pick
• 4:34
  up your trash, is if you're using the purple trash bag. So
• 4:36
  there's always something right. But anyways, we have to take our
• 4:39
  trash to the dump. And I think, in fairness, what happens a lot
• 4:43
  of the times is that people throw their trash in the back of
• 4:48
  their cabs of their trucks, and it blows out on the way to the
• 4:52
  dump. Okay, but here's where it gets interesting. I thought this
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  was fascinating because I was like, okay, stop judging. People
• 5:00
  stop calling everybody litter bugs. Maybe it's because their
• 5:04
  stuff is shit is blowing out of the back of their truck on the
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  way to the dump. But here's what's fascinating. Here's what
• 5:10
  I discovered today. What I discovered today is I was
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  looking and watching. Is that like, Okay, imagine you're
• 5:21
  driving up a road, and it's like a house, right, with a lawn with
• 5:26
  a Yad, and then there's like a little section of woods, and
• 5:29
  then, like, you know, and there's a culvert, like off the
• 5:31
  road, like a culvert, like a ditch, and, you know, there's
• 5:34
  leaves and stuff in there, of course. Then it's like the next
• 5:37
  house, and then again, chunk of woods, culvert, Bubba, what I
• 5:41
  find fascinating is, if stuff is blowing out of the back of
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  people's trucks, only air quotes only, I find it quite
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  interesting. I think how. How interesting. I guess I'll just
• 5:56
  stick with that word that the trash only seems to blow out in
• 6:00
  the sections where it's nobody's lawn and it's just a chunk of
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  woods. Now, one could argue that maybe, yeah, if it ends up on
• 6:08
  somebody's lawn, they go out and pick it up, but I just think
• 6:10
  it's interesting, and so I know, I know that a fair amount of
• 6:15
  people are chucking shit right out the window, whether it's
• 6:19
  laziness. They don't give a shit. They don't know any
• 6:23
  better. They aren't aware it blew out, whatever. Okay. Now
• 6:27
  the reason why I'm telling you all of this is that when I Okay,
• 6:33
  so I run this route, I see the trash. And what do we all do as
• 6:37
  humans? We'll see something that we don't like. Well, whether we
• 6:42
  see something that is just, we don't like it, or it's unfair,
• 6:47
  or there's no justice, or something is happening to an
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  animal, a person, a place, and we're like, that's not right.
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  That's not right. Someone should do something, someone ought to
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  do something now, double A men. Hands me, if you have uttered
• 7:07
  these words at some point in your life, that's not right,
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  that's not fair, that's not good, that's fucked up. Somebody
• 7:13
  ought to do something. Someone needs to do something. Okay,
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  well, as I was like running this route and seeing this trash. And
• 7:24
  I had that thought, someone ought to do something. And then
• 7:27
  it occurs to me, Well, someone is you. Someone is you, meaning
• 7:38
  me. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do this, and here's what I think
• 7:43
  about this, and we're gonna get we're gonna get it like, so stay
• 7:47
  with me. Okay, I often will say to myself, whoever is awake,
• 7:52
  whoever is aware and whoever is able, gets to do something. Now,
• 7:58
  the very first thing that I know, like, rumbles up inside of
• 8:02
  people. And I was going to call the episode, you know, being the
• 8:07
  bigger person, or the bigger person, right? So often people
• 8:12
  will see things and or be, like, in conflict with somebody, or
• 8:16
  there's something going on they don't like. And it's almost like
• 8:20
  an adult tantrum, right? We put it's like putting your hands on
• 8:23
  your hips and stomping your feet, and it's like, Why do I
• 8:26
  always have to be the bigger person? Why do I always have to
• 8:29
  be the one that does X, Y and Z? Why do I always have to be the
• 8:32
  one that says sorry first, and why do I always have to be the
• 8:35
  one? No? Why? Because whoever is, of course, in Miracle says
• 8:40
  whoever is Sana at the time, whoever is Santa at the time. To
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  me, this is like whoever is clocking the thing, whoever
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  notices the thing, so whoever is awake and aware and is paying
• 8:55
  attention and is able to do something about it. Why not you,
• 9:01
  and so often. Again, it's just a racket of the ego. The ego is
• 9:07
  like, Why do I have to do it? Why? Because you're the one who
• 9:10
  saw it, you're the one who recognized it, and you're the
• 9:14
  one who's bothered by it. So me as I'm like, again, running this
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  route and seeing that, like the cans and like, all this stuff. I
• 9:21
  was like, That's it. I'm gonna do something about it. And then,
• 9:25
  you guys, it was like, this magical portal in my brain
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  opened up, and I was like, Oh my God. And I had this memory. Now,
• 9:39
  when I was in, like, the fourth and fifth grade. I went to a
• 9:42
  school called the Thompson school. So I grew up in Lawrence
• 9:45
  mass, and then there were a few years where we moved to North
• 9:47
  Andover, and then we moved right back to Lawrence. But during
• 9:51
  those years, I spent two of those years at the Thompson
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  School of North Andover. Now I'm pretty sure it was in fifth
• 9:58
  grade. In fifth grade I had, like, one. Of the best teachers
• 10:00
  I've ever had in my life. I've had a handful of those, Mr.
• 10:04
  Kellen. Mr. Mike Kellen. I loved, like, loved Mr. Kellen. I
• 10:10
  just thought he was the bee's knees, he was the cat's pajamas,
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  he was the cat's meow. Like, I loved Mr. Kellen. And I don't
• 10:17
  know if it was Mr. Kellen that started it, but I think it was.
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  But here's what I remember, all of a sudden, you guys, as I'm
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  thinking about this trash and cleaning up the trash, and
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  somebody's gonna do it, maybe that someone is you. All of a
• 10:28
  sudden, I would hear in my head the Thompson Tigers clean team.
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  And it was like, Oh my God. You know how all of a sudden you
• 10:37
  remember something from your childhood? And I'm like, I'm
• 10:39
  grinning like an idiot right now, I was so excited. So in
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  fifth grade, I think it was Mr. Kellyn, or it was a teacher
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  initiative or a school initiative, but I see his brain
• 10:49
  burned on it. You know, his face burned on my brain. We started
• 10:54
  the Thompson Tigers clean team, and we even got little patches
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  Okay, we got these little round patches, had little Tigers on
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  them. And I thought to myself, Oh, my God. And then we would go
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  out in the neighborhood and, like, we would clean things up.
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  And, like, we got the thing. It was like, if you see something
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  on the side of the road, piece of trash, like, pick it up. And
• 11:15
  that's like, you it's almost like, you know, I was never in
• 11:17
  the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts or anything like that.
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  But this was like that, like you got a patch. And here's the
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  thing, you guys, I keep I, I literally do not know. I amazed.
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  I'm amazed by this. I honestly am amazed by this. By the time I
• 11:33
  was like, 40, I had moved 38 times. My childhood was a shit
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  show. We moved so often. And then after my mother died, and,
• 11:40
  like, all these things happened, and I have no idea, through
• 11:45
  college and moving to California and moving like, I have no idea
• 11:50
  how I've kept things, but I have a box, and in that box I have,
• 11:57
  like, my projects from like, sixth grade with Mrs. Karen at
• 12:02
  the Weatherby. I have stuff from, like, I have stuff going
• 12:06
  all the way back. And you guys, I just knew in my heart of hats,
• 12:09
  I said to my sweetie. I was like, sweetie, I was on the
• 12:12
  Thompson Tigers clean team, and I had a patch, and it was on a
• 12:16
  jacket. And I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure I still have that
• 12:19
  patch. And I'm like, I'm gonna go see so I go in the closet, I
• 12:23
  find the bin, I go inside, and you guys, I found my Thompson
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  Tigers clean team patch,
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  and I was it. I even was describing to him. I was like,
• 12:35
  it was white and had like a navy tiger on it, and it had like
• 12:39
  gold, you know, trim around, whatever. Okay, I'm gonna hold
• 12:42
  it up for those of you watching, look at you guys, the Thompson
• 12:46
  Tigers Queen team. I still have it. So today I'm such a dork, I
• 12:53
  admit it. I don't care. I'm such a such a little weirdo. I was
• 12:56
  like, I'm gonna put my patch on and I'm going to go out into my
• 13:01
  neighborhood, and I'm going to go pick up all of those cans and
• 13:05
  all of those things that I have seen on my run. So that's what I
• 13:09
  did. So we walk the dogs. I tuck, I basically tuck two trash
• 13:13
  bags in the back of my pants. I got gloves, you know? I got my
• 13:17
  gloves. We walked the dogs to the end of our road, and then I
• 13:20
  just walked up and down Oak Hill Road, because it's really we
• 13:25
  just had a cleanup day on our street where our neighborhood,
• 13:29
  in our neighborhood, we we live on a private dirt road. The town
• 13:32
  does not maintain our road, so the neighbors all do it and
• 13:34
  stuff like that. So we just got together this past weekend,
• 13:38
  actually on my birthday. So we went out as neighbors, and we
• 13:41
  get our street ready, because we got to grade it and then roll
• 13:45
  it, because it's dirt, the whole thing. So we just did our
• 13:47
  cleanup. So there was really nothing on our street to do. So
• 13:50
  I went out into Oak Hill, and I walked up and down it with my
• 13:53
  trash bags. And you guys, I shit you not. I picked up two full
• 14:00
  size garbage bags of trash. And you want to know what else is
• 14:05
  interesting, besides me feeling I was just so excited that I was
• 14:10
  being a Thompson Tiger clean team member again. So here we
• 14:16
  are like, what? 47 maybe 48 years later, no, even less than
• 14:24
  that, maybe four, maybe 50 years later, I was out there cleaning
• 14:29
  stuff up. I had my little patch, I had my my gear on. I was so
• 14:34
  excited. But one of the things that I noticed, besides noticing
• 14:37
  that the trash just kind of magically seems to appear in the
• 14:42
  sections where there's not houses. So you just know, some
• 14:45
  people just Huck and shit. What I found fascinating is 90% of
• 14:49
  what I picked up was alcohol cans in bottles, beer cans and
• 14:55
  bottles like alcohol, like liquor, like people had gone to
• 14:59
  the Packy and got. Themselves some booze. I was like, why is
• 15:02
  it that we and I was like, and I started laughing. I was like,
• 15:06
  America, we have a drinking problem. Hello, hello. Anybody,
• 15:11
  anybody out there? And I was like, wow, it was just crazy.
• 15:15
  They were like, nips. They were like, quart size bottles. They
• 15:19
  were, I was like, vodka. Like, remember the shape of Mad Dog?
• 15:22
  2020, there were some of those bottles. There was, I found all
• 15:26
  kinds of stuff, but two trash bags full. And I was thinking to
• 15:30
  myself, first of all, I was just so happy to be doing it. But
• 15:33
  what was awesome? While I was out there doing this, I bumped
• 15:37
  into a few people. So I was now coming down Oak Hill. It's like,
• 15:40
  this steep hill, and there was an older woman, probably like,
• 15:43
  in her late 70s, early 80s, out there doing her walk. And I had
• 15:48
  my ear buds in listening to some Fleetwood Mac, you know, as I
• 15:51
  was doing this stuff, and she's I could tell that she was
• 15:55
  talking to me, but I couldn't hear so I popped out my ear buds
• 15:58
  and I said, Hi, and she's like, and she's like, she literally,
• 16:03
  kind of like, hands on her hips. She's like, Can you believe how
• 16:06
  people just lit up and throw stuff out of their cars? And I
• 16:11
  said, I know. I said, it's awful. And I said, but here's
• 16:15
  the thing. I go we also live in a town where we have to take our
• 16:20
  trash. So I explained it to her. We live in this town where we
• 16:22
  have to take our trash, as you know, like to the dump, and
• 16:25
  sometimes it probably blows out of the back of of people's cars
• 16:28
  and stuff. She's like, I know, but there's just so much of it.
• 16:31
  And I said, I know. I said, I agree. I go. And I gotta tell
• 16:34
  you, I've seen it a bunch of times. And I finally was just
• 16:36
  like, someone has to do something. And I said, and today
• 16:41
  that someone is me. And she said to me, Well, you she's so cute.
• 16:46
  First of all, in her little walk in shorts, she had white hair,
• 16:49
  she was adorable. And she's like, well, I said, What's your
• 16:52
  name? And she said, Jesse. And I said, Hi, Jesse. I'm Karen. And
• 16:55
  and she said, Well, you've inspired me, Karen. And I was
• 17:00
  like, yay. Like, I was so excited. And she said, I live
• 17:04
  down there. She told me her house number. She's like, I'm in
• 17:07
  the Concord line. So the Oak Hill basically turns from loud
• 17:11
  and into Concord. I live, like, a mile from the Concord line,
• 17:13
  right? So I I'm like, and she tells me your house number. So
• 17:18
  I'm like, Wow. She takes wicked long walks. She was far from her
• 17:21
  house, and she said, she said, the most beautiful thing, and
• 17:24
  this is what I want to I wanted to tell you. She says, Every day
• 17:29
  I have to find a kindness. She's like, every day I have to do a
• 17:32
  kindness. She goes in today, this is going to be my kindness.
• 17:36
  And she said it again, you've inspired me. And I was just
• 17:38
  like, tickled pink. I was just so excited, first of all, to
• 17:43
  just know that another person was going to be out there
• 17:47
  cleaning up her neighborhood too, her end of the street,
• 17:50
  right? And that's the thing. It's like we got to clean up our
• 17:53
  own ends of the street. And I've often said this to my clients.
• 17:58
  You know, it's so easy to bitch about people out there, you
• 18:03
  know, so often. And this is literally the analogy that I'll
• 18:07
  use. I'll say, you know, it's so interesting. We'll stand in our
• 18:10
  front yard, and we'll look out in like, meaning, look out onto
• 18:13
  the street, or at our neighbors, or the rest of the world, right?
• 18:17
  And we'll say, you know, there's just shit everywhere. They're
• 18:20
  just letting their shit go everywhere, meaning, you know,
• 18:23
  their their opinions, their behaviors, their bullshit, the
• 18:27
  stuff that they do that you don't like. And would just be
• 18:29
  like, they're just letting their shit go everywhere. Look at it.
• 18:31
  It's a mess. And I'm like, and the one thing that they're not
• 18:34
  even looking at is, if they turned around and looked in
• 18:37
  their own backyard, they'd see that their garbage cans, the
• 18:40
  lids were off, and it was their shit that was blowing into the
• 18:43
  street. We're so focused on what other people are doing or doing
• 18:48
  wrong or not doing to our standard or not meeting our
• 18:51
  preferences or whatever, it's so easy to focus on other people
• 18:56
  that we have our own blind spots, and we don't even
• 18:59
  recognize that the trash is coming from us. The trash is
• 19:03
  coming from our own, yet the garbage is coming from us. And
• 19:07
  I'm pointing at my head the garbage. It's like the calls are
• 19:10
  coming from inside the house, right? And so, and I was like,
• 19:14
  rather than focusing on what everybody else isn't getting
• 19:18
  right, what everybody else is doing wrong. We can be the
• 19:22
  change. We can do something differently. Again, whoever is
• 19:27
  aware and awake and paying attention and is able right, you
• 19:31
  have the means, you have the energy, you have the ability.
• 19:35
  Whatever it is, if you can do it, why not have you do
• 19:38
  something about it? And it got me to think about how you know
• 19:43
  so often, and especially right now, and I say especially right
• 19:49
  now, knowing that there have been other times in history when
• 19:52
  it has been a colossal shit show, we can, like, pick up a
• 19:57
  book. I'm not being fresh, but literally, pick up a book and
• 19:59
  read. About our history, and you will see there have been times
• 20:03
  when there have been famines and droughts and, like, the Spanish
• 20:07
  flu and the depression, and just like, you know, slave or like,
• 20:14
  just look at, look at slavery. And just, you know, stealing the
• 20:19
  land from indigenous people you just look at throughout history,
• 20:23
  there's always times when we can say now more than ever, right?
• 20:27
  It feels that way, like right now. It feels like we want to
• 20:29
  say now more than ever. But there have always been moments
• 20:33
  throughout history and throughout time when it has been
• 20:36
  just Civil War, right? Overwhelmingly awful. But
• 20:42
  individuals, right? This is when you think about the collective,
• 20:46
  when you think about, again, a family, a neighborhood, a city,
• 20:51
  a culture, a government, whatever, all that it's made up
• 20:53
  of is individuals. And there's a there's always enough trash, I
• 20:58
  always say shit that goes on in the world, whether it's starving
• 21:02
  children or sex trafficking or racist Christian nationalism
• 21:06
  ideology or people like, you know, like being awful towards
• 21:13
  trans people, LGBTQIA, whatever, the reason why these Things go
• 21:20
  why we have an alligator Alcatraz is because enough
• 21:24
  individuals are okay with it.
• 21:29
  That's how we end up, quote, unquote here with things being a
• 21:34
  shit show, is because enough people are okay with it, or
• 21:39
  believe in it or want it that way. So when we see things that
• 21:44
  we don't like, there are going to be times when you can't do
• 21:48
  anything about it. What can you do when you see things that you
• 21:51
  don't like, right? Like, you can speak up, you can vote, you can
• 21:55
  make phone calls. You can intervene when it's like smart
• 22:00
  to do so, etc, etc, so we have to do that, but a lot of times,
• 22:04
  what happens is it's really easy to focus on what we don't like.
• 22:12
  It's really easy to focus on the quote, unquote bad people, or
• 22:18
  the other ones, or the other side or whatever, and it's so
• 22:21
  easy to get caught up in what everybody else is doing that you
• 22:26
  forget that you have some individual power, that you too
• 22:31
  have autonomy and agency and authorship and the ability to
• 22:36
  there's another a word I wanted to say, autonomy, agency,
• 22:40
  authorship and authority, right, where you can get some shit done
• 22:46
  too. And I often say to people, you know, if, if, if there's
• 22:50
  nobody else around who's gonna fix it or whatever or change it,
• 22:55
  what can you do? You know? And I've had people you know say
• 22:59
  like, oh, somebody, you know, I wish somebody else would run for
• 23:03
  office. I've had people say to me, like, why don't you run for
• 23:06
  office? And I say, oh, no, no. I'm like, I'm not a politician.
• 23:09
  I use my big mouth in other ways. But hey, why not you
• 23:14
  running for office? If that's something that, like you're
• 23:17
  capable of and into and want to make change, right? There's a
• 23:20
  lot of ways to make change in the world. But here's what I
• 23:24
  wanted to say, while we're focusing on the negative or the
• 23:27
  bad or, quote, unquote, those people, we lose sight of our own
• 23:33
  power. We lose sight of the ways that we can make a difference
• 23:37
  and we can make a change. And I was thinking about something
• 23:40
  that Swami Kripalu taught me. I mean, he taught, he taught
• 23:43
  anybody who was learning from him. But Bapu Ji, as we call
• 23:47
  him, the word Kripalu means compassion. Swami Kripalu, if
• 23:50
  you've ever heard of the Kripalu, you know, Center for
• 23:53
  yoga and health out in the Berkshires, out in Western Mass.
• 23:57
  I'm a Kripalu Yoga teacher. And Swami Kripalu taught us that the
• 24:01
  best way to improve yourself or the best way to remove something
• 24:09
  that you don't like or that you've been fighting with or
• 24:11
  grappling with personally, right? So we're going to look at
• 24:14
  this first personally. Swami Kripalu taught that the best way
• 24:17
  to improve ourselves or to remove something that we don't
• 24:21
  like or that we've been grappling with or fighting with,
• 24:23
  is not to dwell on the fault. Is to not to dwell on the bad
• 24:27
  thing, right? That's like lost energy. That's like spend
• 24:31
  energy, don't put your focus on the thing that you actually are
• 24:34
  trying to grapple with or fight or change. What you want to
• 24:37
  focus on and what you want to strengthen is the opposite
• 24:41
  positive character trait and virtue. You put your focus on
• 24:47
  the way that you want to be. You put your focus on the way that
• 24:51
  you want things to be. You don't keep staring at and focusing on
• 24:56
  and putting your energy on the bad thing, the negative thing,
• 24:59
  the thing you. Like you put your awareness, your attention, your
• 25:03
  strength and your focus. If you want to strengthen that's what
• 25:07
  you want to do. You want to strengthen the opposite,
• 25:09
  positive character trait or virtue. That's where you put
• 25:13
  your energy. And this works, in my opinion, both on the
• 25:18
  individual level and on the level of the world, the greater,
• 25:23
  right, the greater expansion of those individuals. So for me,
• 25:26
  it's like, if I if I'm like, Oh my God, there's so much fear in
• 25:30
  the world and there's so much hatred and there's so much this,
• 25:33
  and there's so much division and there's so much separation. I'm
• 25:35
  like, Okay, I'm going to put my focus on creating moments in my
• 25:40
  individual life, and maybe in the groups that I run, in the
• 25:43
  nest or in my yoga classes, or in when I do a workshop or when
• 25:47
  I speak or whatever, then what I'm going to do is really focus
• 25:50
  on the opposite of the that. I'm going to focus instead of on
• 25:55
  fear. I'm going to focus on love instead of focusing on anxiety
• 25:58
  and worry and oh my god, I'm going to focus on love and
• 26:01
  community and connection and compassion and kindness and
• 26:07
  mercy and grace and forgiveness. I'm going to focus on the
• 26:10
  opposite, the positive virtue and character traits. That's how
• 26:15
  we change shit is not lamenting and feeling helpless and
• 26:19
  hopeless and going, oh my god, no. You see the fucking can in
• 26:22
  the street. You pick it up. You see a hungry kid make him a
• 26:26
  sandwich. See somebody struggling, offer them a helping
• 26:29
  hand, again, if you are aware, awake, paying attention and able
• 26:34
  to that's the gig. The gig is to spread more love. The gig is to
• 26:40
  get better at giving and receiving more love, right? And
• 26:43
  that can take 1000 forms, but that's where we want to put our
• 26:47
  positive attention and energy. That's what we want to
• 26:50
  strengthen. And Swami karpalu had a quote that was just so
• 26:55
  simple and so perfect. And I did a whole podcast on this before,
• 26:58
  but in case you didn't hear it, he says, don't fight the
• 27:02
  darkness, turn on the light and breathe into the goodness that
• 27:08
  you are. Don't fight the darkness, turn on the light,
• 27:14
  breathe into the goodness that you are. And so that's what I've
• 27:19
  been thinking about this past week, in the past few days, and
• 27:23
  I got to tell you, it felt really good like I'm holding up
• 27:25
  my little patch again. It felt really good to be a part of the
• 27:29
  Thompson Tigers clean team today. It felt really good to
• 27:32
  know that when I go out there and do my run a little bit, that
• 27:35
  I'm not going to see those blue Bud Light beer, you know, cans
• 27:39
  and the Arizona iced tea cans and the bottles and the trash
• 27:42
  bags and all the shit. I mean, you guys, I picked up today two
• 27:46
  full size trash bags full of stuff, and this was just on,
• 27:50
  like, a mile and a mile or so of roadside. So can you imagine,
• 27:56
  can you imagine if one or two people in their neighborhood, in
• 28:00
  your community, went out one day when they had some extra time,
• 28:03
  and you took their trash bags and picked up like, what a
• 28:08
  difference it would make in your neighborhood, in your community.
• 28:10
  And I'm not saying that's what you have to do. You might have
• 28:12
  another idea. You might be like, I want to build a community
• 28:15
  garden, or I want to volunteer at the shelter, or I want to do
• 28:19
  something, because this is what we want to focus on. Whenever
• 28:23
  you hear yourself muttering, someone ought to do something.
• 28:27
  What if that someone is you like? How cool is that? So
• 28:33
  here's what I'm going to leave you with. Ask yourself this
• 28:36
  question, what's something that's been bugging me? Right?
• 28:40
  So what's something that's been bugging you, what's something
• 28:44
  that you've noticed, what's something that kind of irks you
• 28:47
  or rubs you the wrong way, or you think to yourself, Man,
• 28:50
  somebody ought to really do something about that. And then,
• 28:56
  once you know what that thing is, ask yourself, What can I do?
• 29:01
  What can I do? Because if you're awake and you're aware and you
• 29:06
  noticed it, because you were paying attention, right, and
• 29:09
  you're able to whether you have the means, the resources, the
• 29:13
  time, the energy, the health, whatever it is that you can do
• 29:15
  something, why not do it? What if that someone today is you,
• 29:21
  and you don't know, you might, you might inspire somebody. You
• 29:25
  might inspire somebody. You know another guy saw me, an older
• 29:29
  gentleman. He saw me like with my two trash bags, like walking
• 29:33
  up the street. One was already full, so it was like I was Santa
• 29:36
  Clausing it while I had the other one. And I had to keep
• 29:40
  walking down into these ditches. So I also had a walking pole,
• 29:43
  like I found a big stick, and I was using it for leverage,
• 29:45
  because I had to keep climbing in and out of these ditches. And
• 29:48
  I was all sweaty and shit. And he saw me, and he pulled over,
• 29:51
  and he's like, hey, it's trash day, you know? Because today's
• 29:54
  one of the days we go the dump. And I was like, Yeah, I know.
• 29:57
  And he's like, You got trash? And I was like. Well, it's not
• 30:00
  my I said, I'm just picking up stuff on the side of the road.
• 30:03
  And he's like, so he pulled over specifically to help me if I
• 30:06
  needed it. And when I told him I was all set, I said, My sweetie
• 30:10
  is going to come get me and pick me up, he spun his car around,
• 30:12
  and when it was truck, and when he pulled up next to me, old,
• 30:15
  old, older gentleman, and he pulled up next to me, and he
• 30:17
  said, I just want to say thank you so much for cleaning up our
• 30:20
  neighborhood, and it was so sweet. It was so nice. And it
• 30:23
  gave me, of course, it just made the little kid in me, like, so
• 30:26
  happy, like I had my little patch, and I was like, Yeah,
• 30:32
  I'm such a joke. I know. All right, you guys, that's what I
• 30:35
  got for you today, right? This is one of those things, like,
• 30:38
  when I say at the end of the show all the time, like wherever
• 30:41
  you go, leave yourself and the people in the place and the
• 30:43
  animals in the environment better than how you find it
• 30:46
  wherever you go, like May you be a blessing. This is it. This is
• 30:48
  the work. It's like Jesse saying every day, right? Every day I
• 30:52
  try to do a kindness. Every day I try to find a kindness and do
• 30:55
  a kindness. And that is good, that right? There is, I think,
• 30:59
  something we could all do every day. I think she just said, do a
• 31:03
  kindness. But I think my brain is saying, also find a kindness.
• 31:06
  But I think every day it would behoove us right to look for the
• 31:10
  good, the beautiful and the holy. Look find a kindness and
• 31:14
  do a kindness. That's the motto. That's what I'm leaving you with
• 31:18
  today, right? So remember, remember, if there's something
• 31:21
  out there that's rubbing you the wrong way, if there's something
• 31:23
  out there and it, like I said, it could be as big as you
• 31:26
  deciding to run for office to I'm going to start a little, you
• 31:30
  know, a little thing where we bring new neighbors cookies. I
• 31:34
  don't know what it could be, anything in between, but just
• 31:37
  keep in mind that someone might be you. Someone is you? All
• 31:43
  right, you guys, have a fantastic rest of your week.
• 31:47
  Whenever you're listening to this, I appreciate you spending
• 31:49
  some time with me. I really do. If you found this episode
• 31:53
  beneficial or helpful in some way, please share it with
• 31:56
  somebody you love. Please share it with somebody you care about.
• 31:59
  Maybe it will inspire them to just help me to spread the love
• 32:02
  I always appreciate that so much. And as of course, I'd be
• 32:08
  remiss to not let you know if you want to join a spiritual
• 32:13
  community right now, people who are like working on themselves,
• 32:16
  trying to spread more love in the world as well. That's what
• 32:18
  the nest is all about. My spiritual mentoring group and
• 32:21
  community 50 bucks a month. You can just sign up at Karen Kenney
• 32:25
  slash the nest, or just Karen Kenney nest, N, E, S, T, Karen
• 32:29
  kenney.com/nest and then I work with people one to one as well,
• 32:34
  Karen kenney.com/quest and you can just go to my website to see
• 32:39
  all the shenanigans things I have going on. And then also, if
• 32:42
  you ever want to support the show, I have a little tip jar,
• 32:46
  and it's just Karen kenney.com/tip job. And I
• 32:49
  appreciate anything. There's no obligation. But if you love to
• 32:52
  support the show, and my efforts of getting this show out into
• 32:55
  the world every week, episode 335, I can't even believe it.
• 32:59
  Over six years, we've been doing this and taking this ride
• 33:01
  together. So thank you. All right, wherever you go, leave
• 33:04
  your people and the place and the animals and the environment
• 33:08
  and yourself better than how you found it. Wherever you go, may
• 33:11
  you and your energy and your presence and your love and your
• 33:15
  I don't know your your Thompson tigers, clean team spirit. Oh,
• 33:21
  my God be a blessing. Bye, bye.