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WHY YOU DO WHAT YOU DO · The Karen Kenney Show

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  Unknown: It's the Karen Kenney show. BOOP! Oh my god. Hey you guys. Welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I keep laughing. If you guys only knew, for some reason I cannot
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  just start this podcast today. I already have like, four bloopers. It's so funny. But welcome. Welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you here. And I guess let's just
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  dive in. I'm just gonna dive in. Keep it simple here. Okay, so I'm recording this shortly after Easter, and I was down at my nephew's house. They were having a little
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  brunch or whatever, you know. And while I was down there, I always, you know, being vegan, I've been vegan for like, 20 I don't even know 2324 years, whatever it's been.
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  And so I always kind of bring my own food, and I especially know at Easter, right at Easter there's going to be the usual stuff, especially if it's brunch. At some point
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  there's going to be a poor dead pig, right? There's going to be ham being served somewhere. But it made me think of a story that I wanted to share with you guys, which
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  is kind of the hot beat in the premise of this episode, which I think I'm going to call, why do you do what you do? Why do you do what you do? I could also call it, why do
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  I do what I do? But we're going to keep it focused on on you guys. But I'm part of this, right? And this is a question that I like to ask myself, too, and I'm going to
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  dive a little bit more into it, but let me first tell you a little bit of a story. So as I was watching everybody, kind of like, put food on their plates, I was thinking
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  about this story and, like, I'll just set the scenario. Okay, so it's the call it Issa. There's an Easter holiday, and a family has gotten together, and in the
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  kitchen, you basically have the grandmother, the mother, a couple of aunts milling around, and then the daughter of this mom, okay, who is hosting the meal, and
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  everybody's in the kitchen and they're watching. The grandmother is like, over doing something. The mother is the one who's preparing, you know, the quote, unquote,
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  Easter ham. And the daughter is watching her. And there's a big pan on the counter, and all of a sudden, the mother takes the ham, and she cuts off both ends of the ham,
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  puts it back into the pan and starts to, like, you know, put some little vegetables around it, whatever. And the Dada says to the mother, Ma, why do we, you know, why do
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  you cut off the end of the thing, you know, the end of the ham. I mean, I know that's the way you do it. That's the way that I do it. But like, how did that stat? And you
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  know, the daughter was expecting that the mother was gonna say, oh, because it makes it more flavorful. It does this, it does that, whatever. And the grandmother says,
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  This is what's so interesting. The grandmother says, No, we don't do it for flavor or a quote, unquote juiciness, or any of that stuff. It's just the way we've
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  always done it. And the daughter's like, what she says, Yeah, so my mother, when she used to prepare Easter dinner, she would always cut off the ends of the ham because
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  we were poor and we didn't have a big enough pan to be able to fit it into the pan like we only had one pan. And if you look at this story, what's fascinating is, is that the
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  great grandmother did it in this particular way because they were poor, and then her daughter, the grandmother did it, and then her daughter, the mom, did it, and now the
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  daughter is finally so we're talking like three generations. It took three generations for a person to finally stop and ask, why are we doing it this way? Because clearly,
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  at this point in this story, the pan was now currently big enough, right? This family now had a pan that was big enough to fit the, you know, the poor, dead pig. And so I love
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  telling this story because it points to the fact that there are so many things that we think, that we say, that we do, that we believe these stories, that we tell these
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  identities that we create or whatever, and we never stop to question, why is it done this way? Right? Why do I believe this? Why do I think this? And to me, these are the
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  some of the most important questions we can ask ourselves. These are some of the most important things that we can spend our time thinking about, grappling with, trying to
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  understand. I mean, I'm obviously in the business of change, work and transformation, and, you know, and spirituality and thought structures and all these things because I'm
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  fat. Fascinated by why people do what they do, think, what they think, believe, what they believe, say, what they say, like, how did we come to be this, this current
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  incantation of who we are, like, how we're showing up in the world? And it's so interesting. You know, I think that for a lot of different reasons, you know, because,
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  and I can point to okay a lot, for a lot of different reasons, and a lot of times it starts when we're youngest, okay? So a lot of times as as a child in a family, we
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  inherit. We inherit not only a lot of processes, right, ways of doing things, systems or whatever, but we also inherit a lot of belief structures, right? I can't
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  tell you how many people I've met along the way as a spiritual mentor, when they tell me what their faith or their lack of faith or how they worship, or if they go to church,
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  or if they believe in anything, right? It so often points back to their own upbringing, their own childhood, what their parents did, or what the their guardians, the people who
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  raised them, did, or what people believe, right? So, so often, I always say shit rolls downhill. Good stuff can roll downhill too, but a lot of times the thought systems, the
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  structures, everything about like maybe how we deal with money, how we think about politics, what we think about religion, what we think about love, what we think about X,
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  Y and Z, the ways that we show up in the world, and we just kind of take them as like, wrote like, this is just how it's always been. And I love that song by Bruce
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  Hornsby, right? When he sings those words, you know, that's just the way it is. Some things will never change. That's just the way it is. And then he says, ah, but don't
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  you believe them. And I really love this. I really love that invitation to pattern interrupt, to stop and get wicked curious and ask, why is it that I do what I do? You
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  know, like I said, we often inherit the stuff from our earliest caregivers. We inherit or we learn a process, and then it gets kind of like imbued in us. It gets
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  hypnotized into us, it gets conditioned into us, and we just start to do it or say it or think it or believe it or follow it out of habit. We see this also when it comes to
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  politics and voting, right? There are a lot of kids, a lot of people, kids who are now adults, who are like, Oh, we were. We've always been Republicans, we've always been
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  Democrats. We've always been fill in the blank, right? I'm always kind of like, I'm actually like, I think of myself as independent. Do? I tend to vote a particular
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  way? Yes, and though I like to have the right to decide and choose each time, how and where and who. You know what I'm saying. I like to be able to stop and pause and
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  contemplate and make a choice based on my values. Not what my mother told me, not what my father told me, not what my uncle told me, not what this one told me. No, my
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  grandparents did you know I like to be independent in the way that I think I want to do my best in this lifetime to make sure that I am living from a place of my own
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  values, my own thought systems, my own beliefs. And I have to stop and question that shit once in a while and say to myself, like, why is it that I do this? And does
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  this thing make any fucking sense, like this thing that I'm doing, you know? And it's so interesting when I make new friends, I always play, I play a couple of little
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  different games, and one of them is, is the rule follower game? So I, inevitably, I'll ask somebody, when I when I meet them, you know, okay, when it comes to following
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  rules, are you a, this is the question I asked them. Are you a? I am a rule follower. I just follow the rules. I like that order. I like to know the rules. I don't like to
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  break the rules. I'm gonna follow the rules, right? Are you? B, somebody who will follow the rules if they make sense? Somebody make it make sense. If you can explain to me why
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  we're doing this way, I will follow the rules, right? Or are you? C, like, Fuck the rules. Screw the man. Nobody's going to tell you want to do.
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  You're not the boss of me, right? So I actually tend to fall into B. I am like the B category. But I know a lot of rule followers, and I know a lot of people who
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  are like, no, not going to follow it at all. Right? Don't put me in a. Box. Now, I do have a tendency to kind of be a little bit of a C in that I'm like, don't You're not
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  the boss of me. Don't tell me what to do. But I don't have a problem with rules. I think that that rules and order and laws and things that make sense, things that kind of
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  keep the chaos from breaking out, are wicked good. And though, like, if I go to work at a place, or I go to do something at a place, and somebody is telling me to do something,
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  and it makes absolutely no sense to me, I will ask a gazillion questions. I'll be like, but why do we do this? It you we could do this way faster, and if they can't
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  explain to me, like, why they're doing it the way they do it, I'm like, no, like, just No, and it's probably one of the reasons why I have worked for myself for over 25 years,
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  and when, anytime I've dabbled in going to work for somebody else, or, you know, with not, I'm not talking fun collaborations, like with my friends and stuff like that.
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  But if I have to go and do something with somebody, and they have a way of doing stuff that just makes absolutely no sense to me. I just, like, want to bang my face off the
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  desk. I just want to be like, Why? Like, right now I'm like, grabbing my face and pulling my finger. Like, why? I'm melting. I'm melting with with the confusion of why
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  things are done this way. But this is really important, because so often, no one stops to think and to ask the question, now, we can be pretty good at calling out other
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  people's, you know, lack of effectiveness or lack of you know, is this the most intelligent way to do this? Is this the smartest way, the best way, the fastest way,
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  the most efficient way, whatever. But we often do not question our own systems. We often do not question we don't take the time to stop and go, yeah, there might be a
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  better way. And then we wonder why our relationships don't work, we wonder why, sometimes why we're not happy. It's because we keep trying to do the old thing. But we
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  are no longer that way. We are no longer that person. We have grown, we have changed, or our life is asking us to grow or change, or to look at something differently or to do
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  things differently. And the reality of it is, is that, you know, the brain, I've talked about this so many times, the brain loves to keep us in the familiar. Change is
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  really scary to the brain. The brain just likes to be efficient and keep you safe and keep you in what it knows. But that's not how we heal. That's not how we change.
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  That's not how we transform things that we want to transform. That's not how we get better at things. If we just now sometimes, little caveat, little like boop side note,
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  sometimes the way that we we gain mastery or an incredible skill set over a thing is to keep doing the same thing again and again and again and again and again and again. I'm
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  not talking about that like there are times when that makes total sense. But even along the way, we have to Fauci right? We have to fuck around and find out and maybe try
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  something a little bit differently. You know, I do this all the time, like, if I'm cooking something, or if I'm doing whatever, and I'll be like, Oh, I wonder what would
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  happen if, right? My CEO sometimes laugh at me, because I'll go, Ah, what's the worst that can happen? Like, I'll try something, right? Because I have to learn through
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  experimentation. Like, that's just how I work. I like to Fauci a lot. I like to try things and discover for myself. I like to have my own lived experience. I like to
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  gather my own evidence through my own first hand, you know, first person, like hands on True Blue, my own experience. That's how I figure things out. And there are just going
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  to be times in my life when it doesn't matter that this is how I've always done it. It has stopped working. And we see this a lot, especially in my line of work as a
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  spiritual mentor, as a coach, you know, as somebody, as a hypnotist, as somebody who tries to help people make positive change using, you know, spiritual tools, and using
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  practical neuroscience and using subconscious reprogramming, all these ways of because The old ways stop working or the old ways no longer make sense, because we're
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  no there's no longer a need to be stuck in that fight and flight. There's no longer a need to keep attaching meaning to an old story that is no longer loving or helpful or
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  positive or moving you in the direction of your goals or your wishes or your hopes or your dreams. So you know, when we start to find like it doesn't matter. This is how
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  you've always done it. It's not working anymore, and we can't even get to that step if we don't slow down long enough to even recognize it. Shit isn't working anymore,
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  and we can have a lot of fear around stopping, pausing, taking that deep breath, right, creating a pause. This is where, like a daily spiritual practice, a DSP is
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  incredibly helpful, because it allows us to slow down long enough to actually, first of all, pay attention and notice it. You cannot, you cannot change or heal or, you
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  know, call it, fix it, or transform, or whatever you want to say. A thing that you're not even aware isn't working anymore because you're not paying attention, you
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  know. So one of the first things we have to do is slow down and pay attention. And we have minds that like to move really fast, and we have minds that being bombarded each
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  day with so much information, so much pull for our attention, right? We have like when they talk about like attention deficit, even if you don't have ADHD, most people these
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  days do not have good ability to pay attention, to be present long enough to maybe discover or see some things about ourselves. And this is an invitation that I
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  want to share with you, like if you want to have better relationships, first and foremost, with yourself, and then maybe with your sweetie or your your you know, somebody
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  you're married to, somebody you're dating, somebody you're in relationship with. You know, whether you want to improve your relationship with your friends or your co
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  workers or the team that you lead. As a leader, it's so important as a leader. It is so important that we ask the question, right? Why is this the way that we do this
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  thing? Is this the best way to do this? Now imagine if you and your sweetie, right? For example, you and your sweetie just keep having the same argument over and over and
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  over again, and you might dress it up with different bells and whistles. You might think that you're arguing about this, you might think that you're arguing about that,
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  right? I jokingly say that most couples, most people, are having the same argument over and over and over again, dressed up in different costumes, right? You know, that's
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  that whole episode. It's not about the pasta. You can go listen to that episode. It's not about the pasta, but a lot of times, right? We don't ever stop and say, Is
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  this the most productive way for us to have this conversation? Is this the most productive way for us to have this argument or to discuss this? Is this the best way for
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  us to meet the goal that I'm assuming, if you're going to be in a relationship with somebody, that you want it to work, that you want to be on each other's team, that you
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  want to listen really well and show up to the best of your ability. You know what I'm saying. But if you insist on having the same argument in the same way, with the same tone
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  of voice at the same time, with the same outcome where one of you shuts down and the other one storms off, or you stay pissed off and you don't like whatever the silent
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  treatment, right? Then Something's gotta give. But if you too wanting to make changes in your life,
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  and you're not getting the results that you want, you're not having the outcomes that you want. You're not things are not turning out the way that you want them to. You might
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  want to stop and say, Why do I do what I do? Why do I think what I think? You know, it's not enough to slap a band aid on the gaping wound like the symptom, we have to go to the
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  cause. We have to be willing to go, as I say, get under the under like, Go back, go back and say, Where did this behavior first start? Where did this belief system first
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  start? Where did this pattern or this process or this thing right? Where did it really begin? And now? I mean, now is the now is a better time than never to question
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  the process, to question the way of being, you know what I mean? So if you have something that is, you're having an outcome and you know, you want it to be different.
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  This is a great time. I always tell my clients, like you have to question everything. I always say, don't take my word for it. I'm going to share some tools with
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  you. I'm going to share some ways with you. You're going to say, Hey, this is where I am, but I want to be here either I'm unhappy or I'm suffering, or I want to change this,
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  or I want to feel this. I want to feel differently, whatever it is, you know what I mean? And I'm like, I can give you some tools. I can give you some perspective
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  shifts. We can do this work together, but don't just take my word for it. I want you to gather your own evidence from your own experience, right? Uh, use your mind in
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  what, in the way that it was intended to be used, which is not to just go along with everything, but to stop. And I'm not saying stop and question everything in a non
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  trusting way, like, you know, being paranoid and thinking everybody's out to get you, but slow down and say, like, huh, maybe this is no longer the same. Like, the best way to do
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  this, and whether, again, that's with your attitude, the way that you think, the way that you speak, right? Why you believe what you believe, you keep telling these old
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  stories about yourself. And I see this a lot in the work that I do, is that people kind of have this little, little box of stories that they tend to repeatedly tell, right?
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  And these are things that get implanted at a very young age in these ways that they start to come to believe who they are and they identify. And if we don't, I'm doing this
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  little pattern interrupt with my hands, if we don't go boop, right, if we don't stop in in kind of, you know, block that old pattern, if we don't question things and
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  invite in a new way, a different way, you know. And part of your discovery might be no this actually is the best way to continue on down the road, you know what I mean. And if
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  that's the case, that's great, but you're never going to know. You're never going to know if you don't stop and get curious, and just like, going back to that woman who's
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  like, Hey, why do we do it this way? And you start to realize they've been wasting the ends of this, this, you know, they're like, taking this food source, that poor, dead
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  animal, but they're taking this food source, and they're wasting it all out of like, this is just what we had been learned. This is what we inherited. This was what passed
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  down. And nobody stopped long enough to think, do we still need to keep doing it this way? Because maybe this no longer makes any sense. So I hope this is helpful in some
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  way. You know, one of my desires, I would say it's not my job to tell you what to think, but it's always an invitation to just kind of think and expand your mind and maybe
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  look at something a little bit differently. You know, I like to think of this show as kind of like a kaleidoscope. You know how a kaleidoscopy just turns something like eat,
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  eat just a tiny bit, and all of a sudden it's like a whole new point of view. And even if it's not, maybe you've heard this before. You've thought about this before,
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  but we know that repetition is the mother of all learning, so it never hurts to hear it again. And I hope that if you are hearing it that you found it helpful in some way. Just
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  thank you so much for tuning in. And honestly, I would love to know if you are when you go back to the rule follower game. IU, a, somebody who always follows the
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  rules. B, I will follow the rules if you can explain to me why this makes sense and why this is happening and why you do it this way. Or, C, screw the man. I'm not following
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  any rules. Rules of stupid, just anarchy. I would love to know which one you are. And also, as usual, if you want to find out what I'm up to, if you want to find the different
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  ways that we could work together. You know, I always think of this. This podcast is like a freebie. It's, it's a, it's a love letter from my heart to yours. But you can always,
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  you know, send me a little tip, a little love donation, if you want to use my tip jar. Everything's at. Karen Kenney, k, e n, n, e y.com Karen kenney.com, that's where
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  you can find about joining the nest. My group coaching program, the quest, working together one to one, and also how to use the tip jar, etc, etc. So thank you for tuning
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  in. I appreciate you so much. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day or night whenever you're listening to this. And really honestly, I appreciate you spending
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  some time together with me. I know you could be anywhere else, and the fact that you are hanging out with me, it means a lot to me. So thanks for tuning in. Wherever you go.
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  May you leave yourself and all the animals, and I'm recording this on Earth Day, I should say, so can we please? Can we please all just do our best, do our best to leave
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  the planet, in the environment, in the animals and each other. You know better than how we found it wherever we go, may our presence, our energy, our love and our
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  quality of curiosity be a blessing. Bye. Hey. Thanks so much for listening to the show. I really love spending some time together. Now, if you dig the show or know
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  someone that could benefit from this episode, please share it with them and help me to spread the good word and the love. And if you want to be in the know about all of
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  my upcoming shenanigans, head on over to Karen kenney.com/sign up and join my list. It'll be wicked fun to stay in touch. Bye. You.