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RESERVING JUDGMENT · The Karen Kenney Show

0:01
Karen Kenney: Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney
0:04
show. I'm so happy to be here with you today, and I just want
0:09
to talk about something that's been kind of weighing on my my
0:14
hat. In my mind, it's been kind of like ricocheting ricochet.
0:18
Remember ricochet rabbit?
0:21
Unknown: Some of you are going to be in the right age group to
0:24
remember that cartoon. Bing, bing, bing, Ricochet rabbit.
0:29
This, these
0:29
Karen Kenney: thoughts of what I want to talk about today. I've
0:31
been kind of ricocheting around in my hat and in my mind, and I
0:37
know that I've talked about this and other episodes and little
0:42
snippets, like little sip sips, as Linda Ty says here and there.
0:45
But I wanted to kind of dive into this a little bit more,
0:48
because I think now more it's, I always say it's not now so much,
0:52
now more than ever, but right now in the world, we really,
0:56
really, really could use a little bit more of reserving
1:04
judgment, and what I mean by that is, and I'll share some of
1:11
the experiences that I've been having and how this this episode
1:15
came to be. But really it just stems from talking with people,
1:21
you know, not just talking with people, but really listening to
1:25
people, really just kind of being with people and hearing
1:30
them when they talk. You know, a lot of times when we're engaging
1:33
in conversation with people, especially people that we are
1:37
very familiar with or know and love, like relationships that
1:41
are close, and whether that's your sweetie or family or
1:44
friends or whatever, people that we've already kind of created an
1:48
idea of in our mind. You know, we tend to, you know, the brain
1:53
likes to keep things in the familiar. That's how it
1:56
experiences safety, and it feels like it saves time and it's
1:59
efficient, but it also can do us a disservice, because it doesn't
2:03
allow us to kind of see outside the boxes of our own creations.
2:09
So I've been thinking about this idea of reserving judgment,
2:15
because the fact of the matter is, is that we often don't have
2:21
all the information. We do not know the full scope. We don't
2:26
know the whole story of a person and their history and what
2:31
they're currently going through, and the ego loves to judge and
2:37
to slap labels and to determine things when it doesn't have all
2:42
the facts, it doesn't have all the helpful information. And so
2:48
I was at a workshop I was involved in. I led a workshop
2:52
for this five day residency at St Anselm's College, and I'm
2:57
going to talk about that in a second. And but because of that
3:01
residency, and me doing that workshop, I ended up stopping by
3:06
a place where a couple of friends work, and I talked with
3:09
them, and, you know, I've just been interacting with people and
3:14
really listening. And, you know, it's fascinating, because it's a
3:20
powerful, powerful reminder, when you sit down and talk with
3:24
people, that we and I will just talk in the first person. So my
3:31
own experience, I often have no idea what another person is
3:36
going through, and it's really easy to look at another person
3:43
and judge them. It's really easy to hear somebody else talk, and
3:49
you might just hear their accent, or you hear something,
3:53
and you immediately try to label them or judge them, right? And
3:58
we don't look past the surface of things. The ego doesn't like
4:02
to go very deep. It doesn't. It likes to stay on the shallow
4:05
part of life. It likes the brain likes to stay in its conditions
4:08
and its patterns. And we're like, this equals that, right?
4:12
We hear this, we think that, we assume that, right? We label
4:17
that, we judge that. And so often I'm so grateful. Let me
4:22
say this like, I'm so grateful for the reminder that I don't
4:27
know shit. You know what I mean? Like, I'm so grateful for the
4:30
reminder that it's really important that I keep my hat in
4:36
my mind open, I keep my ears open, and I kind of keep my big
4:41
mouth fucking shut. Sometimes, you know what I'm saying, it's
4:44
like to really listen. And because I was interacting with
4:49
all these different people, my sweetie also had a sold out show
4:54
or own almost sold out show at Hampton Beach casino ballroom
4:57
this weekend. So I was just people. Thing this past few
5:01
days, right? I was around a lot of people, listening to a lot of
5:04
people talking with a lot of people, shaking hands, catching
5:07
up, giving hugs, the whole thing. And one of the things
5:11
that I walked away with again is that things aren't always
5:16
obvious on the outside. You know, I was talking with a
5:20
friend, and, you know, we were just kind of like catching up.
5:24
We hadn't seen each other in many months, and as we're
5:27
talking, they just kind of let me know that both of their
5:32
parents had died within days of each other. These are parents in
5:38
their 60s. These were young people, and I just looked at
5:42
them, and I was like, wait, what? Now? On the outside, if
5:45
you just saw this person, you would just think, they're fine,
5:49
they're beautiful, they're bubbly. Life is good, like going
5:52
through, they're working, they're doing whatever. And when
5:56
they told me this, I literally just like, was stopped in my
5:59
tracks, and I said, Wait, what? What did you just say? And I
6:05
realized, you know, again, it's not like this is a new
6:08
realization. This isn't something that you, dear
6:11
listener, haven't thought before or realized before, but we
6:16
forget it. We like let it slip through our fingers. We too
6:20
casually, forget that we do not know what our brothers and
6:25
sisters and fellow humans, right? The other, other gods,
6:29
other kids, right? The other, the other humans and animals
6:32
that inhabit this planet. We sometimes stop really seeing
6:37
them. We stop being curious. And this is, this is one of the
6:41
worst things about judgment, is it kills your curiosity, because
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you show up in a place of assumption, you show up in a
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place of judgment, you show up in a place of I already know
6:53
when we don't know. Again, it's not always obvious on the
6:59
surface, externally, what people are showing us doesn't always
7:03
match what's actually going on inside of them. And, you know, I
7:08
have another friend who lost their precious dog who was like,
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you know, those of you animal lovers are often having a really
7:16
different experience than people who are just like, Oh, it's just
7:19
a dog. No, it's not just a dog, right to us. It's like our
7:23
family members. It's our beloved companions. It's they're our
7:26
furry kids. They are part of the family like we love them deeply,
7:31
deeply, deeply. And you know, when you lose a beloved animal,
7:36
a beloved pet, it rocks your world. And I've known people who
7:42
the loss of an animal, for them was worse than the loss of a
7:46
human, a family member, because it's very uncomplicated. The
7:50
love that we have with our animals, there is a sweetness,
7:53
there is an unconditional love that can happen. It's not
7:57
complicated like it is with human relationships. So that
8:00
loss can be such a searing loss, you know. And I was talking to
8:04
this friend who had lost their dog. And, you know, on the
8:07
outside again, they're usually a very bubbly person, a very
8:10
upbeat person, and underneath this, you know, because life
8:14
goes on and people do still have to go to work, and they do still
8:17
have to show up at their jobs, and they do still have to kind
8:20
of participate in life. They can't just, like, lock up in
8:23
their houses for weeks on end. But so many people are moving to
8:28
the world with at the moment, like an open wound, like a
8:31
gaping wound from some searing loss that they just had, you
8:36
know. And I read about how another friend, you know, her
8:39
husband, just got the diagnosis that his cancer treatments, that
8:43
there's nothing else that they can do, that this is it. They've
8:46
now shifted. They're on hospice watch, you know, and yet these
8:50
people are just out in the world walking around. And I often
8:54
think, you know, we're not, how do I say this? You know, we're
8:58
not damaged goods. It's not like we're broken and we're a mess
9:02
and whatever, but we are sometimes temporarily wounded,
9:06
and sometimes we're walking around carrying burdens and and
9:11
and trying to navigate life changing, life altering news or
9:16
situations or whatever. And everybody else is so caught up
9:20
in their own thing, in their own perceptions, in their own
9:23
judgments, and we have no idea what our fellow human beings are
9:27
going through. We make these assumptions and we cast our
9:30
judgment, you know, and somebody might be short with you at the
9:35
checkout line at the grocery store, and it's so easy to be
9:38
like, well, aren't they a cranky pants, or they're such a bitch,
9:41
or they're this, or they're that, or they're not very nice,
9:44
or they're, you know, somebody just might be simply shy because
9:48
they grew up in an environment where they weren't ever seen.
9:51
And to be seen was to be hurt, right? Was to be attacked or
9:56
abused or maimed in some way. And so they. Withdraw, and then
10:00
people think they're stuck up or they're a snob because they are
10:04
not investigating. And there's a quote, I don't know if I'm going
10:10
to get it right, but I just I doesn't matter. I might even do
10:13
a whole podcast about this and but it says something like,
10:18
there is nothing more ignorant than contempt prior to
10:22
investigation. I think I'm getting that right. There's
10:25
nothing more ignorant than contempt prior to investigation,
10:28
and this is what our judgment does sometimes, is we cast
10:32
judgment on another person when we don't have all the
10:35
information because we weren't curious enough to ask, we didn't
10:39
care enough to slow down to actually ask, and we like to ask
10:45
these kinds of questions, like, how are you when we actually
10:48
really don't care the about the answer? We don't want to hear
10:51
the answer. We don't want to hear about your trauma or your
10:54
drama or your stuff. People are just like, I'm too busy. I'm too
10:58
bogged down with my own shit. I don't have room or time for your
11:02
shit. And the thing is, is that this, if we could just all,
11:09
like, remember, like, sear this into our brains, like, leave
11:14
ourselves notes somewhere that reminds us that that old phrase,
11:20
right? Everybody is fighting a battle, and I would say an
11:23
unseen battle. So like, be kind to one another. Like, I cannot
11:28
stress this enough, we have no idea what people's stories are.
11:34
We have no idea. Again, we make assumptions based on people's
11:40
like, what the human eyes can see. So when we look at another
11:44
human being, a lot of times, what people are doing with their
11:48
eyeballs is they're sizing up what they're seeing in front of
11:52
us. They do this by gender. They do this by skin color. They do
11:59
this by body shape, height, weight, form. They look at the
12:03
form in front of them, and they make all kinds of judgments and
12:08
assumptions about people. And if they just took a little extra
12:12
time to actually inquire and get to know, and I'm like, you don't
12:17
even have to like as part of this, right? Because it's really
12:20
easy to then judge yourself for judging, right? And I'm like,
12:26
judging is what the ego does. The ego is just gonna do it. The
12:31
battle isn't about or the work isn't around. You know, stop
12:37
judging, because the likelihood of that happening is probably
12:42
not very high, but what we can do is get way better at
12:48
recognizing that we are in the process of judging, or that we
12:53
have judged, and then to stop and pause and recognize, oh, Oh,
12:59
I often say to myself, Okay. Judge Judy,
13:08
okay. Judge Judy, what do you have your own fucking TV show?
13:11
Why don't you just relax over there a minute. Why don't you
13:14
get curious? Why don't you like, like, stop your role, like, just
13:18
slow your roll, put a comma in your commentary there Judge Judy
13:22
and pause because you don't know all the facts. And I am showing
13:27
this like, I am shown this like, S, T, o, t, J, spiritual team on
13:31
the job. I am shown this again and again and again. You would
13:37
think. You would think it would get through my thick head. You
13:40
would think that this would just be so like, seared into my brain
13:44
right now. And literally, I feel like this is how, like, Jesus
13:48
walked the world like he did not show up in judgment. He showed
13:52
up with love, he showed up with curiosity. He saw his brothers
13:55
and sisters as himself, that we're all just walking around in
14:00
fear. We're all walking around feeling separate. We're all
14:03
walking around feeling like on some level, I have no idea like
14:07
what I'm doing, but we don't want to appear that way, so we
14:11
put on ads, or we pretend, or we blow ourselves up, as you know,
14:16
and this is what the ego does. The egos main racket is it loves
14:20
to keep you separate. It loves to keep you special. It will
14:24
keep you special in your superiority, your perceived
14:27
superiority, right, your pretend superiority. But it will also
14:31
try to keep you separate and special with your shittiness,
14:34
with your victimization and how bad you have it, right? The ego
14:38
is just always running a game. It's always running a racket on
14:41
us. And if we don't have some practices, some tools to be able
14:47
to put a comma in our commentary, to slow down, to
14:50
pause, to recognize, oh yeah, like I'm running that judgment
14:56
racket. I need to stop and I need to. Get a little more
15:01
curious and a little more caring and a little more compassionate,
15:04
you know what I mean. And I was reminded of this too. I met some
15:09
people. So as I was saying, I was invited to do a workshop at
15:14
St Anselm's College in Manchester by my friend, the
15:17
brilliant Dr Loretta Brady. And she was doing, it was like a
15:22
five day artist residency, and it was about ludographic
15:25
medicine. It was called ludographic medicine, healing
15:28
stories. And what these artists and peoples and creatives were
15:32
coming together to do was to create like a game, and the game
15:36
was all around, like trauma stories and healing, trauma and
15:41
healing through writing and the guest, the guest resident,
15:44
artist la flesh, she had written or was working on a graphic a
15:49
full length graphic memoir. So think of it like a memoir, but
15:52
through like panels, like in a comic book, it's fascinating.
15:55
And they created a game, and I think they called, ended up
15:59
calling it like the come come back kids story, The Comeback
16:03
Kid game. And it was really fascinating. So I was invited to
16:07
come to do a workshop, and we called it preparing, preparing
16:11
your bodies and brains. And it was like yoga and writing with
16:16
trauma. And it was like, how do we prepare ourselves when we
16:19
know that we're going to have to do some work, work that might
16:23
hurt to do, right? And whether that's revisiting your trauma,
16:27
writing about your trauma, whatever, but it's work that
16:30
might hurt to do, but ultimately heals. And it was so fantastic,
16:34
and it was such it was such an honor to do this. It was such a
16:38
beautiful group of humans that I got to interact with and and
16:42
share with and learn from and teach. And during this workshop,
16:47
I got to meet a guy named MAV. And MAV used to be a prison God,
16:52
and I thought this was so fascinating. And he said
16:55
something that just like, really, really like, caught my
16:58
attention because I was talking about how it's so easy for us to
17:04
judge people right, because they had just come and this came up
17:08
in conversation, because these people had just come from a
17:11
visit to from the YDC, the youth detention center in Manchester,
17:16
and the YDC is going through this major, like, reform
17:19
overhaul, because, like, I don't even know it's like over 1000
17:23
kids now adults, right? It might even be closer to 1300 or 1500
17:28
people have come forward and have filed complaints against
17:31
their time in y DC and all of the abuse, and all of the sexual
17:35
abuse, the emotional abuse, the mental and physical abuse that
17:38
happened to them while they were in the YDC. And it's just
17:43
horrifying when you think about it. You know, when he goes,
17:45
Joe's goes to prove my point. You know, you might be talking
17:48
to somebody, and they might be struggling. You might be over
17:51
there judging them, and you have no idea what these people have
17:54
survived. You have no idea who these people are, what their
17:59
start in life was, and what they have been through and what they
18:03
have survived. And so MAV was one of the people who was part
18:08
of this group, and he used to be a prison God, and we were
18:13
talking about how I said, you know, I said, nobody wants to be
18:16
judged for the worst mistake that they've ever made in their
18:20
life. And this is something that we do with the incarcerated
18:23
people with with people who have made poor choices, and a lot of
18:27
times, I'm like, you know, who ends up in prison, people who
18:30
have trauma, people who were not given the opportunity to learn
18:34
differently, people who did not have good role models or mentors
18:38
or coaches, people who grew up Often in poverty or in
18:41
situations. I'm not saying everybody in prison, you know.
18:44
I'm just saying but a lot of people who end up in prison, our
18:47
kids who had trauma, who had no support, who had no guidance,
18:51
who had no tools, were not taught any differently, you
18:55
know? And when you think about why DC, think about nine year
18:59
old kids being put in a prison like environment when there's
19:03
there's cells, nine year olds, 11 year olds, 12 year olds, 13
19:08
year olds. Think about what that does to a child and their
19:12
development. Right? So MAV and I were talking, and he said
19:17
something that struck me so deeply. And he said, a lot of
19:23
prison gods, they like to read the files of the people that
19:28
they're like, you know, gutting. They like to know their
19:31
background. They want to know all the stuff. And he says, I
19:33
don't read their files. He says, I don't want to know what
19:37
they're in there for, because I don't want to meet them with my
19:41
judgment. Man, when he said that, I was just like, it was
19:48
just so powerful. He's like, I want to go and talk to them and
19:52
meet them like face to face, and get to know them, get to know
19:56
who they are. And this is what I started thinking about, is get.
20:00
To know who people are, not what they've been or what they've
20:04
done in their past, like meeting people right there, and he says,
20:08
I don't want to judge them. And I just thought, he's like, based
20:12
on what they've done. I just thought, Oh, my God, can you
20:16
imagine if we all kind of move through the world this way? And
20:21
the thing is, is that we are all born, and we have this ego. And
20:25
the ego, again, its main job is to judge, and it loves to based
20:31
on only what its eyes like, literally, the physical eyes
20:36
see. And the thing about the human eyes is, and I've
20:40
mentioned this before in other episodes, is that human eyes
20:44
don't really see. Human eyes are just the little cameras, I think
20:50
about that record that take the information in it sends the
20:53
information up to the brain. It's the brain that interprets
20:57
what it's seeing. It's the brain that is going into that
21:00
judgment, right? And again, the brain likes to categorize
21:04
things. It likes to save time. It likes to be efficient. So it
21:07
likes to label and keep things as familiar, and kind of group
21:11
things together and to judge things based on past
21:14
experiences. So it's like, if somebody gets bitten by a dog,
21:18
any dog that it meets going forward, unless we introduce
21:22
some sort of pattern interrupt or some new way of thinking
21:25
about a thing, right? It's going to perceive all dogs as
21:28
dangerous. And we can do this with other groups of humans. We
21:33
might label, oh, this person looks different than me. They
21:36
must be fill in the blank. There's our judgment, whatever
21:39
we judge it with and if we don't have a pattern interrupt, we
21:43
just so much of the work that I do with people, right is to
21:46
interrupt our own patterns of conditioning and the stories
21:50
that we tell and the beliefs that we have. You know, we have
21:52
to be vigilant, vigilant about what's going on in our minds,
21:57
okay, but the ego doesn't like to kind of do much work beyond
22:03
what it only sees. It doesn't like to go, you know, beyond
22:07
that. And you know, I've shared this quote before. It's a very
22:10
kind of A Course in Miracles thought. It also gets attributed
22:13
to like John overdurf, who says, you know, a person can only be
22:16
as good in your presence as they first are in your mind, and if
22:21
in our mind, all we're doing is walking around and judging
22:24
people, of course, we're going to have these experiences where
22:28
in our presence, we cannot actually even see who's in front
22:33
of us. We can't see them who they really are. Is one of God's
22:37
kids as just like us, as one of our brothers and sisters. We're
22:41
going to show up with our labels. We're going to show up
22:43
with our stuff. And you know, that is one of the fastest ways
22:48
that we keep ourselves stuck in that kind of separation, which
22:53
just leads to suffering, and our judgment leads to suffering. And
22:59
I want to be really clear about this,
23:03
about the ego, mind in judgment, and I'm just going to read a
23:06
little something from A Course in Miracles, because I'll never
23:10
forget when I first read this, how it kind of like it was
23:14
literally like, I feel like one of the greatest things A Course
23:17
in Miracles has done for me is, if you imagine A house and this
23:21
house, the doors and the windows have been sealed, and they're
23:24
never open, so no sunlight comes in, no fresh breeze comes in,
23:29
nothing new. It's like, it's like, stuffy. It's like, you
23:32
know, it's not moldy, but it's just like, it's not a good
23:35
environment in there. And it's like, all of a sudden, A Course
23:38
in Miracles for me, in my mind in my brain, right? The way that
23:42
my my thought system worked, it like blew open, it like opened
23:46
all the windows and all the doors and all of a sudden, all
23:49
this freshness, these fresh ideas, this like, oh, like,
23:54
there's more. There's more to than just what my little ego
23:58
perceives, right? And so. And of course, in Miracles is this
24:02
phrase, like teachers of God. Teachers of God can be anybody.
24:06
It's like all humans can be teachers of God. It's not about
24:09
being special. So, and if you don't, I always say, if the word
24:11
God upsets you, insert your own happy word there, right?
24:15
Universe, love, higher power, whatever. Don't get hung up on
24:18
the word. But it says this. It is necessary for the teacher of
24:23
God to realize not that he should not judge, but that he
24:29
cannot. When I first read that, I was like, what is that mean?
24:35
Right? And here's, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go,
24:39
I'm going to tell you why we actually cannot judge. We
24:43
fucking love to judge. We love to judge, and then we feel
24:47
guilty when we do judge, because we think, Oh, my God, I
24:50
shouldn't be judging. But it's not that we shouldn't be, it's
24:53
that we actually cannot judge, and I'm going to tell you why in
24:56
a moment. All right, so stay with me when we. Judge
25:01
ourselves, people situations otherwise, from our very limited
25:07
POV, from our very limited personal experience and personal
25:11
knowledge, what that does is it basically, it basically involves
25:18
a certain amount of arrogance that we believe that we know how
25:25
it should be, what should be done, how they should be acting.
25:28
We believe that we know what's best when, in reality, right? We
25:36
do not have the capacity to know all of everybody like, why it's
25:44
going down, how it's going down, all the multiple aspects of a
25:49
thing, right? What might be influencing a certain person to
25:53
be that way? What their history is, what their story is, what's
25:56
gone on, what's going to go on, what's about to go on, right? We
26:00
do not have that kind of omnipotent vision. Okay? So A
26:05
Course in Miracles says it is necessary for the teacher of God
26:08
to realize not that he should not judge, but that he cannot.
26:12
And then it goes on to say this, in order to judge anything
26:17
rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably
26:25
wide range of things past, present and to come, one would
26:33
have to recognize in advance all the effects of His judgments on
26:39
everyone and everything involved in them in any way, and one
26:46
would have to be certain that there is no distortion in his
26:52
perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone
26:59
on whom It rests now, and on whom it's going to rest in the
27:03
future. So who is in a position to do this, who's in a position
27:12
to do this, who, except in grandiose fantasies, would claim
27:19
this for himself, that, and I think of this like right who
27:25
would claim for himself that they have omnipotent vision,
27:28
that they know exactly why everything's happening and
27:31
exactly what that one should be doing and that one should be
27:34
doing and that one shouldn't be doing that or should be doing
27:37
this. Who can claim that they know of all time and space,
27:41
exactly why everything is going down, and hence they can, from
27:45
their god seeded place in the world, be able to cast judgment.
27:50
Who would do that, except somebody who is completely
27:52
fcking delusional, and when you think about it like that, I
27:55
cannot help but laugh, because this is kind of what we're doing
28:01
when we go into judgment. We are judging everybody and everything
28:05
based on our very, very, very tiny, teeny, tiny, weeny point
28:12
of view, our little limited scope of perception and
28:16
perspective. And yet we think we know. And the thing is, is I am
28:23
taught again and again and again, that I know jack shit,
28:28
that there are people walking all around me in every single
28:33
moment when I'm out in the world, people that I'm
28:35
interacting with online, on social media, whatever. And it's
28:39
so easy to cast our judgment. It's so easy to be cruel. It's
28:44
so easy to be lacking compassion and care and to show up with our
28:49
sarcasm and our cutting comments and our judgments. And you
28:52
should do this, and you should do that, and why are you doing
28:55
that? And we don't know anything. And what a different
29:01
world we would live in if we would all just reserve our
29:05
judgment. Reserve our judgment for when maybe we have a little
29:10
bit more information, and even then, I would hesitate to judge.
29:16
You know, in The Great Gatsby, there's a line by one of the
29:18
characters Nick, and Nick basically says reserving
29:22
judgment is a matter of infinite hope. Reserving judgment is a
29:28
matter of infinite hope. To me, when we reserve judgment, so
29:34
much more becomes possible, because as soon as you judge,
29:38
you literally close down the windows and the doors of
29:42
opportunity, they just they slam shut because you are not going
29:46
to be able to see past your judgment. You have basically cut
29:50
yourself off from your curiosity, from your compassion,
29:54
from your desire to know more and understand more and to
29:57
really learn about another human being. Being or a situation, you
30:02
know? And I want to say this we do as human beings, because I
30:09
know somebody somewhere out there is saying like, so what?
30:12
We're just supposed to walk around and not judge anything
30:14
like so we just let everybody do whatever they want to do. No, of
30:17
course not. We have to have certain perimeters in place,
30:21
right? This is why we have rules. This is why we have laws.
30:24
Because we don't want just total chaos and madness out there. We
30:28
do need to, need to set some things in place, like, hey, to
30:31
go into another person's house and take their shit, like,
30:33
that's not okay, right? This is why we have laws, right? Hey,
30:38
you cannot X, Y and Z. This is why we have rules. And even that
30:42
can get a little little, you know, sketchy when we kind of
30:45
look at the Supreme Court right now and all the all the bullshit
30:48
that's like going down in the world and whatever, because
30:51
everybody thinks that they're right, and everybody don't get
30:54
me started. Okay, let me stay let me and we're back. Let me
30:57
stay on track here. Okay, of course, we have to have what I
31:03
prefer to call personal discernment. So I get to discern
31:09
whether or not a person, a program, a place, a
31:13
relationship, a product, is right for me. I don't get to
31:19
judge whether it's right for you, right, like, look as a
31:24
vegan, like, I always say it's the easiest example I get to
31:28
decide what I do or do not want to participate in. I really try
31:33
my best not to judge people who make different decisions. I do.
31:39
Like to educate people that there are different ways of
31:43
being in the world that does not inflict harm and cruelty and
31:46
rape and abuse and murder against our poor little animal
31:50
friends who don't have a voice and don't have a say and are at
31:53
the mercy of our compassion and kindness, right? But walking
31:57
around in contempt of other human beings is not how things
32:01
change. Walking around, judging other people, is not how things
32:05
get done, right? We have to stay open, we have to stay curious,
32:08
we have to do our best to try to understand, right? But we do get
32:12
to have a certain amount of personal discernment, where we
32:15
discern, yes, I'm not going to do that, but if that's your
32:19
thing, that's your thing, right? Where we do get to speak up is
32:23
when somebody is maybe doing something against a person or
32:28
people or animals who have no power, and whether that's
32:32
because they're children or they're disenfranchised, or they
32:35
don't have a voice, or whatever it is, then those of us right,
32:39
do get to, to show up and say, I don't think that that's right,
32:43
and we need to intervene here, or whatever.
32:47
I think we have to use our personal discernment, but we
32:50
also have to be careful when that discernment starts to move
32:55
into I'm rightness right, that righteousness like I'm right.
32:59
This is how it's supposed to be. This is how it has to be, you
33:01
know. And there's that old, that old fable about, you know, the
33:06
farmer who's like, son, you know, falls off the horse or
33:10
whatever, and breaks his leg. And, you know, the neighbors are
33:14
like, Oh, that's too bad. And the farmer says, maybe it is.
33:17
Maybe it isn't. And then the army shows up, looking for young
33:21
sons, you know, young men to, like, draft into the war, and
33:25
the son can't go because he's got a broken leg. And then the
33:27
neighbors are like, What good fortune. And then the, you know,
33:31
the Fauci, is like, maybe it is, maybe it isn't like the story
33:34
continues on with all these examples. The fact of the matter
33:38
is, we are not God. We are not omnipotent. We are not all
33:41
seeing and all knowing. We don't know. But what if we showed up
33:47
with curiosity instead of leading with our judgment, our
33:52
judgment towards ourselves, our judgment towards others? How
33:58
radical would it be to move through the world. How different
34:01
would it feel in your body? You know, one of the fastest ways I
34:06
know so many people who are so afraid of being judged, and I
34:12
always say, you know, one of the ways that we can help lift that
34:15
burden of fear of being judged is to do our best to stop
34:18
judging others. Again. Don't beat yourself up for it when you
34:24
do it. Don't make yourself guilty and wrong and bad and
34:27
sinful and blah, blah, blah, but just catch yourself. Move from a
34:31
mindless state where you're just kind of automated and doing all
34:34
this shit to becoming more mindful, to slowing down. This
34:38
is why a DSP, a daily spiritual practice can be so powerful
34:41
because it helps us to kind of create a pause so that we can
34:46
choose, we can slow down, and we can see ourselves. We have more
34:50
personal awareness, right? And Swami Kripalu, you know ba buji,
34:58
so if you've ever been to the Kripalu. Lucenta out in the
35:01
Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. You know, I was
35:03
trained and I lived at Kripalu, and I was trained there as a
35:07
yoga teacher a gazillion years ago. You know, we lived there
35:11
for a month, and every day in the hallways, I would walk past
35:15
these pictures of Swami Kripalu, who we call lovingly, Bapuji,
35:20
you know, kind of like grandfather. And whenever I
35:22
would see this one particular picture of Swami Kripalu, I
35:25
would always stop, and I would get, like, teary eyed, like,
35:28
there's just, there was just something that transcended time
35:31
and space. I mean, he died, I think back in, like, I want to
35:33
say 1981 or 82 or 83 somewhere in there. So I never got to
35:38
personally meet him, but there was something, and the word
35:41
Kripalu actually means compassion. And so there was
35:44
something about looking at his face. And so in the hallways,
35:47
there are these pictures, and they have these quotes. And one
35:50
of the things that Swami Kripalu said, or it's attributed to him,
35:54
he says, the highest form of spiritual practice there is, is
35:59
self observation without judgment, to observe, without
36:06
casting our judgment, to observe ourselves to be curious about
36:11
ourselves. Right to wonder. And this is so much of the work that
36:15
I do. Why do we do what we do? Think, what we think, believe,
36:18
what we believe, say, what we say, show how. Why do we show up
36:21
the way we show up, right? Why do we tell the stories that we
36:24
tell? And how can we maybe tell better ones? How can we come to
36:29
really understand ourselves? Because if you don't know,
36:32
again, right to exist in ignorance. I always say, like,
36:36
you know, confusion is even better than ignorance, and
36:40
there's no higher form of ignorance than contempt, prior
36:43
to investigation, to thinking that you know how a thing is,
36:47
and to turn your nose up at it, to cast judgment on it when you
36:50
haven't even asked, well, what's really going on here? What's
36:53
going on under? The under. And this is why so many of us cast
36:58
judgment on ourselves. We have a lack of self esteem, a lack of
37:02
self love, because we have so much self judgment, like I
37:05
should be over this by now, and why I thought I already dealt
37:07
with this, and why haven't I figured this out? And why am I
37:10
this way? What am I just fucked up or broken, or I'm a mess, or
37:13
whatever? And it's like, no, just, I always say, and I'm
37:18
doing a whole episode on this, you know, we are not really, we
37:24
are not really taught how to know ourselves and understand
37:27
ourselves, and we certainly, certainly not taught how to love
37:31
ourselves. And so much of this work that I love to do, first
37:38
and foremost with myself and also with others, is to learn
37:43
how to kind of come home to the truth of ourselves. And as long
37:47
as we are judging ourselves and each other, love cannot happen
37:51
in that state. We need more curiosity. We need more care. We
37:56
need more compassion, you know, and so as I think about my
38:04
friends who are navigating really difficult things, when I
38:07
think about whole communities and whole groups of people who
38:12
are navigating really difficult times right now, people just
38:18
behoove us all to show up with a little more kindness and
38:22
compassion and curiosity and softness and mercy and
38:25
tenderness. I'm not saying don't be fierce when fierceness is
38:30
called for. I'm not saying that we walk around like big, squishy
38:34
marshmallows, right? I mean, right now we are in times when
38:38
we need to, kind of like, find that Sanctum Sanctorum, we need
38:42
to find some strength. We need to find this inner kind of
38:45
resiliency. And we can also do that, though, while reserving
38:52
our judgment and making assumptions about others,
38:55
because, again, most people aren't walking around with a
38:58
billboard that is broadcasting their inner pain and their fear
39:03
and their suffering. You know what I mean. So as you move
39:07
through you know, maybe this is just another gentle reminder. I
39:11
don't think we can hear this enough. We don't know as much as
39:16
we think we know. You know we need to realize not that we
39:22
shouldn't judge, but that we cannot, because we don't know
39:26
all things past, present and future we can't possibly know.
39:31
And who's in a position to do this, who, except in the
39:34
grandiose fantasies, would claim that they know what's best for
39:38
everybody? We can't do it. So you know, maybe it will help
39:44
you. And one of the ways, and this is just a little tip, take
39:48
it or leave it, I use humor a lot. I use humor a lot towards
39:53
myself, like the things that I say to myself, right, even when
39:57
I'm kind of wagging my finger at myself a little bit. It, they
40:00
make me laugh. And I'm like, oh, okay, Judge Judy, I start to
40:04
laugh because even laughter, it's a pattern interrupt, right?
40:07
It stops me from being too mean or too harsh for myself when I
40:11
catch myself doing exactly what the ego loves to do. And I'm not
40:15
trying to fight the ego. I'm just trying to accept how
40:19
ridiculous the ego is. And if I can look at my ego and those
40:23
behaviors we talk about in A Course in Miracles, is kind of
40:26
looking at it with with Holy Spirit, I kind of just like, put
40:29
on my love glasses, and I look at it through this lens of like,
40:32
Oh, look at that. Ego's doing its thing again, right? I don't
40:36
have to contempt, condemn myself, make myself bad. It's
40:38
like, okay, Judge Judy has stepped forward. Forward, hit
40:43
the gavel, the gavel, and take a lunch break, right? It's kind of
40:47
funny, so I use humor to kind of break myself out of the habit,
40:52
or the pattern of judging myself too when I slip up, because
40:55
we're all going to slip up. It's just human it's just human
40:58
nature, right? Human nature? You're going to look at somebody
41:01
and be like, Why are they wearing that? And you're like,
41:04
Oh my God. Like, where does that voice come from? Like, what?
41:08
Like, what? Who do they think they are?
41:09
Unknown: Like, that ongoing chatter.
41:14
Karen Kenney: And it's really just the voice of fear, you
41:17
guys. It's the voice of fear that is the ego, but we have
41:21
within us also, whether you call it Holy Spirit, spirit, the
41:27
inner, inner teacher, the voice for love, the voice for God,
41:30
whatever you want to say, the reminder of God's love, right?
41:33
That is also in there. And we have a decision maker, and the
41:38
decision maker can choose whether we're going to choose
41:41
the ego, voice for fear of judgment, attack, blame, shame,
41:44
or the voice for love and care and compassion and recognizing,
41:49
oh, they're also me. We're in this together. They're no
41:53
different than me. I hope this lands in your heart in some way,
42:00
or I hope it's helpful in some way. And if you found it
42:04
helpful, I would love if you share with somebody else who
42:08
might also find it helpful. That would be fantastic. And you
42:13
know, these are the kinds of things too. Like, I'm always
42:15
inviting you guys into the NASS, my little spiritual group
42:19
program, my little mentoring community. It's such a community
42:22
of beautiful human beings, and these are the kind of things
42:25
that we talk about and contemplate. You know, it's
42:27
about more deeply understanding ourselves and how we move
42:30
through the world and how we can show up more in love instead of
42:34
our fear. You know how we can show up and use these practical
42:38
tools of neuroscience and spirituality, and you know these
42:42
pattern interrupts and rewiring the subconscious so that we
42:46
actually show up as who we are meant to be, which is love. So
42:52
if you want to join the nest, it's a monthly commitment. You
42:54
don't want to do it. You do it for a month. You don't want to
42:57
you don't want to stay like not for me, you leave. No big deal.
42:59
But give it a shot. So go to Karen kenney.com/nest and if you
43:04
want to work with me together one to one, it's Karen
43:06
kenney.com/quest Q, U, E, S, T, and if you want this sucker
43:12
delivered right into your inbox every Thursday morning bright
43:15
and early, just get on my email list. Karen kenney.com/sign up
43:20
one word, and you'll you'll get on that sucker. And just, I
43:24
appreciate you so much for listening or watching, and if
43:29
you're going through a tough time right now, if you're
43:31
struggling, if you're suffering in some way, just know that you
43:35
are not alone. My heart goes out to you and that you know this is
43:39
how we're going to get through it. We're all going to get
43:41
through it together, and it's okay, like I said, use your
43:44
personal discernment. Do I want to wear the red shirt or the
43:46
blue shirt? Should I eat that food? Of that food? Personal
43:49
discernment, right? We need to. We need that to navigate life.
43:52
You know, sometimes we have to make a judgment call, as they
43:56
say, to do it or not do it. But we want to reserve our judgment.
44:00
You know, when it comes to walking around thinking we know
44:03
everything, and judging other human beings and sometimes
44:06
judging ourselves, because sometimes we were doing the best
44:09
we could with what we had at the time. You know what I mean?
44:12
Sometimes, sometimes the ego is just really being strong. You
44:16
know, the ego voice we say, speaks first. It speaks loudest.
44:19
And I always add and it's always wrong. So we want to be
44:23
listening for that voice of love. Remember the highest form
44:26
of spiritual practice is self observation without judgment. So
44:31
let's, let's quiet those judge duties. Reserve our judgment and
44:36
just know you guys. I super duper appreciate you. Thank you
44:39
for tuning in. Wherever you go, may you leave yourself in the
44:43
animals and the people and the planet and the environment
44:46
better than how you found it wherever you go, may you and
44:50
your presence and your energy and your love and your lack of
44:55
hash judgment be a blessing. Bye, you.