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FEELINGS INTO FELONIES · The Karen Kenney Show

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Hey you guys. Welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I hope he's
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doing fantastic today. If you're watching this, you can see my
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hair is still a little wet. I just got out of the shower
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because I just got back from a run, and one of the things you
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might be like me is that there's certain activities or certain
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things that you do that, kind of, for lack of a better word,
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it's when ideas come to you or thoughts, right? So one of the
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things we know about walking and running and stuff like that is
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that a lot of people, when they're doing that, it's like
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the mind goes like, when I'm just kind of doing this, like
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I'm opening up my arms, like the mind opens up and I'm kind of
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open for business. When I run or I walk, it's like, I'm just
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like, okay, ideas, you know. Okay. Spiritual team, feel free
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to upload whatever you want me to know, or whatever you know.
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So I was out on my run, and of course, before that, it feels
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like every single day I'm just, first of all, hi. I'm just
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diving right into this. But it just seems like every single day
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we're being bombarded with more and more acts of violence and
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atrocities and murder and mayhem and just people just losing
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their damn minds. You know what I mean? And while I was thinking
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about this, you know? I mean, I think it was either, I think it
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was this morning that somebody in, I think it was Michigan, you
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know, basically went into a church, a Mormon church, and was
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like an LDS church, or whatever, and was opening fire and then
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set it on on, you know, literally, like shooting, you
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know, of course, more gun violence. Hello, America. And
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then it was also set the building on fire, and I was just
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thinking to myself, so while I was running, all of a sudden, I
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heard this phrase in my head, and I said, Man, I'm like,
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fucking people are out here turning their feelings into
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felonies.
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And that just kind of stuck with me right, turning their feelings
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into felonies. And that's kind of what I want to talk a little
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bit about today. And I want to make a clear distinction, right?
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I mean, pretty much I most of us, okay, most of us are not out
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there setting buildings on fire or shooting people with our guns
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and murdering people and harming other people and stuff like
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that, right? Those are, like, the really, the extremes. So it
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can be really easy to disassociate ourselves from that
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stuff and say, Well, I would never do that, or I don't do
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that. Like I'm not murdering people or attacking people or
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whatever. But in the Course in Miracles, we kind of talk about
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it like this, like anytime we're not really having, like, loving
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thoughts about our fellow brothers and sisters, our fellow
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brethren, right? Our family members, your Sweeties, your
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siblings, your co workers, whatever. Right people on the
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left, people on the right, the others, like all the shit that
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we do to anybody who's outside of you, basically right when
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you're not having loving thoughts about them, it's just
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like having attack thoughts or murderous thoughts like in your
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head, right? Where we make them guilty, we make them bad, right?
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We basically lose our own peace of mind because we're attacking
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others all the time and blaming them, whether it's for our own
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feelings or the state of the world or whatever. And so I
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started to think about this, how it can be really easy to see
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these people who take extreme measures and do heinous acts and
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say like, oh my god, like, I don't do that though. I'm not
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turning KK, I'm not turning my feelings into felonies. You
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might not be turning them into felonies, but we all do this
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thing where we let our feelings, if we do not know how to
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emotionally regulate ourselves, we let our feelings treat us
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like little puppets. We let our feelings be these little
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dictators that boss us around and quote, unquote, make us I'm
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doing little air quotes, make us feel things, or make us think
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things, or make us do things, and then we're just like, Yeah,
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I don't know what happened, you know? So I want to talk a little
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bit about this so that our feelings don't turn into
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felonies, so that we learn how to kind of just like, become a
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little more emotionally regulated. And we can't do that
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unless we kind of talk about, like, what, what is, what is
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emotional regulation. And so I'm just, you can Google it, but
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I'll just save you the problem, because I've Googled it, you
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know, a gazillion times over the years, like whenever I'm trying
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to learn something really well. And I'll just put it like this.
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So emotional regulation is said to be, it's a term that we use
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to genuinely describe a person's ability to effectively, like
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manage their emotions, or to respond to when they're having
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an emotional experience. So for example, something happens in
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your life. Maybe it's something unexpected, maybe it's something
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big, maybe it's something traumatic, but maybe it's
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something small, and what is your ability to respond? Respond
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and to effectively manage how you're responding when you're
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having an emotional experience, and we can think of it easily,
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is like, when people talk about, like, Oh, I got triggered,
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right? Oh, they pushed my button. I got triggered, right?
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So you're having a response right to an emotional
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experience, and you're just like, Oh my God. Like, I
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snapped, or I just, like, lost my patience, or whatever. So
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when people are doing these really horrific things, a lot of
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times it's because they're ruminating long term, and we'll
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talk about that in a moment. But we also can hold on to our
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gripes and our grievances and our grudges, and we can ruminate
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on things too, but sometimes we're just so woundly tight,
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like, we're like, like, wound really tight because we stay in
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a space of chronic stress or chronic overwhelm, or we don't
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really know how to feel our emotions, right? We're not, not
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everybody is super emotional, emotionally intelligence, not a
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lot of people. And I ask this all the time in the nest, and I
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asked this with my clients and people that I know, like whoever
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saw sat your ass down and was like, Hey, this is what you do
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when a big emotion comes up. This is how you feel your
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feelings. I don't know about you, but Gen X kids, nobody was
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teaching us how to do that shit, right? We had to figure it out
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the hard way. We had to go and read some books on our own. We
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had to, we had to get our ass in crumble, to figure out, like, oh
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yeah, maybe that wasn't a good response to that. Maybe there
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was a better way for me to kind of respond to whatever was going
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on, what that person said, what that person did. Okay, so here's
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the thing, can you affect, effectively manage and respond
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to your own emotions, or an emotional experience or
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something that is coming up, okay? And so there's healthy
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coping mechanisms for when you have, like some stress come up,
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or a feeling come up, or a big emotion come up. And I just
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mentioned one of them, I said, Oh, I was out for a walk. I was
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out for a run. Walking and running is so good, first of
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all, for your brain. It's so good for your nervous system and
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just exercise in general. But it's doing more than just
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working out your muscles. It's giving you an opportunity to
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shift your perspective, to broaden out your perspective,
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especially when you go out into like nature, that very calming
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and grounding energy, to get some sunlight in your eyes, to
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get some fresh air right, to move your body, to calm your
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brain, to calm your nervous system, and to, you know, be
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able to shift out of just foveal vision of like, just staring,
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like focusing on your screen or your phone. And then, if you're
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watching this, you can see, I'm bringing my hands in close to my
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eyes. I'm like, limiting my peripheral vision, right? I'm
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making it very focused. And then when you go outside now, into
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nature, out into the sun, or out into the world, it's like, and
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it just like, opens up. So we literally get a shift and how
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we're visualizing, a shift kind of in how we're feeling. And
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most people, not only don't know what they're feeling. They don't
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know why they're reacting the way that they're reacting.
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Right? They have a subconscious thing going on. So one of the
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biggest first things for me, I don't, I can't say what the
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therapist is going to say. But one of the biggest first things
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for me is I have to be aware, first and foremost, that I'm
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having some sort of a response or a reaction, right? If we're
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not self aware enough, if we don't slow down enough in our
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life consistently to be able to get a grip and a handle, to be
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able to see ourselves clearly and how we respond to the world
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and to the people around us into certain situations, if we're not
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self aware, because we're always just staying wicked busy and
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distracting ourselves and not trying to feel things or think
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about things or go deep, if we're just like floating around
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and not even floating around, maybe we're just like, just
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always staying busy, or always like fucking on our phones or
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always distracting and Not wanting to feel things. How are
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we ever going to know when we're in it? Because if we don't, then
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we just normalize it. We just normalize our being cranky or
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being short with people or being passive aggressive or being
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whatever. And we said to tell ourselves a story like, oh,
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that's just how I am. No, no, no, no. So number one is we've I
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should go back even more than than be self aware. You gotta
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slow down that. That's how self awareness is actually going to
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happen. First and foremost. You hear me talk about it all the
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time, and it's one of the first things that I tell my clients,
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is we gotta learn how to, like, dial things down a little bit.
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We need to slow down. Slow down your breathing, slow down your
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thinking, slow down your body a little bit. That doesn't mean
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that you can't have times when you're moving fast and you're in
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a groove and you're doing shit, but we have to step out of the
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normal pace of the world that just drives so much fear and
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separation and division and consumption and competitiveness
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and otherness. Yes, we gotta slow down and kind of step out
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of that river of like, always moving, moving, moving, moving,
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moving. You know what I mean? Even the tides, like, even the
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ocean has tides where it rolls in and then it rolls out. You
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know what I'm saying, there are shifts, and we need the shift.
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We need to be able to down, shift and slow down, so we can
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take a good Gander, so we can take a look around, so that we
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can sit with the feeling, so we can recognize that we're having
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a thought that is not going to end well if we insist on staying
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with that train of thinking. And if you're feeling what I'm
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saying, like double A man hands, if you get it right, and if
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you're somebody who who is like a shock, and you're like, Oh, if
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I stop, I'm going to die, right? Like, no, no, if you don't stop,
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you're going to die probably faster. So here's the thing
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number one, we get to slow down. We got to be willing to take a
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look at ourselves and recognize, you know, hey, I'm kind of a
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little short with people lately. I'm feeling a little stressed
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out of my mind. I'm finding myself more anxious, I'm
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whatever. So we gotta be self aware. We gotta know yourself,
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right? You got to know yourself, and you gotta understand what
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kind of emotions often come up for you to how can I recognize
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when I'm feeling a particular thing so many people, and
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whether it's due to trauma or the pace of life, or they
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weren't taught, or 1000 other reasons, they don't even know
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what they're thinking and feeling half the time. I've seen
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it time and time again as a yoga teacher over 25 years, right?
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And you say to somebody, well, can you feel that? And they kind
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of look at you, where can you feel that? How does it feel like
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when I ask these questions in class, for some people, you can
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see it's really hard for them, right, that interoception, that
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like internal experience for them to be able to report it
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back, right? It doesn't come naturally to everybody. And this
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isn't making fun of anybody that might struggle with that or find
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it hard, but it is an invitation to get curious about it, to
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really kind of notice your internal experience, so that you
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can notice the kinds of things or people or places or things
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that like do evoke right, that are evocative, that do evoke,
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like big feelings of in you, or what like people or places or
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smells or whatever that make you feel, or that that happen, and
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then you, you know you feel anxious or scared or worried or
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overwhelmed, or some places in people, spaces might be happy
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places, they might calm you right down. They might feel
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really welcoming and inclusive and grounding, and you feel seen
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and loved and heard and all that stuff, right? All that good
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stuff.
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But if we don't learn how to deal with our emotions, and if
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we don't, first of all, we gotta slow down, then you gotta be
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aware, and then you gotta be willing, right? You gotta be
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willing to feel some things and to take a look at some things,
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because a lot of people are emotionally dysregulated, and
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they don't know it. So if emotional regulation is our
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ability to effectively manage our emotions and to be able to
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respond in what I would call a healthy way or a sane way, to an
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emotional experience, emotional dysreg dysregulation is when we
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have an inability to use like, good or healthy strategies or
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responses, if we don't know how to diffuse like negative
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emotions, like everyday things, moderate things, not even
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extreme things, Right? If we're not able to moderate everyday
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emotions or diffuse them or dissolve them, as I like to say,
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right? A lot of times people like, oh, I have this problem
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like I have to solve. And I'm like, well, it's more about
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dissolving it, right? It's more about like, dissolving it,
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removing removing it so much as I need to fix it, right? So when
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we have emotional dysregulation, we do not have the ability to
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put healthy strategies into place. And instead, a lot of
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times, we just go like, really big. You'll start to feel like
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intense emotions or overwhelming emotions or negative emotions,
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and they just feel big and unmanageable, like literally
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think about that and these things when you have a big
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emotion consistently over time and you have no support now, of
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course, granted, sometimes there is mental health issues at play.
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We see it time and time again in mass shootings and people who
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use guns for violence against people and just walk into a
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random place and just stop murdering strangers, right? It's
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fucking awful. It's horrifying. And these are people sometimes,
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yes, that needed mental health intervention. They needed mental
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health care. But we also just have a lot of people who don't
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know how to manage their emotions. They don't they
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haven't gone to therapy. They're not. Even aware that the way
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that they think is is not like right or healthy or good or
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helpful to them or to obviously others, right? And if we're not
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able to use emotional regulation strategies, if they're not
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taught to us, or if we don't self recognize, I have a
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problem, right? I am wound really tight. I'm very reactive.
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I get angry really easy. I have no patience. I am like, you
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know, zero to 60. When they say that I can go from zero to 60
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really fast with anger or reaction, or whatever, this
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defensiveness is attacking, right? It's not really helpful.
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It's not really healthy. We all know this, but what happens is,
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and this is one of the things we don't often talk about, is that
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the experience of emotions is not bad. It is simply human. We
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are human being. We have receptors in our bodies, right?
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We have pain receptors. We can feel temperature, whatever we
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are sensory creatures, we can kind of clock our environment,
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right? Like we feel things. Emotions are not per se bad
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things. They're just part of the human experience. And sometimes
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the emotion is going to be a joyous emotion, a happy emotion,
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a feel good, quote, unquote, feel good emotion, right? We
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feel loved, we feel accepted, we feel valuable, we feel seen, we
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feel heard, we feel like we matter. We feel whatever,
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patient, peaceful, calm, curious, compassionate, all
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these things, right, beautiful, great. But sometimes we have
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emotions and we labeled them as like, bad, anger, fear, guilt,
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shame, blame, attack, jealousy, envy, all the things right? And
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sometimes, if we don't know how to regulate when those emotions
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like show up in the body, show up in our mind, when we have a
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visceral reaction in the body, and then we have this thought
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system like going on in our head of fear, which, you know, just
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makes everything feel bigger. It exacerbates everything. So a lot
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of times, what it is is it's not the emotion itself, and it's not
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even the thought itself. It's the interpretation that we give
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to the emotion, even labeling it like good or bad, I don't think
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anger is a bad emotion. I think it's just part of the
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kaleidoscope in the you know, if you look at like a color wheel,
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you know, I just think like, oh yeah. Like, anger is on this
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color wheel. It is available to me. It lives inside of me, and
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some people see it as bad to me, anger isn't bad unless you start
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inflicting your inability to cope or deal with or manage your
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own anger onto others, human, animal, the planet, etc,
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yourself, right? That's where self harm and self injury comes
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in. People get get all these feelings they don't know what to
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do with them, and they don't want to inflict them on other
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people, but they inflict them on themselves. And that's where we
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see things like cutting and self harm, and, you know, addiction
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and abuse of alcohol and abuse of drugs, and like, 1000 other
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ways that we can harm ourselves. You know what I mean. And so we
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have these emotional cycles that happen that aren't very loving
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and aren't always very kind, and they're sometimes called like a
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vicious emotional cycle. And the thing is, is like when we have
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emotions that we don't know how to regulate, we start to have
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thoughts about them. We start to tell stories, right? We
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interpret what we think they mean, and we start to tell these
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stories, and we start to get these beliefs, and we start to
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have these thoughts we ruminate on, the thoughts, the language,
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the words, the self speak, the way we talk to ourselves. And
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it's those things that then create behavior. So sometimes we
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get a feeling, or we get a thought and then a feeling. And
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if we ruminate on these things, if we have no way to break the
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pattern of these thoughts, these emotions and our response to
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them, they can often lead to behaviors where we act out. And
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there's this little kind of like cycle wheel that I've seen
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before. I'll just break it down for you. How they they say that.
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They say these things, kind of like, go, go down. And in one
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example that they give is like, let's say that, just to give you
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set it in context. So let's say you have a friend. Let's call it
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whether you're in high school or it's work. So just imagine, for
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a younger kid, it could be school, and for an adult, it
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could be work, and you have a friend. And I saw this on
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Cornell research. They kind of broke this down. That's where
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I'm getting this particular thing from. So and they say,
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okay, so you have a friend, and they walk by you in the hallway
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and they don't acknowledge you, and immediately what happens is
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you start to have like a rapid fire set of thoughts and
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feelings, and it might be like you feel confused, or you feel
19:56
disappointed, or you feel angry, like, why are they dissing me?
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Like, why aren't they. Paying attention to me, like, what did
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I do wrong? Or are they? Is she? Are they mad at me because of
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this thing I did or didn't do from a few weeks ago? Right? I'm
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sure it's nothing. I'm sure I'm just being over sensitive. But
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like, maybe she's in a hurry, but still, right? And all it
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takes is one person just walking past you, and then all of a
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sudden, we're off and running, right? The brain is off and
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running. The emotions come up in the body. Maybe we feel
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embarrassed, we feel a little ashamed, like, what they didn't
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see me, like, what's that about? We start to write a story, we
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start to get pissed off, and there's this initial kind of,
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like flood of feelings, and it's like one after another, like a
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bizarre little parade, right? Of course, miracles is that great
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line, right? And if you can just sit back and watch it like a
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parade, like not take it personally, just notice. And
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this is where it goes back to step one. Slow down. Step two,
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self aware. Be aware. And if you're able to just pull back
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and notice this bizarre little parade of thoughts that, like,
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floats on by and you don't get hooked by them. You don't get
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triggered by them. You don't feel like you have to do
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anything. You just notice, like, wow, look at my brain doing that
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thing, right? Like, look at, look at my kooky monkey's brain.
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Like, doing that thing and writing all these stories when I
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don't even know, because I haven't even talked to my
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friend, I don't even know if they saw me. Why am I assuming
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the worst, right? Why am I assuming the worst of my friend?
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What if something did go down? We'll just have a conversation
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about it or whatever, right? And what happens is, though, we
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start to have these thoughts in these feelings, and then we feel
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like we got to do something about them. Well, I'm going to
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text them and I'm going
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to be like, That was rude, or I'm going to like, da, da, da,
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da, da, da, da.
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Well, the action only comes from this place of feeling like that,
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like again, you get these thoughts. So again, your
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feelings, your thoughts and your behaviors, your actions, they're
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all connected. And if we don't have ways of interrupting the
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pattern when we're dysregulated, we might do some shit that we're
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going to regret, and we can see how. And again, I'm not inside
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the minds of mass shooters and stuff like that, but most
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people, that's not like a one thing happens and they snap.
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Usually it's something that has been building up and building up
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and building up. And whether that is a thought system of
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hate, or whether that's an incident where they got like, I
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think I go back to like, when, you know, people talk about,
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quote, unquote, that phrase of, like, going postal. Because the
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big thing like, when, when the guy shot did a mass shooting at,
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like, you know, the at a post office or whatever, and that's
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where that whole going postal like, came from, right? And it's
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like, so who knows if it's just an incident that, like, Finally,
22:45
like snaps somebody, but usually, my understanding is
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it's like something that has been built up over time, and
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whether that's an ideology, or somebody got radicalized, or
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somebody was bullied, or somebody, again, has mental
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illness issues, but but a piece in all of this is that there's
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the inability to emotionally regulate, right? So here's the
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pattern that they talk about it like this. So number one,
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there's a situation, and this is where the trigger happens, and
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whether it triggers a problem, like you're criticized at work
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or again, somebody walks past you in the hallway and it snubs
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you, or ignores you, or whatever. The thing is, there's
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a trigger and the situation, quote, unquote, the situation.
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Slash the trigger. It then, now goes to your thoughts, okay? And
23:30
it's like, so what's going through my head? What are the
23:32
words I'm using? What's the language I'm using? What is the
23:35
the self talk? This is me kind of building off it, right? Like,
23:38
so what are the kind of things are you thinking to yourself,
23:41
and it might be, oh, that person's an asshole, but it
23:44
might also be, I must not be good enough, I'm not worthy, I'm
23:48
not lovable. There's something wrong with me. It's all my
23:51
fault. I'm bad, I'm wrong. I'm not loved, etc, etc, right? And
23:56
then this, obviously, now they're in different schools of
23:59
thought. Some people will say the body speaks first, the body
24:03
has the emotion, and then it sends a thought up. Other people
24:07
think it's from the top down. The thought goes first. And I'm
24:10
just telling you what this model says. So you have the situation,
24:13
the trigger, something happens, then you have a thought about
24:17
it, right? The self talk, the language you use, whatever. And
24:20
then you have your emotions. And this is like, Well, how do I
24:23
feel? And then this is when I start to go, Well, how do I
24:26
feel? Do I feel anxious? Do I feel scared? Am I angry? Am I
24:29
pissed? Do I feel worthless? Do I feel exhaust? Like, what's
24:33
going on? Like, how do I feel? And those feelings, how I feel,
24:38
and that's what this whole episode is about. Often will be,
24:42
how do I react? What am I going to do about it? Am I going to
24:47
create a problem? Am I going to isolate myself? Am I going to
24:52
avoid contact with other people? Am I going to become aggressive?
24:56
Am I going to go pick up a gun? Am I going to if x, y and. Z
25:00
right? And this place between the emotion right, being able to
25:06
like, have a feeling and not feel like you need to do
25:10
anything about it. Can I regulate my nervous system? Can
25:13
I sit with myself? Can I kind of talk to myself and shift my
25:18
perspective, right? So then you have the how do I react, my
25:22
behavior, what do I do? And then what you do, the next step is
25:29
what I call they call it My body's physical reactions, like
25:33
after I do something about it. How do I feel? Do I feel tired?
25:36
Do I have a loss of appetite? I call this step how that feels.
25:41
It's the reaction to my reaction. So I went and did this
25:44
thing, and now I feel guilty, and now I feel bad, and now I'm
25:48
in this victim lube of like, Oh my God. Now this is gonna
25:51
happen. And I start to get anxious, I start to get scared,
25:54
I start to beat myself up. I double down and make them twice
25:58
as wrong. See what you made me do, quote, unquote, nobody makes
26:01
you feel or do anything. If more people knew this, we'd be in a
26:06
totally different world. But then we start to blame the other
26:09
people, right? And then we go to right back around to how I
26:14
continue to think about this situation, that other person and
26:17
myself. So that loop comes right back to my thoughts about it.
26:20
And then, if you don't have a way to do something about this
26:24
little circle of hell that you're kind of putting yourself
26:27
in, we've got to be able to pause. We've got to be I'm doing
26:30
a little time out with my hands. We've got to be able to hit time
26:33
out. We got to be able to, like when Viktor Frankl right man,
26:37
search for meaning. When Viktor Frankl talks about, in between
26:40
the stimulus and response. There's a space. There's this
26:44
moment, right? And if you don't know how to hit pause and take a
26:50
deep breath or to slow down your thinking or pump the brakes,
26:55
this is how we end up doing shit that we regret. This is how we
26:59
end up doing shit and saying things we can't take back. This
27:03
is how people end up in prison because they have no emotional
27:07
regulation, and they turn their feelings into felonies. Well,
27:12
I'll show you. I'll get you. I'll do this. Just you wait, and
27:18
this becomes really deeply patterned over time. And unless
27:22
something changes to shift the cycle, it's like you just keep
27:26
getting into this cycle. And it says here, it's easy to see how
27:30
even a small event can cascade into something hugely, hugely
27:34
triggering. So then, if you take a person, right, if you take a
27:41
person who has experienced a lot of trauma as a child, a lot of
27:47
drama, just basically cruised on in life, and I don't mean cruise
27:50
like it was easy, but just kind of operated in the world all on
27:55
trauma responses, like, literally just surviving,
27:58
holding on. I'm like, white knuckling it right now. Like,
28:01
just think of a guy like doing some think about the people who,
28:05
like climb. This is what I kind of think about emotionally,
28:08
that, you know, the climb is who climb without clipping in,
28:11
without ropes, and they're on these really fucking, like steep
28:14
cliffs, and they just have, they find the tiniest little edge to
28:18
hold on to, the tiniest little grip with their fingers. I'm
28:20
kind of doing this thing with my hands right now, like they're
28:22
gripping this wall of granite. And the slightest little thing
28:26
can be disaster. It can end in disaster. Well, if we've been
28:31
white knuckling in our whole time and just holding on by
28:34
those fingertips, it does not take much to knock us off. And
28:39
at some point, those old strategies that kept us alive
28:45
and kept us safe, those old ways of being, those patterns, those
28:49
conditioning, the things, the habits, the things that you
28:53
know, again, were put in place to protect us and to allow us to
28:57
survive, sometimes some hellscapes, some really terrible
29:00
things. They stop working at some point. And I always say,
29:09
like, I don't beat up my younger self anymore. You know, I used
29:13
to look back and be like, What the fuck was I thinking? Like,
29:17
what was that all about? You know, I used to really be unkind
29:21
to the younger version of myself, and now I have, like, a
29:23
really deep appreciation that those younger parts of me, man,
29:28
they were really doing the best they could with what they had,
29:31
you know. And God bless Vicki, with 2k from Lawrence, she was a
29:35
little bit of a knucklehead, but I'm also really, really proud of
29:39
the fact that she held on, you know, she didn't give up, and
29:43
she might have not always made great choices, but here we are.
29:48
You know what I mean, and it took all that to get me here, so
29:52
I I'm grateful for it, but it's really important that we learn
29:57
to understand. You. Um, and work with our own relationship to our
30:03
thoughts, our feelings and our behavior. And this is why, like
30:06
a lot of people end up going to therapy right to talk some
30:09
things out. But CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, it's it
30:13
doesn't work for everybody. Some people need to do more than
30:18
talk, and some people just get tired of talking about the same
30:22
thing again and again and again. Some people need more somatic
30:26
work. They need to kind of get into their body. Some people
30:29
need more kind of, like visceral like, you know, like techniques
30:34
and tools that help them to interrupt their brain and their
30:38
pattern when the brain starts to go down that pattern highway,
30:41
right? When the brain starts to do its little dance that it's
30:44
done 1000 times. And people who are like, for example, I've
30:48
talked about this before, people who are quick to anger, right?
30:52
When people say, Oh, he goes from zero to 60, that's a person
30:55
that's practiced being angry.
30:58
People who are anxious. You've spent a lot of time practicing
31:02
being anxious. I'm not saying you're doing it consciously.
31:05
Hello, me too. Double A man, hands like I get it right?
31:10
People who are nervous, people who overthink, people fill in
31:14
the blank, whatever your particular pattern is, right? We
31:19
all have our patterns and our conditioning, and we all can now
31:25
find ways and have access to tools that help us to break that
31:30
pattern. And we need to, first of all, again, really take a
31:34
look at the way that we're responding to the people to the
31:38
whether it's the news or social media or the internet, or your
31:43
family or your partner, your sweetie, your friends, your
31:46
siblings, whatever the world that you have created. There's
31:49
the external world that we're all kind of moving around in,
31:53
and then we have this internal world. And it's the internal
31:56
world that you actually can do something about. We can't often
32:01
change what's happening out there, but in here, the
32:05
emotional response network, as I like to call it, sometimes,
32:08
like, how am I going to respond to this? And we have to, first
32:13
of all, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta know ourselves. We gotta
32:15
talk to ourselves. We gotta ask ourselves some kinds of
32:18
questions, right? And we gotta know like, what, like things
32:21
like, what emotions are really hard for me to navigate right?
32:26
What feelings really trigger me? What behaviors do I do to
32:32
usually calm down big feelings right? Like, we gotta get to
32:36
know ourselves and ask ourselves these things, right? What are
32:40
the, what are the some of the strategies I use short term to,
32:43
just like boom, pattern interrupt. And there are things
32:45
that are literally called pattern interrupts, right, like
32:48
certain breath, breathing techniques, EFT, Emotional
32:52
Freedom Technique, right, tapping. It's sometimes called
32:55
self hugs, right? Peter Levine's work, bilateral stimulation, so
33:03
many tools, right? NLP, tools, and tools to kind of like, you
33:07
know, bust up anxiety and stuff like that. We also have to
33:11
question, right, the perspectives that we have, the
33:15
perceptions that we have, the the the lens at which we look at
33:21
the world, and those are the things too. It's like we have
33:26
certain beliefs, right? We have events that have happened. We
33:31
have our interpretation of those events, where we assign meaning
33:34
to them and to ourselves. We start to create beliefs that
33:36
become these stories that become our identities. And a lot of
33:39
times, when we're getting triggered, it's because some
33:42
part of us feels threatened. Our identity is getting threatened.
33:45
The way we view ourselves is getting threatened. Our view of
33:48
the world is getting threatened. Your politics or your religion
33:51
feels threatened, which is a belief structure, right? It's
33:54
just your thoughts, your opinions, your beliefs, and when
33:57
those things feel threatened, some people don't know what to
34:00
do with that. So it's like, if you disagree with me, you're
34:03
bad, you're wrong. And this is how you see people. That's where
34:07
there's why there's political violence. Is that really
34:10
dysregulated people who have no ability to let go? Like, okay,
34:15
well, how is this? How is murdering somebody else going to
34:18
solve this problem? Mm, yeah, and you see it all. I mean, talk
34:26
about a world, right? Because there's a all, all a country is,
34:31
is a bunch of individuals. Just like all a government is, it's a
34:33
bunch of individuals. And when you talk about people who have
34:36
no emotional regulation, and you think about some of the greats,
34:41
some of the greats that have been murdered. When you look at
34:43
Gandhi and you look at Martin Luther King, Jr, and you look at
34:47
Bobby Kennedy and you look at JFK, they kill these people.
34:52
They murdered these people because they're a threat to
34:55
somebody else's ideology or somebody else's belief system,
34:58
or they get threatened. Threatened, right? Like, what do
35:01
you mean? Why? Why is he? Why is he working on behalf of civil
35:04
rights? Why? Why are they talking about, like, oh, like,
35:07
the real reality of the Constitution that all men are
35:10
created equal. Oh, we're expected to actually act that
35:14
way. All the white people get threatened, right? All the
35:18
people get scared. Like, wait, what you know. So what do they
35:23
do? Panic and we get to assert our authority and not control
35:28
them. We can't have things changed. Let's just like murder
35:30
people. I don't believe in violence. I do not believe in
35:34
violence. I can't stand it. I abhor it. Of course, that's not
35:38
surprising the kid of a murdered mother, right? We can talk about
35:42
that another day, but I see so much that goes on in the world
35:48
when you just even think, what's really big right now online is a
35:53
bunch of people doing what reaction videos, and even if
35:58
those videos are quote, unquote happy or healthier. Like, oh my
36:02
God, listen to this person sing, or, Oh my God. Like, we love to
36:08
react, and the media loves to get you to react. You got to be
36:14
paying attention, because that's one of the things. When you
36:16
start to slow down and check yourself, check yourself before
36:20
you wreck yourself. When you start to slow down and pay
36:23
attention to you and how you're reacting in the world and how
36:26
you're showing up and how you think and how kooky your own
36:29
brain is, you start to see it around you. What a dis regulated
36:34
nervous system America fucking is. I wish some more people
36:40
would like to do some yoga, take some deep breaths and and find
36:44
some pattern interrupts that work for them, and do some
36:47
hypnosis and calm their freaking overactive amygdala is, you know
36:51
what I mean? Because we just have, we have too much going on,
36:55
and there's not enough gap between the emotions and the
36:58
thoughts and the behaviors. There's not enough space to
37:02
contemplate the consequences of the action. Do I want to be the
37:08
kind of person who can't experience negative emotions? So
37:12
if I'm going to feel a negative emotion, what? Then I have to
37:14
yell or scream or hit you or push you down or bully you or do
37:18
something extreme. We need to learn how to sit in the
37:21
uncomfort, you know, the discomfort, and that's the
37:25
thing. A lot of us don't like to feel uncomfortable. A lot of us
37:28
don't like to be in the uncertainty of things. We go
37:32
into the what ifs and the worries and the worst case
37:35
scenarios, right? We go all those W's, and we don't know how
37:40
to be with ourselves and each other and our differences. And
37:48
what's really, really fascinating is, is that when you
37:53
actually talk to people, you find that we do actually have a
38:01
lot of things in common. And I know get like I get it right
38:05
now, and I've said it before, the world feels so divisive
38:09
right now. It feels so insane. It feels so divided, left and
38:14
right, and you know, Republicans and Democrats, the liberals and
38:19
the conservatives and all this stuff. There is so much hate
38:22
speech. There is so I'm all for free speech. You know, I think
38:28
that you got to be crazy to think that you can have like I
38:32
believe 100% as a writer, as a speaker, I believe in free
38:35
speech. It's one of the things I do love about this country. I
38:39
just wish more people would not use their free speech to do hate
38:43
speech. And a lot of people do some hate speech and call it
38:50
something else. And it's a very confusing time to see a person
38:55
say hateful things, and you have one group of people that's like,
38:58
oh yeah, that's just being a good conservative. That's a man
39:01
of God, and everybody else is like, what the fuck are you
39:03
talking about? This is hate speech, right? This is what I'm
39:06
talking about. The world feels like overwhelming and crazy. So
39:12
those of us who are like paying attention and understand that
39:18
there's a lot out there we can't change, but do understand
39:21
there's a lot that we can change in here, and if we change enough
39:25
in here and enough people change in here, I'm pointing at the
39:28
self, that's how change out there. Ultimately happens is if
39:35
we can learn what to do with our emotions and how to navigate
39:38
these suckers without reacting and then feeling the need to go
39:43
out and cause harm to others. You know, we would have, we
39:46
would have a different world, and there's so much fear. And
39:50
really, for me, it comes down to all of this. There's a reason
39:53
why I love A Course in Miracles and why it has helped me to make
39:57
a lot of sense of the world. Yeah. And when you come down to
40:01
those basic tenants, you have but two emotions, two thought
40:05
systems, love and fear. That's it. And so much of this world
40:09
operates on fear. And then we wonder why people have such
40:13
jacked up nervous systems, right? Have just dysregulated
40:17
nervous systems and have emotional dysregulation. And so
40:21
we want to be able to
40:25
help ourselves, and by helping ourselves, and also, if you're a
40:29
parent, of course, or a teacher, an educator, or whatever,
40:32
somebody works with, kids, being able to have tools in your
40:35
toolbox that also help children to do emotional regulation is
40:39
like, so fantastic and so important as well. Okay, so one
40:44
of the things that happens, though, is, if we don't have the
40:47
ability to regulate our emotions, we go into what I
40:51
would call like, over stimulation or obsessive
40:55
thinking, or sometimes we call it rumination, right? So this is
41:00
just like, think of it like a loop, an obsessive thought,
41:04
where you just keep it's like a snake that, they say, a snake
41:07
chasing its own tail, and you just keep thinking about a thing
41:10
and thinking about a thing and thinking about a thing, and it's
41:13
really, it's really a precarious situation. You know? It's just
41:18
like people ruminate on it and they keep replaying. Like, let's
41:22
say somebody at work said something unkind to you or mean
41:26
to you. You see it like you see it at like, it like, if you're
41:29
driving in a car with somebody, I'll go back to the work
41:31
example. But let's say you're driving in a car with somebody,
41:34
and somebody cuts you off, and you might have that initial
41:38
reaction, like, Jesus, right? Like, like, they almost hit you,
41:40
or they made you slam on your break, or they weren't using
41:43
their blanket, or whatever's happening, and you're just and
41:46
let's just say there's somebody else in the car, and you might
41:48
have an emotional reaction like, Oh my God. But then it passes,
41:52
it's like, okay, my hat was hammering there for a second
41:55
now. I'm calmed down, or whatever. But the other person
41:57
would be like, just keep talking about it and talking about like,
41:59
how dare they. Who do they think they are? Don't they see this?
42:03
And if they went on and on like this, let's say for like,
42:05
another half an hour, 45 minutes, and you'd be like,
42:08
Jesus Christ. Like that was a split second incident. It ended
42:12
for, you know, 10 miles ago, like you you're insisting on,
42:16
like, driving this thing forward. There were just certain
42:19
kinds of people like they they're like, Velcro to a
42:21
negative thought, right? They can't let it go. They just keep
42:24
attaching it and attaching it and holding on to it and holding
42:26
on to it, like, dude, like, not helpful, right? So that's like
42:30
an instant, kind of like rumination. But we're talking
42:33
there are people who will replay a snub in their mind, or replay
42:38
a thing in their mind where they felt disrespected or they felt
42:42
offended, or they felt like this is like you are not you're going
42:47
against my religion, my whatever, my whatever right. And
42:50
they ruminate on it, and they obsess on it, and they play it
42:53
over and over and over again, and that kind of compulsive
42:56
thinking where you cannot interrupt that pattern of
42:59
thought. First of all, they're not trying to because they're
43:02
getting something from that. They're getting something from
43:05
feeling victimized, not consciously, right? They don't
43:09
often know that they're doing it. I'm not saying it's an
43:15
excuse, but we often think about a time when you became obsessed
43:20
about an ex or a situation or something didn't go your way,
43:24
and you just replay it and replay it, you know. And we see
43:27
it like, I tell my clients all the time. It's like, you know,
43:32
and it's scientifically, quote, unquote, proven. The science
43:35
says that there's a chemical emotional wash that happens in
43:38
your brain, into your body, so like, for anger, for example,
43:42
Joe Dispenza talks about this. So do a lot of other
43:44
neuroscientists that it really only takes about 90 seconds. And
43:49
I'm always generous and say two minutes. I'll give people like,
43:52
two minutes for a biochemical reaction of an emotion like
43:56
anger to flush through your system so you have the feeling.
44:00
You feel it. You're like, right? Like you have the emotion you
44:04
like, it comes up in your body, and whether it's in your gut or
44:07
your heart or your throat or your shoulders get tense, or
44:10
whatever, your face, wherever you hold your anger and your
44:13
rage, or how it self expresses and biochemically, it flushes
44:18
through you. And then it's done, and we see it sometimes with
44:23
crying too, right? If you ever, like, you know, you're upset
44:26
about something, and I'm not talking like your loved one just
44:29
died. I'm not talking about that like, kind of an extreme thing,
44:32
but most everyday, kind of like things, right? You get pissed,
44:35
you get mad, or you're crying, and you cry, and you're like,
44:37
Huh? You know, big sobs, ugly cry, whatever. And then there's
44:41
that moment when you go, and you take that breath and you go,
44:47
when you let it out, your nervous system starts to
44:49
regulate,
44:50
and then in your brain you go, but then they do and you just
44:53
start playing it all
44:54
over again, like I can probably make myself cry if I make myself
44:59
think about some. Something really sad, like about an
45:01
animal, or, like, whatever, right? And it's like, if we
45:04
ruminate on it, it's just like we restart, we restart the
45:08
biochemical watch, we restart the thing again and again and
45:12
again. And if we don't recognize that we're doing it a lot of
45:15
times, this is how we end up in a victim loop, because we're not
45:18
choosing to think something differently. We're not choosing
45:22
to actively feel something differently. We're not choosing
45:25
to change our story or change our mind, change our or shift
45:28
our perspective out of fear to love. We sometimes don't
45:32
actually want to feel better. We're getting something out of
45:35
staying in that emotional dysregulation. Again, it's not
45:39
always conscious, you know, so we end up kind of in that loop.
45:46
So there's a bunch of different things that you can do. I mean,
45:50
even just the basics, the basics is, first of all, is like in,
45:53
and I think it's in 12 step programs. They say, you know,
45:56
are you angry? I mean, are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you
46:01
lonely? Are you? You know, thirsty, like these things they
46:04
ask, like the basics of like your physical comfort, right?
46:09
Take care of your physical needs, like getting good sleep,
46:13
the quality of food. We know that the gut, the belly,
46:16
literally sends so much information up to the brain. So
46:20
if you're eating nothing but shit food, right? And like, even
46:24
they say your gut biome, like your belly is like, where so
46:27
much serotonin is produced. So if the belly is off, if you're
46:30
not taking care of yourself, if you're not staying hydrated,
46:33
you're not getting good rest, you're not moving your body,
46:35
you're not eating well, if you're not exercising, that
46:38
right there, that right there, just tips us in the wrong
46:41
direction. So getting out, going for a walk, getting out in
46:44
nature, getting some sun on your face or in your eyeballs or
46:47
whatever. Right, breathe some air. Move your body. Go to
46:52
better to read all these things we can do again, staying off of
46:55
social media as much as you can, right, stay connected to the
46:59
people who love you. These are just like the basics, things you
47:02
know, and then also, like, engage in activities that give
47:06
you a sense of purpose, that give you a sense of achievement,
47:08
like where you feel connected, these positive things where you
47:12
feel connected, you feel committed, like you again, these
47:15
things that bring you joy. And whether that's finding your
47:18
people, finding a group, finding an activity, starting a hobby,
47:22
walking your dog, spending time with your pets. Like pets
47:25
totally release so much oxytocin in us, right? That love
47:29
chemical. It also gets produced in them when we're kind and we
47:33
give them belly rubs and we pet them and we snuggle with them
47:36
and we spend time with them. You know? I mean, animals are like a
47:39
saving grace for us in so many ways, and it's easier, right?
47:44
It's often easier to change our thoughts than it is to change
47:47
our feelings, because a lot of times we're like, I just this is
47:50
how I feel. It's just how I feel. But we can start to
47:52
question our feelings. We can question our thoughts, and that
47:54
doesn't mean get rid of them, don't allow them, whatever, but
47:59
really learning how to be with your feelings without feeling
48:02
like you have to do something about it. We don't have to
48:06
believe every thought we think. We don't have to go in all in on
48:09
crazy. We don't have to ruminate. We don't have to
48:11
whatever. But if you don't know how to pattern, interrupt
48:13
yourself, and one of the fastest ways to do it. So you practice
48:19
Rick Hansen says this, Dr Rick Hanson, we practice an emotional
48:23
state until it becomes a neural trait, like in your brain, it
48:28
becomes unconscious, subconscious. You do it enough
48:31
times, like tying your shoes, brushing your teeth, driving
48:34
your car, you practice it a thing, enough times it becomes
48:38
automated. So many of us are automated for anxiety, for
48:43
depression, for meanness, for anger, for short temper for lack
48:47
of patience, right? We are deeply conditioned and wired to
48:51
be particular ways. And what I'm saying is we can use that same
48:56
thing practice an emotional state until it becomes a neural
48:59
trait. We can practice kindness, we can practice compassion. We
49:05
can practice tolerance, mercy, forgiveness, goodness, right? We
49:09
can practice love, the state of love. We can practice being who
49:13
we want to be, less reactive, more patient, better listeners.
49:19
Practice an emotional state until it becomes a neural trait.
49:23
But again, we gotta start with slowing down. One of the fastest
49:27
ways that we can help our nervous system, one of the
49:30
fastest ways we can shift our state, is with a breath. And
49:35
whether you practice simply breathing in through your nose,
49:38
fully and deeply and then exhaling twice as long out
49:43
through your mouth with a little bit of sound. And you probably
49:47
can't hear this, because my mic will dampen it, but just imagine
49:50
like I'm making like a like I'm whispering, you know, when you
49:53
go tell somebody to quiet down, right? And just like you. You're
50:00
breathing through a straw, like nice long exhale. It's one of
50:05
the fastest ways. The physiological sigh is another
50:09
good breath when you breathe in through your nose, nice full
50:12
inhale, and then you take a second little sip of air in, on
50:16
top of that, also through your nose. So it's like a double
50:19
inhale, full inhale, and then a little fill up on top of that,
50:23
and then twice as long exhale out through your mouth. It's one
50:27
of the fastest ways to down regulate your nervous system, of
50:30
course, is all those other tools, right? Tapping bilateral
50:33
stimulation, self hugs, like getting yourself out of a
50:37
pattern of thought, move your body. Sometimes I'll just get
50:40
up. I'll just get up out of my chair and do some jumping jacks.
50:44
I'll get on the floor and do some sit ups. It sounds silly,
50:47
but when I'm trying to change an emotional state dance, listen to
50:52
music, take a whiff, right? I'm not a wicked big like, I'm not
50:56
picking on people. Meanwhile, some people are, like, really
50:59
into essential oils. And they what you know, and they like
51:02
make mixtures, and they do all this up. I'm not one of those
51:04
people, but there are certain scents that I can like sense,
51:08
like smells that I can smell that can really shift how I
51:12
feel. And for some people, it's like calming lavender. For some
51:15
of us, it's like smelling peppermint to liven yourself up,
51:18
or lemon, or whatever. The thing is, like, you gotta figure out
51:21
your own scent, right? Things that ground you or calm you, but
51:26
really, it's just breaking that pattern of emotion, thought,
51:29
action, reaction, right? It's like, no, no, no. Can I find a
51:33
little space here? How can I slow down? Why do I feel like I
51:36
need to attack, defend or prove right? Why do I immediately go
51:41
into that reaction state a lot of times again? Because it's
51:43
patterned and conditioned. And if we don't know our own
51:47
patterns and conditions, and you do not know yourself, and that's
51:51
where I think so much of the problems in the world come from.
51:55
And this is why, and I stand by it. I think the work that I do
51:58
with people in the world, and it's not about me and making me
52:02
special. It's like there are 1000s of people who do the kind
52:06
of work that I do all around all across the world, helping people
52:11
to know themselves and to find more freedom, and whether that's
52:15
freedom from suffering, freedom from their anxiety, freedom from
52:19
their patterns, freedom from their old stories, so much of
52:23
it, the way that we think, the way that we interpret, the way
52:26
that like, the prisons that we create for ourselves. And of
52:30
course, in miracles, is a line that I love, and I'll maybe talk
52:32
about this another time. And I'm paraphrasing, but it basically
52:35
says, your chains have been loosened. The prison door is
52:38
open. You can, like, get up and leave at any time, but we don't
52:42
even know that we've put ourselves in a prison. We don't
52:44
know that we're in these mental prisons of our thoughts and our
52:47
stories and our beliefs and are very limited. That's what a
52:50
prison is. It's a small fucking cage that we are in, and we
52:54
don't even know that the door is open. We don't even realize how
52:58
much freedom is available to us, and the only people who go
53:02
around feeling like they need to harm or maim or be uncut, like
53:06
mean or murder people is people who have created prisons of
53:11
hate. And the thing is, is when you have a prison inside of your
53:15
own mind, you are also you're you're not like, yeah, you're
53:19
holding the key because you think that you're the jailer,
53:22
because everybody else is wrong and you're right, or whatever
53:25
story you're telling yourself. But if you create a prison in
53:27
your own head, you also have to, not only are you now in the
53:31
prison, you're walking around with the keys, because you're
53:33
the prison God. Now you got to God this story. You got to keep
53:36
this story alive, or your prison falls apart. You're also the
53:39
warden. You don't go home at night, you're in the prison,
53:44
but you hold the key, and part of it is this emotional
53:47
regulation, and so many people don't know what to do with their
53:51
big feelings. We see it all over social media, where people are
53:54
just in the comments with their verbal diarrhea of negativity
53:59
and attack and slander and making fun of other people and
54:03
attacking personally attacking people's looks and their body
54:06
shapes and and like people are like out of their minds. And
54:12
yeah, maybe some of it is bots, but mostly it's people who,
54:17
under anonymity, anonymity, just try to be so hateful, there's so
54:22
much fear. And I don't know about you guys, but one of the
54:26
reasons why I do this show is it's one of the cheapest and
54:29
it's the freest way right, to get a little love, to get a
54:33
little dose of where I'm coming from, using spirituality and
54:37
storytelling and stuff like that to spread spiritual principles,
54:40
to spread a little more love in the world, but really, so much
54:43
of what I do is to help people to have more freedom, freedom
54:46
from suffering, freedom from shifting out of these old
54:49
stories, these old patterns that keep us stuck, keep us stuck in
54:53
our old ways of being, keep us separate, keep us guilty, keep
54:57
us in fear. And it's a. Block. That's what fear is. Fear is a
55:01
block to love. We build these blocks and barriers to our own
55:05
awareness of love's presence. This is what A Course in
55:07
Miracles tells us, right? So so much of this is about dissolving
55:11
it's not so much about solving all the it's about dissolving
55:14
them. So I hope that this has been helpful to you in some way,
55:21
you know. And if this kind of work appeals to you and you want
55:26
to work one to one, I call it the quest. That's my four month
55:29
one to one mentoring program. I love to work with people one to
55:33
one. And if that's not, you know, available to you, it's not
55:36
in your budget or a time or whatever. We also have the nest,
55:38
which is my spiritual group, mentoring program and community,
55:42
which is fantastic and amazing. It's 50 bucks a month, you know,
55:46
and you come in and you get an incredible community and an
55:50
opportunity to receive coaching, support, mentoring, to be seen,
55:54
to be heard, when you're navigating this whole being
55:56
human experience, you know, and all of it, all parts of you are
55:59
welcome there, all parts of you and locally, I teach yoga and do
56:04
workshops and other stuff like that, right? Thai Yoga, massage,
56:07
whatever. So you can find it all at Karen kenney.com if you want
56:11
these podcasts delivered right to your inbox every Thursday
56:14
morning, just sign up. Go to Karen kenney.com/sign up, and
56:18
you'll get those suckers delivered. And that's what I
56:22
have for you today. Let's not turn our feelings into felonies,
56:25
you guys. Let's get a grip. Let's get an understanding of
56:27
what's going on inside of us so that we can make conscious
56:30
choices that represent who we truly are, which is love. That's
56:34
who we are, love, and our only gig is to spread that love, to
56:37
get better at giving and receiving love. That's the gig,
56:40
to be the love that you are, and when we're reacting all over the
56:45
place and going into murder and mayhem, obviously, and it's not
56:49
just like it's those are the extreme things, but again, to
56:51
reiterate, we all in our own little ways each day, murder and
56:56
attack and go after and cause chaos in our own minds. Right?
57:01
It doesn't even mean you have to take action on it, but you're
57:04
thinking things in your own head about yourself and others that's
57:07
not very loving. It's not very helpful. It's not good for your
57:10
health. It's not good for the collective consciousness of the
57:13
world, you know? So if we can learn how to step out of our
57:17
rumination and step out of that self talk and step out of we
57:20
find that gap right between the thought, the emotion, and the
57:24
action, we can change the world. So I hope this has been helpful.
57:28
I appreciate you. Thank you so much for listening and wherever
57:31
you go, wherever you go, please leave yourself in the animals
57:37
and the planet and the other people and the environments that
57:40
you find yourself in better than how you found it. Wherever you
57:44
go, may you and your energy, your presence, your love, your
57:49
emotional regulation, may it be a blessing. Bye.