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PRACTICING HOPE · The Karen Kenney Show

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Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm so happy
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to be here with you today, and today I want to talk about hope.
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H, O, P, E, hope. And one of the reasons why I want to talk about
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hope is that I think hope sometimes gets a bad rap. So
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it's not like I have to be here, like in defense of hope, but I
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want to just talk about hope and look at it through a couple of
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different lenses. I always think of so many things as being like
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a kaleidoscope, and we tend to, like lock things into being a
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particular way, or thinking about something for a particular
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way. And one of the things I love to do is to just kind of
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like, you know, when a dog, he is a funny sound, he like, tilts
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his head sideways. Sometimes, just like tilting your head
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sideways, just a touch, it can give you a totally different
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perspective. Just kind of shifting that kaleidoscope, just
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one tiny turn, and all of a sudden you have a totally
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different picture. The other reason why I want to talk about
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hope today is because I think that there is so much going on
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in the world that is so fucking insane and so just overwhelming
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and scary and maddening and fear, like there's so much fear
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that is generated in this kind of human existence realm, you
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know what I mean? And there's so much that happens that feels
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like it is out of our control. There's so much that we feel
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like we do not control in the outer world. And when we start
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to get overwhelmed by that, and we're getting bombarded through
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the news the 24 hour, like 24/7 like news cycle and the endless
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bombardment of social media and the Internet and the devices and
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like all that stuff, when we get constantly reminded of how out
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of control a lot of things feel, we can start to feel hopeless.
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And I know that there are people out there who I've heard say
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both Nia and fat to me, who have said things that they were
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feeling hopeless and helpless. So this, for me, is like just
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something that's, I think, important to talk about and I
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want to dive into. And let's start off by and I got some
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notes here in front of me, because I always like, I always
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like to do my due diligence. I am a lover of words. I love to
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know where a word originated from, what it means, and look at
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it from a couple of different angles, right? So the word hope,
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if we look at it as a noun, this is there's a couple of different
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meanings for it. Number one, it's a feeling of expectation
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and desire for a certain thing to happen. Okay? It's also as a
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noun, grounds for believing that something good may happen. Okay?
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And here's a little another one. This one might be from Marion
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Webster's Dictionary, dictionary, and it says hope is
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an optimistic state of mind, not just a feeling. So one calls it
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a feeling. This is calling it an optimistic state of mind that is
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based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect
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to events and circumstances in one's own life or the world at
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large. Now, Marion Webster as a verb defines hope this way,
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quote to expect with confidence, end quote or quote to cherish a
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desire with anticipation. And I thought these were fabulous. I'm
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a wicked hopeful. I'm kind of an annoyingly hopeful person. And I
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know that some people can consider hope to be, almost be
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like a little, little like Polly Anna ish, but I want to look at
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it this way. So while some of us see hope like, let's talk about
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this, because not all of us, not everybody's like me, not
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everybody sees hope as a positive thing, um, so while
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some of us see hope as a positive thing, like it's, for
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me, it's like a glimmer. It's like a glimmer. It's a guide.
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It's a guiding light when we're just in it. You know what I
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mean? Like when things just feel like all hope is lost. You know,
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I often use this as an example. If you were a kid in my
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generation, there was a show called the banana splits, and on
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the banana splits, I reference this character a lot, excuse me.
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And he was on gullive his travels, and he was just like
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this little Negative Nelly guy. And anytime something happened,
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he would just mutter the words, we'll never make it. We're
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doomed, right? And he was so not hopeful or positive, like at
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all. And so while some of us see hope as a good thing, as a
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guiding light, as something positive to get us through, like
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Doc, Doc, times, other people think of hope as something
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negative, like they'll say, Don't get your hopes up, or
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you're just going to get disappointed. Or it feels
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almost. Like, you know that saying, like having an albatross
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around your neck, that hope kind of keeps us attached to
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expectations or to dreams of, like, better or great at times,
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it's like this thing where you just hope and hope and hope, but
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nothing actually happens and you just end up defeated and
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disappointed, and, you know, getting discouraged and all that
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stuff. And when we think about this relationship to our
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relationship, I should say to the word hope, I started
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thinking about that old story, which is really interesting. So
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you guys have all probably heard the phrase you're gonna open
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Pandora's box. And this goes back to Greek, Greek mythology.
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And what's really interesting is that Pandora actually wasn't
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given a box to open. She was given a ja, I don't know why I
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find that so funny. Pandora's ja, I guess it doesn't have the
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same like, you know, same oomph to it like, so you open
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Pandora's box. Okay? So back in Greek mythology, there's
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Pandora, and Pandora is supposed to supposedly like the first
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woman on earth. So first woman on earth, gods give her this ja,
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and they tell her, don't open it. Okay, we already know how
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that's going to end, because if she was curious, if she was
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curious, as curious as I am, and it's like, here's this first
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woman on earth, here's a jar. Don't open it. They told her,
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keep it shut. But of course, her curiosity wins out. She opens it
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out, and upon opening the jaw, all of a sudden, she releases,
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like, every evil, every malady, like all these awful, all the
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miseries of the world, like come pouring out, come flying out,
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like, like a swarm of bees. It's like, right? If you've ever seen
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like a horror movie where, like, it's something is like a mist or
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a fog or whatever, and you open it up and it's like it just goes
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out. So everything from like, sorrow to pain to envy to greed
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to sickness, death, disease, hatred, strife, famine, like
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whatever, all the bad shit, like, just comes pouring out.
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And then, of course, Pandora is like, Oh my God, oh shit. And
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she tries to, like, shut the jaw, and when she quickly closes
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the jaw, slash box, right? There's one thing that stayed
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trapped inside, and that was hope. So think about that inside
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the jaw. Now I don't know what the gods were thinking. They
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obviously have a wicked, funny sense of humor, but inside,
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alongside all of these awful things, was also hope. So hope
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stays trapped inside with all the other like melodies of the
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human world, right? So everything else escapes, but
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hope stays in the box. Now to some of us, we are like, Oh my
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God, thank God. She held on to hope. She has this like divine
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gift that is still in her power and in her presence and in her
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possession that she can use right, this hope that human
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humankind, right, has retained amidst all the other bad things,
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all the adversities in the world, all the tragedies of the
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world, all the horrors and all the suffering. We still have
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hope. Well, other people look at it as like, it's kind of like,
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hope is just kind of like lame, lame and wishful thinking. Some
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people even see it like we're being taunted, like, it's like,
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oh yeah, we have hope. Like, we have hope all these good things
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are going to happen, but they never happen. You know what I
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mean? So a lot of people look at it in a very negative way. Me,
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personally, I'm a wicked big fan of hope, and we're going to get
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into all that. But I, of course, I looked up hope, and I always
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like to get a couple of different perspectives on this.
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And there's a wonderful guy, a psychologist. I mean, I assume
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he's wonderful in person, he seemed wonderful on video, but
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he's a psychologist, and his name is, and I want to say this
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correctly, Dr Dan Tomasulo, and he teaches positive psychology
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at Columbia. He also, like, speaks on the science of learned
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hopefulness. And of course, that just like grabbed me like that
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title the science of learned hopefulness. And he says this.
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He says Hope is the only positive emotion that requires
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negativity or uncertainty in order for it to be activated.
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Let me say that again, hope is the only positive emotion that
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requires negativity or uncertainty to be activated. And
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he went on to make a funny and he said, there's no need for
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hope if everything is hunky dory, right?
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And it's true. But the thing about. About hope is that it's
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flip of the coin, right? People who, people who, like, get their
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hopes up and then get disappointed, or things don't go
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their way, or things look like like they do in the world right
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now, where, like, everything's kind of going down, and there's
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all this negativity and all this division and all this murder and
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hatred and schools mass shootings and school shootings
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and like famine and genocide and like all these things that are
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happening, it's what we can lose our bit of hope, right? We can
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lose that bit of sunshine in our heart. We can lose that, what we
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call it, a glimmer of hope, right? We lose that glimmer,
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that sparkly, little divine thing that that like, like
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Pandora, that she retained in the box. And to me, I'm like we,
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you know, or in the job, we all have this, I think, in our
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heart. But when we start to lose our belief in hope, if we don't
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activate our hope and use it, and we're going to talk about
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using hope in a minute, then hopelessness can often lead to
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despair. And if you take a look around right now, just like I
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was saying, we could all use a little more hope. So I want us
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to consider thinking of looking at Hope like this. And this is
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kind of how I look at Hope. I think of hope as many things,
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not just one thing, right? So if we go back to the you know, the
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definitions here, it's a feeling of expectation and desire for a
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certain thing to happen. That's one way to look at it. But I
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look at hope as a feeling. I look at it as a positive motion,
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number one, number two. I also look at hope as a mindset, as a
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particular outlook as a particular thought system. So to
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me, it's not just a feeling, it's also a mindset. For me,
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hope is also a call to action. It's an inspiration. It's
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something that lights a little fire under my ass, you know what
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I mean? And hope is also, to me, a practice. It's not some
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ethereal thing out there. It's something that I can practice in
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here. And we know,
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we know that to me, it's kind of like that old saying in the
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Bible, right? Faith without works is dead to me, hope,
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without works, is dead. I don't think of hope is just something
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that we get to like, sit around and like, Oh, I hope. I hope we
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have a more inner, more peaceful world. I hope we have a less
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violent world. It's like, No, you know how we get outer peace?
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You know how we get world peace is individuals inside are
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working on their own inner peace. Inner peace amongst all
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the individuals leads to outer peace. What I have found is that
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people who have more of an experience of of inner peace,
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what they start to do is they start to have a different
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experience of themselves. They start to have a different
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experience, where they can start to believe in themselves and
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trust themselves. And when you move through the world from that
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place where you kind of have belief in yourself, and you
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start to trust yourself, and you trust your inner teacher, you
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trust that wise advocate or Holy Spirit, or the still inner voice
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or the divine intelligence that moves through you, right? You
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start to show up differently in the world. And I find that
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people who are moving through the world with inner peace, they
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tend to create outer peace around them. And just imagine if
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more people right, stayed in that place of hopefulness. They
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stayed in that place of believing that they could
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actually make a difference and that they do something about it.
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So to me, hope isn't passive. Hope is not a passive thing.
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It's not like this naive Pollyanna ish, like, I'm just
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gonna cross my fingers and hope for the best. No, it's not. It's
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a skill. Hope is actually a skill, and it is a skill that we
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can practice. It's a to me, again, it's a mindset that
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inspires action, and it's like it's not just a belief. So I
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guess that's number five to me. It's also a belief, but it's a
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belief in the possibility of things getting better. It's a
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belief in the possibility of change and transformation. Hope,
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to me, is a belief in the possibility for a better future.
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But and it comes along with it's a it has a plan on how to do it,
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on how to get there. It's not just like pie in the sky, cross
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my fingers. Hope it all works out. No, it's like I'm going to
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take action to try to right, have a plan. Now, of course, a
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miracle says a healed, healed mind does not plan. And that
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doesn't mean that we don't have a plan. It's that we. Now don't
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make our plan all on our own meaning. We get quiet, we slow
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down, we spend we have some time of introspection, some self
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reflection, some self awareness. We get wicked clear on our
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motivations, on our intentions, on what's driving the bus within
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us. We ask, we call upon the more intelligent parts of
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ourselves, whether you call that your highest self, your higher
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power, your good self, your good thinking, your comments,
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whatever you want to call it Holy Spirit, right the again,
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the quiet voice within the inner teacher, we make a plan from
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that place on how we would like to create whatever it is, this
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more peaceful world, this more kind, compassionate, loving
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United States of America, perhaps right, not this
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divisive. We hold on to a hope and a vision and a belief that
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there is a possibility for things to look different. But we
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don't just sit on our ass and expect the rest of the world to
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figure it out. We try to come up, at least on an individual
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level, a plan on how to get there. So for me, hope takes us
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from having a problem and it swings open the door to
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possibility. Because as long as you are stuck in hopelessness
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and as long as you are stuck in despair, you are powerless when
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you throw your hands up or shove your head in the sand or just
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say you tap out and say, I'm out. I'm not saying don't take
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breaks. There are a lot of people in this world, especially
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black women, who have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting for a
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really long time, and so a lot of us who have been maybe
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sitting on the sidelines or saying shit like, oh well, God's
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just gonna handle it all, like, hope helps the thoughts and
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prayers and Namaste the day away, right? It's like no, some
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of us have to step up and actually get involved. Have a
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little bit more of a plan. You know what I'm saying, and so so
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much of this when we're moving from that place of problem, the
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suffering, the division, the hatred, all that stuff to
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possibility, to me, that's the realm of spirit that's moving
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from fear to love. So to me, in some ways, hope is miraculous,
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because as A Course in Miracles, says all that, all that a
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miracle is, is a shift in our perception, a shift in our mind
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from fear to love. Now let me say this, if you're in the kind
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of quote unquote spiritual realm, the spiritual quote
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unquote world, or you have a spiritual practice, or you have
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spiritual friends or whatever. No doubt, especially if you are
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familiar with the Course of Miracles at all, you have heard
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that, right? A miracle ends a shift in perception from fear to
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love, and it's so easy to quote it. It's so easy to say the
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words and to also like hear it, but not hear it like you hear
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the tones and the fluctuations of sound making like coherent
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words, but you're not receiving it. You're not getting it.
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You're not feeling it, and you're not downloading how
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powerful that actually is. When you shift your mind from fear to
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love, when there is a shift in perspective in your mind, it can
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heal separation, it can heal division. It can heal wars. It
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can create forgiveness. It is a soothing balm to the soul. When
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you are willing to shift how you have been perceiving something,
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yourself, a situation or somebody else, it is a powerful,
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powerful thing, because love, that's the state where love
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happens in the realm of curiosity and creativity and
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possibility. But when we stay attached to the problem, the
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suffering, the division, the hopelessness, the helplessness,
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we're screwed, we're right, like nothing's going to change. What
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do they always say? Nothing changes. If nothing changes,
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right? So if we stay open to hope, if we stay open to the
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idea, the belief in the practice right, the feeling of hope,
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anything that is felt right, thought about, felt spoken with
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repetition, it literally creates neural networks in our brain
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that allows that feeling good or bad, in this case, with hope
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good, right to it a lot. So Rick Hansen says it like this,
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neurons in your brain that fire together, wire together. Another
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way of saying this is you practice an emotional state. How
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you feel right, you practice an emotional state until it becomes
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a neural trait. And for example, that's why people who get angry
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really easily. What that tells me is they've practiced getting
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angry 1000 times before. That people who feel like they are
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infinitely patient they have. Practice patience 1000 times
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before that. Right? We practice emotional state until it becomes
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a neural trait. Neurons that fire together, wire together to
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me, if I keep my mind attuned to hope, to love, right, to all of
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that stuff, when I shift out of all that fear state that's what
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despair and hopelessness and hatred and division and
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separation and all that stuff, is when I shift out of that, the
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world opens up. And Dr thomasullo said this, I want to
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share this because I thought it was so great. He says, When I
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talk about learned hopefulness, we're trying to cultivate a
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perspective that optimizes the belief that we can positively
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influence the future. Think about that. He says, it's about
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agency and positivity. And this is what I think is so powerful
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about this sentence. He says, we're trying to cultivate a
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perspective that optimizes the belief that we can those two
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words, that we can positively influence the future meaning.
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I'm not at the mercy of what the world out there is doing. I'm
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not saying it doesn't feel like we are and that sometimes we
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are, sometimes somebody would just sit in a light, and
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somebody you know hits us from behind, we get, boom, we got
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little car accident from behind. Sometimes there are things that
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are just kind of like happening. I'm not, I'm not spiritually
21:30
bypassing suffering, atrocities, awful things. I'm just saying we
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hold on to the belief, though, that we can positively influence
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the future. And what's happening right now, I think, is that a
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lot of people are losing their belief that they can actually
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positively influence the future and change how things are going,
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change the direction that the world in this country is going
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in. And so we, you know, it's really important that we
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understand how we can,
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like influence our own beliefs and train our mind. And this is
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what this is what meditation is all about. In some ways, this is
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what A Course in Miracles all about. It's about mind training.
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It's training our mind to think along the thoughts of love, a
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thought system of love, instead of a thought system of fear. And
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here's what we know our perception. So in A Course in
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Miracles, it says perception, right? I'm tapping my forehead,
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what we think of and hold to be true in our mind, right?
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Perception makes projection. It's what we put out onto the
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world. So what we think in our mind, in here is often what we
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experience. Out there, our perception informs our
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experience. It informs our knowledge, our knowledge right,
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often informs what we think, informs what we believe. So if
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we want to change our beliefs, like, oh my god, we're never
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make it. We're doomed. We're fucked. It's all a mess. It's in
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it is, look it's, I get it. It looks like a shit show out
23:09
there, like I get it. But if we want to change our beliefs about
23:13
what's possible, we have to shift our perceptions. That's
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the way that we get it done. And there's a quote that was made
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famous by Wayne Dyer, if you're a Wayne Dyer fan, right? The
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writer, the author, the thinker, the speaker. He's no longer with
23:29
us. But Wayne had a thing where he would say, if we change the
23:33
way we look at things, the things we look at change, and it
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gets attributed to him. Yes, he said it in his books, but it's
23:39
not his original quote that came from the founder of quantum
23:43
physics. He was a German physicist named Max Max Planck.
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It was popularized by Wayne, but Max Planck basically
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paraphrased, says, If we change the way we look at things, the
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things we look at change. So it kind of also goes along with
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that saying, right? People, a lot of times say, well, I'll
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believe it when I see it. And people we often say, like,
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you'll see it. We flip that around. We say, you'll see it
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when you first believe it. So a shift in perception in your mind
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swings open the door right to possibilities and the most
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significant change, I often say, you know, everybody wants to
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change the world out there. And I always say, the way that you
24:29
change the world out there is by changing the world first in
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here, and I'm tapping my head in my hat, right? Your body like in
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here, the inner work is what leads to external changes. And I
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often say, like, if you want to see a less violent world, right?
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We just had this kid in Nashua, like, 23 years old, or
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something, 2223 years old, you know, and he breaks into, you
24:55
know, an event space. So there's an event space in a restaurant,
24:58
like a country club. Yeah, and he just like, he shoots people.
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And you're like, What the fuck we see it all over the place. We
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see it in, you know, children in schools and churches, the
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insanity, right? We just saw Charlie Kirk get murdered.
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That's a whole other show for another day. But if we want to
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see a less violent world, a world with no more violence or
25:21
less violence, we must do the work on an individual level to
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eradicate all the violence that we have within ourselves and our
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own hearts and our own minds and our own DNA, like the way, and I
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mean, I don't mean DNA, like actual DNA, but like, you know
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what we walk around, the stories we carry, the beliefs we carry,
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right? And that's the thing is. People like, well, there's
25:47
nothing we can do. I said, No, no, no, the first thing you do,
25:50
I always say, you can't complain about shit blowing around the
25:53
neighborhood. People like, oh, there's stuff all over the
25:55
street. And then, yeah, you might want to check your own
25:58
backyard, because that's where the stuff is coming right? Clean
26:01
up. Clean up your own trash barrels that you didn't roll
26:04
back in. You know what I'm saying? So we have all have our
26:07
own little garden to tend to, and that's where we start doing
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the work. All that, all that a family is, is it's made up of
26:16
individuals. All that a neighborhood is, is it's made up
26:20
a bunch of different individuals. All that a
26:21
community is, is it's made up of a bunch of different
26:24
individuals. All that a state is like, it's a city, a state, you
26:28
can keep going out a company, a corporation. It's just made up
26:32
of individuals, a country made up of individuals, a government.
26:36
So the way that we create mass change, change on a global
26:41
scale. Wanting to see a more quote, unquote, peaceful world
26:45
or less violent world, one at a time, we gotta get our hats
26:49
right. We gotta get our minds right. And I think holding on to
26:53
hope and believing, actually, believing that we have the
26:58
possibility to create a better future, along with a plan on how
27:02
to do it and then actually taking some action. So we've got
27:08
to understand ourselves. We got to understand the way that we
27:10
look like, the lenses that we use to like, look through the
27:13
world, look at ourselves, each other and whatever, and that's
27:17
how we change. And I've said it before. You've heard me say it.
27:20
Why are there still in the richest country in the world,
27:22
why are there still children dying of starvation? Why are
27:25
there still kids going hungry at the end of the day? Why are
27:29
there kids who don't have, like, resources and things that they
27:33
need? Because enough people are okay with it. Enough people are
27:38
voting against it. Enough people have decided, like, Yeah, I'm
27:41
okay. I'm okay with kids getting killed when they go to school.
27:45
I'm okay. Like, look at our gun laws, look at all that stuff.
27:48
It's because enough people are okay with having some gun
27:52
deaths, right? Because we just think, like, Oh, yeah. Like, we
27:55
don't want to give up our guns. It's like, nobody's asking you
27:57
to give up the guns. We're asking for more like effective
28:02
leadership and like rules and laws around getting guns and all
28:06
that stuff. But again, another conversation for another day. So
28:10
when we change, right? This is the heart of the human
28:13
experience. Is our perception shapes our reality. And when we
28:18
understand the power of our own perspective, the power of our
28:23
own subconscious beliefs. When we start to get that the when we
28:27
start to change the way that we look at things, the things that
28:32
we are viewing, witnessing, observing, those things will
28:35
start to change. So from this right, we look at things
28:40
differently. This is how transformation happens. This is
28:43
how change happens. This is where we get hope, because we
28:47
actually start to see again. It's not this Pollyanna ish
28:50
crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. It's like, well,
28:52
what am I going to do about this vision of hope that I have? You
28:56
know, in A Course in Miracles, it's like lesson 33 it says
29:00
there's another way of looking at the world. There is another
29:04
way of looking at the world. We all know. We've talked about it
29:09
on this show. If you're a regular listen to the show, the
29:10
brain has its own negativity bias. It gets up in the morning.
29:14
It's the brain's job is to keep you safe. So it's always going
29:16
to be looking for threats. It's going to be looking for things
29:19
that are scary, things that are wrong, things that are bad. It's
29:22
always trying to judge its environment for safety, right?
29:25
It's not sitting around like trying to see the good in
29:28
everybody. You know, I've trained my brain. I think I was
29:32
kind of like that anyways as a kid, but part of being a Course
29:36
in Miracles student for like, over 30 years is that I have
29:40
trained my mind in a very specific way, right? So I did
29:44
last year a 30 day challenge, and I'm going to seriously
29:48
consider bringing it back, either somewhere sometime this
29:52
year, or start off the year with it in 2026 but I did a challenge
29:56
called The Good, the beautiful and the holy and. Speaking of A
30:00
Course in Miracles, there's another way of looking at the
30:02
world, right? There's another line in A Course in Miracles
30:05
that says Child of God, and I just consider us all God's kids,
30:09
whether you believe in God or not, think of yourself as a
30:11
child of the universe or a child of love. I don't use your own
30:14
happy word, but it says child of God. You were created to create
30:19
the good, the beautiful and the holy. Do not forget this. Child
30:25
of God. You were created to create the good, the beautiful
30:29
and the holy. Do not forget this. And my challenge was all
30:33
about taking 30 days to help us, to train our mind over the
30:38
course of 30 days, to look inside you. But I started with
30:43
the outside world, because for a lot of people, it's easier to do
30:46
it to the outside, to look for the good, to look for the
30:51
beautiful, to look for
30:53
the holy. In this case, holy doesn't necessarily mean
30:57
religious. It doesn't mean it couldn't be beautiful things
31:00
like, maybe you you went to church service and you're like,
31:02
Oh, that felt like a holy experience. Or maybe you had a
31:05
deep talk with a friend and there was reconciliation or
31:08
forgiveness, and that felt like a holy moment, or a holy instant
31:11
or whatever. But holy could mean like, I broaden the scope,
31:15
because I know that word for some people can be like, Man,
31:17
that makes me a little uncomfy, right? But so the challenge was
31:20
all about taking 30 days right to really look around and
31:26
observe the good, the beautiful and the holy. And it trained our
31:29
minds to look at what already exists in the world, right? And
31:35
then we had to shift it to acknowledging those things that
31:38
lived within us that we're good, beautiful and holy people find
31:42
that pot like way harder. And again, that's a conversation for
31:45
another day. But here's what I'm trying to say, when we're
31:48
looking for the good, the beautiful and the holy, we have
31:51
so much more hope, you know. And I think about and I've talked
31:55
about it many times, as you all know, I'm a huge fan of Mister
31:58
Rogers, right? When Mister Rogers talks about how when bad
32:01
or scary things happen in the world, this is a famous thing. I
32:04
know it's not the first time you're hearing it from me, but
32:07
meaning you've heard it from other places. And his mom would
32:10
tell him, like, when the scary things happened, she'd be like,
32:12
Freddie, look for the help is. Look for the people who are
32:15
helping. That to me is like, good, beautiful and holy. That's
32:19
like looking for the hopeful, looking for the places where
32:23
people aren't just flapping their gums or crossing their
32:25
fingers. They're doing something about the tragedy, the trauma,
32:29
the travesty, like their boots on the ground. They're getting
32:32
their hands dirty. They're like diving in so I guess what I'm
32:35
trying to say is we don't have to just accept the way that
32:39
things are out there, the way that things, quote, unquote,
32:42
appear to be in this small reality, as we say, in this very
32:46
human kind of, you know, drama, this play that is being acted
32:51
out on the cosmic level, right? And in a course, in miracles, we
32:55
call it like a dream. And in yoga, we call it Maya, the
32:58
illusion, this illusion of separation, right? So we don't
33:02
just have to accept the way that things are. We can train our
33:05
mind, and we can challenge ourselves to try to see things
33:08
in a new way, and to not just try to see things in a new way,
33:12
but to actually see things in a new way. Because hope is
33:15
teachable. Hope is what I like to say. It's learnable, right?
33:19
We can learn to be more hopeful. And there's a quote that I want
33:22
to share again. It comes from, I always want to make sure I say
33:26
his name, Dr thomasullo. He said this, I love this. He says,
33:30
learned hopefulness cultivates perspectives, optimizing the
33:36
belief that we can positively influence the future. Learned
33:42
hopefulness, I'm going to say it again. Learned hopefulness
33:46
cultivates perspectives, optimizing the belief that we
33:50
can positively influence the future. And I can say this, as
33:53
somebody who works with the subconscious mind a lot, with
33:56
myself and with my clients and with members of the nest, is
34:00
that when you hold on to a belief, and to me, this is like
34:04
almost self hypnosis, right? It's not self delusional, but
34:09
it's literally, how do we how do we create an outcome that we
34:12
desire, not by focusing on our lack and what we don't have, but
34:17
we literally create, like little movies in our mind, right? We
34:21
use our imagination, and we imagine what it's like. We
34:24
visualize a better future. We literally put ourselves in our
34:28
mind's eye in a better future. And we practice this. We
34:32
practice seeing things differently. We hold the vision
34:36
of what's possible, and we put ourself into the scene in that
34:40
movie, as if we are there right now. And we look around in the
34:44
movie and it's like, what am I seeing, what am I feeling? What
34:46
am I what am I hearing? What am I tasting or touching? We use
34:50
the five senses. We make it really real, and we practice a
34:53
vision. And athletes do this all the time. They call it they call
34:58
it visualization. It's really. Self hypnosis, right? It's same
35:01
Z. Same z is different, same thing. It's like they're
35:04
visualizing. They see themselves swinging the bat. They see
35:08
themselves taking the shot. They see themselves like swinging the
35:11
golf club, right? They put them. They see themselves winning the
35:14
race, running faster. They see themselves doing it all
35:18
perfectly, and right? They let their nervous system, their
35:22
mind, their neurons, their physical body, have the
35:25
experience of it already be differently, and we can do this
35:28
with hope too, when we practice it enough times that belief that
35:33
we can positively influence the future. This is how things
35:37
actually come to be right. We bring it to life. We practice
35:42
hopefulness. It's so powerful. And this is what I'm saying. Is
35:47
like hope is teachable, hopefulness is learnable. And
35:50
this is how we keep the darkness out. We keep the darkness out by
35:54
always noticing the little glimmers of light of
35:57
possibility. We train our mind to look for love, and then we
36:04
take action again. We don't just talk about it. We don't just
36:08
think about it. It's the application of the theory. We do
36:11
something about it. And we want to start by emulating
36:14
internally, right? We embody the thing that we wish to be
36:20
different out there, we emulate internally what we want to
36:24
experience externally. That's the gig, and then we take
36:28
action, because hope is taking action on that possibility. So
36:33
we can transform hope from something that's quote, unquote
36:36
passive to something that's a powerful catalyst for change,
36:40
something that actually can shape our world. We're not just
36:43
sitting around thinking about it, dreaming about it,
36:46
visualizing about it. We are then taking that practice and
36:50
we're putting it to good use out in the world. And I think if we
36:53
can shift our relationship from Hope, from like it just being
36:57
like this, whatever she hopes, yeah, keep hoping. Yeah, keep
37:01
hoping, you know, and people roll their eyes, or whatever.
37:03
But hope is something to me that has empowered me, right? Hope
37:09
that, Oh, my God, this is not going to last forever. In fact,
37:12
it doesn't matter why, but I was looking, I was looking at my
37:15
high school yearbook. That's a whole of the story. And
37:19
underneath my picture? Well, it's not even my picture. I
37:22
think I've told this story before.
37:25
My picture in the yearbook does not have my name underneath it.
37:28
That's a whole story for another day, but my quote in the
37:32
yearbook was, nothing lasts forever. And I think a lot of
37:36
people could take that to mean something really negative, and I
37:41
would say the only thing that lasts forever. So no thing lasts
37:45
forever. But you know what lasts forever is love? You know it's
37:47
eternal. Eternal is our spirit. That's what lasts forever. But I
37:51
was thinking of it too, like this is like, No no thing, no
37:55
suffering, no one way of being right? Because we are etern in
37:58
the human realm. We are eternally changing, right? We
38:02
are eternally changing, whether it's our skin, right, even,
38:06
like, look at me, I'm like, Oh, I'm going to be 57 next week,
38:09
next week. So to me, hope is really powerful, and it helps us
38:13
to overcome the trials and the tribulations and the traumas of
38:16
life and holding on, holding on to to the fact that we can
38:23
overcome things. Nothing lasts forever. Gandhi had that
38:26
beautiful quote where he says basically, like, I'm totally
38:30
paraphrasing, but like in times of strife, in times of war, in
38:33
times of whatever he says, murderers and tyrants have been
38:37
around forever, and it often seems like they're winning, but
38:39
in the end they fall, always in the end they fall. Always, love
38:43
wins. And he says, Remember this, like remember this,
38:46
remember this. So with hope, you know, we can find the inner
38:51
strength. Hope for me gives me the inner strength to endure
38:56
wicked, hard shit. It helps me to find resiliency in the face
39:01
of devastating, devastating circuit circumstances, things
39:06
I've, you know, I've lived through in my own life. It's
39:08
helped me to navigate uncertainties in life, and it's
39:12
also given me the curiosity when I'm hopeful and I'm shifting my
39:17
brain out of that fight and flight state, like rather than
39:20
getting shut down from that, you know that sympathetic nervous
39:24
system response of where everything just goes into, like
39:27
learned trauma response, when I stay in that place of
39:31
possibility and hopefulness and a more light, a more like
39:35
curious, it allows me to stay curious and to stay into, like
39:39
the part of my brain that can actually do good problem
39:42
solving. It helps me to have the curiosity and the courage to,
39:46
like find solutions to things, which is a really big deal, you
39:50
know what I mean. And so I could talk about this. I could talk
39:53
about this forever, but I want to leave you with a quote from
39:58
and I've shared this quote before. Four on the podcast, and
40:02
hopefully this is helping you to look at Hope. Hope is a
40:05
different way too, that is actually more powerful. It is
40:08
actually more action oriented. So remember, it's a feeling. For
40:12
me, it's also so I get the five here, right? So to me, hope is a
40:18
feeling, a positive emotion. It's a mindset and an outlook
40:22
and a thought system that leans towards love. It's a call to
40:25
action, and it's a practice. Hope is a practice right, like
40:29
the good, the beautiful and the holy, seeking those things out,
40:32
finding it. It's also a belief, and our beliefs have the power
40:36
to shape right, the stories we tell, what we believe about
40:39
ourselves, and if we believe that things are hopeful, we are
40:43
way more likely to have more positive outcomes than if we
40:47
just sit in the shit. I always say, don't sit in the shitty
40:49
diaper, right? But being like this stinks. Like, yeah, get out
40:52
of the shitty diaper, right? Like, change your mind. Let's do
40:55
something about it. Okay? But we also know this is this. This
41:00
little quote is from Guru Singh, and this is for the people who
41:04
are always like, Don't get your hopes up too high. Okay, I love
41:07
this. So let's say that you have a dream, right? You're dreaming
41:11
a dream. There's this thing that you want to do, or want a
41:14
particular outcome, or like, whatever, right? And he says,
41:18
walk as if. And he's like, dream, your dream, whatever that
41:24
dream is. He's like, walk as if. And what that means is, walk as
41:29
if it's going to happen. Walk as if, like in your mind, even in
41:33
your mind, see it as already done, is already happening. He's
41:37
like, walk as if, and fill in the blank whatever your dream
41:41
is, he's like dream, your dream, and walk as if that dream is
41:47
already happening, is already coming through, right? And I
41:50
always say to people at this point, who would I have to be?
41:53
This is where you want to get under the under. Who would I
41:57
have to be? What's, who's the kind of person that I would have
42:00
to be in order for that dream right to come true. Like, what
42:06
steps do I need to take? Who? How would I have to think? How
42:10
would I have to speak? How would I have to hold myself right? Who
42:15
would I have to be? Walk as if that means, embody it as if it
42:19
is already true. Okay? And he says this, he goes on to say, he
42:23
says, walk as if and dream your dream, dream, your dream, and
42:26
walk as if whatever that dream is is already happening, because
42:30
we know what we want and we receive our expectations. So
42:35
learn to expect the best, and do not follow that old saying,
42:40
quote, don't get your hopes up, or don't get your expectations
42:43
up. You don't want to be disappointed. He says, If you
42:47
don't want to be disappointed, don't be act in a different way.
42:53
Walk as if get your expectations way up there, and you be you and
42:59
no one else. And then he ends it with, love you. Good job. Thank
43:05
you. Good job. Walk as if dream, you dream. And I love that. I
43:09
have taken that so many times when people like, Yeah, but what
43:13
if? What if it doesn't happen? And it's like, I'm going to be
43:15
disappointed? I'm like, Well, you can decide to not be
43:18
disappointed. You can decide that this is not a failure, that
43:21
it's information, that you learn something new about yourself or
43:26
the world or this company or this president or this whatever,
43:29
right? It's like, walk as if try to do the thing, envision it,
43:34
live as if it's going to happen, and if the thing doesn't happen,
43:38
right? Because I always say, like, at some point, I would say
43:41
you're going to figure out that there's a lesson in this. For
43:43
some for something, there's something to learn or see here,
43:46
it's going to be like getting a gift. It's like getting a
43:48
blessing. I there, I saw a fantastic bumper sticker one
43:53
time, and it said something like, please save me from the
43:56
things that I want. I'm going to say that again, please save me.
44:03
I would say it like this, please save me from the things that I
44:06
think I want. Right? So if the expectation or whatever the
44:12
thing is, you got your hopes way up there, you got your hopes sky
44:15
high, and then the thing didn't happen. I always hold on to the
44:18
possibility that it's because something bigger or better or
44:23
different, you know, I remember when I heard Oprah speak. I got
44:28
to hear her speak in person and meet her, and it was a magical
44:31
evening. It was really remarkable. And I have a
44:34
recording of her talking, and one of the things she said is,
44:37
she says, You know, I had these thoughts, these ideas are like
44:39
what I wanted. And she says, But God, dreams a bigger dream for
44:42
me than I could dream for myself. So so often we limit
44:47
ourselves. We do not dream big enough. We don't get our hopes
44:50
up enough, and we keep ourselves in these small little boxes, and
44:53
we think, well, that's just not possible for a person like me.
44:57
That's just not possible for X, Y and Z. However you see
45:00
yourself, this identity that you've created right beyond
45:03
being one of God's kids, we slap all these labels on ourselves,
45:07
and a lot of times, we don't allow ourselves to dream big or
45:09
to think something is possible. We give up, we become hopeless.
45:14
We tell ourselves, oh, my dreams don't matter, or that doesn't
45:17
matter, or there's no fixing the world, or we're never going to
45:20
be united again, we're always going to be divided. And I just
45:25
don't. I can't let myself believe that. And it's not that
45:29
I'm pollyannish. I just don't. I just think like no, because I
45:32
know what can happen. I know that miracles happen. And again,
45:37
I'm not talking like miracles, like walking on water. I'm
45:40
talking about people choosing to actually listen to each other,
45:45
people being open to seeing a different point of view, people
45:48
actually listening to understand. I remain hopeful
45:53
that we're not always going to be it's not always going to be
45:56
that this country is not going in the direction that I see it
45:59
going in. I have to remain hopeful that will, there will be
46:03
a time when perhaps, and look, it hasn't always been good. And
46:08
this is the whole thing about like, again. Don't get me
46:10
started about the whole mega make America great again. I'm
46:13
like, great for who wasn't always great for black people.
46:16
Wasn't always great for gay people. Wasn't always always
46:19
great for, you know, trans people wasn't always great for
46:23
indigenous folks. Wasn't always great for women. Wasn't always
46:26
great, you know, wasn't always great for a lot of us. How about
46:29
we have hope for a new vision, a new United and actually United
46:34
States for America, where we take the words of the
46:36
Constitution that says all men are created equal under God,
46:40
right? What if we actually like live that and believe that? What
46:45
a different, different experience we'd all be having.
46:49
And then I couldn't talk about hope, whatever you feel about
46:54
Barack Obama. I mean, I was gonna say I don't really care.
46:57
It's not true. I guess I'm always open to listening to
47:00
people, but I'm a fan, okay? And I remember back in 2008
47:08
when he came to New Hampshire, and I got to hear him speak
47:11
live, and what a powerful, powerful orator he was. And
47:15
these are just a couple of quotes, because he ran his whole
47:18
campaign. He ran his whole first campaign on hope. I will never
47:22
forget it, because I remember feeling so fcking hopeful. I was
47:26
so full of hope, this vision, when you when, when I heard him
47:29
speak in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
47:34
It wasn't there in person for that one, but I heard it. I
47:37
think it was like the shot heard around the world, that voice and
47:39
how much hope he had and how smart he was. And it was and it
47:42
was brilliant. And I just wanted to share this with you. So he
47:49
says this, one of the things he said is, hope is not false. You
47:53
know, people talk about false hope. He's like, here's one
47:56
thing that I can tell you, that hope has never been and that's
47:58
false, okay? And he said this at the New Hampshire primary in his
48:03
New Hampshire primary speech, January 8, 2008 this is what he
48:06
said. He says, When we have faced down impossible odds, when
48:11
we've been told we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or
48:15
that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a
48:20
simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people, yes we can,
48:29
and that right there, yes we can. That is the language of
48:32
hope. That's me talking now, right? We've been we've have
48:35
faced impossible odds. We've been told we're not ready, that
48:38
we shouldn't even try, that we can't. And generations after
48:42
generations after generations of Americans have responded with a
48:46
very simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people, and it's
48:51
yes we can, and to me, that is hopeful, and I think that we
48:55
can. And then his beautiful wife, Michelle, I'm going to
48:59
leave you with these two things, she had said this in 2011 she
49:04
says, we may not always have a comfortable life, and you will
49:09
not always be able to solve all the world's problems all at
49:13
once, but don't ever underestimate the impact You can
49:18
have, because history has shown us that courage can be
49:23
contagious and hope can take on a life of its own. Hope indeed
49:30
can take on a life of its own. And I think if we just keep our
49:36
hopes up, if we hold on to that glimmer of light in our hearts,
49:42
whoo, it can take on a life of its own. And then she also said
49:46
this in 2017 she says something that has carried us through
49:51
every moment. She said, in this White House and in every moment
49:55
of our lives, is the power of hope. The belief that something
50:01
better is always possible if you're willing to work for it
50:07
and fight for it. And this is the part of me saying we have to
50:11
take hope out of this airy fairy kind of just like pie in the sky
50:16
idea this Pollyanna ish, like, Oh my goodness. And you get your
50:21
hands dirty, you get your ass in gear, you get down to business,
50:24
and you fight for it, and you work for it, and you train your
50:27
mind to be looking for the good, the beautiful and the holy. You
50:30
trained your mind to be hopeful instead of hopeless and
50:35
helpless. You reclaim your power back. And for a lot of us right
50:41
now, hope is like an act of resistance. Hope is like a way
50:44
of like, saying, like, no, like, I'm not giving up. I will fight
50:49
for justice. I will speak up on behalf of love. I will be a
50:52
living example of the world, right? I'm going to embody it,
50:56
right? I'm going to emulate internally, what I hope to see
50:59
out there. So it starts with us. It starts with us. And then I'll
51:04
leave you with that famous you know, Margaret Atwood, her quote
51:09
from a Handmaid's Tale, right? And she says, Don't let the
51:14
bastards grind you down. Don't let the bastards grind you down.
51:23
So stay hopeful out there. People, stay hopeful out there.
51:28
So that's what I have for you today. I hope it's helpful in
51:32
some way. I hope you feel reason in your heart to be hopeful. I
51:36
hope your mind is starting to align. The assignment is
51:39
alignment, that we align with love, because so much of what's
51:43
happening in the world right now is fear, and it is designed to
51:47
make people feel divided, to feel helpless, to feel hopeless,
51:52
and one of the acts of resistance, and that's just the
51:54
other thing right to me, hope is a way of kind of just saying,
51:57
like, you know, fuck you to the man, you know what I'm saying,
52:01
like, You're not going to take my joy from me. You're not going
52:03
to take my you're not going to take my belief and our power as
52:07
informed citizens to make a difference in the world. I'm
52:09
just not going to do it. I'm not giving up. I'm not throwing my
52:12
hands up. You know, we were made for these times. If you're on
52:14
the planet right now, you were made for this time, and your
52:18
being here, there's a reason for it you matter. You're worthy.
52:22
You have worth. And it's time that you know those of us who
52:25
are aligned with love, that we get serious, that we get serious
52:28
about our love, that we get serious about our hope, we get
52:31
serious about like, training our mind to be looking for the good,
52:35
the beautiful and the holy, and then to do something about it.
52:39
Okay, that's what I got. I hope you have a fantastic rest of
52:43
your day, evening, whenever you're listening to this, I
52:45
appreciate you so much for tuning in, for listening, for
52:48
watching, however you're taking this in. And if any of this
52:52
feels like, yeah, you know what? I could use a little bit more of
52:54
this in my life. Please come join us in the nest. Just go to
52:57
Karen kenney.com nest. It's my group, spiritual mentoring
53:00
program. It's a beautiful community of like minded people
53:03
who are trying to like, you know, make a difference in the
53:05
world. And they start with themselves. That's the whole
53:07
point. They start with themselves, with their own
53:10
stories, with their own beliefs, their own subconscious beliefs.
53:13
And how do we show up in the world as like, as I say, as
53:17
agents of love. You know what I mean. And if you ever want to
53:22
work together, one to one, that is my one to one spiritual
53:25
mentoring program, and that is called the quest. And again, you
53:28
can find all this stuff on my website at Karen Kenney, k e n,
53:32
n, e y.com, thank you for tuning in wherever you go. May you
53:37
leave yourself in the animals, the other people, the places you
53:41
go and the environment better than how you found it wherever
53:44
you go, may you and your energy and your presence and your love
53:49
and your hope be a blessing. Bye. You.