July 17, 2025 • 34 mins
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I dive into the concept of "bumper rails.”
You know, those metaphorical “guardrails” that keep us from going off track in life, kinda’ like the ones that help little kids bowl without constantly throwing gutter balls. 😆
Drawing from my own childhood memories of time spent at the local bowling alley, I explore how adults need their own grown-up version of bumper rails to stay on course in their own lives.
I break down what I call the "4 Ps" that can help us maintain our path: People, Practices, Principles, and Protocols!
The first P is about surrounding yourself with supportive individuals who know your goals and can gently remind and help you course correct you when you're veering off track.
Practices involve a DSP (Daily Spiritual Practice) and other routines like meditation, yoga, or whatever helps you stay connected to Self, Source, Spirit and your inner wisdom.
Principles are your core values - the lines you won't cross and the codes that keep you true to yourself.
The fourth P is about having protocols in place for when you do slip up. Because let's face it, we're human, we’re clumsy, and we're gonna’ make mistakes.
The key is having a plan in place, to get ourselves back on track, or make amends, and not get stuck in guilt, shame, or blame.
I also share a powerful passage from Mahatma Gandhi about staying on the path, even when in our clumsiness, we might stumble 1000 times.
Ultimately, this episode is about loving and respecting yourself enough to create intentional guardrails in your life.
It's about asking yourself: What do I have in place to keep me on my path?
Whether it's a spiritual community like The Nest, a meditation practice, or a set of personal principles, these bumper rails can help us navigate life and its challenges with more grace and purpose!
KK’S KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Adults need "bumper rails" just like kids do in bowling - systems to keep us from going off track in life.
• The 4 Ps of staying on your path are: People, Practices, Principles, and Protocols.
• People: Surround yourself with supportive individuals who know your goals and can gently redirect you when needed.
• Practices: Develop a DSP (Daily Spiritual Practice) - like meditation, prayer, A Course in Miracles, yoga, or journaling that keeps you connected to your inner wisdom.
• Principles: Establish core values and a personal code that you won't compromise, even when tempted.
• Protocols: Create a solid plan for getting back on track when you inevitably slip or make mistakes.
• The ego mind is a little sketchy - it speaks first, loudest, and is often wrong.
• An undisciplined mind can accomplish nothing, so training your mind through consistent practices is crucial!
• Forgiveness and self-compassion are essential when you fall off your path.
• Always ask yourself: "What do I have in place to keep me on my path?"
• Slipping is part of being human - the goal is to get back up and continue moving forward with intention.
BIO:
Spiritual mentor and writer Karen Kenney uses humor and dynamic storytelling to bring a down-to-earth, no-BS perspective to self-development.
Bringing together tools that coach the conscious and unconscious mind, Karen helps clients deepen their connections with Self, and discover their unique understandings of spirituality.
Her practice combines neuroscience, subconscious reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis, somatics, spiritual mentoring, and other holistic modalities to help regulate the nervous system, examine internal narratives, remove blocks, and reimagine...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:01):
Hey you guys.
Welcome to the Karen Kenneyshow. Oh, I'm feeling a little
fresh. I'm feeling a littlefresh and sprite. Just got out
of the shower. You can see myhair is still a little wet. And
today's episode kind of bringsme back to my childhood a little
bit as well. So we'll just kindof dive into how I landed upon
(00:26):
this episode, and then we'lljust get into the we'll get into
the thick of it. So as you sawfrom the title this this sucker
is called bumper rails. So whenI was a kid, I was talk, first
of all, I was talking with mynephew who I saw recently, and I
was saying, Hey, we should allget together and do something
(00:47):
fun. And, you know, they havekids, and some of my nephews
have kids. And I was like, Sowhat's an age appropriate thing?
And we got to talking, and westarted talking about bowling.
Now, I come from like a bowlingfamily. My mother bowled, my
stepfather bowled. My aunts,like people bowled in my family,
you know. And if you're from theWest Coast, you're used to like
(01:08):
big bowl, big ball bowling. Buthere on the East Coast, we do
what's called candle pinbowling. So our pins are more
like, almost like straight, notthose curvy. I'm doing the thing
with my hands. The shape of myhands. It's not like Baba Papa
shapes. Remember the baba Papacartoon? That's like West Coast
(01:29):
bowling. East Coast bowling ismore like straight up and down
pins and small balls, right? Sothat's the kind of bowling that
I grew up with. So we're like,oh, we should go bowling. And it
got me to thinking about Sandy'sbowling alley. Now Sandy's
bowling alley, we was the placewhere we bowled as kids, and it
(01:50):
was in Salem, althoughtechnically I think it was in
Windham on route 28 but we allsaid it was in Salem for some
reason,
some of you, some of you, someof you East Coast kids, some of
you locals, some of you localMassholes. You might remember
Sandy's bowling, but my motherwas in a league there. My
stepfather was in a leaguethere. We were, there. I spent
so many hours of my childhood,and I remember all of a sudden,
(02:15):
at one point, like we alllearned to bowl just by throwing
the damn ball. But at somepoint, all of a sudden, bumper
rails came onto the scene, andbumper rails were designed for,
I think, several differentreasons. Number one, mostly to
just keep kids from crying.
(02:39):
Because little kids like, losetheir shit when they can't
successfully bowl. And a lot ofkids like, let's just call what
it is they don't have thecoordination yet to know how to
like, step, step, step, I'mswung back, throw the ball down,
keep it on the lane, right. Theywould be would keep kids from
getting like, non stop, gottaballs. And kids in gutta balls,
(03:00):
they would cry because theycouldn't do it right, and they
couldn't do it well, and blah,blah, blah. So all of a sudden,
some guy, some guy in Texas, Ithink, was the one who created
bumper rails. So I think heoriginally started using, like,
cod board tubes along the, youknow, the go. So keep that, keep
the balls out of the gut. Is forhis own son or children. And
(03:21):
then over time, they becamethese inflatable things. And now
they're like these mechanicallike boom, these bumper rails
pop up. You can request them atthe bump at the bowling alley.
So
they also, besides helping kidsto not cry, to have more fun
bowling, one of the other thingsthat they did is because
sometimes a kid like didn't knowtheir own strength. They didn't
(03:44):
have quite, like I said, thecoordination, the movement down.
And a lot of times their ballswould, like, bounce from one
lane into somebody else's lane,and especially on League night,
like, they never let the kidsbowl near the league. They put
the kids on the like, now theydo like glow bowling and shit
like that, like glow in the darkballs and all that fun stuff,
and they just put them in atotally different section. But,
(04:06):
yeah, you wanted to keep yourstuff in your lane and not have
it go bumping out. Okay, so whydo I want to talk about this
today? My speedy and I werehaving a conversation, and we
were talking about somebody or asituation that we'd seen on TV
or whatever it was and oronline, and we were just saying
(04:27):
like there were clearly nobumper rails in that situation,
right? There were clearly nobumper rails to keep that shit
from going wrong and bad and outof control. And I started to
think about this as adults, wedo in our own way, still have
and need bumper rails. Now, whenyou were a little kid, the
(04:51):
bumper rails of your life werereally usually your parents.
Your parents were the ones thatkept you from running into the
middle.
Love the street of the road,from jumping off the building,
from climbing the fence and doit like just doing shit that you
shouldn't do stuff that wasgonna get you hurt in trouble,
like arrested, maybe whatever,right. A lot of times your
(05:16):
parents were your first defenseagainst you paying the
consequences of being yourself.Your parents were the safeguard.
They were the bumper railsbetween you and your own
sometimes stupidity, right? Sonow as adults, right? Our
parents may not even be aliveanymore. They may not be around
(05:39):
anymore. So I started to thinkabout this, and I started to
think about my own life, becausethat's the easiest thing usually
for me to talk about, right? Isobviously my own experience and
how I apply these kind ofuniversal themes, these
spiritual themes, in a morepersonal and like down to earth
way. So I kind of nailed it downto like four Ps, the four Ps of
(06:03):
the bumper rails for us asadults, and why they come in
handy, because there are goingto be times. This is why we kind
of need bumper rails. There aregoing to be times when we kind
of, I always say it's veryhelpful to just accept the fact
that in some way we're all alittle insane, right? To just
accept the fact that we're all alittle cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
(06:26):
We're all a little crazy. Okay?The ego mind is not to be
trusted. The ego mind is fickleas fuck. It is not to be
trusted, as we say in A Coursein Miracles, the ego speaks
first, and it speaks loudest,and I always add, and it's
always wrong, right? The egomind is all into you being
separate and special, and itwill make you special through
(06:49):
arrogance, through superiority,or will make you special
through, you know, awfulness andshittiness. And you don't know
how bad I have it, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, right? So how
do we keep ourselves from goingoff the rails and doing things
that are not reflective of whowe really are or who we really
want to be in the world, right?The choices we make, how we're
(07:12):
showing up, the relationships,how we spend our money, spend
our time, who we spend timewith, all these things, right?
So it's like, how do we keepourselves from doing things that
are like illegal just not goodchoices, not healthy choices,
not hanging out with particularpeople who maybe are not going
to be good for us, our wellbeing, our mental health,
(07:33):
whatever. How do we keepourselves from doing, I would
say, stupid stuff, illegalstuff, stuff that's going to get
you killed, hurt, put in jail orin a big pile of regret, shame
and guilt, and what are some ofthe things that we can put in
place as adults, our own bumperrails. So where before, you
mostly had your parents aschildren, and maybe once in a
(07:56):
while, maybe once in a while,you had a sibling that looked
out for you, but a lot of timesthey kind of wanted you to get
into trouble. So not alwayssuper reliable. Sometimes you
had your friends looking out foryou, and in some cases, right,
maybe you had a really goodschool teacher or a coach, or
like a baseball coach, orsomebody who kept an eye on you,
right?
(08:18):
But once we grow up, we nowbecome responsible for our own
thoughts, words, actions andbehaviors, our own choices, and
left to our own devices again,because the ego mind is a little
insane, we won't always get itright. That's path of the
course. But where can we likeleading accidents are going to
(08:41):
happen, right? We're clumsy.We're just just, just by the
fact that we are in these humanbodies, having this experience
here in the world, we're goingto screw some things out. We're
going to make mistakes, andthank God we have the means to
forgive and to apologize, right?Make amends, because that's
really important. But when we'rereally trying to get somewhere
(09:02):
in life, when we're reallytrying to either transform
something about ourselves,whether it's like letting go of
an old habit or addiction or wayof being or way of thinking or
whatever, it's wicked helpful tohave tools, what I would call
like these tools, these 4p inplace. So we're just going to
break them down, kind of likeone by one, and these are the
(09:23):
things that I think about. Soinstead of like, keeping you
from going off the rails, right,kind of like in bowling, I'm
kind of like, what are thethings that we have in place, or
can have in place to keep us onthe path, to keep us on the path
that we have set out forourselves, and whether that is a
path that is like there's a goalright that you're trying to
(09:45):
reach, or whether there's someold story that you're trying to
let go of, maybe it's some sortof a healing, mental, physical,
emotional, spiritual, whateverit is, there's a path that we
find ourselves on. So what arethese four things that.
The four Ps that keep us on thepath. Number one is people
instead of your parents. Now,now maybe your parents are still
(10:06):
alive, and they do stillinfluence you, right? I've known
many, many adults who have saidto me, Oh, my God, my father
would kill me if I did that. Oh,my mother would be so
disappointed if I do this.Right? I think at some point, as
an adult, you have to startliving for yourself. You have to
make choices that resonate foryou, and you have to leave some
of the, you know, the originfamily kind of
(10:29):
contracts that you kind of haveto sign when you're a child.
Right in this house, we do thisin our house. We don't talk
about that here. This is how itis. As long as you're under my
roof, this is how it's going tobe, right? Well, once you're out
into the world and you're makingyour own choices, right, your
parents may not be as strong ofan influence in your life if
(10:50):
they ever even were to beginwith. A lot of times, sometimes,
right, a lot of times, sometimesparents are actually posted
children for how we never wantto do it, how we never want to
do it. I call that accidentalteachers, right? They taught us
how we never, ever, ever, everwant to be in some ways. Okay,
(11:15):
not throwing out. You can'tthrow out. Look at I always say,
if we're going to blame, ifyou're going to blame your
caretakers, your earliestcaretakers, your caregivers,
your parents, your people,right? Your guardians. For
everything that's gone wrong. Alot of times, the thing that
that went wrong also made us whowe are. So we gotta give some
credit where it's due. That's,well, that's a whole of the
whole of the episode for anotherday. Okay? Number one people. So
(11:38):
who are the people that you'resurrounding yourself with like
in the physical world, who arethe people you spend the most
time with? Because these peopleare either going to help you get
where you want to go, or they'regoing to distract you. They're
going to detain you, they'regoing to screw things up for
you. They're not going to besetting good examples. They are
(11:59):
not going to have thediscipline, maybe, for the goals
that you have and stuff likethat, you know, and you've,
we've heard 1000 times that youadd the sum of the five people
that you spend the most timewith,
I don't know how much I believelike that in its entirety. I
definitely think the people weare surrounded by can be
(12:22):
influential, but I do think thatsometimes we outgrow certain
behaviors of certain people, andwe can still love them, but
maybe we just don't spend asmuch time with them. Maybe we
spend some time with them. So Ithink, you know, in this day and
age of the internet, it's reallyeasy to try to do these quippy
little sayings, but there's somuch nuance in human
(12:44):
relationships, right? So yeah,but we are influenced a lot,
certainly growing up, certainlygrowing up, because we are so
suggestible and highlyhypnotizable and influence
influenceable, right? We are soeasily imprinted upon to make an
oppression on us as little kids,especially between, you know,
(13:05):
literally the third trimester inthe womb to about eight years
old. You know, all that stuff iskind of from our parents and our
environment and the experiencesand the events and all that
stuff is getting imprinted onus. But So still, as adults, the
people that you have in placearound you, your sweetie, your
siblings, your family, your bestfriends, your coworkers,
(13:26):
whatever, these people, and I'mtalking like maybe a handful of
people, are people who youreally want to know. You really
want to know your goals. Reallywant to know what your dreams
are, the direction you'reheading in, in the path that
you're on, because when youstart to slip, when you start to
(13:46):
slip and get off the path, andwhether this is a mentor,
whether this is a community ofsome sort, whether it's a coach
or somebody that you're notpaying, it could be, like I
said, family or friends. Youwant somebody or or a group of
somebody is to say, Hey, Inoticed this. I'm not judging
you. I'm not judging you out ofcuriosity, though I'm curious,
(14:07):
like, what's going on with this?Because it seems to me that you
said you wanted to do X, Y andZ,
and yet you're making somechoices that maybe aren't going
to be in alignment with what yousay. Like, I always say the
assignment is alignment, right?Some of these choices don't seem
to be in alignment with what youtold us you wanted to
(14:28):
accomplish. So having peoplethere, not as gatekeepers, not
as babysitters, not to, like,wag their finger in your face,
but as gentle reminders, like,Hey, you said this thing was
important to you, and I'm justwondering, like, what's going on
with you? Have you turned acorner? Have you decided to drop
this goal? Are you no longer inpursuit of are you just gonna
(14:51):
take a break? Like, what'sshaken because the voice in our
head can be so loud and socritical and so dis.
Deceiving. So deceiving that egomind, right? It is not our
friend, and it can really get inthe way, and it can take us out
at the knees, and it cansidetrack us. So number one,
(15:12):
right? Your bumper Rails isadults. Number one is people.
Who do you have in place aroundyou, to support you, to guide
you, and mostly just to remindyou of your own hearts, desires,
dreams, wishes, plans, goals.Okay. Number two, having some
practices in place. Now, peoplewho come to work with me, we
(15:33):
always talk about having a DSP,a daily spiritual practice.
Because one of the things that Iknow, and it says it in A Course
in Miracles, and it is said inother ways and other traditions,
is that, you know, anundisciplined mind can
accomplish nothing. An untrainedmind can accomplish nothing. One
of the great things about havinga daily spiritual practice,
(15:55):
especially if it includesmeditation, contemplation,
prayer, these things that you doon a daily basis, meditation
specifically, can really help,not only to quiet the mind,
right, but it doesn't alwaysquiet the mind. Sometimes
there's a lot of chatter, butsometimes you might, and
sometimes you might need tobring your mind back to the
present moment 1000 times, butthat right there is the training
(16:18):
of the mind to be able to placeyour mind where you want to
place it when you want to placeit there, so that you are not
just being bullied by your ownbrain, by your own voice in your
own head, that you have someauthority, some agency, some
authorship right, some autonomyaway From the chatter of your
(16:40):
mind and being able to have adaily DSP, to have a daily
spiritual practice, right? Andfor some people, it's doing
their rosary beads. For somepeople, it's doing like a mantra
on a mala bead. For some people,it's passage meditation, right?
It is the repetition of apassage in your mind, or
repetition of a mantra orwhatever. But being able to have
(17:04):
practices in place. For somepeople, it might be breathing
practices, a yoga practice. Itmight be that you run or that
you strength train, that's yourpractice. You go out into nature
and you commune with nature.That could be your practice. For
some people, I know some peoplewho swim, and for them, swimming
like gets them in the water, itputs them into this buoyant
(17:26):
state, and then it's breathingand movement. It's meditation
and motion, right? So havingpractices that keep you from
going off the rails, that kindof keep you on this path, so
that you are able to you
know, put your mind where youwant to put it, and to be
(17:48):
guided, and to be able to slowdown enough that you can hear
the wisdom from your owninternal teacher, your own
internal voice, your own divineintelligence, whether you call
that Spirit, Holy Spirit,intuition in a teacher, gut
instinct, whatever it is thatyou have some practices in place
(18:09):
that consistently put you intouch with yourself, with source
and with spirit, I have foundthis to be highly not only
invaluable, but incrediblypractical. You know, people
think of spirituality sometimes,or spiritual practices as being
like, you know, like, oh, like,I don't want to say, woo, woo.
(18:32):
That's more like the moreesoteric, like the tarot cards
and the,
you know, divination tools and,you know, why can't I think of
the word incense, and like allthe enneagrams and the human
design, like all those things,all those systems, right? And
I'm not, there's nothing wrongwith those. I'm just saying,
(18:52):
right? I'm talking like thingsthat you actually are using on a
daily basis to remind you of whoyou truly are to remind you of
the path that you are choosingto walk on, and to be able to,
and I don't mean control yourmind. It sounds so like it
sounds so like rigid, but to beable to place your mind it will
(19:13):
where you want to, so that youare not thrown about, like when
the ego mind gets crazy. So justdouble A men hands, if you're a
person who has anxiety, double Amen hands, if you're a person
who has some sort of depressive,
depression, panic attacks whenyou feel like, what are they
(19:34):
called, not ruminating thoughts,but like obsessive thoughts,
when you can't stop thinkingabout something that is a mind
that is now like is puppeteeringyou, and we want to be able to
bring ourselves back to thepresent moment and to make
conscious choices so we are notbeing Ping ponged around by the
(19:56):
external world and by by chatterin our.
That is not helpful. I mean, Ican just keep talking about
that, but let's stop there fornumber two. So we have people is
the first P right? And practicesthings like, like, I said, daily
spiritual practices of somekind. For some people, it's like
writing and journaling. For somepeople, it's like making art.
(20:16):
For some people, it's dance,like, whatever your I always
say, like, it's not for me totell you how you are supposed to
commune with the divine, but Iam always really interested in
helping people creating personalpractices that support them
on their spiritual path. Okay,number 3p the number 3p is
principles. So you can think ofyour principles as kind of like
(20:41):
these core values, how youidentify, like who you are. An
example of that is you mighthave these things where you say,
I'm the kind of person who, or Iwant to be the kind of person
who, so that when your actionsor your thoughts are starting to
get a little wonky, a littlewacky, a little like, out of
(21:04):
alignment, when you're startingto maybe make some choices that
are raising some eyebrows, or,like, getting some side eye,
making little side eyes andwaggling my eyebrows right when
people like, what's up withthat? Or you might even be
feeling that, like, What the iswrong with me? Like, why am I
doing that?
If we can have some principlesin place that say, like, this is
(21:26):
a line that I never cross, thisis not something I would do. I'm
not going to steal from I'mmaking these up, right? I would
never steal. I'm not somebodywho's going to
lie on behalf of whatever. I'mgoing to do my best to always
tell the truth. I'm not going tolike cheat on a test. Blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah. We getsome principles in place when we
(21:49):
get a little tempted, becauseyou will be tempted by this
world to abandon your values, toabandon your morals and your
ethics. I mean, hey, take a lookaround at the world right now,
there's a lot of moral bending.There's a lot of bullshit that's
happening out there under theguise of, like, quote, unquote,
(22:10):
religious beat what? Don't getme started, and we're back.
Don't get me started. But wewant to have some personal
principles in place so that whenwe find ourselves starting to go
a little bit out of the lane, alittle bit off the rails, we can
look back on that and say,That's right, this is important
to me. I have a code remind Noteto self. I gotta do that episode
(22:32):
about codes, right? You gottahave a code and your principles,
self principleing, because therewon't always be your people
around there are going to bemoments when you feel tempted.
Let me give an example. Iremember speaking to a friend
one time, and I would love tohear from people about this, but
I remember speaking to him,speaking to a male, an old male
(22:54):
friend of mine, one time, and heis convinced. He is convinced
that all men will cheat on theirpartners, male or female.
Given if you were to say to aman, right, you will not get
(23:14):
caught, like if you couldsomehow give them a guarantee,
right? In this magical, in thismagical like
story that he is telling methis. Imagine a world where you
can cheat on your partner andnever get caught. He said to me,
every single man would do it.And I looked him in the face and
I said, I don't believe that.
(23:35):
I don't think they would.
I said, I think there's a lot ofmen out there that have certain
principles that they would neverdo, that they wouldn't do that
to their wives. They wouldn't dothat to their family. I'm not in
PS. I'm not judging anybody ifyou have or haven't or whatever.
I'm just saying I don't buy intothis whole all men think with
their dicks, and all men can't,like help themselves. I know
(23:56):
some highly principled people,and I said to him, I don't think
that's true. And he just laughedand shook his head, like poor
me, like poor me, because I'msuch a sucker that I believed in
the goodness of people, right?The goodness of some men
somewhere. Oh, my God. But youknow, maybe I am a sucker, but I
do choose to believe that thereare still some really principled
people out there, right? Sohaving principles
(24:22):
keep us on track right, keep uson that path. And then here's
this protocols in place for whenmaybe you slip, for when maybe
you lose your way. You slip offthe path, you lose track, you
get diverted in the woods, andyou take a path less traveled,
right, or maybe a path youshouldn't be on, right, and all
(24:43):
of a sudden you're like, Oh,shit. We got to have some
protocols in place. It's like,okay, I left the path. Now?
What? Now? What do I do? And itdoesn't help us to just kind of
stay in the shitty diaper, inthe victim loop, feeling sorry.
It's like, no, if there'ssomebody to make amends to.
To own your shit. Own up to it.I slipped, I screwed up, I made
(25:05):
a mistake. I did X, Y and Z. Ilost my way. I forgot. I forgot
to check in with my people. Ilet my practices slide. I
haven't been doing my DSPlately, right? I didn't check in
with my principals because Ididn't want to think about them,
because I just wanted to do thething that I wanted to do, even
though I knew it wouldn't endWell, right? When that kind of
(25:27):
stuff goes down, we want to havesome protocols in place. Step
one, this is what I'm going todo. Step two, then I need to
make amends. Step three, andsometimes who you need to
apologize to is yourself,because you might not always be
hurting another person, butsometimes the things that you
choose to do, you only end uphurting yourself because you
(25:47):
lose self respect, you lose yourself integrity, right? And then
you start to get yourself intoshame and blame and guilt and
all these regrets and thingsthat are not very helpful. So
having protocols in place ofthis is how I get myself back on
track, you know, in an AA and indifferent things, that's why
(26:09):
they give like chips, right?They give those chips, like your
24 hour chip, and then you getlike your day chip, and we and
it goes on, right, your monthand your years and whatever.
Because when you slip, one ofthe things, one of the
protocols, is now you start allover again, you go back, and you
start and you get your nextchip, right? You get a 24 hour
chip, right? So there's thingsin place that help you to stay
(26:31):
on the path. And here's thething, if you slip on the path,
it is not going to feel goodwhen those bumper rails are not
in place, and we go outside,when we go rolling into somebody
else's lane, or we are in thegutter, in the gutter, in the
gutter, making choices that keepus in the gutter. It is not
going to feel good. It is notgoing to feel good even Gandhi.
(26:55):
Even Gandhi talked about this,Mahatma Gandhi, and I love this.
It's called the path. I callthis the path, right? And this
is what, this is what MahatmaGandhi said. He says, I know the
path. It is straight and narrow.It is like the edge of a sword.
I rejoice to walk on it. I weepwhen I slip
(27:19):
God's word. Is
he who strives, never perishes.
I have implicit faith in thatpromise, though, therefore from
my weakness, I fail 1000 times Ishall not lose faith.
(27:43):
I shall not lose faith, becausehere's the thing you guys, you
slip off the path right. You getyourself back up. You get back
to the business of love. You getback to the business of being
right a person of their word, oflike relearning to trust
yourself again. Keep your wordto yourself. Keep your word to
other people, etc, right? He whostrives never perishes. So we
(28:07):
don't just throw our hands upand say, I blew it. Too bad. No,
you go back to those P's. You goback to your people. Maybe you
get a sponsor. You go back toyour people. Maybe you join a
group like the nest, right? Mygroup, mentoring program, right?
A spiritual community like youfind, like I said, in the nest,
right? If you want to join orcheck it out, just go to
(28:30):
excuse me. Karenkenney.com/nest,
N, E, S T, maybe you go back toyour yoga studio or your church
group or your whatever it is.You get in touch with your
family, or an old mentor, or youhire a coach, or you hire a
spiritual mentor, like I workwith people, etc, etc, right?
You get back to your people,
(28:51):
you get back to your practices.Because one of the things that I
find, especially with clientsand people in the nest and
people I've worked with over theyears, almost always when
somebody says to me, I've beenhaving a hard time lately, I
will say to them, how's your DSPgoing? And they'll inevitably
say to me, I haven't really beendoing it lately,
(29:15):
and it's like Exactly, exactly.And so the practice is the DSP
keeps us locked in, keeps us ontrack. Okay? And then you have
those principles, who you are,what you stand on, what's your
code, what you really believe.Those principles will keep you
from making suspicious decision,right? Choices where it's like,
(29:36):
Mmm, that sounds a little toogood be true. That sounds a
little crooked, that sounds alittle off, right? Do your
homework. Make sure right. Checkin with your principals. Am I
the kind of person who would dothis, buy this, say this, you
know, all that stuff. Supportthis,
vote this way, whatever, andthen have those protocols in
(29:56):
place, because it is inevitable,man, that we are going to slip.
We are going to make mistakes.And I'm not saying slipping,
like with sobriety, but justwe're clumsy. We're going to say
a thing, do a thing, and thenafterwards go. I should have
thought about that longer. Ishould have been a little more
patient. I maybe shouldn't have,like, said yes, like, whatever
it is, and it's just the natureof being human. And this is why
(30:18):
forgiveness is such a powerfulpractice, and having grace and
mercy and compassion forourselves and others when we do
slip up. So this is the questionI want to leave you with. What
do you have in place currentlyto keep you on the path?
Just pause. Take a big breathin,
(30:42):
exhale it out twice as long.
And think on this, what are thepeople you have in place? What
are the practices, theprinciples and the protocols?
What do you have in place tokeep you on your path?
And if there's some place wherethere's some gaps or some holes,
(31:02):
and you want to work on thatstuff. You know where to find
me, right? Just go to Karenkenney.com
but it's important that you taketime, I think, to answer this,
because it's so easy to go onautopilot with your life, to
just go through the motions, tojust get through the day, to
just survive the day. And westop living intentionally. We
stop living with intention andattention, and we kind of just
(31:24):
start to become little robotsgoing through the motions,
right? And I get it. I get it.Being alive on this planet,
being human is wicked hard man.It's wicked hard. It's
especially hard right now. Imean, it has been hard when I
look back. I mean, I haven'tbeen alive through all of the
awful things that have happenedin this country and in this
(31:46):
world, but when I look back andI think, like, you know, we
often say there's that phrase,right? We need love now more
than ever. I'm like, I don'tknow. I can think back to like,
1940s when we really needed lovein the 50s and the 60s, when we
were I just think we need loveall the time in the most
capacity possible, and maybe theworld would look a little
(32:07):
different. And that's what Ithink about these four Ps,
right? The people, thepractices, the principles and
the protocols, these are ways ofloving. These are ways of loving
ourselves and keeping us,keeping us on the path of love.
So I
think that's what I got. I'llprobably think of something in
(32:28):
20 minutes, and wish I had saidit. But for now, that's what
I've got. I hope it's helpful insome way and beneficial. And if
you feel like it has been foryou, maybe it will be for
somebody else that you love. Soshare it. Spread the link. I
don't know, tell somebody aboutit. I always, I always
appreciate it when people let meknow and reach out and say, Oh,
(32:48):
I sent this to my cousin, or Isent this to my auntie, or I
sent this to my friend. So justthank you, and thank you to
everybody who is a loyallistener. New listeners.
Welcome. I'm so happy to haveyou here. As I always say, you
can find all things on Karenkenney.com if you want to get
this podcast directly into youremail inbox every Thursday
morning, bright and early, justgo to Karen kenney.com/sign
(33:12):
up. It's wicked easy, and that'sit. Okay, wherever you go, you
guys, may you leave the animalsthe people, the planet, the
environment and yourself betterthan how you first found it.
Wherever you go, may you andyour energy and your presence
and your love and your bumperrails
(33:36):
be a blessing. Bye, you.
Hey you guys.
Welcome to the Karen Kenneyshow. Oh, I'm feeling a little
fresh. I'm feeling a littlefresh and sprite. Just got out
of the shower. You can see myhair is still a little wet. And
today's episode kind of bringsme back to my childhood a little
bit as well. So we'll just kindof dive into how I landed upon
(00:26):
this episode, and then we'lljust get into the we'll get into
the thick of it. So as you sawfrom the title this this sucker
is called bumper rails. So whenI was a kid, I was talk, first
of all, I was talking with mynephew who I saw recently, and I
was saying, Hey, we should allget together and do something
(00:47):
fun. And, you know, they havekids, and some of my nephews
have kids. And I was like, Sowhat's an age appropriate thing?
And we got to talking, and westarted talking about bowling.
Now, I come from like a bowlingfamily. My mother bowled, my
stepfather bowled. My aunts,like people bowled in my family,
you know. And if you're from theWest Coast, you're used to like
(01:08):
big bowl, big ball bowling. Buthere on the East Coast, we do
what's called candle pinbowling. So our pins are more
like, almost like straight, notthose curvy. I'm doing the thing
with my hands. The shape of myhands. It's not like Baba Papa
shapes. Remember the baba Papacartoon? That's like West Coast
(01:29):
bowling. East Coast bowling ismore like straight up and down
pins and small balls, right? Sothat's the kind of bowling that
I grew up with. So we're like,oh, we should go bowling. And it
got me to thinking about Sandy'sbowling alley. Now Sandy's
bowling alley, we was the placewhere we bowled as kids, and it
(01:50):
was in Salem, althoughtechnically I think it was in
Windham on route 28 but we allsaid it was in Salem for some
reason,
some of you, some of you, someof you East Coast kids, some of
you locals, some of you localMassholes. You might remember
Sandy's bowling, but my motherwas in a league there. My
stepfather was in a leaguethere. We were, there. I spent
so many hours of my childhood,and I remember all of a sudden,
(02:15):
at one point, like we alllearned to bowl just by throwing
the damn ball. But at somepoint, all of a sudden, bumper
rails came onto the scene, andbumper rails were designed for,
I think, several differentreasons. Number one, mostly to
just keep kids from crying.
(02:39):
Because little kids like, losetheir shit when they can't
successfully bowl. And a lot ofkids like, let's just call what
it is they don't have thecoordination yet to know how to
like, step, step, step, I'mswung back, throw the ball down,
keep it on the lane, right. Theywould be would keep kids from
getting like, non stop, gottaballs. And kids in gutta balls,
(03:00):
they would cry because theycouldn't do it right, and they
couldn't do it well, and blah,blah, blah. So all of a sudden,
some guy, some guy in Texas, Ithink, was the one who created
bumper rails. So I think heoriginally started using, like,
cod board tubes along the, youknow, the go. So keep that, keep
the balls out of the gut. Is forhis own son or children. And
(03:21):
then over time, they becamethese inflatable things. And now
they're like these mechanicallike boom, these bumper rails
pop up. You can request them atthe bump at the bowling alley.
So
they also, besides helping kidsto not cry, to have more fun
bowling, one of the other thingsthat they did is because
sometimes a kid like didn't knowtheir own strength. They didn't
(03:44):
have quite, like I said, thecoordination, the movement down.
And a lot of times their ballswould, like, bounce from one
lane into somebody else's lane,and especially on League night,
like, they never let the kidsbowl near the league. They put
the kids on the like, now theydo like glow bowling and shit
like that, like glow in the darkballs and all that fun stuff,
and they just put them in atotally different section. But,
(04:06):
yeah, you wanted to keep yourstuff in your lane and not have
it go bumping out. Okay, so whydo I want to talk about this
today? My speedy and I werehaving a conversation, and we
were talking about somebody or asituation that we'd seen on TV
or whatever it was and oronline, and we were just saying
(04:27):
like there were clearly nobumper rails in that situation,
right? There were clearly nobumper rails to keep that shit
from going wrong and bad and outof control. And I started to
think about this as adults, wedo in our own way, still have
and need bumper rails. Now, whenyou were a little kid, the
(04:51):
bumper rails of your life werereally usually your parents.
Your parents were the ones thatkept you from running into the
middle.
Love the street of the road,from jumping off the building,
from climbing the fence and doit like just doing shit that you
shouldn't do stuff that wasgonna get you hurt in trouble,
like arrested, maybe whatever,right. A lot of times your
(05:16):
parents were your first defenseagainst you paying the
consequences of being yourself.Your parents were the safeguard.
They were the bumper railsbetween you and your own
sometimes stupidity, right? Sonow as adults, right? Our
parents may not even be aliveanymore. They may not be around
(05:39):
anymore. So I started to thinkabout this, and I started to
think about my own life, becausethat's the easiest thing usually
for me to talk about, right? Isobviously my own experience and
how I apply these kind ofuniversal themes, these
spiritual themes, in a morepersonal and like down to earth
way. So I kind of nailed it downto like four Ps, the four Ps of
(06:03):
the bumper rails for us asadults, and why they come in
handy, because there are goingto be times. This is why we kind
of need bumper rails. There aregoing to be times when we kind
of, I always say it's veryhelpful to just accept the fact
that in some way we're all alittle insane, right? To just
accept the fact that we're all alittle cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
(06:26):
We're all a little crazy. Okay?The ego mind is not to be
trusted. The ego mind is fickleas fuck. It is not to be
trusted, as we say in A Coursein Miracles, the ego speaks
first, and it speaks loudest,and I always add, and it's
always wrong, right? The egomind is all into you being
separate and special, and itwill make you special through
(06:49):
arrogance, through superiority,or will make you special
through, you know, awfulness andshittiness. And you don't know
how bad I have it, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, right? So how
do we keep ourselves from goingoff the rails and doing things
that are not reflective of whowe really are or who we really
want to be in the world, right?The choices we make, how we're
(07:12):
showing up, the relationships,how we spend our money, spend
our time, who we spend timewith, all these things, right?
So it's like, how do we keepourselves from doing things that
are like illegal just not goodchoices, not healthy choices,
not hanging out with particularpeople who maybe are not going
to be good for us, our wellbeing, our mental health,
(07:33):
whatever. How do we keepourselves from doing, I would
say, stupid stuff, illegalstuff, stuff that's going to get
you killed, hurt, put in jail orin a big pile of regret, shame
and guilt, and what are some ofthe things that we can put in
place as adults, our own bumperrails. So where before, you
mostly had your parents aschildren, and maybe once in a
(07:56):
while, maybe once in a while,you had a sibling that looked
out for you, but a lot of timesthey kind of wanted you to get
into trouble. So not alwayssuper reliable. Sometimes you
had your friends looking out foryou, and in some cases, right,
maybe you had a really goodschool teacher or a coach, or
like a baseball coach, orsomebody who kept an eye on you,
right?
(08:18):
But once we grow up, we nowbecome responsible for our own
thoughts, words, actions andbehaviors, our own choices, and
left to our own devices again,because the ego mind is a little
insane, we won't always get itright. That's path of the
course. But where can we likeleading accidents are going to
(08:41):
happen, right? We're clumsy.We're just just, just by the
fact that we are in these humanbodies, having this experience
here in the world, we're goingto screw some things out. We're
going to make mistakes, andthank God we have the means to
forgive and to apologize, right?Make amends, because that's
really important. But when we'rereally trying to get somewhere
(09:02):
in life, when we're reallytrying to either transform
something about ourselves,whether it's like letting go of
an old habit or addiction or wayof being or way of thinking or
whatever, it's wicked helpful tohave tools, what I would call
like these tools, these 4p inplace. So we're just going to
break them down, kind of likeone by one, and these are the
(09:23):
things that I think about. Soinstead of like, keeping you
from going off the rails, right,kind of like in bowling, I'm
kind of like, what are thethings that we have in place, or
can have in place to keep us onthe path, to keep us on the path
that we have set out forourselves, and whether that is a
path that is like there's a goalright that you're trying to
(09:45):
reach, or whether there's someold story that you're trying to
let go of, maybe it's some sortof a healing, mental, physical,
emotional, spiritual, whateverit is, there's a path that we
find ourselves on. So what arethese four things that.
The four Ps that keep us on thepath. Number one is people
instead of your parents. Now,now maybe your parents are still
(10:06):
alive, and they do stillinfluence you, right? I've known
many, many adults who have saidto me, Oh, my God, my father
would kill me if I did that. Oh,my mother would be so
disappointed if I do this.Right? I think at some point, as
an adult, you have to startliving for yourself. You have to
make choices that resonate foryou, and you have to leave some
of the, you know, the originfamily kind of
(10:29):
contracts that you kind of haveto sign when you're a child.
Right in this house, we do thisin our house. We don't talk
about that here. This is how itis. As long as you're under my
roof, this is how it's going tobe, right? Well, once you're out
into the world and you're makingyour own choices, right, your
parents may not be as strong ofan influence in your life if
(10:50):
they ever even were to beginwith. A lot of times, sometimes,
right, a lot of times, sometimesparents are actually posted
children for how we never wantto do it, how we never want to
do it. I call that accidentalteachers, right? They taught us
how we never, ever, ever, everwant to be in some ways. Okay,
(11:15):
not throwing out. You can'tthrow out. Look at I always say,
if we're going to blame, ifyou're going to blame your
caretakers, your earliestcaretakers, your caregivers,
your parents, your people,right? Your guardians. For
everything that's gone wrong. Alot of times, the thing that
that went wrong also made us whowe are. So we gotta give some
credit where it's due. That's,well, that's a whole of the
whole of the episode for anotherday. Okay? Number one people. So
(11:38):
who are the people that you'resurrounding yourself with like
in the physical world, who arethe people you spend the most
time with? Because these peopleare either going to help you get
where you want to go, or they'regoing to distract you. They're
going to detain you, they'regoing to screw things up for
you. They're not going to besetting good examples. They are
(11:59):
not going to have thediscipline, maybe, for the goals
that you have and stuff likethat, you know, and you've,
we've heard 1000 times that youadd the sum of the five people
that you spend the most timewith,
I don't know how much I believelike that in its entirety. I
definitely think the people weare surrounded by can be
(12:22):
influential, but I do think thatsometimes we outgrow certain
behaviors of certain people, andwe can still love them, but
maybe we just don't spend asmuch time with them. Maybe we
spend some time with them. So Ithink, you know, in this day and
age of the internet, it's reallyeasy to try to do these quippy
little sayings, but there's somuch nuance in human
(12:44):
relationships, right? So yeah,but we are influenced a lot,
certainly growing up, certainlygrowing up, because we are so
suggestible and highlyhypnotizable and influence
influenceable, right? We are soeasily imprinted upon to make an
oppression on us as little kids,especially between, you know,
(13:05):
literally the third trimester inthe womb to about eight years
old. You know, all that stuff iskind of from our parents and our
environment and the experiencesand the events and all that
stuff is getting imprinted onus. But So still, as adults, the
people that you have in placearound you, your sweetie, your
siblings, your family, your bestfriends, your coworkers,
(13:26):
whatever, these people, and I'mtalking like maybe a handful of
people, are people who youreally want to know. You really
want to know your goals. Reallywant to know what your dreams
are, the direction you'reheading in, in the path that
you're on, because when youstart to slip, when you start to
(13:46):
slip and get off the path, andwhether this is a mentor,
whether this is a community ofsome sort, whether it's a coach
or somebody that you're notpaying, it could be, like I
said, family or friends. Youwant somebody or or a group of
somebody is to say, Hey, Inoticed this. I'm not judging
you. I'm not judging you out ofcuriosity, though I'm curious,
(14:07):
like, what's going on with this?Because it seems to me that you
said you wanted to do X, Y andZ,
and yet you're making somechoices that maybe aren't going
to be in alignment with what yousay. Like, I always say the
assignment is alignment, right?Some of these choices don't seem
to be in alignment with what youtold us you wanted to
(14:28):
accomplish. So having peoplethere, not as gatekeepers, not
as babysitters, not to, like,wag their finger in your face,
but as gentle reminders, like,Hey, you said this thing was
important to you, and I'm justwondering, like, what's going on
with you? Have you turned acorner? Have you decided to drop
this goal? Are you no longer inpursuit of are you just gonna
(14:51):
take a break? Like, what'sshaken because the voice in our
head can be so loud and socritical and so dis.
Deceiving. So deceiving that egomind, right? It is not our
friend, and it can really get inthe way, and it can take us out
at the knees, and it cansidetrack us. So number one,
(15:12):
right? Your bumper Rails isadults. Number one is people.
Who do you have in place aroundyou, to support you, to guide
you, and mostly just to remindyou of your own hearts, desires,
dreams, wishes, plans, goals.Okay. Number two, having some
practices in place. Now, peoplewho come to work with me, we
(15:33):
always talk about having a DSP,a daily spiritual practice.
Because one of the things that Iknow, and it says it in A Course
in Miracles, and it is said inother ways and other traditions,
is that, you know, anundisciplined mind can
accomplish nothing. An untrainedmind can accomplish nothing. One
of the great things about havinga daily spiritual practice,
(15:55):
especially if it includesmeditation, contemplation,
prayer, these things that you doon a daily basis, meditation
specifically, can really help,not only to quiet the mind,
right, but it doesn't alwaysquiet the mind. Sometimes
there's a lot of chatter, butsometimes you might, and
sometimes you might need tobring your mind back to the
present moment 1000 times, butthat right there is the training
(16:18):
of the mind to be able to placeyour mind where you want to
place it when you want to placeit there, so that you are not
just being bullied by your ownbrain, by your own voice in your
own head, that you have someauthority, some agency, some
authorship right, some autonomyaway From the chatter of your
(16:40):
mind and being able to have adaily DSP, to have a daily
spiritual practice, right? Andfor some people, it's doing
their rosary beads. For somepeople, it's doing like a mantra
on a mala bead. For some people,it's passage meditation, right?
It is the repetition of apassage in your mind, or
repetition of a mantra orwhatever. But being able to have
(17:04):
practices in place. For somepeople, it might be breathing
practices, a yoga practice. Itmight be that you run or that
you strength train, that's yourpractice. You go out into nature
and you commune with nature.That could be your practice. For
some people, I know some peoplewho swim, and for them, swimming
like gets them in the water, itputs them into this buoyant
(17:26):
state, and then it's breathingand movement. It's meditation
and motion, right? So havingpractices that keep you from
going off the rails, that kindof keep you on this path, so
that you are able to you
know, put your mind where youwant to put it, and to be
(17:48):
guided, and to be able to slowdown enough that you can hear
the wisdom from your owninternal teacher, your own
internal voice, your own divineintelligence, whether you call
that Spirit, Holy Spirit,intuition in a teacher, gut
instinct, whatever it is thatyou have some practices in place
(18:09):
that consistently put you intouch with yourself, with source
and with spirit, I have foundthis to be highly not only
invaluable, but incrediblypractical. You know, people
think of spirituality sometimes,or spiritual practices as being
like, you know, like, oh, like,I don't want to say, woo, woo.
(18:32):
That's more like the moreesoteric, like the tarot cards
and the,
you know, divination tools and,you know, why can't I think of
the word incense, and like allthe enneagrams and the human
design, like all those things,all those systems, right? And
I'm not, there's nothing wrongwith those. I'm just saying,
(18:52):
right? I'm talking like thingsthat you actually are using on a
daily basis to remind you of whoyou truly are to remind you of
the path that you are choosingto walk on, and to be able to,
and I don't mean control yourmind. It sounds so like it
sounds so like rigid, but to beable to place your mind it will
(19:13):
where you want to, so that youare not thrown about, like when
the ego mind gets crazy. So justdouble A men hands, if you're a
person who has anxiety, double Amen hands, if you're a person
who has some sort of depressive,
depression, panic attacks whenyou feel like, what are they
(19:34):
called, not ruminating thoughts,but like obsessive thoughts,
when you can't stop thinkingabout something that is a mind
that is now like is puppeteeringyou, and we want to be able to
bring ourselves back to thepresent moment and to make
conscious choices so we are notbeing Ping ponged around by the
(19:56):
external world and by by chatterin our.
That is not helpful. I mean, Ican just keep talking about
that, but let's stop there fornumber two. So we have people is
the first P right? And practicesthings like, like, I said, daily
spiritual practices of somekind. For some people, it's like
writing and journaling. For somepeople, it's like making art.
(20:16):
For some people, it's dance,like, whatever your I always
say, like, it's not for me totell you how you are supposed to
commune with the divine, but Iam always really interested in
helping people creating personalpractices that support them
on their spiritual path. Okay,number 3p the number 3p is
principles. So you can think ofyour principles as kind of like
(20:41):
these core values, how youidentify, like who you are. An
example of that is you mighthave these things where you say,
I'm the kind of person who, or Iwant to be the kind of person
who, so that when your actionsor your thoughts are starting to
get a little wonky, a littlewacky, a little like, out of
(21:04):
alignment, when you're startingto maybe make some choices that
are raising some eyebrows, or,like, getting some side eye,
making little side eyes andwaggling my eyebrows right when
people like, what's up withthat? Or you might even be
feeling that, like, What the iswrong with me? Like, why am I
doing that?
If we can have some principlesin place that say, like, this is
(21:26):
a line that I never cross, thisis not something I would do. I'm
not going to steal from I'mmaking these up, right? I would
never steal. I'm not somebodywho's going to
lie on behalf of whatever. I'mgoing to do my best to always
tell the truth. I'm not going tolike cheat on a test. Blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah. We getsome principles in place when we
(21:49):
get a little tempted, becauseyou will be tempted by this
world to abandon your values, toabandon your morals and your
ethics. I mean, hey, take a lookaround at the world right now,
there's a lot of moral bending.There's a lot of bullshit that's
happening out there under theguise of, like, quote, unquote,
(22:10):
religious beat what? Don't getme started, and we're back.
Don't get me started. But wewant to have some personal
principles in place so that whenwe find ourselves starting to go
a little bit out of the lane, alittle bit off the rails, we can
look back on that and say,That's right, this is important
to me. I have a code remind Noteto self. I gotta do that episode
(22:32):
about codes, right? You gottahave a code and your principles,
self principleing, because therewon't always be your people
around there are going to bemoments when you feel tempted.
Let me give an example. Iremember speaking to a friend
one time, and I would love tohear from people about this, but
I remember speaking to him,speaking to a male, an old male
(22:54):
friend of mine, one time, and heis convinced. He is convinced
that all men will cheat on theirpartners, male or female.
Given if you were to say to aman, right, you will not get
(23:14):
caught, like if you couldsomehow give them a guarantee,
right? In this magical, in thismagical like
story that he is telling methis. Imagine a world where you
can cheat on your partner andnever get caught. He said to me,
every single man would do it.And I looked him in the face and
I said, I don't believe that.
(23:35):
I don't think they would.
I said, I think there's a lot ofmen out there that have certain
principles that they would neverdo, that they wouldn't do that
to their wives. They wouldn't dothat to their family. I'm not in
PS. I'm not judging anybody ifyou have or haven't or whatever.
I'm just saying I don't buy intothis whole all men think with
their dicks, and all men can't,like help themselves. I know
(23:56):
some highly principled people,and I said to him, I don't think
that's true. And he just laughedand shook his head, like poor
me, like poor me, because I'msuch a sucker that I believed in
the goodness of people, right?The goodness of some men
somewhere. Oh, my God. But youknow, maybe I am a sucker, but I
do choose to believe that thereare still some really principled
people out there, right? Sohaving principles
(24:22):
keep us on track right, keep uson that path. And then here's
this protocols in place for whenmaybe you slip, for when maybe
you lose your way. You slip offthe path, you lose track, you
get diverted in the woods, andyou take a path less traveled,
right, or maybe a path youshouldn't be on, right, and all
(24:43):
of a sudden you're like, Oh,shit. We got to have some
protocols in place. It's like,okay, I left the path. Now?
What? Now? What do I do? And itdoesn't help us to just kind of
stay in the shitty diaper, inthe victim loop, feeling sorry.
It's like, no, if there'ssomebody to make amends to.
To own your shit. Own up to it.I slipped, I screwed up, I made
(25:05):
a mistake. I did X, Y and Z. Ilost my way. I forgot. I forgot
to check in with my people. Ilet my practices slide. I
haven't been doing my DSPlately, right? I didn't check in
with my principals because Ididn't want to think about them,
because I just wanted to do thething that I wanted to do, even
though I knew it wouldn't endWell, right? When that kind of
(25:27):
stuff goes down, we want to havesome protocols in place. Step
one, this is what I'm going todo. Step two, then I need to
make amends. Step three, andsometimes who you need to
apologize to is yourself,because you might not always be
hurting another person, butsometimes the things that you
choose to do, you only end uphurting yourself because you
(25:47):
lose self respect, you lose yourself integrity, right? And then
you start to get yourself intoshame and blame and guilt and
all these regrets and thingsthat are not very helpful. So
having protocols in place ofthis is how I get myself back on
track, you know, in an AA and indifferent things, that's why
(26:09):
they give like chips, right?They give those chips, like your
24 hour chip, and then you getlike your day chip, and we and
it goes on, right, your monthand your years and whatever.
Because when you slip, one ofthe things, one of the
protocols, is now you start allover again, you go back, and you
start and you get your nextchip, right? You get a 24 hour
chip, right? So there's thingsin place that help you to stay
(26:31):
on the path. And here's thething, if you slip on the path,
it is not going to feel goodwhen those bumper rails are not
in place, and we go outside,when we go rolling into somebody
else's lane, or we are in thegutter, in the gutter, in the
gutter, making choices that keepus in the gutter. It is not
going to feel good. It is notgoing to feel good even Gandhi.
(26:55):
Even Gandhi talked about this,Mahatma Gandhi, and I love this.
It's called the path. I callthis the path, right? And this
is what, this is what MahatmaGandhi said. He says, I know the
path. It is straight and narrow.It is like the edge of a sword.
I rejoice to walk on it. I weepwhen I slip
(27:19):
God's word. Is
he who strives, never perishes.
I have implicit faith in thatpromise, though, therefore from
my weakness, I fail 1000 times Ishall not lose faith.
(27:43):
I shall not lose faith, becausehere's the thing you guys, you
slip off the path right. You getyourself back up. You get back
to the business of love. You getback to the business of being
right a person of their word, oflike relearning to trust
yourself again. Keep your wordto yourself. Keep your word to
other people, etc, right? He whostrives never perishes. So we
(28:07):
don't just throw our hands upand say, I blew it. Too bad. No,
you go back to those P's. You goback to your people. Maybe you
get a sponsor. You go back toyour people. Maybe you join a
group like the nest, right? Mygroup, mentoring program, right?
A spiritual community like youfind, like I said, in the nest,
right? If you want to join orcheck it out, just go to
(28:30):
excuse me. Karenkenney.com/nest,
N, E, S T, maybe you go back toyour yoga studio or your church
group or your whatever it is.You get in touch with your
family, or an old mentor, or youhire a coach, or you hire a
spiritual mentor, like I workwith people, etc, etc, right?
You get back to your people,
(28:51):
you get back to your practices.Because one of the things that I
find, especially with clientsand people in the nest and
people I've worked with over theyears, almost always when
somebody says to me, I've beenhaving a hard time lately, I
will say to them, how's your DSPgoing? And they'll inevitably
say to me, I haven't really beendoing it lately,
(29:15):
and it's like Exactly, exactly.And so the practice is the DSP
keeps us locked in, keeps us ontrack. Okay? And then you have
those principles, who you are,what you stand on, what's your
code, what you really believe.Those principles will keep you
from making suspicious decision,right? Choices where it's like,
(29:36):
Mmm, that sounds a little toogood be true. That sounds a
little crooked, that sounds alittle off, right? Do your
homework. Make sure right. Checkin with your principals. Am I
the kind of person who would dothis, buy this, say this, you
know, all that stuff. Supportthis,
vote this way, whatever, andthen have those protocols in
(29:56):
place, because it is inevitable,man, that we are going to slip.
We are going to make mistakes.And I'm not saying slipping,
like with sobriety, but justwe're clumsy. We're going to say
a thing, do a thing, and thenafterwards go. I should have
thought about that longer. Ishould have been a little more
patient. I maybe shouldn't have,like, said yes, like, whatever
it is, and it's just the natureof being human. And this is why
(30:18):
forgiveness is such a powerfulpractice, and having grace and
mercy and compassion forourselves and others when we do
slip up. So this is the questionI want to leave you with. What
do you have in place currentlyto keep you on the path?
Just pause. Take a big breathin,
(30:42):
exhale it out twice as long.
And think on this, what are thepeople you have in place? What
are the practices, theprinciples and the protocols?
What do you have in place tokeep you on your path?
And if there's some place wherethere's some gaps or some holes,
(31:02):
and you want to work on thatstuff. You know where to find
me, right? Just go to Karenkenney.com
but it's important that you taketime, I think, to answer this,
because it's so easy to go onautopilot with your life, to
just go through the motions, tojust get through the day, to
just survive the day. And westop living intentionally. We
stop living with intention andattention, and we kind of just
(31:24):
start to become little robotsgoing through the motions,
right? And I get it. I get it.Being alive on this planet,
being human is wicked hard man.It's wicked hard. It's
especially hard right now. Imean, it has been hard when I
look back. I mean, I haven'tbeen alive through all of the
awful things that have happenedin this country and in this
(31:46):
world, but when I look back andI think, like, you know, we
often say there's that phrase,right? We need love now more
than ever. I'm like, I don'tknow. I can think back to like,
1940s when we really needed lovein the 50s and the 60s, when we
were I just think we need loveall the time in the most
capacity possible, and maybe theworld would look a little
(32:07):
different. And that's what Ithink about these four Ps,
right? The people, thepractices, the principles and
the protocols, these are ways ofloving. These are ways of loving
ourselves and keeping us,keeping us on the path of love.
So I
think that's what I got. I'llprobably think of something in
(32:28):
20 minutes, and wish I had saidit. But for now, that's what
I've got. I hope it's helpful insome way and beneficial. And if
you feel like it has been foryou, maybe it will be for
somebody else that you love. Soshare it. Spread the link. I
don't know, tell somebody aboutit. I always, I always
appreciate it when people let meknow and reach out and say, Oh,
(32:48):
I sent this to my cousin, or Isent this to my auntie, or I
sent this to my friend. So justthank you, and thank you to
everybody who is a loyallistener. New listeners.
Welcome. I'm so happy to haveyou here. As I always say, you
can find all things on Karenkenney.com if you want to get
this podcast directly into youremail inbox every Thursday
morning, bright and early, justgo to Karen kenney.com/sign
(33:12):
up. It's wicked easy, and that'sit. Okay, wherever you go, you
guys, may you leave the animalsthe people, the planet, the
environment and yourself betterthan how you first found it.
Wherever you go, may you andyour energy and your presence
and your love and your bumperrails
(33:36):
be a blessing. Bye, you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!