June 12, 2025 • 26 mins
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I’m diving into why we shouldn't be "parrots" – just mindlessly repeating the things we’re told, the words we read, or what we hear in our environment - without thinking for ourselves.
Drawing from some personal stories about actual parrots and my experiences working with author Marianne Williamson, I share how important it is to develop your own unique voice and point-of-view.
I discuss how we often unconsciously repeat sayings and stories from our childhood, family of origin, or the media, without ever even questioning them.
Whether it's religious dogma, political views, or random so called "facts" we've heard online, I invite people to do their homework, to dig deeper, to spend some time with yourself, and figure out what you truly think, feel, and believe.
The world doesn't need another “carbon copy” of what’s already out there - it needs YOU! Your unique experiences, insights, and one-of-a-kind perspectives are invaluable.
So, I encourage us all to be curious, ask questions, challenge inherited narratives, and have the courage to speak our authentic truth, even if it means standing out from the familiar crowd.
My hope is to inspire you to be the first ever version of yourself, not a watered-down replica of somebody else.
Whether you're dealing with old family stories, professional expectations, or societal pressures, remember: your individual voice matters.
So, let’s stop parroting and start exploring what YOU really think and feel!
KK’S KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Don't mindlessly repeat beliefs without understanding their true origin.
• Question everything you've been taught, especially childhood-inherited narratives.
• Your unique perspective is valuable.
• Research deeply and gather your own empirical evidence.
• The world needs your authentic voice, not some watered-down version of somebody else.
• Be courageous enough to develop and share your original thoughts.
• Verify sources and information before repeating what you've read or heard.
• Your individual experiences create a perspective that no one else has.
• Continuously learn, grow, and refine your understanding of the greater world.
• The Nest - Group Mentoring Program
BIO:
Karen Kenney is a certified Spiritual Mentor, Writer, Integrative Change Worker, Coach and Hypnotist. She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-BS, down-to-earth approach to Spirituality and transformational work.
KK is a wicked curious human being, a life-long learner, and has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years! She’s also a yoga teacher of 24+ years, a Certified Gateless Writing Instructor, and an author, speaker, retreat leader, and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.
She coaches both the conscious + unconscious mind using practical Neuroscience, Subconscious Reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis/Change Work, and Spiritual Mentorship. These tools help clients to regulate their nervous systems, remove blocks, rewrite stories, rewire beliefs, and reimagine what’s possible in their lives and business!
Karen encourages people to deepen their connection to Self, Source and Spirit in down-to-earth and actionable ways and wants them to have their own lived experience with spirituality and to not just “take her word for it”.
She helps people to shift their minds from fear to Love - using compassion, storytelling and humor. Her work is effective, efficient, memorable, and fun
KK’s been a student of A Course in Miracles for close to 30 years, has been vegan for over 20 years, and believes that a little kindness can make a big...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Karen Kenney (00:01):
Hi, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm so happy
that you're here, and thank youfor being here and spending a
little time with me. So I thinkI'm going to call this sucka.
Don't be a parrot. Like, don'tbe a parrot. Like, first of all,
I love parrots. I love thebirds, right? But we're gonna
dive into what I mean when Isay, don't be a parrot. And like
(00:23):
so many of my other shows, theseideas that I get like or when
something pops up into myconsciousness, or it's on my
mind and in my heart, and I wantto talk about it a lot of times,
it's inspiration from a coupleof different places. As you all
know, I'm a wicked, big animallover, and throughout my life, I
have had exposure to actually,different kinds of parrots, like
(00:46):
actual physical parrots. Youknow, I had parakeets when I was
a little kid, my aunt and uncle,who my sister and I went to go
live with after my mother waskilled. They had a cockatiel
named Bird. Bird, so original,right? So and bird would like,
sing and cat call and whistle atyou and repeat little things. My
(01:06):
best friend KT, has twobeautiful little parrots, and my
sweeties, um, stepdad, who hekind of considers his dad, also
has a beautiful parrot. Andthose parrots, like, can last
for like you can live for likeup to like 70 years. It's
incredible. And one of thethings I noticed, though about
birds and parrots, that whilethey do make their own unique
(01:28):
sounds, they have their ownunique voice. When it comes to
like speaking or saying phrasesor whatever, what they're really
just doing is they're parroting.They're repeating, right?
They're just repeating thingsthat they heard in their
environment, or they'rerepeating phrases and and songs
(01:49):
or whatever sounds that peoplein their environment are
teaching them. So it's not likeit's a unique thing. They're
just kind of, again, using thatphrase, parroting back what has
been told to them. And thereason why this is on my mind,
I'm going to come at this from acouple of different angles, but
so often what I see is thatpeople will people will just
(02:15):
regurgitate and repeat shit thatthey hear in their environment,
rather than finding their ownvoice. Now, one of the things
where this can get a littletricky, and I see it a lot, and
I've experienced this throughoutmy lifetime, is dealing with or
talking with or trying to haverelationships with, people who
(02:37):
all they're doing isregurgitating from their own
childhood. They're regurgitatingwhat their parents told them,
what school told them, what theteachers told them, what the
priest told them, what whatevertold them. And they never got
curious enough to find out forthemselves what they think about
what they were told, what theybelieve about the things they
(02:59):
were told how they feel aboutthe things they were told. A lot
of times we just end up takingon, you know, the the stories,
the beliefs, the identities, thewhatever from our childhood, and
then you don't question it. AndI see so many people, you know,
I've, I've had theseconversations, you know, one in
(03:20):
one in particular, with a with aguy I dated. I remember the
story, and I'm like, you don'teven know what you believe faith
wise and religion wise. You justbasically drank the Kool Aid of
your parents, and now you'rejust regurgitating it. But if I
ask you to explain to me whatthat even means, you can't tell
me. And so often people are justparroting, like I said, Back
(03:44):
shit that's on the news, shitthat's on, you know, something
that they saw online, saw onsocial media, some quote or
whatever, and they haven't foundout for themselves what they
think about it, what they feelabout it, what their unique
perspective or spin might be onthat thing because they've spent
(04:04):
a little time thinking about it,right, and being with it and
sitting with it and going like,hey, yeah. Like, I know. I know
my grandparents always said thismoney doesn't grow on trees,
right? But how do I feel aboutthese things? And we have to be
paying close enough attention tocatch ourselves when we're just
kind of regurgitating andparroting shit from again,
(04:27):
whether it's our childhood, ourparents, our churches, our
school teachers, right, oursiblings, whatever, it's really
important that we take time inthis lifetime to figure out what
the Fuck we think, what we feel,what we believe, what we know to
be true, right for us. And Iwant to talk about this in a
(04:49):
particular way too, because whenwe end up just kind of
parroting, the world misses out.And I've told this story before,
but I'm just going to tell itreally quick. I'm. There was a
period of time you all know,well, you all know, I don't
know. Some of you might notknow, but if you've been around
for a while, you know that Ilived and worked with Marianne
Williamson. You know, the writerthe spiritual right. She wrote a
(05:11):
return to love, 1000 other youknow, she was written so many
books, New York Times, bestselling books. She's a spiritual
thought leader. She's a teacher.She's a lecturer. She ran for
president a couple of times.Okay, so I used to live and work
with Mary Ann in California. Andat the time, like I was in my
20s, I was so impressionable. Iwas so like, oh my god, like she
(05:31):
was, she was a mentor of mine.She was a teacher of mine. She
was a woman, you know, an olderwoman that I, that I looked up
to, and, you know, read all herbooks, etc, and during my time
of working with her, I went togo see, you know, a woman who
did, she was an intuitive. Shedid readings, tarot readings.
She like, you know, wouldbasically just, you know, do it
(05:53):
like a reading for you. And Iremember going in, and I sat
down, and I was all like, youknow, just like, if you can't
see me, I have my hands in myface now. I'm all just, like,
wide eyed, and I was just like,Oh, I was so excited to be
there. I had heard wonderfulthings about this woman, just
how like, spot on she was, andjust how caring and kind she
was. So I was kind of like anopen book, you know, like, I
(06:14):
just, like, sat down in her roomat her house, and so she
obviously knew my name, andshe's like, so, you know, tell
me about yourself. And I'm like,I'm Karen Kenney and blah, blah,
blah, blah. And she's like, sotell me. She's like, you know,
who are you? Like, what do youwant to do? And, you know, to
kind of, like, kick off thesession. And I said to her, I
(06:36):
want to be the next MarianneWilliamson. And I was so
sincere, I was so earnest, likeI really meant it, and not that
I wanted to be Marianne. Like,looking back, I can look and see
I understood now, like what Ireally meant. But she said the
most profound and powerful thingto me and I and she looked me
(06:56):
right in the eyes, and she saidto me, why don't you try being
the first. Karen Kenney, and sheknew something then that my
brain had not like realized yet,right? Like my lived experience
had not caught up to yet, whichis this, like I needed to be the
first. KK, because the worlddoesn't need another copy of
(07:18):
somebody else. What the worldneeds is you, and the world
needs your particular take, yourparticular voice, your
particular point of view, yourlived experience, your own
unique and creative andbrilliant and wonderful and
whatever you know point of view.The world just doesn't need us.
(07:41):
You know, remember how, like,when you would like, I don't
know if you ever worked at aplace where there was a copy
machines, like nowadays we allhave, a lot of us have copies at
home built into our printers.But back in the day, when you
worked at a place and there was,like, a Xerox machine, right?
And you would just get up to allkinds of shenanigans, as you can
imagine, right? I'm just havingsome memories flash through my
(08:03):
head here.
But if you take a carbon copy,if you take a copy of something,
even if you did carbon copies,remember back in the days with
the credit card things, andyou'd have to go, chunk chunk,
right? I'm just sliding my handback and forth like chunk chunk,
to get an impression. This isthe thing. When we're making a
copy, we're only getting animpression of something, but
we're not getting to the rootsource of where that impulse,
(08:25):
that creative energy, and thatcreative impulse, comes from.
And if you just make a copy of acopy of a copy of a copy, it
gets it gets weaker, it getslighter, it gets blander, you
can't even read it. It's like,where did this even come from?
And so I'm really a champion ofpeople owning their own unique
(08:46):
experience and theirperspectives and their stories
and their special, you know,characteristics that that,
because when you show up in theworld and you're like, hey,
here's what I think about this,you now give all of us a new,
unique point of view, and itmight be a way of looking at a
thing, or thinking about a thingor experiencing a thing that
(09:09):
we've never had before. And soif we're just so concerned about
sounding like everybody else,looking like everybody else,
being like everybody else,regurgitating what's already out
there, then we kind of like Robourselves, the experience of
really coming to know ourselves.And I think of it like the
Divine is expressing itselfthrough us. We've all been given
(09:31):
in A Course in Miracles. It sayslike our own individual
assignment. You have your ownindividual curriculum, your own
divine assignment, and so onlyyou came here to express through
you in your own unique way. Sowhy do we want to just repeat
what we hear other people sayingand doing and being like the joy
(09:53):
and the thrill of this isfiguring out, what do I think?
What do I believe? Or why do Ithink that? Do I believe it? And
a lot of times, we can trace thebreadcrumbs right back. We can
trace that thread back tosomething from our past,
something that was said to us inchildhood, and in the work that
I do as a spiritual mentor and acoach, and, you know, as a
(10:15):
hypnotist, and all the ways thatyou know, you know that I work
with people, one of the thingsthat I often see is that people
are repeating stories. That'swhy, you know my work, I talk
about your story to your glory.And so often I'm tracing this
thread, this belief that peoplehave this thing where they're
(10:35):
getting in their own way of notbelieving that they're lovable,
or not believing that they'regood enough or smart enough, or
they're too much, or whateverthe thing is, I'm too dumb, I'm
too lazy, I'm too this, I'm notgood with money. A lot of times,
there are these beliefs that arelike, put in place. And when we
trace the thread back, when wetrace the trail of bread crumbs
back, it's something that wassaid when they were a little
(10:57):
kid, you know, they had ateacher that, with their red
pen, like, you know, mark theirpaper, and they thought they
were stupid, because maybe theirspelling wasn't that great, you
know. And there's a great thingthat I, you know, I was just
listening on the radio the otherday, and somebody used this
phrase, and I wish I couldremember what it was, but it was
something about, like, the waythat I reiterated it in my head
(11:20):
is that story of, like, don'tjudge a fish by its ability to
climb a tree. We all have ourown unique gifts and talents,
and I'm not going to expect afish to be able to climb a tree,
right, but that fish can swimlike a mofo, like in the ocean,
like, you know what I'm saying.So it's like, I want to, I want
(11:41):
to, like, hear and see wherepeople are shining a light on
their own brilliance. And that'sanother thing. Like, we're often
really willing to talk about ourtraumas, our dramas, our
bullshit, the places where,like, Oh, you don't know how
bad, blah, blah, blah. And I'mlike, Yeah, okay, we gotta own
(12:02):
that stuff too. But let, like,let's also own our brilliance in
the places where you're wickedsmart, or you get you're really
creative, or you have a reallyunique perspective in your art
or your podcast, or the way thatyou create meals, or, like,
whatever the thing is, and Idon't want to get robbed of not
seeing your beauty and yourcreativity in your genius
(12:26):
because you're so worried aboutlooking or sounding like
everybody else and just wantingto fit in. And I understand that
we are pack creatures, you know?I understand that we feel safety
in groups because it's easier tosurvive when we're like, pad up
and stuff like that, you know.But the people who have really
(12:47):
changed the world are the oneswho are willing to, like, go
outside the framework and dosomething totally new, and not
just take the well worn path,right? It's to do something
different. So I just want toencourage you, like, if you find
yourself, like, just kind of,you know, repeating shit that
other people have already doneor already said, or, like,
(13:09):
whatever, like, you know, somepeople will say there's no
unique ideas out there. Like,all the songs are just kind of
using the same chords. All thestories have been told, all the
songs have been written, andit's like, I understand where
they're coming from, but nobodyis you, even if you're an
identical twin, your identicaltwin is not having the same
(13:30):
exact experience as you are. Andthere is something right. I
believe, again, I believe thatit. Call it. You can call it
whatever word you want to callit. You can call it God, you can
call it source. You can call itcreative intelligence. You can
call it the universe. You cancall whatever you want to call
it. But I believe that there issomething really, really
(13:50):
powerful, call it love, that istrying to move through you and
express itself in its own way.And this is another reason why,
like, I think like, I'm going toshift gears now a little bit
like about not just parrotingwhat you hear out there what you
see out there. Right now. It's avery, very, very, very dangerous
(14:11):
time to just be repeating stuffand not getting your sources in
check, not knowing what the truemeaning of a thing is not
knowing if it's actually truewhat you're sharing or saying.
So you know how I told you Iworked with Mary Ann when I
worked in live with her, one ofthe things that I did, because
(14:32):
she has this famous quote,right? Most people know it. A
lot of people know it. You knowit's, it's, in her book, a
return to love. I you know, itbegins like, Our deepest fear is
not that we are inadequate. Ourdeepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure. We askourselves, like, who am I to be?
Brilliant, talented, gorgeous,blah, blah, okay, that quote
back in the day, right? So this,this was in, let's see, this is
(14:55):
in the 90s, so, like, probably,like, around 9697
and the. That quote was gettingattributed to, like a Fauci
like, mostly Nelson Mandela,also to coach kada in the movie.
But then people were also likesharing it and not giving credit
or attribution. So one of thethings that I did in my work and
my job is I would find this, Iwould find where it was being
(15:18):
misattributed or whatever, andthen I would send an email or
write a note, or I'd make acorrection, and I'd say, Hey,
this is actually from, you know,Marion Williamson's book, a
return to love, like on page 90and 91 whatever. And I would
like tell people, and I'd makethe correction. And that that
doing that again and again andagain is probably also part of
what, why giving credit is,like, so important to me, like,
(15:39):
why I'm like, please don't stealother people's shit. Please
don't plagiarize. Please have afucking original thought in your
own head and and if you aregoing to take take something
that somebody else taught you,or that you read or you heard or
you learned right like, Pleasegive credit or attribution, but
even take it one step father,one step further, because
(16:01):
there's another thing that I seehappening a lot, and it happens
like, again, I tend to catch itwith things that I have spent a
lot of time with, right? Like,there's a quote from A Course in
Miracles that basically says,Your task is not to seek for
love. Your task is to seek andto find the barriers that you
have built against your ownawareness of love's presence or
(16:21):
whatever, right? I cannot tellyou how many people attribute
that to Rumi, and I just likewant to bang my face off the
desk, and I'm not being meanabout those people, but what it
tells me is they saw itsomewhere else, and then they
just attributed it to Rumi, butthey didn't do their homework.
They didn't bother to see if itwas true. And in this day and
(16:42):
age of everybody screaming likefake news and, oh, you're just
saying that. And this one's thatI'm always like, hey, check your
facts, check your sources, checkyour resources, check the
studies, check the science,check where you're getting this
thing from. If you're pleasedon't be lazy. Please don't be a
lazy parrot and just regurgitatesomething when you don't know if
(17:05):
it's true at all. I see people,especially as a vegan, too.
Again, I can only speak on theareas that I've spent a lot of
time in, right learning,studying, living in my own
evidence, living it. And peoplejust say the most ridiculous
shit, the most ridiculouspropaganda about like, Oh, it's
so hard to grow muscles on avegan diet. Oh, being plant
(17:28):
based, you need to eat animals.No, you don't. No, you don't.
No, you don't. I cannot stressthis enough. Read some fucking
books. Do some do just do themath. Read some books, find some
studies, you will find out it'sall a lie. It's all propaganda.
Oh, my God, but we see thishappening a lot, especially in
(17:50):
politics, and it's so dangerousand so like, if you're going to,
like, please just don'tregurgitate shit you hear on Fox
News or, like, any news outlet,like, do your homework. You
know, there's a woman namedHeather, Heather Richardson Cox,
and why I like to read what shehas to say. First of all, she's
a historian. She's a professor.I don't care what kind of like,
(18:13):
I mean, whatever side of theaisle, you know, but she kind of
looks at things from ahistorical perspective. But you
know what she does when shewrites a piece at the bottom.
She cites like any, likeeverything that she talks about,
whether she's mentioning asocial media post, whether she's
mentioning like something fromhistory, she will cite exactly
(18:36):
where the with a link, where youcan see it for yourself, where
you can go read it and think foryourself where you can go find
out for yourself, like blah,blah, blah, blah, blah. So she's
not just regurgitating stuff.She's basically taking these
things in watching what's goingon in the world, talking about
it from her perspective, andthen backing it up with like
facts and science and like linksand stuff like that. And these
(18:57):
days, you just have so manypeople who were just chugging
the Kool Aid and regurgitatingstuff and parroting stuff, and
they're not checking things out.So I'm looking at this from two
perspectives. I'm looking at itfrom what you're putting out
into the world, right? Do yourhomework if you're going to
quote something, do a littledigging before you give
(19:19):
attribution to somebody, becauseit's probably it might not be
them, because the frigginginternet is like the wild wild
west, and nobody's reallychecking. You know what I'm
saying, any idiot can sayanything at any time, and people
just go like, Oh, well, so andso said it on his blog, and
we're back. I'm just taking him.I'm rubbing my eyes like, Holy
(19:43):
Jesus on a crack up. Okay? Butmostly, what I wanted to say is
this, I'm not trying to, like,wag my finger at you, like,
don't be a parrot. Because,like, I'm saying it because the
world needs you. It doesn't needyou being a cat, like a. Cheap
copy of somebody else, right? Soagain, find out for yourself, do
(20:05):
your research. Read, gather yourown experience, gather your own
empirical evidence, and thenmake your report to the world,
right? Then go out and make yourreport. And you know, I read
this book once. It was calledstay and fight by Madeline
Fitch. It's a fantastic book.Book. It was a novel. And there
was a character in this booknamed Pearlie, and he was the
(20:27):
son of these two women who livedin the Appalachians and life was
hard. They had to stay and fightright? They had to stay and
fight for their life. And I, I'mparaphrasing, but the kid was
taught by his mothers, and hewould say, like, to be
steadfast, to be resolute, andto make his report right. And so
I started saying that like to myfriends, like, Hey, be
(20:49):
steadfast, be resolute. And thenthen go out, go out and
experience things, and then comeback and make your full report.
And I'd be like, come tell meyour stories. Come tell me what
you learned. Come like, usingyour own voice, break it down
for me, so I can see how youprocess things, so I can see the
world through your eyes. Becausethat's what makes it all a
kaleidoscope, having all thesekind of different voices and
(21:11):
points of view. And, you know, Iremember there was a period of
time like in the in the 90s,maybe the early 2000s and it
just sounded like there were allthese bands. They weren't really
rock bands. They were weren'treally grungy, they were like,
whatever this new kind of likething was. And I remember I
would flip through the stationson the radio and I'd be like, I
(21:33):
can't fucking tell these guys,one from another, they all sound
the same. And I'm like, I don'tknow if they're trying to sound
the same. I don't know if onejust thought, Oh, this is how
you like, you know, sell recordsis like, you copy the other guy.
And there was also this thingthat was happening in country
music where they had basicallygotten this formula. And, I
(21:57):
mean, you can look it up, youcan Google it, right. There was
like, this formula where it waslike, insert this here. Insert
this here. Do this, do this. Andall the country songs. And I'm
not a country fan, in fairness,in fairness, not a fan. But a
lot of, a lot of the songs werejust like, red truck, red solo
cup, Red Dog, red something,right? I was just like, what?
(22:19):
Like, what is happening rightnow? And I was like, please, for
the love of God, can people getoriginal? Can you stop going for
the cheap and the easy sell? Canyou stop going for the click
bait? Can you stop trying tojust like, repeat and
regurgitate and parrot the crapthat's already out there? And I
think this is part of theassignment right for us to go
(22:41):
out there and for us to not beparrots, to not be parakeets,
right to be persons, to bepeople with your your own unique
voice, your own unique point ofview, your own unique
experience, and your own uniquestories, and to question the
ones that were given to you,those identities, those stories,
(23:02):
all those things that you weretold about yourself as a kid.
Keep the ones that are good andloving. Keep the ones that are
good and true. Question all theother shit question, don't
parrot. Don't parrot thesestories. You know, from what
your, what your, your your maybeyour emotionally unintelligent
parents may be said to you righttheir own scarcity and fear and
(23:27):
lack of knowing thatgenerational trauma that just
kind of like rolled downhill andlike landed on you. We gotta, we
gotta. We gotta, like, I'mbrushing my body right now. We
gotta, like, dust ourselves offand brush ourselves off and
shake off the cobwebs and shakeoff the dust and shake off those
old stories and really step intothe glory of who you really are,
because the world doesn't needanother watered down version of
(23:51):
a bunch of other people. Whatthe world needs is you.
Okay, that's what I had to say.That was what was on my heart,
in my mind. I hope it washelpful to you in some way, and
just know that I celebrate you.I can't always see you right,
because I you know I'm the oneon the video, but when I say I
see you and I hear you, what Imean is like I understand,
(24:14):
right? I my compassion and myempathy, like I understand that
we're all out here, and we'rewe're hopefully doing our best,
and we're trying to learn, andwe're trying to grow, and we're
trying to, you know, just kindof shed, shed the old skins,
shed the old shed, the oldfeathers, the things that you
know aren't helping us to flyanymore. And just know that I
that I do see you, I do hearyou, especially when you write
(24:36):
to me. And I appreciate you, andI have a lot of gratitude for
you for being here in my world,listening to the show. So just
thank you so so so much. Youknow the drill. If you ever want
to work with me, if you everwant to join the nest or do one
to one mentoring, join a yogaclass, whatever, you can just
find me. I'm easy to findonline. Just spell my last name
right, and I'm pretty easy tofind. It's k, e, n, n, e, y.
(24:59):
Karen Kenney. Kenney, go toKaren. Kenney.com, Vaness, the
quest all that stuff is there.Thank you so much wherever you
go. May you leave yourself andleave the animals and leave the
environment and the other peoplein the planet better than how
you first found it. Wherever yougo, may you and your love and
(25:20):
your presence and your energyand your unique point of view
your Eunice, right? May yourEunice be a blessing. Bye. You.
Hi, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm so happy
that you're here, and thank youfor being here and spending a
little time with me. So I thinkI'm going to call this sucka.
Don't be a parrot. Like, don'tbe a parrot. Like, first of all,
I love parrots. I love thebirds, right? But we're gonna
dive into what I mean when Isay, don't be a parrot. And like
(00:23):
so many of my other shows, theseideas that I get like or when
something pops up into myconsciousness, or it's on my
mind and in my heart, and I wantto talk about it a lot of times,
it's inspiration from a coupleof different places. As you all
know, I'm a wicked, big animallover, and throughout my life, I
have had exposure to actually,different kinds of parrots, like
(00:46):
actual physical parrots. Youknow, I had parakeets when I was
a little kid, my aunt and uncle,who my sister and I went to go
live with after my mother waskilled. They had a cockatiel
named Bird. Bird, so original,right? So and bird would like,
sing and cat call and whistle atyou and repeat little things. My
(01:06):
best friend KT, has twobeautiful little parrots, and my
sweeties, um, stepdad, who hekind of considers his dad, also
has a beautiful parrot. Andthose parrots, like, can last
for like you can live for likeup to like 70 years. It's
incredible. And one of thethings I noticed, though about
birds and parrots, that whilethey do make their own unique
(01:28):
sounds, they have their ownunique voice. When it comes to
like speaking or saying phrasesor whatever, what they're really
just doing is they're parroting.They're repeating, right?
They're just repeating thingsthat they heard in their
environment, or they'rerepeating phrases and and songs
(01:49):
or whatever sounds that peoplein their environment are
teaching them. So it's not likeit's a unique thing. They're
just kind of, again, using thatphrase, parroting back what has
been told to them. And thereason why this is on my mind,
I'm going to come at this from acouple of different angles, but
so often what I see is thatpeople will people will just
(02:15):
regurgitate and repeat shit thatthey hear in their environment,
rather than finding their ownvoice. Now, one of the things
where this can get a littletricky, and I see it a lot, and
I've experienced this throughoutmy lifetime, is dealing with or
talking with or trying to haverelationships with, people who
(02:37):
all they're doing isregurgitating from their own
childhood. They're regurgitatingwhat their parents told them,
what school told them, what theteachers told them, what the
priest told them, what whatevertold them. And they never got
curious enough to find out forthemselves what they think about
what they were told, what theybelieve about the things they
(02:59):
were told how they feel aboutthe things they were told. A lot
of times we just end up takingon, you know, the the stories,
the beliefs, the identities, thewhatever from our childhood, and
then you don't question it. AndI see so many people, you know,
I've, I've had theseconversations, you know, one in
(03:20):
one in particular, with a with aguy I dated. I remember the
story, and I'm like, you don'teven know what you believe faith
wise and religion wise. You justbasically drank the Kool Aid of
your parents, and now you'rejust regurgitating it. But if I
ask you to explain to me whatthat even means, you can't tell
me. And so often people are justparroting, like I said, Back
(03:44):
shit that's on the news, shitthat's on, you know, something
that they saw online, saw onsocial media, some quote or
whatever, and they haven't foundout for themselves what they
think about it, what they feelabout it, what their unique
perspective or spin might be onthat thing because they've spent
(04:04):
a little time thinking about it,right, and being with it and
sitting with it and going like,hey, yeah. Like, I know. I know
my grandparents always said thismoney doesn't grow on trees,
right? But how do I feel aboutthese things? And we have to be
paying close enough attention tocatch ourselves when we're just
kind of regurgitating andparroting shit from again,
(04:27):
whether it's our childhood, ourparents, our churches, our
school teachers, right, oursiblings, whatever, it's really
important that we take time inthis lifetime to figure out what
the Fuck we think, what we feel,what we believe, what we know to
be true, right for us. And Iwant to talk about this in a
(04:49):
particular way too, because whenwe end up just kind of
parroting, the world misses out.And I've told this story before,
but I'm just going to tell itreally quick. I'm. There was a
period of time you all know,well, you all know, I don't
know. Some of you might notknow, but if you've been around
for a while, you know that Ilived and worked with Marianne
Williamson. You know, the writerthe spiritual right. She wrote a
(05:11):
return to love, 1000 other youknow, she was written so many
books, New York Times, bestselling books. She's a spiritual
thought leader. She's a teacher.She's a lecturer. She ran for
president a couple of times.Okay, so I used to live and work
with Mary Ann in California. Andat the time, like I was in my
20s, I was so impressionable. Iwas so like, oh my god, like she
(05:31):
was, she was a mentor of mine.She was a teacher of mine. She
was a woman, you know, an olderwoman that I, that I looked up
to, and, you know, read all herbooks, etc, and during my time
of working with her, I went togo see, you know, a woman who
did, she was an intuitive. Shedid readings, tarot readings.
She like, you know, wouldbasically just, you know, do it
(05:53):
like a reading for you. And Iremember going in, and I sat
down, and I was all like, youknow, just like, if you can't
see me, I have my hands in myface now. I'm all just, like,
wide eyed, and I was just like,Oh, I was so excited to be
there. I had heard wonderfulthings about this woman, just
how like, spot on she was, andjust how caring and kind she
was. So I was kind of like anopen book, you know, like, I
(06:14):
just, like, sat down in her roomat her house, and so she
obviously knew my name, andshe's like, so, you know, tell
me about yourself. And I'm like,I'm Karen Kenney and blah, blah,
blah, blah. And she's like, sotell me. She's like, you know,
who are you? Like, what do youwant to do? And, you know, to
kind of, like, kick off thesession. And I said to her, I
(06:36):
want to be the next MarianneWilliamson. And I was so
sincere, I was so earnest, likeI really meant it, and not that
I wanted to be Marianne. Like,looking back, I can look and see
I understood now, like what Ireally meant. But she said the
most profound and powerful thingto me and I and she looked me
(06:56):
right in the eyes, and she saidto me, why don't you try being
the first. Karen Kenney, and sheknew something then that my
brain had not like realized yet,right? Like my lived experience
had not caught up to yet, whichis this, like I needed to be the
first. KK, because the worlddoesn't need another copy of
(07:18):
somebody else. What the worldneeds is you, and the world
needs your particular take, yourparticular voice, your
particular point of view, yourlived experience, your own
unique and creative andbrilliant and wonderful and
whatever you know point of view.The world just doesn't need us.
(07:41):
You know, remember how, like,when you would like, I don't
know if you ever worked at aplace where there was a copy
machines, like nowadays we allhave, a lot of us have copies at
home built into our printers.But back in the day, when you
worked at a place and there was,like, a Xerox machine, right?
And you would just get up to allkinds of shenanigans, as you can
imagine, right? I'm just havingsome memories flash through my
(08:03):
head here.
But if you take a carbon copy,if you take a copy of something,
even if you did carbon copies,remember back in the days with
the credit card things, andyou'd have to go, chunk chunk,
right? I'm just sliding my handback and forth like chunk chunk,
to get an impression. This isthe thing. When we're making a
copy, we're only getting animpression of something, but
we're not getting to the rootsource of where that impulse,
(08:25):
that creative energy, and thatcreative impulse, comes from.
And if you just make a copy of acopy of a copy of a copy, it
gets it gets weaker, it getslighter, it gets blander, you
can't even read it. It's like,where did this even come from?
And so I'm really a champion ofpeople owning their own unique
(08:46):
experience and theirperspectives and their stories
and their special, you know,characteristics that that,
because when you show up in theworld and you're like, hey,
here's what I think about this,you now give all of us a new,
unique point of view, and itmight be a way of looking at a
thing, or thinking about a thingor experiencing a thing that
(09:09):
we've never had before. And soif we're just so concerned about
sounding like everybody else,looking like everybody else,
being like everybody else,regurgitating what's already out
there, then we kind of like Robourselves, the experience of
really coming to know ourselves.And I think of it like the
Divine is expressing itselfthrough us. We've all been given
(09:31):
in A Course in Miracles. It sayslike our own individual
assignment. You have your ownindividual curriculum, your own
divine assignment, and so onlyyou came here to express through
you in your own unique way. Sowhy do we want to just repeat
what we hear other people sayingand doing and being like the joy
(09:53):
and the thrill of this isfiguring out, what do I think?
What do I believe? Or why do Ithink that? Do I believe it? And
a lot of times, we can trace thebreadcrumbs right back. We can
trace that thread back tosomething from our past,
something that was said to us inchildhood, and in the work that
I do as a spiritual mentor and acoach, and, you know, as a
(10:15):
hypnotist, and all the ways thatyou know, you know that I work
with people, one of the thingsthat I often see is that people
are repeating stories. That'swhy, you know my work, I talk
about your story to your glory.And so often I'm tracing this
thread, this belief that peoplehave this thing where they're
(10:35):
getting in their own way of notbelieving that they're lovable,
or not believing that they'regood enough or smart enough, or
they're too much, or whateverthe thing is, I'm too dumb, I'm
too lazy, I'm too this, I'm notgood with money. A lot of times,
there are these beliefs that arelike, put in place. And when we
trace the thread back, when wetrace the trail of bread crumbs
back, it's something that wassaid when they were a little
(10:57):
kid, you know, they had ateacher that, with their red
pen, like, you know, mark theirpaper, and they thought they
were stupid, because maybe theirspelling wasn't that great, you
know. And there's a great thingthat I, you know, I was just
listening on the radio the otherday, and somebody used this
phrase, and I wish I couldremember what it was, but it was
something about, like, the waythat I reiterated it in my head
(11:20):
is that story of, like, don'tjudge a fish by its ability to
climb a tree. We all have ourown unique gifts and talents,
and I'm not going to expect afish to be able to climb a tree,
right, but that fish can swimlike a mofo, like in the ocean,
like, you know what I'm saying.So it's like, I want to, I want
(11:41):
to, like, hear and see wherepeople are shining a light on
their own brilliance. And that'sanother thing. Like, we're often
really willing to talk about ourtraumas, our dramas, our
bullshit, the places where,like, Oh, you don't know how
bad, blah, blah, blah. And I'mlike, Yeah, okay, we gotta own
(12:02):
that stuff too. But let, like,let's also own our brilliance in
the places where you're wickedsmart, or you get you're really
creative, or you have a reallyunique perspective in your art
or your podcast, or the way thatyou create meals, or, like,
whatever the thing is, and Idon't want to get robbed of not
seeing your beauty and yourcreativity in your genius
(12:26):
because you're so worried aboutlooking or sounding like
everybody else and just wantingto fit in. And I understand that
we are pack creatures, you know?I understand that we feel safety
in groups because it's easier tosurvive when we're like, pad up
and stuff like that, you know.But the people who have really
(12:47):
changed the world are the oneswho are willing to, like, go
outside the framework and dosomething totally new, and not
just take the well worn path,right? It's to do something
different. So I just want toencourage you, like, if you find
yourself, like, just kind of,you know, repeating shit that
other people have already doneor already said, or, like,
(13:09):
whatever, like, you know, somepeople will say there's no
unique ideas out there. Like,all the songs are just kind of
using the same chords. All thestories have been told, all the
songs have been written, andit's like, I understand where
they're coming from, but nobodyis you, even if you're an
identical twin, your identicaltwin is not having the same
(13:30):
exact experience as you are. Andthere is something right. I
believe, again, I believe thatit. Call it. You can call it
whatever word you want to callit. You can call it God, you can
call it source. You can call itcreative intelligence. You can
call it the universe. You cancall whatever you want to call
it. But I believe that there issomething really, really
(13:50):
powerful, call it love, that istrying to move through you and
express itself in its own way.And this is another reason why,
like, I think like, I'm going toshift gears now a little bit
like about not just parrotingwhat you hear out there what you
see out there. Right now. It's avery, very, very, very dangerous
(14:11):
time to just be repeating stuffand not getting your sources in
check, not knowing what the truemeaning of a thing is not
knowing if it's actually truewhat you're sharing or saying.
So you know how I told you Iworked with Mary Ann when I
worked in live with her, one ofthe things that I did, because
(14:32):
she has this famous quote,right? Most people know it. A
lot of people know it. You knowit's, it's, in her book, a
return to love. I you know, itbegins like, Our deepest fear is
not that we are inadequate. Ourdeepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure. We askourselves, like, who am I to be?
Brilliant, talented, gorgeous,blah, blah, okay, that quote
back in the day, right? So this,this was in, let's see, this is
(14:55):
in the 90s, so, like, probably,like, around 9697
and the. That quote was gettingattributed to, like a Fauci
like, mostly Nelson Mandela,also to coach kada in the movie.
But then people were also likesharing it and not giving credit
or attribution. So one of thethings that I did in my work and
my job is I would find this, Iwould find where it was being
(15:18):
misattributed or whatever, andthen I would send an email or
write a note, or I'd make acorrection, and I'd say, Hey,
this is actually from, you know,Marion Williamson's book, a
return to love, like on page 90and 91 whatever. And I would
like tell people, and I'd makethe correction. And that that
doing that again and again andagain is probably also part of
what, why giving credit is,like, so important to me, like,
(15:39):
why I'm like, please don't stealother people's shit. Please
don't plagiarize. Please have afucking original thought in your
own head and and if you aregoing to take take something
that somebody else taught you,or that you read or you heard or
you learned right like, Pleasegive credit or attribution, but
even take it one step father,one step further, because
(16:01):
there's another thing that I seehappening a lot, and it happens
like, again, I tend to catch itwith things that I have spent a
lot of time with, right? Like,there's a quote from A Course in
Miracles that basically says,Your task is not to seek for
love. Your task is to seek andto find the barriers that you
have built against your ownawareness of love's presence or
(16:21):
whatever, right? I cannot tellyou how many people attribute
that to Rumi, and I just likewant to bang my face off the
desk, and I'm not being meanabout those people, but what it
tells me is they saw itsomewhere else, and then they
just attributed it to Rumi, butthey didn't do their homework.
They didn't bother to see if itwas true. And in this day and
(16:42):
age of everybody screaming likefake news and, oh, you're just
saying that. And this one's thatI'm always like, hey, check your
facts, check your sources, checkyour resources, check the
studies, check the science,check where you're getting this
thing from. If you're pleasedon't be lazy. Please don't be a
lazy parrot and just regurgitatesomething when you don't know if
(17:05):
it's true at all. I see people,especially as a vegan, too.
Again, I can only speak on theareas that I've spent a lot of
time in, right learning,studying, living in my own
evidence, living it. And peoplejust say the most ridiculous
shit, the most ridiculouspropaganda about like, Oh, it's
so hard to grow muscles on avegan diet. Oh, being plant
(17:28):
based, you need to eat animals.No, you don't. No, you don't.
No, you don't. I cannot stressthis enough. Read some fucking
books. Do some do just do themath. Read some books, find some
studies, you will find out it'sall a lie. It's all propaganda.
Oh, my God, but we see thishappening a lot, especially in
(17:50):
politics, and it's so dangerousand so like, if you're going to,
like, please just don'tregurgitate shit you hear on Fox
News or, like, any news outlet,like, do your homework. You
know, there's a woman namedHeather, Heather Richardson Cox,
and why I like to read what shehas to say. First of all, she's
a historian. She's a professor.I don't care what kind of like,
(18:13):
I mean, whatever side of theaisle, you know, but she kind of
looks at things from ahistorical perspective. But you
know what she does when shewrites a piece at the bottom.
She cites like any, likeeverything that she talks about,
whether she's mentioning asocial media post, whether she's
mentioning like something fromhistory, she will cite exactly
(18:36):
where the with a link, where youcan see it for yourself, where
you can go read it and think foryourself where you can go find
out for yourself, like blah,blah, blah, blah, blah. So she's
not just regurgitating stuff.She's basically taking these
things in watching what's goingon in the world, talking about
it from her perspective, andthen backing it up with like
facts and science and like linksand stuff like that. And these
(18:57):
days, you just have so manypeople who were just chugging
the Kool Aid and regurgitatingstuff and parroting stuff, and
they're not checking things out.So I'm looking at this from two
perspectives. I'm looking at itfrom what you're putting out
into the world, right? Do yourhomework if you're going to
quote something, do a littledigging before you give
(19:19):
attribution to somebody, becauseit's probably it might not be
them, because the frigginginternet is like the wild wild
west, and nobody's reallychecking. You know what I'm
saying, any idiot can sayanything at any time, and people
just go like, Oh, well, so andso said it on his blog, and
we're back. I'm just taking him.I'm rubbing my eyes like, Holy
(19:43):
Jesus on a crack up. Okay? Butmostly, what I wanted to say is
this, I'm not trying to, like,wag my finger at you, like,
don't be a parrot. Because,like, I'm saying it because the
world needs you. It doesn't needyou being a cat, like a. Cheap
copy of somebody else, right? Soagain, find out for yourself, do
(20:05):
your research. Read, gather yourown experience, gather your own
empirical evidence, and thenmake your report to the world,
right? Then go out and make yourreport. And you know, I read
this book once. It was calledstay and fight by Madeline
Fitch. It's a fantastic book.Book. It was a novel. And there
was a character in this booknamed Pearlie, and he was the
(20:27):
son of these two women who livedin the Appalachians and life was
hard. They had to stay and fightright? They had to stay and
fight for their life. And I, I'mparaphrasing, but the kid was
taught by his mothers, and hewould say, like, to be
steadfast, to be resolute, andto make his report right. And so
I started saying that like to myfriends, like, Hey, be
(20:49):
steadfast, be resolute. And thenthen go out, go out and
experience things, and then comeback and make your full report.
And I'd be like, come tell meyour stories. Come tell me what
you learned. Come like, usingyour own voice, break it down
for me, so I can see how youprocess things, so I can see the
world through your eyes. Becausethat's what makes it all a
kaleidoscope, having all thesekind of different voices and
(21:11):
points of view. And, you know, Iremember there was a period of
time like in the in the 90s,maybe the early 2000s and it
just sounded like there were allthese bands. They weren't really
rock bands. They were weren'treally grungy, they were like,
whatever this new kind of likething was. And I remember I
would flip through the stationson the radio and I'd be like, I
(21:33):
can't fucking tell these guys,one from another, they all sound
the same. And I'm like, I don'tknow if they're trying to sound
the same. I don't know if onejust thought, Oh, this is how
you like, you know, sell recordsis like, you copy the other guy.
And there was also this thingthat was happening in country
music where they had basicallygotten this formula. And, I
(21:57):
mean, you can look it up, youcan Google it, right. There was
like, this formula where it waslike, insert this here. Insert
this here. Do this, do this. Andall the country songs. And I'm
not a country fan, in fairness,in fairness, not a fan. But a
lot of, a lot of the songs werejust like, red truck, red solo
cup, Red Dog, red something,right? I was just like, what?
(22:19):
Like, what is happening rightnow? And I was like, please, for
the love of God, can people getoriginal? Can you stop going for
the cheap and the easy sell? Canyou stop going for the click
bait? Can you stop trying tojust like, repeat and
regurgitate and parrot the crapthat's already out there? And I
think this is part of theassignment right for us to go
(22:41):
out there and for us to not beparrots, to not be parakeets,
right to be persons, to bepeople with your your own unique
voice, your own unique point ofview, your own unique
experience, and your own uniquestories, and to question the
ones that were given to you,those identities, those stories,
(23:02):
all those things that you weretold about yourself as a kid.
Keep the ones that are good andloving. Keep the ones that are
good and true. Question all theother shit question, don't
parrot. Don't parrot thesestories. You know, from what
your, what your, your your maybeyour emotionally unintelligent
parents may be said to you righttheir own scarcity and fear and
(23:27):
lack of knowing thatgenerational trauma that just
kind of like rolled downhill andlike landed on you. We gotta, we
gotta. We gotta, like, I'mbrushing my body right now. We
gotta, like, dust ourselves offand brush ourselves off and
shake off the cobwebs and shakeoff the dust and shake off those
old stories and really step intothe glory of who you really are,
because the world doesn't needanother watered down version of
(23:51):
a bunch of other people. Whatthe world needs is you.
Okay, that's what I had to say.That was what was on my heart,
in my mind. I hope it washelpful to you in some way, and
just know that I celebrate you.I can't always see you right,
because I you know I'm the oneon the video, but when I say I
see you and I hear you, what Imean is like I understand,
(24:14):
right? I my compassion and myempathy, like I understand that
we're all out here, and we'rewe're hopefully doing our best,
and we're trying to learn, andwe're trying to grow, and we're
trying to, you know, just kindof shed, shed the old skins,
shed the old shed, the oldfeathers, the things that you
know aren't helping us to flyanymore. And just know that I
that I do see you, I do hearyou, especially when you write
(24:36):
to me. And I appreciate you, andI have a lot of gratitude for
you for being here in my world,listening to the show. So just
thank you so so so much. Youknow the drill. If you ever want
to work with me, if you everwant to join the nest or do one
to one mentoring, join a yogaclass, whatever, you can just
find me. I'm easy to findonline. Just spell my last name
right, and I'm pretty easy tofind. It's k, e, n, n, e, y.
(24:59):
Karen Kenney. Kenney, go toKaren. Kenney.com, Vaness, the
quest all that stuff is there.Thank you so much wherever you
go. May you leave yourself andleave the animals and leave the
environment and the other peoplein the planet better than how
you first found it. Wherever yougo, may you and your love and
(25:20):
your presence and your energyand your unique point of view
your Eunice, right? May yourEunice be a blessing. Bye. You.
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.