January 2, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I talk about the idea of "hatching a plan" as we move into the New Year.
I discuss why it’s sometimes important to keep your plans kind of a secret… and how we only want to share those tender ideas with people who will nurture and support them, rather than criticize or crush them.
When making new plans, I also suggest slowing down and inviting your Inner Teacher or intuition into the process, using practices like prayer, contemplation, and meditation to quiet your mind first.
This helps the plan to be more aligned with our deeper purpose and values, rather than being driven by our ego, attachment to external outcomes, or our fears.
I also share how writing down your goals and plans can be a powerful tool, as studies show that people who write down their goals are 42% more likely to achieve them!
These handwritten goals not only serve as a "love letter to your future self" - a tangible record of your intentions, progress, and dreams…
It’s also a way to nurture what matters to you - and by doing so, bringing forth something new that can serve both you and the world around you!
KEY POINTS:
• Hatching Plans "In Secret"
• Invite Divine Guidance
• Discipline Leads to Freedom
• Writing Goals Down Makes a Difference
• Align Your Actions with Purpose
• Celebrate Your Accomplishments
• Serving Yourself and the 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 difference.
KK WEBSITE: www.karenkenney.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Karen Kenney (00:01):
Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super duper excited to be here with you. If you're watching this episode, you can see, you can see the title
of the episode right on my sweatshirt. So ifyou're not watching this, you can't see that my sweetie, for Christmas, got me a sweatshirt from one of my favorite artists.
(00:27):
The artist name is Batsy head. You'veprobably heard me talk about him, her, them, we don't know. They never show a picture of themselves, only their at work. And I'm just
obsessed, with this person's at work. Ialready have, like, several sweatshirts, and this one I wanted so bad, and it says, hatching a plan. And if you can see the
(00:52):
little cat creature on it, he's got hislittle hands tucked up to his chin, and his eyes are looking off like all squinty into the side like He's hatching a secret plan.
And that's how I kind of feel when I'm goinginto the new year, right when we have an opportunity. And I think of our birthdays as personal New Years. And then I think, of
(01:15):
course, of the changing of the calendar aswe roll back around into January as another opportunity to have a fresh start, a clean slate. It's the perfect time to hatch a
plan. So let's talk about this a little bit.First of all, I think you can hatch a plan anytime you want to, but very symbolically, right? And I know a lot of people will say,
(01:40):
Oh my God, but winter is the time forhibernation. Winter is the time for slowing down and being, you know, to reflect on things and to be contemplative, to be kind
of like to mull and to muse. And I agreewith all of that. And that's the great thing about hatching a plan. It doesn't mean necessarily that, like you're doing the
(02:02):
plan, you're just kind of hatching the plan.So the great thing, so I wanted to, like, a lot of times when there's a phrase that I love, I love to look it up and to see, like,
what other sources say the definition is.And to hatch a plan means to make a plan, but it means to especially make a secret plan. This is, this is what I love, right to
(02:27):
make a secret plan. And I want to talk aboutthis aspect of it, especially as we're moving into the new year, because there is something that I have seen again and again
and again in my lifetime, especially withcreatives and artists and people and entrepreneurs, etc, people who are trying to do original things or unique things, or to
(02:49):
bring at into the world, bring ideas intothe world, new ways of thinking into the world. Right? It's really, really easy to, unfortunately share your plans, share your
dreams, share your ideas with others who donot have your best interests at heart. And it's not that they're dicks, it's that sometimes unconsciously, subconsciously,
(03:18):
they have whether it's low self esteem,jealousy, envy, a lack of whatever the thing is, right? Is that when you come to them with a dream or a plan or an idea, right?
There may not be your balcony people. Thesemay not be the people that really see you, get you, love, you, understand you, cheer lead you, celebrate you, like encourage you.
(03:45):
These might be people who for their ownreasons, sometimes known to them nefariously, sometimes unknown to them, pattern and condition from their their
history, they're not really going to treatyour dreams, your ideas, your at whatever you're sharing with them, your plans, with gentleness, with tenderness, with seeing
(04:09):
that this is like a seed that's trying to beplanted and it wants to take root, and it wants to get some strength, and it wants to grow. And so they'll come in with like,
either sarcasm or roll their eyes, or like,Who do you think you are to have this big dream? Or, you know, why do you think what makes you so special, or this stinks, or
whatever, right? They give their opinions.They give their fears. Well, that's what they're let's get right down to brass tacks. That's what they're doing. Is they're really
(04:37):
just kind of vomiting their fear, right, allover your idea, your plan, your dream. And this is why I love hatching, quote, unquote. Hatching a plan is because when you hatch
it, and especially hatch, right, hatching aplan means to, like, make a plan, but usually in secret, and why that can be really. Great is I often encourage people
(05:03):
not to talk about what they're going to doto I always say you don't have to talk about it to, like, make it real. It can between, be between you and yourself. It can be
between you and your spiritual team, you andyour sweetie and your best friend, you and the divine you and God you and Holy Spirit you and your internal teacher. Whatever you
(05:25):
want to say, but we want to put thesethings, these plans, right in safe places, in safe spaces, in safe hands, because a lot of times people unknowingly can just trample
all over your dreams. And dreams have beenstopped cold. I mean cold like in their tracks, by people who are not able to truly see you, and whether it's to see your
(05:51):
potential, to see who you really are, to seeyour creativity and your brilliance and your genius. Remember the episode I did about how the brain has a negativity bias, and it's
always going to look for what's wrong. Soeven with the best of intentions, you could come to somebody and say, This is my plan, and they're going to start saying all the
things, why that it's not going to work. Andlike I said, they think they're doing it out of love, because they're trying to keep you safe and they're afraid, and they want you
(06:19):
to do a sure bet, and they want to make surethat you're going to do something that's going to have a happy ending. But, I mean, part of this isn't even about the income
outcome. It's about the process. It's aboutthe creativity, it's about the experience. It's about learning as we go. But out of their own fear, right? They just kind of
like, like I said, they just kind of throwup all their fear all over you, and then it will stop people's dreams. We've also seen it in schools with teachers who, you know,
(06:46):
can't see the creativity underneath, maybethe bad spelling or the bad grammar or whatever. And they take that red pen and they just, they just red pen the dreams out
of kids, you know, they just kill. They justkill these creative dollies, like with their criticism and with their desire to be a know it all, or sometimes they're just jealous
because they didn't go after their owndreams, and they take it out on the people who are bold enough and brave enough and ballsy enough and have enough hutzpah to
(07:13):
say, like, Yeah, I'm gonna go for thisthing. So this is the thing about hatching a plan. I can't stress this enough if you're gonna talk about it, make sure you're
talking about it in safe places. And we justknow that in brain science, right? So some of you may know that I'm a certified gateless writing instructor, and one of the
ways that we do gateless or give gatelessfeedback, which to me, gateless is really just a way of showing love and extending love, breathing life into the creative
(07:42):
impulse and the genius of people. So the waythat we give feedback in gateless is really different than how typical, quote, unquote, typical feedback is giving, whether it's in
writing or in life, right? We know throughbrain science that criticism, that inner critic, that voice, and the voice of external critical voices can kill
(08:03):
creativity. It will stop you dead in yourtracks. And so we want to focus on what, what is really exciting about this plan. And so we want to put it into the hands of the
people who have the ability to truly seeyou, and even if they don't quite get it, because maybe your plan is beyond their scope. Or is it like my sweetie sometimes
can come to me and he can show me thingsmusically, and I can hear it and know what I like. But if he tried to break it down and say like, oh, I'm playing these chords, and
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I'm doing this, and I'm moving from this,this chord to that chord, and these notes to that, like, my brain just goes like, what? But I can hold the space for him and
celebrate him and cheerlead him, and, youknow, encourage, encourage his his craft and his creativity and his genius. But so you don't always have to talk about your plans,
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especially when you're hatching a plan, it'ssometimes best to keep things a little secret. And I kind of like that. I kind of try, tend to be the kind of person that will
do a thing, or start to do a thing, or I'min a thing, and then I let people know I don't always like to do a ton of, like, behind the scenes first, and like all this
stuff. Like, I know that people love to seea process in action. I'm not saying you should never do that. There's just certain times I think when it's good to keep your
(09:22):
plans close to your chest, especially ifyou're not in an environment where you can know that your
that your dreams and your visions and theseplans that mean so much to you, that have a lot of meaning and purpose to you, are not going To be held with tenderness and care
and celebration. Okay? Now the other thingis, I wanted to look at the word hatch, because I think this is really fascinating, too, and I'm going to tie this all together
(09:50):
with the spiritual principle in a moment. Sojust stay with me. Okay? Because I've been thinking about this for a while. So I love that the idea hatch, traditionally, is kind
of. Use when you think about hatching, likelittle animals that are hatching, right? Whether it's little chicks coming out of a shell, it's like something needs to break in
order to allow allow this like youngcreature, this young little precious animal, to like come out. And I think that's what we're kind of doing, too, with our plans and
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our dreams and our hopes. Is, especially aswe're moving into a new year is there are things inside of us that are trying to hatch. There might be some things that have
been gestating for a long time, like you'vebeen pregnant with an idea or a book or a song or a business opportunity or whatever the thing is, right? An invention, a new way
of thinking or being, and you've been kindof hibernating with this and gestating this, and it's been growing inside of you, and now this, this thing, is about to break free and
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like, come out into the world. And, youknow, imagine if we we used a hammer to try and help that chick come out of the shell. Like that will not end well. And this is
what I'm talking about. Like, we want ourcreativity and our ideas and our plans to be fostered in environments where those seeds can take root and germinate and get good
light and good water and good nurturing andnourishment so that it can grow. And that includes you. It's just not just external people. It's about how you're watering, how
(11:16):
you're pouring into, how you're nurturingthat thing. And this requires a little bit of discipline, right? And us being willing to commit to our plans and to not do it all
wishy washy, because you've heard me saybefore that the universe cannot get behind wishy washy. We want to have some clarity, and we're going to talk about that in a
minute. Okay, another way of looking athatch, a hatch, right is an opening, like it's an escape hatch. And this can be like through a wall or a floor. And back in the
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old days, they would talk about like servicehatches, like an opening where you could serve through. And I really think about this in our creativity, in our artistry, in our
work and what we're doing in the world, itis a way to hatch, to bring something through, to be the portal that something can break through and serve through. I think
that this is fascinating. And sometimes whatwe're breaking through is old ways of being, old ways of thinking, old ways of thinking about ourselves, sometimes our talents and
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abilities, sometimes other people in ourrelationships and sometimes the world. So I think when we're hatching a plan, there's an opening for something new to take place,
something divine and creative, to flowthrough you and for you to be in service in a way that feels both purposeful and meaningful to you, but also brings something
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into the world that other people might findhelpful or entertaining, or gives them guidance or creates purpose, right? Whatever the act of creativity first serves us, and
then if it lands out into the world in agreater way, that's amazing. I mean, even just think about this podcast. When I do this podcast, if it wasn't fun for me, if
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the process wasn't in some way purposeful ormeaningful, or I didn't have fun doing it, I wouldn't do it. The fact that you guys listen, and you know, I hear from from some
of you, that it's very helpful that, to me,is like the bonus that's the cherry on top, right? So being able to to create, to be a hatch, to be an opening in the world, I
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think, I think is pretty cool, too. And alsosometimes when we're hatching a plan, when we think about a hatch, we think about it as an escape hatch. That's another way of
looking at hatches as a way to escape. And Ithink sometimes we need to hatch plans to get away from old ways of being, or maybe to get away from old relationships or old jobs
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or gigs that are no longer serving, orwhatever it is, an old habit, an old addiction, an old thought system, an old pattern, whatever it is, I think having a
hatch, to be able to escape through in apositive way can be a very powerful thing. Okay, so let's, let's now whether we've talked about the word hatch, let's talk
(14:14):
about the word plan. And this is where, kindof the the spiritual piece comes into this a little more deeply. So I just want to, first and foremost say this, that I'm a person
that is like, all for going with the flow ofthings. I think sometimes, you know, I'm I'm a wicked planner, like, I love to plan more on that in a second. But there are people
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who are just like, Ah, just going to go withthe flow and like, we'll figure it out when we get there. And they'd like to be really spontaneous and whatever. And I get that, I
really get that. And and I think it can bebeautiful. I think that, but, but the thing that I often say is discipline leads to freedom, and what. I mean by that is there's
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a difference between having no plan and justwinging it and then crossing your fingers and hoping that there's an outcome that like is good. And then there's a time in a place
when to have a plan right to be disciplinedenough to sit down and practice your thing and repeat a thing, and so it's in you, and that's what I often say, like, discipline
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leads to freedom. It's the discipline first,that planning first, that then allows me to be spontaneous with confidence. So there are people who just like to wing it and say,
Fuck it last minute. We'll figure it out. Nobig deal. I like to put in the time, the effort, the energy, and then release myself to the intuitive or the creative or the
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spontaneous or the divine, you know,intelligence experience, right? Because first I already know that I've put in the time, the energy, the effort, I know what
I'm talking about, right? And then I cankind of stand in that and then open myself. I got the foundation is there? The plan is there. Doesn't mean things are going to go
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according to plan. But I can plan on my feetbetter when I've put some discipline right into the thing first. So I don't want to say, like, some people like, oh, I don't
like having a plan. Having plans is boring.Well, for some of us, I understand why that is, right? Some our brains all work differently. Some people just like, like I
(16:31):
said, they like to say, wing it, fuck it,chuck it. It's all. We'll see what happened. Fuck around and find out, right? That's a huge motto of mine. But I'm able to Fauci to
to fuck around and find out because I have alittle bit of stability and foundation underneath me. I also have a lot of faith. So that's another story for another time.
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Okay, coming back to the plan, there's aline in A Course in Miracles that I love that says a healed mind does not plan. A healed mind does not plan. Now let's talk
about this for a little bit. It doesn't meanthat you don't make a plan, right? It's really easy to interpret this, oh, a healed mind does not plan. It's not saying don't
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have a plan. What it really means underneathall of this is that you can have a plan. You can make a plan, just don't make it, quote, unquote, all on your own. Because, as I
often say, if, if I just let me my ego, myego personality pass. Now who I really am is not my ego in my personality parts. This is like a part of me, my true capital S self,
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is often not the me that wants to make theplan, right, the me that I can sometimes think of myself to be. And we all do this, right? We all confuse who we are, okay? So
sometimes our ego personality is in charge,and it's like, I'm going to come up with a plan. This is what I'm going to do, and this is how it's going to work, and this is going
to be the outcome. Yeah, have you met mylife? Have you seen life and how it unfolds surprising me all the time. So it means that when we go to quote, unquote plan, you have
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often heard me say the prayer many timesthat's adapted from A Course in Miracles, right? And I expand on it a lot in my own personal life. And sometimes it goes like
this, right? Please have me go where youwould have me go. So first of all, I'm asking for directions, like literally, where do you want me to plant my ass? Where do you
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want me to go today. Where can I be mosthelpful and be in service to love, right?
Where would you have me go? And then itsays, Please have me go where you would have me go. Please have me do what you would have me do. Okay? And then it goes, so like now
that I'm in the place that you want me togo, please direct me to go where you would have me go. Please direct me to do what you would have me do, in service to love, in
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service to the best possible outcome for allwhich, how could I possibly know what that is with my very limited capacity, right? But there is something within me which I call an
internal teacher, which, of course, inmiracles, can call an internal teacher, Holy Spirit, spirit. You call it whatever you want to call it, right? Some people might
call it intuition, instinct, whatever,divine intelligence. Okay, so there's a part of me that is in communion with the beloved, that is in communion with the divine. Call
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it communion with God or the universe orlove or source, or the creator. I don't care what your higher power, right? Okay. There's a part of me that is in communion with that,
and I'm asking that part of me to pleasehelp me get the out of my own way, to please not let Vicky, with two kids from Lawrence, to be driving the bus all the time. Okay,
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so, so part of this is have me go where youwould have me go. Have. Me do what you would have me do, have me say what you would have me say, like, use my tongue, use my words,
right and to whom? Who do you want me to sayit to? Please, give me please. Give me the wisdom to know when to speak, when I do speak, what encouraging or loving words can
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I say and when to shut the bump up to zip itto just right? I always say, you guys have heard me say before, right? Why be an asshole when you can just be quiet, right?
Okay? And then I also will add, have me bewho you would have me be. And then I say, please use me. Please use me. Please use me. So even though, on the mortal plane, right,
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we kind of gotta have a plan. It looks likeI gotta wake up at this time. I'm gonna do my DSP, my daily spiritual practice. I'm gonna do some writing. I'm gonna, you know,
get on, like, work out, go for a walk,whatever you're gonna do, right? This is when I have this meeting. I gotta pick up my kids, I gotta feed the dog, I gotta walk
what, whatever you're doing. We gotta haveplans, right? We gotta know kind of what's going on. But I don't want those plans to be made by the part of my brain that thinks
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humans think we're a lot smarter than weactually humans. Think we know a lot more than we than we actually do. So I want something smarter than me, directing right,
guiding me, helping me make the plan I don'twant to today, I will make no decisions by myself. Of course, a miracle says, and I'm like, Yeah, you know why? Because I am now
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to I will make no decisions by myself,because I am now smart enough to know how much I don't know, and I can't possibly know what the best possible outcome is for myself
and everybody else at all times. So I askmyself to be used in service to something greater, right? And part of this requires that I have some tools in my toolbox to
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quiet my mind enough to get still enough,right? You know that old saying, Be still? And know the old saying, it's from the Bible somewhere, uh, be still and know that I am
God. Be still. I always break it down, bestill and know, right, be still be so in my beingness, when I get quiet enough, using tools to help the chat of the ego mind,
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right, all that constant noise, if we candial it back, if we can Turn down the volume, so that a truer voice, right, the voice for God, the voice for love, the
creative impulse, can speak. And if I canlisten to that and have the courage to take action on that, my plan is going to be a really different plan, that if I'm just
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letting my fearful ego, write the plan allon its own. And I think a lot of times when we go into the new year, this is what happens, is that people make all these
resolutions, these new year resolutions, buta lot of them are made out of fear and not necessarily out of love. We're looking at things through a lens of the ego lens, and
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it's really, really helpful, I think, tolook at things through the spiritual lens, through the lens of love. And this is a really fun way to be able to do it, because
if you're like, he, he hatching a plan, likeI am, right then, like, we don't have to tell the world about it. And it's a really fun to hatch plans, but let's not hatch them
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on our own right. Make new decisions byourselves. I'm smart enough to realize that that I don't want to make all my plans with my ego. I want to invite in something smart.
I want to ask. I asked my internal teacher,Holy Spirit. Spirit to please guide my thoughts, my words, my actions. Who would you have me be? How would you have me be?
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Please guide. I say this every day. Pleaseguide my head, my hat, my hands, and definitely my big fat mouth. You know what I mean? So this can be a really powerful
thing. And the other thing too, when you'rehatching a plan, I want to, I want to share this with you, is that while we can do this all mentally, like in our head, okay, that's
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great. That's fine. You might have the kindof mind you're like, I don't have to write things down, whatever. That's awesome. But writing things down is such a powerful
thing, because they did a study right now,look, I know how studies go. I don't know the exact numbers of the participants, blah, blah, blah, I can tell you the outcome,
though. They did a study of like, a certainamount of people. It was a pretty big, good number of people. And I would think of a psychologist, a woman psychologist, did
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this, and she had the participants writedown their goals, and at the end of the period of time, whatever it was, I don't know if it was three months, six months, a.
Whatever it was, they found that people whowrote down their goals because you're using a different part of your brain. PS, when you hand write down your goals, don't type them
out first. If you want to type them upafterwards, that's fine, but first get out a piece of paper, a pen, a pencil, whatever your favorite instrument is to write with
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hand, write this down what your goals are.People who write down their goals are 42% more likely to reach their goals. I mean, think about that, 42% that has no small
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number, you guys, so I think it's worth atry. And the other thing that happens is when you write things down, so like, imagine you were trying to get from here to
California, and you're like, we're justgonna wing it. Like, no GPS No, no, no, no system for getting you a no, going to triple A and getting the triple A maps. Like, back
(26:03):
in the old day, back in the day, you used tohave to go to triple A, and they would make you a map literally from point A to point B, and you had to, like, follow the map. That
was before the GPS systems and stuff likethat, right? So, but imagine just kind of codi whopping your way across country. Like, might not end that well, unless you have all
the time and resources in the world. So wewant to know, right, like where we're trying to go and what we're trying to do, and when we write things down about our plan, when
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we're hatching a plan, right? It's going tohelp us get some more clarity and helping us to select maybe more specific things, rather than just random things. So writing things
down helps us to get more specific. It helpsus to decide, make some choices, and it helps us to get clarity about what we want to do. So number one, that's like, really
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fantastic when you have things written down,what it also does is it helps you to keep your focus on the goal, to keep your eyes on the prize, as we like to say, because all
throughout, like, not even a year, nevermind, like a day, like all throughout a day, you might have a plan, and then life has other plans, and it's really easy to get
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invited to things, or to have people Needstuff from you, or whatever it is. And we want to be able to use this written down plan,
kind of as a way to like, ping, ping, ping,like, put it almost like in a bubble, or like a filtering system so we can filter it through and say, Okay, this, this plan that
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I have that is purposeful and meaningful andreflects my values, and is what I'm trying to accomplish, right? This year, this week, or whatever this day. Is this thing going to
detract me from it? So it's a really greatway. You know, when they used to, like mine for gold or shift for gold, they would take sift they would take those sifters and
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anything, right? They were trying to lookfor the gold in a thing. So this is a way, like a sifting process or a filtering process, to make sure that it's helping you
to stay, like, right on track with what youwant to do. Okay? It'll also help you to overcome resistance. Now, I'm a big fan of Steven Pressfield. If you don't know who
Steven Pressfield is, I have like, you can'tsee them, but they're all over there. I have, like, all of his books over there, and one of his books called do the work. He also
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wrote The War of Art, but one of his books,do the work. This is what we do. Writing things down is a way to really, really focus, which will help you to overcome
resistance. Because every time that you comeup with a dream, anytime you come up with something meaningful for you, if it is big enough, if it's a big enough dream, the
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Automatically, the ego is going to createsome sort of resistance to it. It's going to be like, Who do you think you ought to have this dream? You don't have the time, you
don't have the resources, you're not smartenough, like whatever it is. But when you start to write things down, and you look over at it, and you look at it multiple
times, and you start to kind of get it setin your subconscious, and you start to make it more real, because this is how we start to create new neural pathways and new neural
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connections, is we want to do something withrepetition, because that resistance is going to be so strong, and so we will be able to kind of look at this goal. Focus on the
goal. See the goal in our mind, repetition,repetition, repetition, with feeling, and it will help us combat that resistance a little bit more. Okay. Also, when you write things
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down, that's like a really great way thatpoints to the next step, which is not just writing it down and keeping it all Woo, like, like, up in the ethereal. We want to
bring it down to earth practically. And whenwe see something written down, we already have our instructions for the day, we're like, Yep, this is what I'm doing, and now
I'm going to take action. And that's a verypowerful thing. A plan is just a plan until it's executed, and then it starts to become real, and then it starts to happen. And. We
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take the next best step, the next smalleststep, to take action in the direction of your dreams. And when you review them regularly and you look at them, it will
provoke you. It will inspire you. It willmove you. It will shift something in you to maybe take the next step or action, which also helps us overcome resistance when you
start to get a little momentum. Okay? Theother great thing that writing something down does is it allows you to kind of track and see where your progress has been. It's
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like, oh, this is what I said I was going todo on this date. And look, I'm already here. So it's kind of like, it's kind of like proof. It's like your plans can be like a
love letter to your future self, because whoyou are now, if you just listen to, you know, my episode that I just did, your life is a reflection. Your life currently is a
reflection of who you've been. So if we'relooking forward into a new year and how we want to be and who we want to be and where we want to go, those outcomes that we're you
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know, they may not happen, but they're gonnahappen a hell of a lot more probably, right? If we write them down, we take them seriously, we hatch the plan, and then we do
something about it. And if we keep reviewingit, and we keep looking at it, and we're like, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like, keep my eye on the prize, you know, I'm gonna,
like, go for this thing, right? It's reallygonna help us be able to kind of see just, just what we've accomplished, and that's really exciting, to be able to, how do I say
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this? To be to be a proactive participantand the celebration of your own plan. And you're like, I hatched this plan, but I didn't just hatch it alone. I hatched it
with my spiritual team, with Holy Spirit,with, you know, my intuition, my whatever. I made a plan. I hatched a plan, but I didn't make it by myself. And this is one of the
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ways that we get to serve and have a moremeaningful, a more meaningful. You know, life is when we're aligning also these plans with what we really care about and our
purpose and why we're here and what we hopeto do while we're here. And if those things right are not in alignment with who we really are and what really matters. Like,
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that's the first step, part of hatching theplan. The first step is getting really clear. And I think that at the end of the year, one of the things that I always do,
and I've talked about this in past episodes,that's why I didn't want to do another end of the year like. So I kind of asked myself, what needs to stay like, what's the things
or the people or the relationships or thehabits or the patterns that are really helpful and positive and empowering? What needs to stay, what needs to go like, what's
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the bullshit that I'm done putting up with?What are the relationships that aren't working, what, what feels not reciprocal, what just feels like an energy suck and
drain like? What am I ready to let go of,old stories, old patterns, old habits, whatever, and then what do I want to grow? What do I want to expand on? What do I want
to create? What do I want to hatch a planaround? Right? That's kind of what this is. This is all about. So let's do a little recap. Okay, hatching a plan, to make a
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plan, especially a secret plan. So remember,you don't have to blab out to the interwebs, on the internet, on social media, to everybody, you know, oh yeah, I'm gonna run
a marathon. I'm gonna run a 5k I'm gonna dothat. Now, for some people, telling others is a great way that they use to stay accountable. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm
just saying, if you are going to do it,please make sure that you're sharing it with people who have tender hands, who have kind mouths, who don't just try to tear you down,
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or, you know, those people can suck it in abucket like no all set with that. So find your balcony, people. If you haven't listened to that episode, I recorded it. I
think it's called like balcony and basementpeople make sure you're not taking these, these tender dreams, these plans, and putting them with the basement people save
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yourself a lot of suffering. Oh, my God.Okay, so what I was trying to say too earlier is it's okay to have a plan, right? But don't make the plan on your own, right?
Make it with divine intelligence. Make itwith spirit like ask for get quiet. This is what a DSP is really powerful for daily spiritual practice, helping to discipline
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the mind, to quiet the mind, because anundisciplined mind can accomplish nothing, and discipline allows us to have more freedom, even when we have a plan that's
really helpful. Think about this as anopening, right? Patching a plan is an opening, and whether it's an escape hatch or it's something hatching and being. Earth
inside of you, and it's breaking out of itsshell and it's coming into the world. It's a beautiful thing. Remember, criticism can kill creativity. So again, we're going back
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to finding the people who will nurture andnourish and breathe life into you and support you as you're going after your dreams and your plans, listen deeply
internally when you sit down to make thisplan, write it down, things that get written down tend to get accomplished 42% more right? Clarify what you want, take action on
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what you want. Use what you've written downas a filter to keep you on track. Reread with feeling. Envision your dream. See your dream. It will help you to overcome
resistance, and then make sure you take timeto celebrate when your plan set to go according to plan, it can be a very powerful thing. All right, you guys, thank you so
much for tuning in a couple of things. Ifyou are interested. I think this one's going to come out on like January 2 or whatever. So I'm doing an online yoga class. That's my
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plan. Is to start offering online yogaclasses right here from my home, so you can tune in wherever you are from the comfort of your living room, your comfort of your
bedroom, wear your PJs. I don't care, aslong as you're not naked and you're decent. You know what I'm saying? You don't even have to turn on your camera. I prefer that
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you turn on your camera so I can see you, soI can help you to have a better experience. It's going to be a fantastic time. Tuesday nights, at 6pm Eastern Time. My time for
it's a 75 minute class. There'll be a bonus15 minutes afterwards, optional, if you want to stick around for creating community or asking questions from 715 to 730 so six to
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715 Eastern is the yoga class. And thenthere's bonus time after shavasana, once we come up to like, hang out and talk and get to know the other people, if you want to, or
you just don't have to. It's just optional.It's a bonus. It's for fun. 15 bucks a class. Just go to Karen kenney.com/yoga to sign up. We already have a bunch of people
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signed up. It's going to be so much fun. Ican't wait. I'd love to have you join us. And if anything that I was talking about today, right this storytelling and
spirituality, of being able to take thesetools and apply them to our daily life.
This is what it's really all about you guys,when we when we work in the nest, my group, spiritual mentoring program, it really is a way of learning how to navigate the human
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experience from a more spiritual place, sothat we can do it with meaning and with purpose, with more love and with more peace, and having some really solid, applicable
tools that you can use. And that's justKaren kenney.com nest, okay, thanks for tuning in. I appreciate you Happy New Year. I hope it's a beautiful and abundant and
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joyous and wicked fun and creative, a yearfull of love and purpose and creativity and meaning and peace and so wherever you go, may you leave yourself, the animals, the
other people, the places you go, the planet,the environment, better than how you found it. Wherever you go, may you be a blessing and spread more love in the world. Bye, bye.
Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super duper excited to be here with you. If you're watching this episode, you can see, you can see the title
of the episode right on my sweatshirt. So ifyou're not watching this, you can't see that my sweetie, for Christmas, got me a sweatshirt from one of my favorite artists.
(00:27):
The artist name is Batsy head. You'veprobably heard me talk about him, her, them, we don't know. They never show a picture of themselves, only their at work. And I'm just
obsessed, with this person's at work. Ialready have, like, several sweatshirts, and this one I wanted so bad, and it says, hatching a plan. And if you can see the
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little cat creature on it, he's got hislittle hands tucked up to his chin, and his eyes are looking off like all squinty into the side like He's hatching a secret plan.
And that's how I kind of feel when I'm goinginto the new year, right when we have an opportunity. And I think of our birthdays as personal New Years. And then I think, of
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course, of the changing of the calendar aswe roll back around into January as another opportunity to have a fresh start, a clean slate. It's the perfect time to hatch a
plan. So let's talk about this a little bit.First of all, I think you can hatch a plan anytime you want to, but very symbolically, right? And I know a lot of people will say,
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Oh my God, but winter is the time forhibernation. Winter is the time for slowing down and being, you know, to reflect on things and to be contemplative, to be kind
of like to mull and to muse. And I agreewith all of that. And that's the great thing about hatching a plan. It doesn't mean necessarily that, like you're doing the
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plan, you're just kind of hatching the plan.So the great thing, so I wanted to, like, a lot of times when there's a phrase that I love, I love to look it up and to see, like,
what other sources say the definition is.And to hatch a plan means to make a plan, but it means to especially make a secret plan. This is, this is what I love, right to
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make a secret plan. And I want to talk aboutthis aspect of it, especially as we're moving into the new year, because there is something that I have seen again and again
and again in my lifetime, especially withcreatives and artists and people and entrepreneurs, etc, people who are trying to do original things or unique things, or to
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bring at into the world, bring ideas intothe world, new ways of thinking into the world. Right? It's really, really easy to, unfortunately share your plans, share your
dreams, share your ideas with others who donot have your best interests at heart. And it's not that they're dicks, it's that sometimes unconsciously, subconsciously,
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they have whether it's low self esteem,jealousy, envy, a lack of whatever the thing is, right? Is that when you come to them with a dream or a plan or an idea, right?
There may not be your balcony people. Thesemay not be the people that really see you, get you, love, you, understand you, cheer lead you, celebrate you, like encourage you.
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These might be people who for their ownreasons, sometimes known to them nefariously, sometimes unknown to them, pattern and condition from their their
history, they're not really going to treatyour dreams, your ideas, your at whatever you're sharing with them, your plans, with gentleness, with tenderness, with seeing
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that this is like a seed that's trying to beplanted and it wants to take root, and it wants to get some strength, and it wants to grow. And so they'll come in with like,
either sarcasm or roll their eyes, or like,Who do you think you are to have this big dream? Or, you know, why do you think what makes you so special, or this stinks, or
whatever, right? They give their opinions.They give their fears. Well, that's what they're let's get right down to brass tacks. That's what they're doing. Is they're really
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just kind of vomiting their fear, right, allover your idea, your plan, your dream. And this is why I love hatching, quote, unquote. Hatching a plan is because when you hatch
it, and especially hatch, right, hatching aplan means to, like, make a plan, but usually in secret, and why that can be really. Great is I often encourage people
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not to talk about what they're going to doto I always say you don't have to talk about it to, like, make it real. It can between, be between you and yourself. It can be
between you and your spiritual team, you andyour sweetie and your best friend, you and the divine you and God you and Holy Spirit you and your internal teacher. Whatever you
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want to say, but we want to put thesethings, these plans, right in safe places, in safe spaces, in safe hands, because a lot of times people unknowingly can just trample
all over your dreams. And dreams have beenstopped cold. I mean cold like in their tracks, by people who are not able to truly see you, and whether it's to see your
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potential, to see who you really are, to seeyour creativity and your brilliance and your genius. Remember the episode I did about how the brain has a negativity bias, and it's
always going to look for what's wrong. Soeven with the best of intentions, you could come to somebody and say, This is my plan, and they're going to start saying all the
things, why that it's not going to work. Andlike I said, they think they're doing it out of love, because they're trying to keep you safe and they're afraid, and they want you
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to do a sure bet, and they want to make surethat you're going to do something that's going to have a happy ending. But, I mean, part of this isn't even about the income
outcome. It's about the process. It's aboutthe creativity, it's about the experience. It's about learning as we go. But out of their own fear, right? They just kind of
like, like I said, they just kind of throwup all their fear all over you, and then it will stop people's dreams. We've also seen it in schools with teachers who, you know,
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can't see the creativity underneath, maybethe bad spelling or the bad grammar or whatever. And they take that red pen and they just, they just red pen the dreams out
of kids, you know, they just kill. They justkill these creative dollies, like with their criticism and with their desire to be a know it all, or sometimes they're just jealous
because they didn't go after their owndreams, and they take it out on the people who are bold enough and brave enough and ballsy enough and have enough hutzpah to
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say, like, Yeah, I'm gonna go for thisthing. So this is the thing about hatching a plan. I can't stress this enough if you're gonna talk about it, make sure you're
talking about it in safe places. And we justknow that in brain science, right? So some of you may know that I'm a certified gateless writing instructor, and one of the
ways that we do gateless or give gatelessfeedback, which to me, gateless is really just a way of showing love and extending love, breathing life into the creative
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impulse and the genius of people. So the waythat we give feedback in gateless is really different than how typical, quote, unquote, typical feedback is giving, whether it's in
writing or in life, right? We know throughbrain science that criticism, that inner critic, that voice, and the voice of external critical voices can kill
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creativity. It will stop you dead in yourtracks. And so we want to focus on what, what is really exciting about this plan. And so we want to put it into the hands of the
people who have the ability to truly seeyou, and even if they don't quite get it, because maybe your plan is beyond their scope. Or is it like my sweetie sometimes
can come to me and he can show me thingsmusically, and I can hear it and know what I like. But if he tried to break it down and say like, oh, I'm playing these chords, and
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I'm doing this, and I'm moving from this,this chord to that chord, and these notes to that, like, my brain just goes like, what? But I can hold the space for him and
celebrate him and cheerlead him, and, youknow, encourage, encourage his his craft and his creativity and his genius. But so you don't always have to talk about your plans,
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especially when you're hatching a plan, it'ssometimes best to keep things a little secret. And I kind of like that. I kind of try, tend to be the kind of person that will
do a thing, or start to do a thing, or I'min a thing, and then I let people know I don't always like to do a ton of, like, behind the scenes first, and like all this
stuff. Like, I know that people love to seea process in action. I'm not saying you should never do that. There's just certain times I think when it's good to keep your
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plans close to your chest, especially ifyou're not in an environment where you can know that your
that your dreams and your visions and theseplans that mean so much to you, that have a lot of meaning and purpose to you, are not going To be held with tenderness and care
and celebration. Okay? Now the other thingis, I wanted to look at the word hatch, because I think this is really fascinating, too, and I'm going to tie this all together
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with the spiritual principle in a moment. Sojust stay with me. Okay? Because I've been thinking about this for a while. So I love that the idea hatch, traditionally, is kind
of. Use when you think about hatching, likelittle animals that are hatching, right? Whether it's little chicks coming out of a shell, it's like something needs to break in
order to allow allow this like youngcreature, this young little precious animal, to like come out. And I think that's what we're kind of doing, too, with our plans and
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our dreams and our hopes. Is, especially aswe're moving into a new year is there are things inside of us that are trying to hatch. There might be some things that have
been gestating for a long time, like you'vebeen pregnant with an idea or a book or a song or a business opportunity or whatever the thing is, right? An invention, a new way
of thinking or being, and you've been kindof hibernating with this and gestating this, and it's been growing inside of you, and now this, this thing, is about to break free and
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like, come out into the world. And, youknow, imagine if we we used a hammer to try and help that chick come out of the shell. Like that will not end well. And this is
what I'm talking about. Like, we want ourcreativity and our ideas and our plans to be fostered in environments where those seeds can take root and germinate and get good
light and good water and good nurturing andnourishment so that it can grow. And that includes you. It's just not just external people. It's about how you're watering, how
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you're pouring into, how you're nurturingthat thing. And this requires a little bit of discipline, right? And us being willing to commit to our plans and to not do it all
wishy washy, because you've heard me saybefore that the universe cannot get behind wishy washy. We want to have some clarity, and we're going to talk about that in a
minute. Okay, another way of looking athatch, a hatch, right is an opening, like it's an escape hatch. And this can be like through a wall or a floor. And back in the
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old days, they would talk about like servicehatches, like an opening where you could serve through. And I really think about this in our creativity, in our artistry, in our
work and what we're doing in the world, itis a way to hatch, to bring something through, to be the portal that something can break through and serve through. I think
that this is fascinating. And sometimes whatwe're breaking through is old ways of being, old ways of thinking, old ways of thinking about ourselves, sometimes our talents and
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abilities, sometimes other people in ourrelationships and sometimes the world. So I think when we're hatching a plan, there's an opening for something new to take place,
something divine and creative, to flowthrough you and for you to be in service in a way that feels both purposeful and meaningful to you, but also brings something
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into the world that other people might findhelpful or entertaining, or gives them guidance or creates purpose, right? Whatever the act of creativity first serves us, and
then if it lands out into the world in agreater way, that's amazing. I mean, even just think about this podcast. When I do this podcast, if it wasn't fun for me, if
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the process wasn't in some way purposeful ormeaningful, or I didn't have fun doing it, I wouldn't do it. The fact that you guys listen, and you know, I hear from from some
of you, that it's very helpful that, to me,is like the bonus that's the cherry on top, right? So being able to to create, to be a hatch, to be an opening in the world, I
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think, I think is pretty cool, too. And alsosometimes when we're hatching a plan, when we think about a hatch, we think about it as an escape hatch. That's another way of
looking at hatches as a way to escape. And Ithink sometimes we need to hatch plans to get away from old ways of being, or maybe to get away from old relationships or old jobs
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or gigs that are no longer serving, orwhatever it is, an old habit, an old addiction, an old thought system, an old pattern, whatever it is, I think having a
hatch, to be able to escape through in apositive way can be a very powerful thing. Okay, so let's, let's now whether we've talked about the word hatch, let's talk
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about the word plan. And this is where, kindof the the spiritual piece comes into this a little more deeply. So I just want to, first and foremost say this, that I'm a person
that is like, all for going with the flow ofthings. I think sometimes, you know, I'm I'm a wicked planner, like, I love to plan more on that in a second. But there are people
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who are just like, Ah, just going to go withthe flow and like, we'll figure it out when we get there. And they'd like to be really spontaneous and whatever. And I get that, I
really get that. And and I think it can bebeautiful. I think that, but, but the thing that I often say is discipline leads to freedom, and what. I mean by that is there's
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a difference between having no plan and justwinging it and then crossing your fingers and hoping that there's an outcome that like is good. And then there's a time in a place
when to have a plan right to be disciplinedenough to sit down and practice your thing and repeat a thing, and so it's in you, and that's what I often say, like, discipline
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leads to freedom. It's the discipline first,that planning first, that then allows me to be spontaneous with confidence. So there are people who just like to wing it and say,
Fuck it last minute. We'll figure it out. Nobig deal. I like to put in the time, the effort, the energy, and then release myself to the intuitive or the creative or the
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spontaneous or the divine, you know,intelligence experience, right? Because first I already know that I've put in the time, the energy, the effort, I know what
I'm talking about, right? And then I cankind of stand in that and then open myself. I got the foundation is there? The plan is there. Doesn't mean things are going to go
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according to plan. But I can plan on my feetbetter when I've put some discipline right into the thing first. So I don't want to say, like, some people like, oh, I don't
like having a plan. Having plans is boring.Well, for some of us, I understand why that is, right? Some our brains all work differently. Some people just like, like I
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said, they like to say, wing it, fuck it,chuck it. It's all. We'll see what happened. Fuck around and find out, right? That's a huge motto of mine. But I'm able to Fauci to
to fuck around and find out because I have alittle bit of stability and foundation underneath me. I also have a lot of faith. So that's another story for another time.
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Okay, coming back to the plan, there's aline in A Course in Miracles that I love that says a healed mind does not plan. A healed mind does not plan. Now let's talk
about this for a little bit. It doesn't meanthat you don't make a plan, right? It's really easy to interpret this, oh, a healed mind does not plan. It's not saying don't
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have a plan. What it really means underneathall of this is that you can have a plan. You can make a plan, just don't make it, quote, unquote, all on your own. Because, as I
often say, if, if I just let me my ego, myego personality pass. Now who I really am is not my ego in my personality parts. This is like a part of me, my true capital S self,
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is often not the me that wants to make theplan, right, the me that I can sometimes think of myself to be. And we all do this, right? We all confuse who we are, okay? So
sometimes our ego personality is in charge,and it's like, I'm going to come up with a plan. This is what I'm going to do, and this is how it's going to work, and this is going
to be the outcome. Yeah, have you met mylife? Have you seen life and how it unfolds surprising me all the time. So it means that when we go to quote, unquote plan, you have
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often heard me say the prayer many timesthat's adapted from A Course in Miracles, right? And I expand on it a lot in my own personal life. And sometimes it goes like
this, right? Please have me go where youwould have me go. So first of all, I'm asking for directions, like literally, where do you want me to plant my ass? Where do you
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want me to go today. Where can I be mosthelpful and be in service to love, right?
Where would you have me go? And then itsays, Please have me go where you would have me go. Please have me do what you would have me do. Okay? And then it goes, so like now
that I'm in the place that you want me togo, please direct me to go where you would have me go. Please direct me to do what you would have me do, in service to love, in
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service to the best possible outcome for allwhich, how could I possibly know what that is with my very limited capacity, right? But there is something within me which I call an
internal teacher, which, of course, inmiracles, can call an internal teacher, Holy Spirit, spirit. You call it whatever you want to call it, right? Some people might
call it intuition, instinct, whatever,divine intelligence. Okay, so there's a part of me that is in communion with the beloved, that is in communion with the divine. Call
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it communion with God or the universe orlove or source, or the creator. I don't care what your higher power, right? Okay. There's a part of me that is in communion with that,
and I'm asking that part of me to pleasehelp me get the out of my own way, to please not let Vicky, with two kids from Lawrence, to be driving the bus all the time. Okay,
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so, so part of this is have me go where youwould have me go. Have. Me do what you would have me do, have me say what you would have me say, like, use my tongue, use my words,
right and to whom? Who do you want me to sayit to? Please, give me please. Give me the wisdom to know when to speak, when I do speak, what encouraging or loving words can
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I say and when to shut the bump up to zip itto just right? I always say, you guys have heard me say before, right? Why be an asshole when you can just be quiet, right?
Okay? And then I also will add, have me bewho you would have me be. And then I say, please use me. Please use me. Please use me. So even though, on the mortal plane, right,
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we kind of gotta have a plan. It looks likeI gotta wake up at this time. I'm gonna do my DSP, my daily spiritual practice. I'm gonna do some writing. I'm gonna, you know,
get on, like, work out, go for a walk,whatever you're gonna do, right? This is when I have this meeting. I gotta pick up my kids, I gotta feed the dog, I gotta walk
what, whatever you're doing. We gotta haveplans, right? We gotta know kind of what's going on. But I don't want those plans to be made by the part of my brain that thinks
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humans think we're a lot smarter than weactually humans. Think we know a lot more than we than we actually do. So I want something smarter than me, directing right,
guiding me, helping me make the plan I don'twant to today, I will make no decisions by myself. Of course, a miracle says, and I'm like, Yeah, you know why? Because I am now
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to I will make no decisions by myself,because I am now smart enough to know how much I don't know, and I can't possibly know what the best possible outcome is for myself
and everybody else at all times. So I askmyself to be used in service to something greater, right? And part of this requires that I have some tools in my toolbox to
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quiet my mind enough to get still enough,right? You know that old saying, Be still? And know the old saying, it's from the Bible somewhere, uh, be still and know that I am
God. Be still. I always break it down, bestill and know, right, be still be so in my beingness, when I get quiet enough, using tools to help the chat of the ego mind,
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right, all that constant noise, if we candial it back, if we can Turn down the volume, so that a truer voice, right, the voice for God, the voice for love, the
creative impulse, can speak. And if I canlisten to that and have the courage to take action on that, my plan is going to be a really different plan, that if I'm just
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letting my fearful ego, write the plan allon its own. And I think a lot of times when we go into the new year, this is what happens, is that people make all these
resolutions, these new year resolutions, buta lot of them are made out of fear and not necessarily out of love. We're looking at things through a lens of the ego lens, and
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it's really, really helpful, I think, tolook at things through the spiritual lens, through the lens of love. And this is a really fun way to be able to do it, because
if you're like, he, he hatching a plan, likeI am, right then, like, we don't have to tell the world about it. And it's a really fun to hatch plans, but let's not hatch them
(23:41):
on our own right. Make new decisions byourselves. I'm smart enough to realize that that I don't want to make all my plans with my ego. I want to invite in something smart.
I want to ask. I asked my internal teacher,Holy Spirit. Spirit to please guide my thoughts, my words, my actions. Who would you have me be? How would you have me be?
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Please guide. I say this every day. Pleaseguide my head, my hat, my hands, and definitely my big fat mouth. You know what I mean? So this can be a really powerful
thing. And the other thing too, when you'rehatching a plan, I want to, I want to share this with you, is that while we can do this all mentally, like in our head, okay, that's
(24:24):
great. That's fine. You might have the kindof mind you're like, I don't have to write things down, whatever. That's awesome. But writing things down is such a powerful
thing, because they did a study right now,look, I know how studies go. I don't know the exact numbers of the participants, blah, blah, blah, I can tell you the outcome,
though. They did a study of like, a certainamount of people. It was a pretty big, good number of people. And I would think of a psychologist, a woman psychologist, did
(24:51):
this, and she had the participants writedown their goals, and at the end of the period of time, whatever it was, I don't know if it was three months, six months, a.
Whatever it was, they found that people whowrote down their goals because you're using a different part of your brain. PS, when you hand write down your goals, don't type them
out first. If you want to type them upafterwards, that's fine, but first get out a piece of paper, a pen, a pencil, whatever your favorite instrument is to write with
(25:19):
hand, write this down what your goals are.People who write down their goals are 42% more likely to reach their goals. I mean, think about that, 42% that has no small
(25:39):
number, you guys, so I think it's worth atry. And the other thing that happens is when you write things down, so like, imagine you were trying to get from here to
California, and you're like, we're justgonna wing it. Like, no GPS No, no, no, no system for getting you a no, going to triple A and getting the triple A maps. Like, back
(26:03):
in the old day, back in the day, you used tohave to go to triple A, and they would make you a map literally from point A to point B, and you had to, like, follow the map. That
was before the GPS systems and stuff likethat, right? So, but imagine just kind of codi whopping your way across country. Like, might not end that well, unless you have all
the time and resources in the world. So wewant to know, right, like where we're trying to go and what we're trying to do, and when we write things down about our plan, when
(26:32):
we're hatching a plan, right? It's going tohelp us get some more clarity and helping us to select maybe more specific things, rather than just random things. So writing things
down helps us to get more specific. It helpsus to decide, make some choices, and it helps us to get clarity about what we want to do. So number one, that's like, really
(26:53):
fantastic when you have things written down,what it also does is it helps you to keep your focus on the goal, to keep your eyes on the prize, as we like to say, because all
throughout, like, not even a year, nevermind, like a day, like all throughout a day, you might have a plan, and then life has other plans, and it's really easy to get
(27:17):
invited to things, or to have people Needstuff from you, or whatever it is. And we want to be able to use this written down plan,
kind of as a way to like, ping, ping, ping,like, put it almost like in a bubble, or like a filtering system so we can filter it through and say, Okay, this, this plan that
(27:38):
I have that is purposeful and meaningful andreflects my values, and is what I'm trying to accomplish, right? This year, this week, or whatever this day. Is this thing going to
detract me from it? So it's a really greatway. You know, when they used to, like mine for gold or shift for gold, they would take sift they would take those sifters and
(27:58):
anything, right? They were trying to lookfor the gold in a thing. So this is a way, like a sifting process or a filtering process, to make sure that it's helping you
to stay, like, right on track with what youwant to do. Okay? It'll also help you to overcome resistance. Now, I'm a big fan of Steven Pressfield. If you don't know who
Steven Pressfield is, I have like, you can'tsee them, but they're all over there. I have, like, all of his books over there, and one of his books called do the work. He also
(28:24):
wrote The War of Art, but one of his books,do the work. This is what we do. Writing things down is a way to really, really focus, which will help you to overcome
resistance. Because every time that you comeup with a dream, anytime you come up with something meaningful for you, if it is big enough, if it's a big enough dream, the
(28:44):
Automatically, the ego is going to createsome sort of resistance to it. It's going to be like, Who do you think you ought to have this dream? You don't have the time, you
don't have the resources, you're not smartenough, like whatever it is. But when you start to write things down, and you look over at it, and you look at it multiple
times, and you start to kind of get it setin your subconscious, and you start to make it more real, because this is how we start to create new neural pathways and new neural
(29:10):
connections, is we want to do something withrepetition, because that resistance is going to be so strong, and so we will be able to kind of look at this goal. Focus on the
goal. See the goal in our mind, repetition,repetition, repetition, with feeling, and it will help us combat that resistance a little bit more. Okay. Also, when you write things
(29:32):
down, that's like a really great way thatpoints to the next step, which is not just writing it down and keeping it all Woo, like, like, up in the ethereal. We want to
bring it down to earth practically. And whenwe see something written down, we already have our instructions for the day, we're like, Yep, this is what I'm doing, and now
I'm going to take action. And that's a verypowerful thing. A plan is just a plan until it's executed, and then it starts to become real, and then it starts to happen. And. We
(30:00):
take the next best step, the next smalleststep, to take action in the direction of your dreams. And when you review them regularly and you look at them, it will
provoke you. It will inspire you. It willmove you. It will shift something in you to maybe take the next step or action, which also helps us overcome resistance when you
start to get a little momentum. Okay? Theother great thing that writing something down does is it allows you to kind of track and see where your progress has been. It's
(30:28):
like, oh, this is what I said I was going todo on this date. And look, I'm already here. So it's kind of like, it's kind of like proof. It's like your plans can be like a
love letter to your future self, because whoyou are now, if you just listen to, you know, my episode that I just did, your life is a reflection. Your life currently is a
reflection of who you've been. So if we'relooking forward into a new year and how we want to be and who we want to be and where we want to go, those outcomes that we're you
(30:57):
know, they may not happen, but they're gonnahappen a hell of a lot more probably, right? If we write them down, we take them seriously, we hatch the plan, and then we do
something about it. And if we keep reviewingit, and we keep looking at it, and we're like, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like, keep my eye on the prize, you know, I'm gonna,
like, go for this thing, right? It's reallygonna help us be able to kind of see just, just what we've accomplished, and that's really exciting, to be able to, how do I say
(31:31):
this? To be to be a proactive participantand the celebration of your own plan. And you're like, I hatched this plan, but I didn't just hatch it alone. I hatched it
with my spiritual team, with Holy Spirit,with, you know, my intuition, my whatever. I made a plan. I hatched a plan, but I didn't make it by myself. And this is one of the
(31:59):
ways that we get to serve and have a moremeaningful, a more meaningful. You know, life is when we're aligning also these plans with what we really care about and our
purpose and why we're here and what we hopeto do while we're here. And if those things right are not in alignment with who we really are and what really matters. Like,
(32:28):
that's the first step, part of hatching theplan. The first step is getting really clear. And I think that at the end of the year, one of the things that I always do,
and I've talked about this in past episodes,that's why I didn't want to do another end of the year like. So I kind of asked myself, what needs to stay like, what's the things
or the people or the relationships or thehabits or the patterns that are really helpful and positive and empowering? What needs to stay, what needs to go like, what's
(32:56):
the bullshit that I'm done putting up with?What are the relationships that aren't working, what, what feels not reciprocal, what just feels like an energy suck and
drain like? What am I ready to let go of,old stories, old patterns, old habits, whatever, and then what do I want to grow? What do I want to expand on? What do I want
to create? What do I want to hatch a planaround? Right? That's kind of what this is. This is all about. So let's do a little recap. Okay, hatching a plan, to make a
(33:24):
plan, especially a secret plan. So remember,you don't have to blab out to the interwebs, on the internet, on social media, to everybody, you know, oh yeah, I'm gonna run
a marathon. I'm gonna run a 5k I'm gonna dothat. Now, for some people, telling others is a great way that they use to stay accountable. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm
just saying, if you are going to do it,please make sure that you're sharing it with people who have tender hands, who have kind mouths, who don't just try to tear you down,
(33:55):
or, you know, those people can suck it in abucket like no all set with that. So find your balcony, people. If you haven't listened to that episode, I recorded it. I
think it's called like balcony and basementpeople make sure you're not taking these, these tender dreams, these plans, and putting them with the basement people save
(34:19):
yourself a lot of suffering. Oh, my God.Okay, so what I was trying to say too earlier is it's okay to have a plan, right? But don't make the plan on your own, right?
Make it with divine intelligence. Make itwith spirit like ask for get quiet. This is what a DSP is really powerful for daily spiritual practice, helping to discipline
(34:40):
the mind, to quiet the mind, because anundisciplined mind can accomplish nothing, and discipline allows us to have more freedom, even when we have a plan that's
really helpful. Think about this as anopening, right? Patching a plan is an opening, and whether it's an escape hatch or it's something hatching and being. Earth
inside of you, and it's breaking out of itsshell and it's coming into the world. It's a beautiful thing. Remember, criticism can kill creativity. So again, we're going back
(35:09):
to finding the people who will nurture andnourish and breathe life into you and support you as you're going after your dreams and your plans, listen deeply
internally when you sit down to make thisplan, write it down, things that get written down tend to get accomplished 42% more right? Clarify what you want, take action on
(35:31):
what you want. Use what you've written downas a filter to keep you on track. Reread with feeling. Envision your dream. See your dream. It will help you to overcome
resistance, and then make sure you take timeto celebrate when your plan set to go according to plan, it can be a very powerful thing. All right, you guys, thank you so
much for tuning in a couple of things. Ifyou are interested. I think this one's going to come out on like January 2 or whatever. So I'm doing an online yoga class. That's my
(36:01):
plan. Is to start offering online yogaclasses right here from my home, so you can tune in wherever you are from the comfort of your living room, your comfort of your
bedroom, wear your PJs. I don't care, aslong as you're not naked and you're decent. You know what I'm saying? You don't even have to turn on your camera. I prefer that
(36:21):
you turn on your camera so I can see you, soI can help you to have a better experience. It's going to be a fantastic time. Tuesday nights, at 6pm Eastern Time. My time for
it's a 75 minute class. There'll be a bonus15 minutes afterwards, optional, if you want to stick around for creating community or asking questions from 715 to 730 so six to
(36:46):
715 Eastern is the yoga class. And thenthere's bonus time after shavasana, once we come up to like, hang out and talk and get to know the other people, if you want to, or
you just don't have to. It's just optional.It's a bonus. It's for fun. 15 bucks a class. Just go to Karen kenney.com/yoga to sign up. We already have a bunch of people
(37:07):
signed up. It's going to be so much fun. Ican't wait. I'd love to have you join us. And if anything that I was talking about today, right this storytelling and
spirituality, of being able to take thesetools and apply them to our daily life.
This is what it's really all about you guys,when we when we work in the nest, my group, spiritual mentoring program, it really is a way of learning how to navigate the human
(37:31):
experience from a more spiritual place, sothat we can do it with meaning and with purpose, with more love and with more peace, and having some really solid, applicable
tools that you can use. And that's justKaren kenney.com nest, okay, thanks for tuning in. I appreciate you Happy New Year. I hope it's a beautiful and abundant and
(37:52):
joyous and wicked fun and creative, a yearfull of love and purpose and creativity and meaning and peace and so wherever you go, may you leave yourself, the animals, the
other people, the places you go, the planet,the environment, better than how you found it. Wherever you go, may you be a blessing and spread more love in the world. Bye, bye.
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