April 10, 2025 • 28 mins
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I dive into a concept That I call, "Head, Heart, Hands" – which is a powerful approach to personal transformation that flips how we typically try to change our lives.
Instead of white-knuckling our way through external behavior changes, I explain why it's crucial to start with the internal landscape of our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and stories.
Drawing from my own journey and some wisdom from spiritual smarty-pants like Paramahansa Yogananda, I share how real, lasting change happens when we align our mind and heart first!
Think of it like this: if your head and heart are truly on board with a change, your hands (aka: your actions) are way more likely to naturally follow.
So, it's not about forcing yourself to stop doing something, but more like shifting your internal perspective - so gradually, but inevitably, the old behavior just doesn't make sense anymore.
I talk about how our ego mind loves to keep us in those old familiar patterns, while also crafting stories of guilt, shame, and limitation.
But here's the truth: Who you really are is not broken and doesn’t need to be fixed.
What we need is to unlearn some of the survival strategies that no longer serve us, and also take time to tune into that quieter, loving voice inside us that knows our true potential.
If you're feeling stuck trying to change something in your life - whether it's a health habit, a relationship pattern, or a professional goal - this episode offers a helpful way of approaching things.
Start by getting curious about your inner world.
Ask yourself, “What thoughts are driving my current behavior? What beliefs are holding me back? What stories have I been telling about myself? What identity am I willing to let go?”
Remember, “the assignment is alignment” and when your head and heart believe in the change you want to make, your hands will take action to make it happen!
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Change your thoughts first, your behaviors will naturally follow.
• “The assignment is alignment.”
• Internal alignment matters more than external willpower.
• Spiritual growth happens when our heads and hearts connect.
• Love transforms things quietly; ego/fear maintains old patterns loudly.
• Unlearning limiting beliefs can unlock our true potential.
• Our identity shapes our actions, even more powerfully than pure discipline.
• 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
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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 am just absolutely delighted, just delighted to be here with you today. So thank you so much for tuning
in. It's been a while since I've introducedmyself. I think many of you who listen to the show, if you're a loyal listener, Hi, welcome back. I'm so happy you're here, but
(00:22):
if you're new to the show, maybe somebodyrecommended the show, or pointed you in my direction, or you stumbled across me somehow. And if you're here and you're like,
Who's this broad who? Who is this pregnantlady? Uh, let me just say hi. So I'm Karen Kenney. Most people call me Kay Special K, sweetie. I don't know some other version of
(00:47):
that, but I don't even know sometimes how tointroduce myself. I mean, I think I'm of myself mostly as a writer and a storyteller, for sure. I'm also a speaker. I am a
spiritual mentor. I am a yoga teacher. I'm agateless writing instructor. I do Thai Yoga massage. I'm a hypnotist, I'm a change worker, I'm a life coach. Blah, blah, blah,
(01:13):
blah, blah. I do a lot of things, and hereon this podcast, what I do is I basically bring all the pots of me to you. I just show up. Use some personal storytelling and some
universal spiritual principles thathopefully help you to maybe think about something differently, to look at the world differently, to look at yourself
(01:34):
differently, right? This is just a podcastwhere I try to spread a little more love in the world. I kind of think of myself is like Mr. Rogers for adults, in a way. I mean, we
could never, ever, ever replace Mr. Rogers,but just kind of that vibe, right? And if you see in the background, if you're watching this, you can see my little Bob
Ross over there, little Mr. Bob Ross withthis little paint brush and palette. So these were some of my my heroes. And I just think, man, the world needs a little bit
(02:01):
more kindness, but we also need a little bitmore help, don't we? There's so much that I marvel at that we were not taught as children, whether it was in our homes or
whether it was at school or from ourfamilies of origin or whatever. And you know, we're taught a lot about a lot of things that, on some level, don't really
(02:24):
matter. And the one thing we're not reallytaught, many of us, is really how to know ourselves and how to love ourselves and to be kind to ourselves. And we don't always
really know like how we tick and how wework. And what are some tools we could use, you know, to help ourselves as we navigate this whole human experience. So that's kind
(02:45):
of like what the show is about in some oncein a blue moon, I have a guest, but mostly you're just stuck with me solo. So if you find yourself here, hi, okay, this episode,
let's dive right into this thing. I thinkI'm going to call it head, Hot Hands head, and I'm tapping my forehead, hat. I'm tapping my chest right. And hands, I'm
(03:07):
wicked in chest. Hands, I'm wicked in myfingers, right. Head, hot hands. Now, why I wanted to talk about this is because so much of the work that I do is around change work,
right? It's taking a look at whether it's away of thinking, right, wanting to like, maybe shift our perception from fear to love. Maybe it's about wanting to change a
(03:31):
belief or an old story that we've beencarrying around that's not really serving us anymore. A lot of what I do is transformational or changing life, changing
work, right? And so often what people willhear people say is, they'll say, I want to change X, Y and Z, or I need to stop X, Y and Z, right? I have this habit, or I have
(03:55):
this pattern, or I have this thing that Ido. And a lot of times, people try to change from the outside in. They look at their external circumstances and their external
behaviors like, oh, I need to stop eatinglate at night, or oh I need to start going to the gym more, or oh, I need to whatever. And they're really trying to start at the
(04:16):
level of the behavior. And they try to startthere and work their way backwards and so often, if we try to start at the level of the behavior, like what, what I would say
your hands are doing, right, if we try tostart there, a lot of times we fail, because a lot of times why we're doing what we're doing is not only because we have
(04:40):
subconscious patterns. Yes, that's a hugething, right? It's like part of the ways that the brain tries to keep you safe is by keeping you in the familiar, okay, but it's
also that we like to stay in the associationof the identity. That we've created for ourselves. So a lot of times we try to change something out here, out here in the
(05:05):
world, right? I'm doing kind of like with myhands, like out here the external but really we have to start on the internal stuff. And this is like the head in the hat. And one of
the things that I often will think about is,if your head and your hat are in alignment, the hands will follow. If your head and your hat are in alignment, your hands will
(05:33):
follow. So if your head in your hat, believeit, your hands will go ahead and do it right. So we can't skip over like the internal work first, and so often we might
be in a situation where we're in pain, we'realready suffering. And I don't mean just like physical pain. I mean like the thing that we're doing, whatever these things that
(05:57):
we've been choosing to do, whether it's ahabit, an addiction, a pattern of whatever you've been doing, right that's been getting you in trouble, or screwing up your
relationship, or making your marriage not bethat great, or maybe you're doing some shady shit in your business. Or maybe there's like, just like you're doing some things
(06:17):
like putting food in your mouth, or, youknow, doing certain things that are not great for your health or whatever it might be. You know, a lot of times we we try to,
like, start there, and we'll fail because wehaven't first shifted or change the way that we're thinking about of a thing and the way we actually feel, and I'm tapping my hat
again, the way that we feel about a thing,so how we think and how we feel is always going to affect how we will act and if we are holding on to an old identity, right?
(06:51):
One of the things that I often say is likesmoke is going to smoke. You know what I think it's like, if you identify as a smoker, you're going to smoke. If you don't
identify as a smoker, then you tend not tosmoke. If you don't identify as somebody who drinks, if you're a quote, unquote, non drinker, then you're probably not going to
be stopping by the packing and getting,like, a six pack. You know what? I mean? You're not going to be like, grabbing a couple of boxes or bottles of wine if you're
(07:18):
a non drinker, unless you're going to apotty, and you're bringing a gift or something like that, right? So if we change our mind first, right? Change our mind
first. Change our heart. Listen to what,listen to how we feel like. Check in with how we feel. Check in with the quality of our thoughts first. And do some work there
(07:40):
on that level, then the things in theexternal, the actions, the hands, you take care of the head and the hat, the hands are going to kind of take care of themselves.
And let me just give you a little bit of anexample, personally for me. So when I and I'll use actually, let me use a broader example. Let me use a broader example, but
(08:00):
it also applies to me. In fact, my own storyis going to be an example of exactly what, what Paramahansa Yogananda said. So Paramahansa Yogananda, he was a yogi, right?
He called him a guru or a teacher, orwhatever you want to say. Not a huge fan of that word, but guru, but so he was a wise teacher from the East. He came over to
(08:24):
America. He came over to the west, and hestarted teaching yoga to Americans. And I'm pretty sure he was in California, right most of the time. And when he was in California,
it was around the time of like, people like,say, like the hippie generation, right? And there was a lot of like, drugs and alcohol and free will and sex and pottying and
(08:46):
Woodstock, like, all the stuff was, I mean,Woodstock was on the east coast, but you know what I mean, a lot of the like, free love and all that stuff, right? Was
happening. And a lot of like, you know,drugs and experimenting and all this stuff. And a lot of the people who were attracted to Paramahansa yoganandez,
teachings on yoga and stuff like that. Theywould go to him, though, and they would push back, and they'd say, hey, you know, if I come and, like, learn from you and hang out
(09:16):
with you and spend time at the SelfRealization fellowship or all these things, if I'm, if I'm doing these things, you know, if I'm quote, unquote, practicing, if I'm
trying to become a yogi, do I have to stopdrinking? Do I stop have to stop smoking? You know, do I have to stop having sex? Do I have to stop eating animals? Do I have to
become vegetarian or vegan, or whatever?Because, remember, the first, the first tenant of yoga that first like that of the eight limbs of yoga, the first foundation is
(09:46):
what we call the yamas and the niyamas, andthe very first Yama is called Ahimsa, which means non harm, compassion, non violence towards yourself and others, including
animals. Right? So? Like, the the wholefoundation is, do not harm, do not kill. Like, be kind, be compassionate, right? So, you know, they would be like, do I have to
(10:08):
stop, you know, eating, you know, eatinganimals is what they're really asking. And Paramahansa, Yogananda, was so wise, and what he would say to them is, no, you don't
have to stop doing those things, to like bea part of this fellowship, you know, to be a part of this spiritual community. And he said, right like later on, he said, because
(10:31):
if you continue to do this, and if you startto like show up and actually practice and do these things, those things are going to naturally fall away. You won't have to feel
like you're giving anything up. They willjust naturally fall away. And I found this in myself, you know, when I first started practicing yoga and even teaching yoga, you
(10:59):
know, I was still power puffing cigarettes.I was a smoker. I was a smoker, you guys back in the day, but I was lucky enough that for whatever reason, whether it's my mind or
the certain gene that I have, I don't know,is like, I was the kind of kid that, like, could smoke a pack a day, and then just wake up one day and decide that I was done, and I
(11:23):
would be done, right? But during this time,I would like, you know, I would like, teach a class, or, like, even go to the gym and, like, work out, and then I'd come out and
get in my car, and I would like, light upand, like, Power Puff. And it was like, What are you doing, right? So the more seriously, you know, I started to practice, and the
more seriously I started to taking, youknow, my role as a teacher, and diving more deeply into yoga, those things just naturally fell away. I stopped smoking
(11:52):
cigarettes. I just stopped drinking. I justdecided to be a non drinker. I'm like, This doesn't make any sense anymore. Eating Animals never if you really know me and know
how much I love animals, eating animals likemurder, like participating in the suffering of animals for a meal, like none of that ever made any sense. But, you know, I'm a
little bit of a knucklehead sometimes, andwe have cognitive dissonance, and that's a whole other show for another time. You know, we're hypnotized from a very young age. PS,
(12:19):
to eat animals, even though it's totally notwho we really are, most of us, okay, so, but you know, and we're back. But here's the thing. Is that gradually, I always say
gradually, but inevitably, if you're takingthis practice seriously, yoga, those things will naturally start to fall away. So you don't have to feel like you're giving
(12:41):
anything up, or you're sacrificing, oryou're, quote, unquote, having to do something. When the head and the hat come into alignment with love, when the head and
the hat start to shift, the hands are goingto follow. So you're not going to want to pick up the booze. You're not going to want to pick up the weed or the cigarettes or
whatever. You're not going to harm theanimals anymore, right? And so that's just like one example. And I know that if you you know, probably have your own examples, like
(13:10):
you can look at your life and realize thatwhen you all of a sudden, shifted something internally, and it might be the way that you think about another person. Maybe you
learned something about them. Maybe youheard a story. Maybe you became enlightened, right? The light turned on inside of you. You became more spiritually connected, and
(13:30):
you realize, like, Oh, they're actually alot like me. Like, oh, we're more alike than we are different. Or Oh, like, whatever, when we have to, when we start to have these
shifts in perception in our mind, when westart to tell different stories, better stories, when our hearts start to like, you know, our compassion and our empathy and our
kindness starts to lead, your hands aregoing to follow. So you know, it's, it's, it's, there's nothing wrong with you know, I'm not wagging my finger at anybody or
(14:02):
saying anything's wrong with just trying to,like, go cold turkey, because I cold turkey some things in my life right before I had tools, I would just try to use my willpower.
I would try to, like, white knuckle shit andjust be like, I'm just going to be like, nope, nope. I'm going to deny myself this thing, or I'm not going to do this anymore.
I'm not going to do that anymore, and you'rejust really trying to use your sheer will, and you're really going against your subconscious mind and the contents of your
(14:29):
mind. And it's why a lot of diets fail. It'swhy a lot of I'm going to start saving money, fails, right? It's because people have not done the internal work first on the
level of the mind, level of the heart, sothat we can pave an easier path for the hands, for the behavior to follow, and if we insist on trying to change the external
(14:53):
first, it's not that you won't have anysuccess. I'm not saying there aren't some people who can do it. I'm just saying. It can be a little bit easier when we start to
shift our mind and start to use our mind forthe purpose that it was actually created for, which is love. PS, by the way, extending love, using the hat for what it
was used for, which is to love, by the way,and for using our hands for what they were intended for, which is to love people, to help people, to serve people, you know what
(15:23):
I mean. So this whole body really isdesigned to be, I call it like a communication device. And it's one gig is to to set the dial to the radio station of
like, k, l, o, v, e, you know what I mean.So if you've been kind of bumping up against some changes that you've been trying to make, because you've been trying to, like,
(15:47):
drag yourself from the external behaviorinto, like, somehow magically, like, magical thinking, like, Oh yeah, I'm just gonna decide that I'm never gonna do X, Y and Z
again, even though I've been doing it forthe past three years daily, or I've been doing this for 20 years, it's like good luck with that. And that's why a lot of times we
(16:07):
need to and whether, however you get thehelp, it can be like hiring somebody like me who has a lot of tools in my tool kit, like, for you know, subconscious reprogramming,
spiritual mentoring, you know, somatic work,like with the body, like helping the body to feel, the nervous system to feel like safety and stuff like that, right? So, working on
(16:28):
the level of the conscious and theunconscious, working on the level of the hot, working on the level of, remember, emotional, physical, emotional, physical,
spiritual and mental, those four thingsgetting get the mind, body and spirit on board. Get the hat on board, and the hands are going to follow. And so maybe this is
just an opportunity to pause, you know, tolook and see if there's something in your life that you've been trying to shift or change or or stop doing or start doing.
(16:56):
Whether it's with you, with you, your ownrelationship with yourself, maybe you've been wanting to, you know, start a meditation practice or create a DSP, a daily
spiritual practice. Maybe you've been tryingto do something on the physical level, whether, like I said, it's maybe like starting to walk every day, or commit to a
yoga practice, or rejoining the gym, orwhatever the thing is, maybe you're one of those people that have been a member of Planet Fitness, paying them 1015, whatever,
(17:22):
25 bucks a month for like he is. But younever go, and you're just like, What am I doing? Why can't I make myself go? It's a lot of times. It's because we're trying to
do it first on the level of behavior, on thelevel of hands. But you haven't checked in with the head and with the hot because the brain is doing its own particular thing to
keep you safe and the hot might have somefeelings and some beliefs about things. So there's one part of you that wants the change, and there's another part of you
(17:50):
that's not ready until you bring thoseonline into alignment. The assignment is alignment, I always say. And if we can start to align with the truth of who we are, if we
can, kind of, like, take some time to to goin and I understand, like, right now we're at a point in time, I think, where most people just feel kind of completely
(18:14):
overwhelmed, and they're like, do I have towork on myself? The whole world's already a show it everything's already had, like, I have no energy. KK, I have no time. I have
no resources. And the one thing that I willsay is, if we like the most important thing, and this is to me, and I'm not saying the most important thing in the world isn't your
(18:37):
family, your friends, your children, caringfor your animals or the environment. I don't mean it like that, but how those things get done, well or better, is by first us
taking a look inside and making theappropriate changes there, and we're not making changes in transforming things because you're fucked up, need to be fixed
(19:03):
because you're broken, or whatever. That'snot the case. You're not broken. You don't need to be fixed. So much of the work that that needs to be done or is really helpful
when we do it is more of an unlearning,because we are taught, right? We are taught as children. We learn a lot of things as kids. It gets programmed into us that isn't
(19:27):
actually that helpful later on in life. Youknow, these these survival strategies, these survival mechanism these patterns, these ways of thinking and seeing ourselves, these
identities that we create later on, theystart to get in the way. We gotta check in every once in a while, you know? And this is why spiritual work is so important, and
(19:52):
having a spiritual mentor can be soincredibly helpful, and so often, I don't think even people know what a spiritual mentor does. I can't speak for other
spiritual mentors. That's not my place to dothat. I can only talk to you about like, how I approach things. And I know that having a daily spiritual practice is a really
powerful thing, but there's a lot ofdifferent spiritual tools that you can use to me, working with yourself, on yourself, right? And I always say who you are as one
(20:21):
of God's kids, like who you are as anextension of the universe, who you are is as part of the one cosmic consciousness is already perfect. But that's not what we're
talking about. The things that we're workingwith or tweaking or shifting or changing, that's the that's the ego personality part. That's the part of you that like this
persona that you've created in thislifetime, which is affected by where you grew up, who you grew up with, what your what, what your economic situation was like?
(20:56):
Did you grow up with a lot of money? Did yougrow up poor? Were you a blue collar kid? Were you like a wealthy kid? Did you have two parents at home? Did you have one parent
in jail? Did you have one parent dead? Didyou have divorced parents? What kind of home, what kind of community, what kind of support was there? Was there food in your
house? Wasn't there food were you foodinsecure? Did you, you know, like, were you molested as a kid? Were like, what? What's your ACE score, right? What? What's your
(21:22):
what's your ACE score on that, that score oflike, adverse childhood experiences like, check that out, right? So all those things kind of shape and mold who we believe
ourselves to be. And if we try to, I alwayssay, you cannot outperform your identity. You cannot outperform your identity. So if we're trying to do things at the hand level,
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you might as well just white knuckle yourhands or wring your hands, because it's a lot harder to try and change from the outside in than it is from the inside out.
And I'm not saying that doing that work toshift your perception from fear to love, because we are so deeply patterned. We do believe so much of the bullshit that the ego
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tells us we you know, the voice, the voicefor the inner teacher, the voice for love that is inside of us. It doesn't shout, man, you know, it whispers. It's quiet. It's not
forceful. It doesn't try to make you feelcrazy or insecure or rushed. And so the voice for the ego, and of course, in miracles, we say the voice for the the voice
(22:34):
of the ego, it speaks first, and it speaksloudest. And I always say, and it's it's wrong. It's always wrong. And that is the voice of guilt and shame and blame and hurry
up and desperation and scarcity and fear andyou know, all that stuff. That voice, oftentimes, is not your friend, you know. And in this work, we're not trying to kill
(22:57):
the ego. We all have an ego, or we wouldn'tbe like, doing the shit that we do, right? We need a certain amount of ego to kind of like, you know, survive and get around. But
this ego mind that is always just kind oflike in A Course in Miracles, it's called, it's like a scavenger dog. The ego mind, it's like a scavenger dog. It's always
walking around looking for grievances. It'salways looking around trying to to make guilt, guilt, guilt in your unhappiness and your suffering is like, is like, you know,
(23:26):
when, when we were little, if you everwatched the Gremlins movie, and they would say, Don't feed the Gremlins, don't give them water, like after a certain time,
right? Because that's what happens. Youknow, the ego is like a little gremlin man, and it will grow exponentially off of your guilt, your shame, your suffering, your you
know, your superiority, like you're so muchbetter than everybody else, but also it'll also grow on this idea that you're shittier than everybody else. You know what I mean,
(23:54):
that you have it so much higher thaneverybody else, or, you know, keeping you in that victim loop is just like feeding the Gremlin, you know. So I hope this has been
helpful in some way that it's got youthinking about like, maybe, what have you been trying to white knuckle? What have you been trying to force yourself to give up or
to fix or to change? And have you beentrying to do it from the outside in? And if you're somebody who's ready to do it from the inside out, and you want some support
(24:20):
and help. You know, there's lots ofdifferent ways. If you're a local person, you can come to a yoga class of mine, right? But really, the way that I help people is
through my group program, my group coachingprogram, which is the nest. It's my little spiritual community and membership. It's full of lovely people, and that's like a
monthly commitment. You start, you don'tlike it, you can always leave, but most people come and stay for years and years, right? They love the people in it. They love
(24:47):
the the resources that they get. They lovethe community and the connection and all the tools that they learn and all that stuff. And then there are some people who like to
go deeper and like to work privately, andthose are the people who join me for the. Quest, which is my one to one, spiritual mentoring. So if you're somebody who wants
to, you know, take a look inside, especiallysince out there is so fucking scary right now, right the external world that everybody wants to fix and change. Do you know how the
(25:14):
external world actually changes is whenenough people get serious and start to do the internal work. Because first we have to shift in here. Because when the head and the
heart right, when the head and the heart getonline, when the head and the hot, believe it, your hands will do it, and how you think and how you feel will affect how you act,
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and if you change your mind and you listento your hat first, right? That's how the the things on the level of form, the things on the level of our hands, our actions, our
behaviors, will actually start to shift. Sohead hot hands, my friends. Thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your you
(26:07):
know, spending spending this, this timetogether, I know you could be doing a lot of other things in the fact that you turn this on, if you still hear in my voice right now,
thank you for sticking to the end andhanging out. If you want to find out how to work with me. Any of those things. Get on my newsletter, on my email list. Stay in touch.
Just go to Karen Kenney k, e n, n, e y,Karen kenney.com you can find everything there. If you want to join the nest, it's Karen kenney.com/nest if you want to join
(26:34):
the quest, it's Karen kenney.com/questwicked easy to find. And I appreciate you, and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day or night, whenever you're listening to
this and wherever you go, may you leave thepeople, the animals, the places you go, the environment, the planet, and yourself better than how you first found it, wherever you
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go, may You and your energy and your loveand your presence and your head and hat and hands be a blessing. And it just made me think that, you know, there's a line
somewhere in the Bible, or one of the Idon't know, I think it's in the Bible, but it's definitely a spiritual thing where we basically say, like, the divine has no hands
(27:20):
but yours, no mouth but yours, no feet butyours, no no no hot or head but yours right. So to be in service, to be in service to our highest self, to be in service to our
highest good, to align our head, our heartand our hands with love, is an incredibly powerful thing to do. So just a little added tidbit there. All right, you guys have a
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great rest of like I said, your night oryour day. So much love. From my heart to yours. Bye, bye.
Hey you guys. Welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I am just absolutely delighted, just delighted to be here with you today. So thank you so much for tuning
in. It's been a while since I've introducedmyself. I think many of you who listen to the show, if you're a loyal listener, Hi, welcome back. I'm so happy you're here, but
(00:22):
if you're new to the show, maybe somebodyrecommended the show, or pointed you in my direction, or you stumbled across me somehow. And if you're here and you're like,
Who's this broad who? Who is this pregnantlady? Uh, let me just say hi. So I'm Karen Kenney. Most people call me Kay Special K, sweetie. I don't know some other version of
(00:47):
that, but I don't even know sometimes how tointroduce myself. I mean, I think I'm of myself mostly as a writer and a storyteller, for sure. I'm also a speaker. I am a
spiritual mentor. I am a yoga teacher. I'm agateless writing instructor. I do Thai Yoga massage. I'm a hypnotist, I'm a change worker, I'm a life coach. Blah, blah, blah,
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blah, blah. I do a lot of things, and hereon this podcast, what I do is I basically bring all the pots of me to you. I just show up. Use some personal storytelling and some
universal spiritual principles thathopefully help you to maybe think about something differently, to look at the world differently, to look at yourself
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differently, right? This is just a podcastwhere I try to spread a little more love in the world. I kind of think of myself is like Mr. Rogers for adults, in a way. I mean, we
could never, ever, ever replace Mr. Rogers,but just kind of that vibe, right? And if you see in the background, if you're watching this, you can see my little Bob
Ross over there, little Mr. Bob Ross withthis little paint brush and palette. So these were some of my my heroes. And I just think, man, the world needs a little bit
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more kindness, but we also need a little bitmore help, don't we? There's so much that I marvel at that we were not taught as children, whether it was in our homes or
whether it was at school or from ourfamilies of origin or whatever. And you know, we're taught a lot about a lot of things that, on some level, don't really
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matter. And the one thing we're not reallytaught, many of us, is really how to know ourselves and how to love ourselves and to be kind to ourselves. And we don't always
really know like how we tick and how wework. And what are some tools we could use, you know, to help ourselves as we navigate this whole human experience. So that's kind
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of like what the show is about in some oncein a blue moon, I have a guest, but mostly you're just stuck with me solo. So if you find yourself here, hi, okay, this episode,
let's dive right into this thing. I thinkI'm going to call it head, Hot Hands head, and I'm tapping my forehead, hat. I'm tapping my chest right. And hands, I'm
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wicked in chest. Hands, I'm wicked in myfingers, right. Head, hot hands. Now, why I wanted to talk about this is because so much of the work that I do is around change work,
right? It's taking a look at whether it's away of thinking, right, wanting to like, maybe shift our perception from fear to love. Maybe it's about wanting to change a
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belief or an old story that we've beencarrying around that's not really serving us anymore. A lot of what I do is transformational or changing life, changing
work, right? And so often what people willhear people say is, they'll say, I want to change X, Y and Z, or I need to stop X, Y and Z, right? I have this habit, or I have
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this pattern, or I have this thing that Ido. And a lot of times, people try to change from the outside in. They look at their external circumstances and their external
behaviors like, oh, I need to stop eatinglate at night, or oh I need to start going to the gym more, or oh, I need to whatever. And they're really trying to start at the
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level of the behavior. And they try to startthere and work their way backwards and so often, if we try to start at the level of the behavior, like what, what I would say
your hands are doing, right, if we try tostart there, a lot of times we fail, because a lot of times why we're doing what we're doing is not only because we have
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subconscious patterns. Yes, that's a hugething, right? It's like part of the ways that the brain tries to keep you safe is by keeping you in the familiar, okay, but it's
also that we like to stay in the associationof the identity. That we've created for ourselves. So a lot of times we try to change something out here, out here in the
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world, right? I'm doing kind of like with myhands, like out here the external but really we have to start on the internal stuff. And this is like the head in the hat. And one of
the things that I often will think about is,if your head and your hat are in alignment, the hands will follow. If your head and your hat are in alignment, your hands will
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follow. So if your head in your hat, believeit, your hands will go ahead and do it right. So we can't skip over like the internal work first, and so often we might
be in a situation where we're in pain, we'realready suffering. And I don't mean just like physical pain. I mean like the thing that we're doing, whatever these things that
(05:57):
we've been choosing to do, whether it's ahabit, an addiction, a pattern of whatever you've been doing, right that's been getting you in trouble, or screwing up your
relationship, or making your marriage not bethat great, or maybe you're doing some shady shit in your business. Or maybe there's like, just like you're doing some things
(06:17):
like putting food in your mouth, or, youknow, doing certain things that are not great for your health or whatever it might be. You know, a lot of times we we try to,
like, start there, and we'll fail because wehaven't first shifted or change the way that we're thinking about of a thing and the way we actually feel, and I'm tapping my hat
again, the way that we feel about a thing,so how we think and how we feel is always going to affect how we will act and if we are holding on to an old identity, right?
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One of the things that I often say is likesmoke is going to smoke. You know what I think it's like, if you identify as a smoker, you're going to smoke. If you don't
identify as a smoker, then you tend not tosmoke. If you don't identify as somebody who drinks, if you're a quote, unquote, non drinker, then you're probably not going to
be stopping by the packing and getting,like, a six pack. You know what? I mean? You're not going to be like, grabbing a couple of boxes or bottles of wine if you're
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a non drinker, unless you're going to apotty, and you're bringing a gift or something like that, right? So if we change our mind first, right? Change our mind
first. Change our heart. Listen to what,listen to how we feel like. Check in with how we feel. Check in with the quality of our thoughts first. And do some work there
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on that level, then the things in theexternal, the actions, the hands, you take care of the head and the hat, the hands are going to kind of take care of themselves.
And let me just give you a little bit of anexample, personally for me. So when I and I'll use actually, let me use a broader example. Let me use a broader example, but
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it also applies to me. In fact, my own storyis going to be an example of exactly what, what Paramahansa Yogananda said. So Paramahansa Yogananda, he was a yogi, right?
He called him a guru or a teacher, orwhatever you want to say. Not a huge fan of that word, but guru, but so he was a wise teacher from the East. He came over to
(08:24):
America. He came over to the west, and hestarted teaching yoga to Americans. And I'm pretty sure he was in California, right most of the time. And when he was in California,
it was around the time of like, people like,say, like the hippie generation, right? And there was a lot of like, drugs and alcohol and free will and sex and pottying and
(08:46):
Woodstock, like, all the stuff was, I mean,Woodstock was on the east coast, but you know what I mean, a lot of the like, free love and all that stuff, right? Was
happening. And a lot of like, you know,drugs and experimenting and all this stuff. And a lot of the people who were attracted to Paramahansa yoganandez,
teachings on yoga and stuff like that. Theywould go to him, though, and they would push back, and they'd say, hey, you know, if I come and, like, learn from you and hang out
(09:16):
with you and spend time at the SelfRealization fellowship or all these things, if I'm, if I'm doing these things, you know, if I'm quote, unquote, practicing, if I'm
trying to become a yogi, do I have to stopdrinking? Do I stop have to stop smoking? You know, do I have to stop having sex? Do I have to stop eating animals? Do I have to
become vegetarian or vegan, or whatever?Because, remember, the first, the first tenant of yoga that first like that of the eight limbs of yoga, the first foundation is
(09:46):
what we call the yamas and the niyamas, andthe very first Yama is called Ahimsa, which means non harm, compassion, non violence towards yourself and others, including
animals. Right? So? Like, the the wholefoundation is, do not harm, do not kill. Like, be kind, be compassionate, right? So, you know, they would be like, do I have to
(10:08):
stop, you know, eating, you know, eatinganimals is what they're really asking. And Paramahansa, Yogananda, was so wise, and what he would say to them is, no, you don't
have to stop doing those things, to like bea part of this fellowship, you know, to be a part of this spiritual community. And he said, right like later on, he said, because
(10:31):
if you continue to do this, and if you startto like show up and actually practice and do these things, those things are going to naturally fall away. You won't have to feel
like you're giving anything up. They willjust naturally fall away. And I found this in myself, you know, when I first started practicing yoga and even teaching yoga, you
(10:59):
know, I was still power puffing cigarettes.I was a smoker. I was a smoker, you guys back in the day, but I was lucky enough that for whatever reason, whether it's my mind or
the certain gene that I have, I don't know,is like, I was the kind of kid that, like, could smoke a pack a day, and then just wake up one day and decide that I was done, and I
(11:23):
would be done, right? But during this time,I would like, you know, I would like, teach a class, or, like, even go to the gym and, like, work out, and then I'd come out and
get in my car, and I would like, light upand, like, Power Puff. And it was like, What are you doing, right? So the more seriously, you know, I started to practice, and the
more seriously I started to taking, youknow, my role as a teacher, and diving more deeply into yoga, those things just naturally fell away. I stopped smoking
(11:52):
cigarettes. I just stopped drinking. I justdecided to be a non drinker. I'm like, This doesn't make any sense anymore. Eating Animals never if you really know me and know
how much I love animals, eating animals likemurder, like participating in the suffering of animals for a meal, like none of that ever made any sense. But, you know, I'm a
little bit of a knucklehead sometimes, andwe have cognitive dissonance, and that's a whole other show for another time. You know, we're hypnotized from a very young age. PS,
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to eat animals, even though it's totally notwho we really are, most of us, okay, so, but you know, and we're back. But here's the thing. Is that gradually, I always say
gradually, but inevitably, if you're takingthis practice seriously, yoga, those things will naturally start to fall away. So you don't have to feel like you're giving
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anything up, or you're sacrificing, oryou're, quote, unquote, having to do something. When the head and the hat come into alignment with love, when the head and
the hat start to shift, the hands are goingto follow. So you're not going to want to pick up the booze. You're not going to want to pick up the weed or the cigarettes or
whatever. You're not going to harm theanimals anymore, right? And so that's just like one example. And I know that if you you know, probably have your own examples, like
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you can look at your life and realize thatwhen you all of a sudden, shifted something internally, and it might be the way that you think about another person. Maybe you
learned something about them. Maybe youheard a story. Maybe you became enlightened, right? The light turned on inside of you. You became more spiritually connected, and
(13:30):
you realize, like, Oh, they're actually alot like me. Like, oh, we're more alike than we are different. Or Oh, like, whatever, when we have to, when we start to have these
shifts in perception in our mind, when westart to tell different stories, better stories, when our hearts start to like, you know, our compassion and our empathy and our
kindness starts to lead, your hands aregoing to follow. So you know, it's, it's, it's, there's nothing wrong with you know, I'm not wagging my finger at anybody or
(14:02):
saying anything's wrong with just trying to,like, go cold turkey, because I cold turkey some things in my life right before I had tools, I would just try to use my willpower.
I would try to, like, white knuckle shit andjust be like, I'm just going to be like, nope, nope. I'm going to deny myself this thing, or I'm not going to do this anymore.
I'm not going to do that anymore, and you'rejust really trying to use your sheer will, and you're really going against your subconscious mind and the contents of your
(14:29):
mind. And it's why a lot of diets fail. It'swhy a lot of I'm going to start saving money, fails, right? It's because people have not done the internal work first on the
level of the mind, level of the heart, sothat we can pave an easier path for the hands, for the behavior to follow, and if we insist on trying to change the external
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first, it's not that you won't have anysuccess. I'm not saying there aren't some people who can do it. I'm just saying. It can be a little bit easier when we start to
shift our mind and start to use our mind forthe purpose that it was actually created for, which is love. PS, by the way, extending love, using the hat for what it
was used for, which is to love, by the way,and for using our hands for what they were intended for, which is to love people, to help people, to serve people, you know what
(15:23):
I mean. So this whole body really isdesigned to be, I call it like a communication device. And it's one gig is to to set the dial to the radio station of
like, k, l, o, v, e, you know what I mean.So if you've been kind of bumping up against some changes that you've been trying to make, because you've been trying to, like,
(15:47):
drag yourself from the external behaviorinto, like, somehow magically, like, magical thinking, like, Oh yeah, I'm just gonna decide that I'm never gonna do X, Y and Z
again, even though I've been doing it forthe past three years daily, or I've been doing this for 20 years, it's like good luck with that. And that's why a lot of times we
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need to and whether, however you get thehelp, it can be like hiring somebody like me who has a lot of tools in my tool kit, like, for you know, subconscious reprogramming,
spiritual mentoring, you know, somatic work,like with the body, like helping the body to feel, the nervous system to feel like safety and stuff like that, right? So, working on
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the level of the conscious and theunconscious, working on the level of the hot, working on the level of, remember, emotional, physical, emotional, physical,
spiritual and mental, those four thingsgetting get the mind, body and spirit on board. Get the hat on board, and the hands are going to follow. And so maybe this is
just an opportunity to pause, you know, tolook and see if there's something in your life that you've been trying to shift or change or or stop doing or start doing.
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Whether it's with you, with you, your ownrelationship with yourself, maybe you've been wanting to, you know, start a meditation practice or create a DSP, a daily
spiritual practice. Maybe you've been tryingto do something on the physical level, whether, like I said, it's maybe like starting to walk every day, or commit to a
yoga practice, or rejoining the gym, orwhatever the thing is, maybe you're one of those people that have been a member of Planet Fitness, paying them 1015, whatever,
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25 bucks a month for like he is. But younever go, and you're just like, What am I doing? Why can't I make myself go? It's a lot of times. It's because we're trying to
do it first on the level of behavior, on thelevel of hands. But you haven't checked in with the head and with the hot because the brain is doing its own particular thing to
keep you safe and the hot might have somefeelings and some beliefs about things. So there's one part of you that wants the change, and there's another part of you
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that's not ready until you bring thoseonline into alignment. The assignment is alignment, I always say. And if we can start to align with the truth of who we are, if we
can, kind of, like, take some time to to goin and I understand, like, right now we're at a point in time, I think, where most people just feel kind of completely
(18:14):
overwhelmed, and they're like, do I have towork on myself? The whole world's already a show it everything's already had, like, I have no energy. KK, I have no time. I have
no resources. And the one thing that I willsay is, if we like the most important thing, and this is to me, and I'm not saying the most important thing in the world isn't your
(18:37):
family, your friends, your children, caringfor your animals or the environment. I don't mean it like that, but how those things get done, well or better, is by first us
taking a look inside and making theappropriate changes there, and we're not making changes in transforming things because you're fucked up, need to be fixed
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because you're broken, or whatever. That'snot the case. You're not broken. You don't need to be fixed. So much of the work that that needs to be done or is really helpful
when we do it is more of an unlearning,because we are taught, right? We are taught as children. We learn a lot of things as kids. It gets programmed into us that isn't
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actually that helpful later on in life. Youknow, these these survival strategies, these survival mechanism these patterns, these ways of thinking and seeing ourselves, these
identities that we create later on, theystart to get in the way. We gotta check in every once in a while, you know? And this is why spiritual work is so important, and
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having a spiritual mentor can be soincredibly helpful, and so often, I don't think even people know what a spiritual mentor does. I can't speak for other
spiritual mentors. That's not my place to dothat. I can only talk to you about like, how I approach things. And I know that having a daily spiritual practice is a really
powerful thing, but there's a lot ofdifferent spiritual tools that you can use to me, working with yourself, on yourself, right? And I always say who you are as one
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of God's kids, like who you are as anextension of the universe, who you are is as part of the one cosmic consciousness is already perfect. But that's not what we're
talking about. The things that we're workingwith or tweaking or shifting or changing, that's the that's the ego personality part. That's the part of you that like this
persona that you've created in thislifetime, which is affected by where you grew up, who you grew up with, what your what, what your economic situation was like?
(20:56):
Did you grow up with a lot of money? Did yougrow up poor? Were you a blue collar kid? Were you like a wealthy kid? Did you have two parents at home? Did you have one parent
in jail? Did you have one parent dead? Didyou have divorced parents? What kind of home, what kind of community, what kind of support was there? Was there food in your
house? Wasn't there food were you foodinsecure? Did you, you know, like, were you molested as a kid? Were like, what? What's your ACE score, right? What? What's your
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what's your ACE score on that, that score oflike, adverse childhood experiences like, check that out, right? So all those things kind of shape and mold who we believe
ourselves to be. And if we try to, I alwayssay, you cannot outperform your identity. You cannot outperform your identity. So if we're trying to do things at the hand level,
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you might as well just white knuckle yourhands or wring your hands, because it's a lot harder to try and change from the outside in than it is from the inside out.
And I'm not saying that doing that work toshift your perception from fear to love, because we are so deeply patterned. We do believe so much of the bullshit that the ego
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tells us we you know, the voice, the voicefor the inner teacher, the voice for love that is inside of us. It doesn't shout, man, you know, it whispers. It's quiet. It's not
forceful. It doesn't try to make you feelcrazy or insecure or rushed. And so the voice for the ego, and of course, in miracles, we say the voice for the the voice
(22:34):
of the ego, it speaks first, and it speaksloudest. And I always say, and it's it's wrong. It's always wrong. And that is the voice of guilt and shame and blame and hurry
up and desperation and scarcity and fear andyou know, all that stuff. That voice, oftentimes, is not your friend, you know. And in this work, we're not trying to kill
(22:57):
the ego. We all have an ego, or we wouldn'tbe like, doing the shit that we do, right? We need a certain amount of ego to kind of like, you know, survive and get around. But
this ego mind that is always just kind oflike in A Course in Miracles, it's called, it's like a scavenger dog. The ego mind, it's like a scavenger dog. It's always
walking around looking for grievances. It'salways looking around trying to to make guilt, guilt, guilt in your unhappiness and your suffering is like, is like, you know,
(23:26):
when, when we were little, if you everwatched the Gremlins movie, and they would say, Don't feed the Gremlins, don't give them water, like after a certain time,
right? Because that's what happens. Youknow, the ego is like a little gremlin man, and it will grow exponentially off of your guilt, your shame, your suffering, your you
know, your superiority, like you're so muchbetter than everybody else, but also it'll also grow on this idea that you're shittier than everybody else. You know what I mean,
(23:54):
that you have it so much higher thaneverybody else, or, you know, keeping you in that victim loop is just like feeding the Gremlin, you know. So I hope this has been
helpful in some way that it's got youthinking about like, maybe, what have you been trying to white knuckle? What have you been trying to force yourself to give up or
to fix or to change? And have you beentrying to do it from the outside in? And if you're somebody who's ready to do it from the inside out, and you want some support
(24:20):
and help. You know, there's lots ofdifferent ways. If you're a local person, you can come to a yoga class of mine, right? But really, the way that I help people is
through my group program, my group coachingprogram, which is the nest. It's my little spiritual community and membership. It's full of lovely people, and that's like a
monthly commitment. You start, you don'tlike it, you can always leave, but most people come and stay for years and years, right? They love the people in it. They love
(24:47):
the the resources that they get. They lovethe community and the connection and all the tools that they learn and all that stuff. And then there are some people who like to
go deeper and like to work privately, andthose are the people who join me for the. Quest, which is my one to one, spiritual mentoring. So if you're somebody who wants
to, you know, take a look inside, especiallysince out there is so fucking scary right now, right the external world that everybody wants to fix and change. Do you know how the
(25:14):
external world actually changes is whenenough people get serious and start to do the internal work. Because first we have to shift in here. Because when the head and the
heart right, when the head and the heart getonline, when the head and the hot, believe it, your hands will do it, and how you think and how you feel will affect how you act,
(25:40):
and if you change your mind and you listento your hat first, right? That's how the the things on the level of form, the things on the level of our hands, our actions, our
behaviors, will actually start to shift. Sohead hot hands, my friends. Thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your you
(26:07):
know, spending spending this, this timetogether, I know you could be doing a lot of other things in the fact that you turn this on, if you still hear in my voice right now,
thank you for sticking to the end andhanging out. If you want to find out how to work with me. Any of those things. Get on my newsletter, on my email list. Stay in touch.
Just go to Karen Kenney k, e n, n, e y,Karen kenney.com you can find everything there. If you want to join the nest, it's Karen kenney.com/nest if you want to join
(26:34):
the quest, it's Karen kenney.com/questwicked easy to find. And I appreciate you, and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day or night, whenever you're listening to
this and wherever you go, may you leave thepeople, the animals, the places you go, the environment, the planet, and yourself better than how you first found it, wherever you
(26:58):
go, may You and your energy and your loveand your presence and your head and hat and hands be a blessing. And it just made me think that, you know, there's a line
somewhere in the Bible, or one of the Idon't know, I think it's in the Bible, but it's definitely a spiritual thing where we basically say, like, the divine has no hands
(27:20):
but yours, no mouth but yours, no feet butyours, no no no hot or head but yours right. So to be in service, to be in service to our highest self, to be in service to our
highest good, to align our head, our heartand our hands with love, is an incredibly powerful thing to do. So just a little added tidbit there. All right, you guys have a
(27:44):
great rest of like I said, your night oryour day. So much love. From my heart to yours. Bye, bye.
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