July 10, 2025 • 46 mins
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, we’re exploring how we're all "meaning-making machines.”
We dive into how basically, our brains are constantly trying to make sense of everything and everyone that happens to us.
I break down how we both consciously and subconsciously assign meaning to events, experiences, and environments, and often with a negative spin - thanks to our brain's built-in negativity bias.
I also share some powerful insights from Viktor Frankl, a neurologist, psychologist, and Holocaust survivor who taught and wrote in his book - Man’s Search for Meaning - that finding meaning can help us survive anything.
Something that I’ve learned over the years? We actually have a choice in how we choose to interpret our experiences.
We can choose to see things through a lens of love or fear, and that choice can totally transform our perspective.
But here's the crucial part - while we get to choose the meaning for our own lives…
We can't and shouldn't decide the meaning for other people's experiences.
Telling someone, "Everything happens for a reason" when they're grieving or suffering isn't helpful - it's dismissive.
Sometimes things just don't make sense, no matter how hard we try to figure it out, or want to make meaning of it.
So, I encourage us all to be aware of the stories you're telling yourself, choose a perspective that empowers you, and remember that you don't have to or may not be able to understand everything.
Sometimes the mystery is part of the journey.
If we can “work with what happens”, find our joy, and keep moving forward… we can gradually, but inevitable turn our stories into our glory! ❤️
KK’S KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Humans are naturally wired to assign meaning to their experiences, often subconsciously and with a tendency towards negativity.
• We have the power to choose how we interpret the events of our lives.
• Viktor Frankl's philosophy teaches that finding meaning can help us survive almost anything, even in the most challenging circumstances.
• Our brain's meaning-making process is a survival mechanism that helps us feel safer by trying to make sense of our experiences.
• While we can control the meaning we assign to our own life, we cannot and should not dictate meaning for others people’s experiences.
• Saying things like "Everything happens for a reason") - can be harmful and dismissive of genuine suffering.
• Some experiences will never make sense. Sometimes, acceptance is part of the healing process.
• Shifting our perspective from "This happened to me" to "This happened for me" can be helpful and transformative, but this shift must come naturally from within and not be forced.
• Our meaning-making ability is a skill we can develop, improve and update, by gaining new insights, experiences, and personal growth.
BIO:
Spiritual mentor and writer Karen Kenney uses humor and dynamic storytelling to bring a down-to-earth, no-BS perspective to self-development
Bringing together tools that coach the conscious and unconscious mind, Karen helps clients deepen their connections with Self, and discover their unique understandings of spirituality.
Her practice combines neuroscience, subconscious reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis, somatics, spiritual mentoring, and other holistic modalities to help regulate the nervous system, examine internal narratives, remove blocks, and reimagine what’s possible.
A passionate yoga teacher, long-time student of A Course in Miracles, and Gateless Writing instructor, Karen is a frequent speaker and...
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Episode Transcript
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Karen Kenney (00:01):
Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super
duper excited to be here withyou today, and you guys. I can't
believe I've never done anepisode with this title. If I
have, I'm totally losing my minda lot of times I have to google
my own show. Oh,
Unknown (00:20):
it. Oh, my God, I'm
Karen Kenney (00:23):
totally losing my mind. But I do. I have to google
my own show to figure out if Iever did an episode. Look, I'm
like 322, episodes in. I do notremember what happened six years
ago. So okay, this episode iscalled, meaning making machines.
And I made myself a bunch ofnotes, because there's so many
things. There's so many things Idon't want to forget that I
(00:46):
wanted to say, Sophia, those ofyou who are watching, if you see
me looking down, that's what I'mdoing. But here's the thing, so
you've probably have heard mesay on this podcast before, that
humans are meaning makingmachines. And what I mean by
that is we like to assignmeaning to all of the events and
(01:06):
the experiences and theenvironments and the people that
have happened to us, like andit's that's way back when we're
little kids, because we'retrying to figure out, like, what
is going on a lot of the time.So we look around at the events
that have happened. We lookaround at the experiences that
we're having. We're lookingaround at the environments we
(01:29):
grew up in, the people we grewup around, everybody from your
origin family, to the people atschool, your church, or, you
know, where you played softball,like whatever, the people, the
the cast of characters that youcome in contact with as a child,
right? It leaves a mock itleaves an impression. And so
when these things are happening,the way that our brains work,
(01:53):
right? Yes, we are meaningmaking machines. We love
meaning. But this is the job ofthe brain. This is what the
brain does. The brain loves toassign meaning to things, and we
especially love to try to figureit out and assign meaning to it.
I think because to me, when Ican assign meaning to something,
(02:13):
then it makes me and my nervoussystem feel a little bit more
safe. I don't always like themeaning that I've discovered, or
think it is, especially when themeaning I've come come to is
that person's just an assholeand they're wicked mean and
they're not nice, right? Like,it's not always soothing, but at
least it's like, in my brain,there's a thing that's like,
(02:35):
make it make sense, right? Like,make it make sense. So our
brains really love to assignmeaning to things, especially
when meaning isn't wicked clear,when something doesn't make
sense. So our brains areconstantly trying to make sense
of the world around us, andsometimes this can lead us into
either assigning positivemeaning or quote, unquote,
(02:58):
negative meaning. So this canlead us to see something, or
this person, or ourselves, orwhatever, it can leave a
positive imprint or a negativeinterpretation, depending on who
you are as a person, dependingon how your brain tends to work.
It's not the same for everybody.So where this can get a little
(03:21):
wonky, and where it gets wonkymost of the time is that meaning
is getting assignedsubconsciously. We're not even
aware that we've assignedmeaning to a person or a tone of
voice or a look or an event or asituation. The brain we I've
talked about this before, on onprevious episodes, but the brain
(03:44):
tends to have a negativity bias,which means we often assign
things a negative meaning out ofhabit or based on past or
previous experiences. That'sjust the nature of us being us,
us being human. We tend to leana little bit more towards the
negative. Not all people, butmost people, most brains, but
(04:08):
the fact that, you know, wecould decide one of the other is
wicked good news, becauseultimately it means that we can
choose the meaning that we giveto things, to situations, to
events, to experiences, andsometimes the meaning that we
(04:29):
assign to things can change overtime, over the years, with new
insight, reading a book, gettinga new teacher, getting a new
POV, a little point of view, alittle shift in perception. It's
really powerful. So it's notlike we're stuck with the
meaning that we assign things.We can update the file. We can
(04:51):
update the system. I always say,when we get smarter, better,
right? When we get smarter, whenwe get better, when we get a
little more experience.Experience or knowledge or
insight or information orwhatever we can upgrade or shift
or change. And I can't talkabout meaning and making meaning
(05:13):
without also talking about and Ishould say that there's like a
pot one and a part two to thisepisode. So please stick around,
because I want you to hear aboutright now, we're talking about
making meaning for ourselves,but in part two, we're going to
look at how we don't makemeaning for other people, and
I'll explain that when we getthere. But I can't talk about
(05:36):
being meaning making machineswithout talking about one of my
people, on my spiritual team,one of my heroes, and he is
Viktor Frankl. If you've beenaround for a while, you have
probably heard of Viktor Frankl.He was an Austrian psychiatrist.
He was a neurologist, he was aphilosopher, he was a writer and
(05:57):
author. He was a Holocaustsurvivor, and he wrote the book
called Man's Search for Meaning.He's also the founder of a type
of therapy called logo therapy,and it's a school of therapy
that actually centers aroundmeaning creation. And Victor
Frankel kind of talks aboutthis, and I want to, I want to
(06:19):
pause for a second and just askyou to think about this for a
second. You can even hit pauseon the podcast. Just come back.
But think about how you assignmeaning to every little thing in
your life, because we do it tobig things, little things,
things that we would think areinconsequential. Okay, so based
on, let's I'll just give you aperfect example, if you grew up
(06:41):
in a household where you had towalk on eggshells, whatever the
experience was, maybe you had amother or a father or a guardian
or somebody who was an alcoholicor had drug substance use
disorder, whatever, but younever knew who You were getting.
Things were completelyunpredictable. You don't know
(07:03):
maybe they were. There wassexual abuse in your home,
mental, physical abuse, whateverit was. So kids that grew up in
those kinds of environments, andwe become kind of like hyper
vigilant for other people'senergy, for the vibe in the
room, like we I call it liketaking the weather like you're
always keeping an eye on theweather, and the way that we do
(07:24):
that is by often clocking whatother people are doing, saying,
feeling, looking, whatever. So Iused to say I would always be
looking at my stepfather'sforehead, because I could tell
by the landscape of his foreheadwhat kind of trouble was about
to go down. Right? Sometimesit's a mood. Sometimes it's the
way they're talking their toneof voice. So if you grow up in
(07:47):
that kind of environment, right?And it like I said, it could be
the way somebody sighs, it couldbe the way somebody puts their
purse down, like, whatever itis, like you were absorbing all
of this as a child, okay? Nowyou're an adult and you're in a
relationship, okay? And yourpartner, your sweetie, whoever,
right, the person you live with,all of a sudden they, like, do a
(08:09):
big sigh, or they shut thecabinet door a certain way, or
you hear them put their keys in,like, the key bowl by the front
door. And all of a sudden you'reon alert because you're like,
something's off. This personisn't happy. And for those of us
who fond, right as a traumaresponse, fight, flight, freeze,
fawn, those of us who fond, it'slike, oh my god, oh my god, I
(08:32):
gotta fix this. I gotta make itright. Because if you're not
okay, I'm not okay. And like, Ohmy God. And like, are you okay?
Like, you know, somebody like,looks at you a particular way
for a second. It could be asplit second and you're like, oh
my god, I'm in trouble, right? Idid a whole podcast on that
called you're not in trouble.For those of us who had really
sensitive we all have sensitivenervous systems, I think. But
(08:53):
some of us are, like, wickedsensitive, highly sensitive
people. So double A man hands,if you know what I'm talking
about, right? So we hear thosethings, we feel those things. We
sense a shift in the weather inthe room, and all of a sudden we
start to assign meaning to it,right? So we assign meaning to
every little thing from like,again, the way that somebody's
(09:13):
talking, walking, what somebodysaid to us, the fact that they
didn't respond to a text rightaway, like really wicked, big
things and very small things.Our nervous systems are always
attuning into like, what's goingon. And we hate uncertainty.
Most people hate uncertainty. Welike to know what to expect,
(09:36):
because we get a little moresafety now, of course, there are
exceptions to every rule. Tonsof people are like, I don't like
I don't like things to befamiliar all the time. I like
adventure and newness andadrenaline rushes and whatever
you know they want. They wantthings to be mixed up. They
don't always want to know what'saround the next corner. But most
(09:56):
people, the nervous system andthe brain really likes what's
familiar. Yeah, okay, I wantedto just say that, so I'm sure
you can relate on some level towhat I'm saying. And if you can,
I apologize. Maybe you don'twant to keep listening.
Okay, but those of you that arestill with me, Viktor Frankl,
right? So he came up with thisschool of therapy called
(10:18):
logotherapy, which is allcentered around meaning making,
and I'm going to share with youlike so part of his core
philosophy was that a person'sdeepest desire, right? He wrote
this in his book, Man's Searchfor Meaning. A man's deepest
desire is to find meaning in hislife, and if he can find that
meaning, this is wickedimportant. Listen to this. He
(10:39):
says, if he can find thatmeaning. He can survive
anything. And this is comingfrom a guy who survived three
years in concentration camps,right? He's a Holocaust
survivor, and he says this, hesaid that he found meaning in
his experiences in theconcentration camp by deciding
that he was going to use hissuffering as an opportunity to
(11:00):
make himself a better person. Soinstead of becoming, you know,
feeling like totally doomed,becoming apathetic, he chose to
embrace his suffering. Now,Viktor Frankl talks about that
there are three ways to findmeaning in life. He says, you
can find it through work, youcan find it through love, and
(11:21):
you can even find it throughsuffering. And I thought that
this was so fantastic. And togive you like examples of each
of those, his desire to live ameaningful life, even though he
was in Auschwitz and he was in aconcentration camp and there was
no guarantee that he was goingto live, he says that he kept
himself alive during those threeyears in the camps by focusing
(11:47):
on the potential meanings thathe could create for himself. So
let's go back to finding meaningthrough work. So before he was
put into the camp, he wasworking on a manuscript on
logotherapy, and the Germans,like took it away from him. The
Nazis took it away from him whenthey put him in the camps. And
so he held on to meaning bythinking about the work he was
(12:10):
going to create, the manuscriptthat he was going to rewrite and
recreate once he got out of thecamps. That was one thing that
he focused on. He also focusedon Love by he put his faith in
in the hope of love byremembering the image of his
wife. That he said, the image ofhis wife and his mind helped him
through most of his difficulttimes. And he also found
(12:33):
addition meaning in suffering.And he said, I'm going to,
basically, I'm determined tofind meaning in this suffering.
And here are some quotes that Iabsolutely love that have helped
me over the years when I wasgoing through my own suffering,
right? And when I bump upagainst my own self made
suffering, right? Suffering ofmy own making because of the
(12:56):
meaning I'm assigning to thingsor because of what's going on,
and times when thingsunexpectedly, awful things
happen in the world, right?There's just being suffering is
part of this human experience.There's no getting away from it.
And I always say, like we'regonna suffer. For me, I'm not
saying for you. For me, I get todecide how long that suffering
(13:19):
is gonna last. Now, sometimes wehave physical ailments, so I
want to make sure, right, like,I can't cover all the nuances of
this. We don't have time, butsure. Of course, there are times
when we're going to bephysically suffering with
something, and we're like, Idon't know when this flu is
going to end, but what I can dois do all the things that I can
possibly do to try and helpmyself, like, stay hydrated, get
(13:42):
rest, you know, like, eat when Ican eat. Like, you know, all the
shit that you can do to, like,try and like, end your
suffering, or shorten yoursuffering, or whatever. But
listen to these quotes. He says,everything can be taken from a
man, but one thing the last ofthe human freedoms to choose
(14:04):
one's attitude in any given setof circumstances, to choose
one's own way. I love this.Everything can be taken from
you, he says, Except this lasthuman freedom, which is to
choose one's attitude in anygiven circumstances, which is to
say, no matter what ishappening, you get to decide how
(14:27):
you're going to respond. Andhe's famous for saying, like, in
between the stimulus, the event,the experience, right, the thing
that's happening, um, in betweenthat event and your response,
there is a pause. There is amoment when you get to choose,
who am I going to be, how am Igoing to be, what am I going to
(14:48):
say, right? And, of course, inmiracles, we say that there's
but two emotions, love and fear,which is another way of saying
that there's two teachers,right? There's the ego, and then
there's like, spirit holy.Spirit love, the ego is the
voice of fear, the internalteacher, Holy Spirit. Some
people might call that Jesus.Some people might call that
(15:08):
love. We get to decide in thatmoment, right, who and how we're
going to be, and we'll we'llcome back to that in a minute.
Okay? He also says, when we areno longer able to change a
situation, we are challenged tochange ourselves. And to me,
this is also a challenge to beable to do what A Course in
(15:29):
Miracles calls a miracle, whichis a shift in perception, a
shift in our mind from fear tolove. That's where this concept
comes from. Not Viktor Frankl,but in A Course in Miracles, it
says a shift in perception fromfear to love, like that is the
miracle. You know, if we cannotchange a situation, we are
challenged to change ourselves.We're challenged to change the
(15:52):
way that we're thinking aboutwhat is happening. And we see it
a lot in what's going on in theworld right now. There's a lot
in the world that I cannotcontrol, but I can choose how
I'm going to respond to what'shappening in the world. I can
choose to how I'm going tocontribute to the world. Okay?
He also says this, in some ways,suffering ceases to be suffering
(16:15):
at the moment. It finds ameaning, such as the meaning of
a sacrifice, Wow, I love this somuch. Suffering ceases to be
suffering at the moment. Itfinds a meaning. Because
sometimes you have to do wicked,hard things, and you'll say,
Yeah, this is hard, yeah, thissucks. Yeah, this is awful. But
(16:36):
on the other side of this, thatperson is going to know that I
love them, that I showed up,that I kept my word, that I did
this thing. If we can findmeaning, it changes everything.
And this is the last of this.I'll say, I mean, I could talk
about Viktor Frankl, on and onand on and on. His book, again,
is Man's Search for Meaning. Ifyou've never read it, I highly
(16:57):
encourage you to check it out.But he has a final quote from
him. He says, Those who have awhy, a why to live, can bear
with almost any how. So havingthat why, that understanding, is
one of the most powerful thingsthat there is. So we are going
to continually search formeaning. And my whole thing is
(17:21):
become really aware, like in thework that I do with people, it's
always like, know why you dowhat you do, think, what you
think, say, what you say,believe, what you believe, tell
the stories that you're telling.Why? Understand causal. We love
to focus on effect. Oh, they'redoing this, and this is
happening. And Murmur, murmur,right? But it's like, if we can
(17:42):
get to causal to the why, we canusually figure out the how and
deal with the how and livethrough the how. Okay, so coming
back to this, we can choose togive things either a positive or
more empowering spin, a moreempowering and helpful meaning
(18:03):
to things. Or we can choose tolook at things in a more
negative light. We can use to wecan choose to look at something
as you know, what? That wasreally hard, but that was a
great opportunity. I gainedwisdom. I gained insight. I
gained something rather thanfocusing on the loss or what it
costs me, okay, and I'm gonnajust stay with me, because this
(18:26):
is good, not like what you know,what I'm saying. Stay with me.
We can look for ways thatsomething either totally blows
and totally sucks, or we cankind of look for okay, this is
something that eventually isgoing to it might be feeling
like it's pulling me down rightnow, but eventually this Sucka
(18:47):
is going to build me up. Okay? Igrew stronger because of this. I
grew more resilient because ofthis. I surprised myself with my
own strength and my owntenacity, right? So even things
that sometimes in the moment,the meaning might be like this
doesn't feel very soothing, ifwe It might surprise us when we
dig deep, what we discover aboutourselves along the way. And
(19:10):
here's the thing, I think it wasShakespeare, but there's a
saying that says something like,
like to paraphrase, it's likethings that are both positive
and negative, but it's ourthinking that makes it so,
because I believe that likesituations hold both negative
(19:30):
and positive aspects withinthem. They're not all always
positive or all always negative,but what we choose to focus on
will be right, whether we chooseto focus on the positivity or we
choose to focus on thenegativity of it, that is what's
going to create, the meaningthat we make and the stories
that we continue to tell, andthe meaning that we assign to
(19:53):
things, the beliefs that wecreate, the stories we tell,
those things become our identityin the long run. Yeah, so it's
wicked important to be aware ofthe meaning that you are
assigning to the things in thepeople, in the events that are
happening in your life, right?And again, we can view those
(20:14):
things through different lenses,through the ego, in the fear
lens, or through the spirit orthe love lens, and we get to
choose what lens we are using.You know, I used to tell my
Course in Miracles people who Iused to do A Course in Miracles
Study Group A long time ago, andI used to say to them, you got
to put your love glasses on,man, you got to put your love
(20:36):
glasses on. Because sometimeswe're just looking around like,
make this make sense. Like thismakes no sense, and sometimes
it's the lens that we're usingto view a person, place or
thing, that's making it cloudy,that's making it hard for us to
see that there's anotherpossible meaning to this. Now
here's something that's reallyimportant. I keep using the word
(21:00):
choose. You can choose whichlens you're going to use. You
can choose the meaning you'regoing to assign to something,
but it's a there's a caveathere. Until we are aware that we
have a choice, that thereactually is even a choice, we
are just going to run with thePOV, the point of view, the
(21:23):
perspective that we're used to,that we were taught, that we
grew up with, or that we arefamiliar with. I talk about this
a lot, about how, why reading areturn to love? Why discovering
Marion Williamson as a teacherand now, of course, later as a
as a friend and a spiritualgodmother and a mentor, right?
(21:44):
Why discovering A Course inMiracles was so incredible for
me, in my brain, for me and mymind, right? Is because up until
that point, I did not realizethat my suffering was a choice.
I didn't realize now I wantagain. I want to be wicked
clear. I'm not talking aboutchildren. I'm not talking about
(22:06):
people who have no power, right?There are times when you are in
awful fucking situations andconditions and places and you
end up there by no fault of yourown. I'm not talking about that.
There are true victims in theworld. Okay? I'm talking about
how once you become awarewhether that's again, through
(22:30):
meeting somebody new, gettingnew information, finding a
teacher or a mentor who impactsa new way of looking at the
world, a new way of looking atyourself, of treating yourself
with respect and kindness, ofnot being caught in the victim
loop, etc, etc, right? But untilwe're aware that we actually do
have a choice, we don't think wehave a choice. And when I picked
(22:51):
up a return to love, and I readthat book a gazillion years ago,
back in 1992 and Mary Annbasically was breaking down some
of the principles of A Course inMiracles, and I realized, like,
holy shit, I had a choice. Itboth. I always say this. It both
pissed me off and got me wickedexcited. I didn't know. So a lot
(23:11):
of people are walking aroundjust playing as we often. We say
these terms, like caught in thevictim loop, playing the victim
cod stuck in their old storybecause they don't know. They
don't know yet it has notoccurred to them, or they just
don't want to. Sometimes peoplejust don't want to change. They
want to stay stuck in it. That'stheir, that's their that's
(23:33):
their, right. They can dowhatever they want to do. That's
not how I want to live my life,but it's not for me to judge
them, right? But until we knowwe're going to just keep playing
the old game, we're going tokeep running the old racket,
right until we get newinformation, we update the
system, and you'll see ithappening around you, if you pay
really close attention. I alwayssay negativity can run in a
(23:54):
family like a wildfire. Youknow, I sometimes feel like I'll
be around certain, you know,family or whatever, people that
I know and you see them, they'reall competing to like for the
award of fucking. Who has it theworst? Who has the most aches
and pains, who has the mostailments, who has the most like?
Right? You see it, I'm justsaying like out in the world.
Just pay attention. Just payattention. Groups of people that
(24:17):
come up together, hang outtogether, whatever. You'll see
there's a certain kind ofmindset, a certain kind of way
of looking at things andapproaching things that's not
like racism happens too, right?And this shit gets taught and
gets passed down. This is howhate continues to spread in the
world. So we need people whostart to like, get, get like.
They always talk about beingwoke. I'm like, I don't have a
problem with waking up to likehow things are, right? Like, I
(24:40):
want to be woke. I want to beawakened. You know what I'm
saying? Okay, so here's thething, you got to pay attention.
You got to pay attention. Andonce you recognize and realize
that you have a choice, you haveto start asserting that
authority, that agency, thatauthorship, that power, right to
to go like, Oh, yeah, I. Have tolook at it this way, even though
(25:01):
this is the way that I've lookedat it for a wicked long time, or
this is what my family taughtme, or this is what my
caretakers showed me, or this iswhat I was taught through this
religion or that coach or thatperson. We have autonomy, we
have agency, we have authorship.We can decide, okay, and so this
is when we're getting up, butnow we're about to come up to
pot too. The last however longI've been talking, it's all been
(25:24):
like you like you get to decide.You get to decide. You get to
choose. Notice how I'm sayingyou and your your mind, because
you cannot. I always say thisfor the love of all things holy,
we want to take control over themeaning making machines of our
own mind, of our own mind. ButWelcome to part two. Here's what
(25:48):
we can't do. We cannot decidefor other people the meaning
that they make of things. It'snot our place and it's not our
right. We cannot rob people oftheir experience or their
meaning that they're assigningto something. So let me give you
an example. This is what Ialways say. I'm like, I can flip
a script. I would say I canscript a flip a script like a
(26:09):
motherfucker, like I can findthe silver lining, the positive,
the positive in anything. I canfind the gift. I can find the
lesson. I can find the blessingin all kinds of personally
difficult things. Okay, maybe Iwas born that way. I don't know.
I see pictures of myself when Iwas a little kid and I was,
like, smiling all the time.However, there was, there was a
(26:33):
certain period in my life when Ikind of had, like, a wicked
negative perspective. I kind ofhad a little bit of an attitude
problem, you know what I mean,and so I wasn't always, you
know, I think I was a reallyhappy little kid. And then some
stuff went down. Some people gota hold of me, some things
happened. And then I wentthrough, like a little dark
(26:55):
night of the soul, you know whatI mean, I came out the other
side. Thank you Jesus, right?Like, thank you spiritual team.
Thank you mom. Thank you God.Thank you all the divine
helpers, the teachers, thementors, the books, the
cassettes, the pro Thank youanybody, thank you or anybody
who's given me some insight intomy own insanity, I super duper
(27:15):
appreciate it. Okay, so I had tolearn how to train my mind. It
was after learning how to trainmy mind which, of course, in
miracles was a huge role inwhich yoga, yoga was a huge
thing in all the different toolsthat I put in my spiritual
toolkit. Amen. Thank you verymuch. Double. Amen. Hands. Okay,
(27:37):
so I now have a tendency to leantowards the positive. Okay, I
don't turn on my blindness tothe awful shit that's going on
in the world. But for myself,like me personally, I try to
find what I can use, you knowwhat I mean, like, I try to find
(27:57):
what I can use in a situation. II try to find what is helpful
for me, even when I don't likeit. I try to find what is
helpful. And I said this before.I just, actually just said that.
I've said it on a other podcast,but I most recently said it on
my my friend's podcast, on theit has to be me podcast with
test masters. I said I wouldn'tbe the person that I am today,
(28:20):
if my mother had lived, Iwouldn't be the person I am
today if my mother had lived.Now that right there is me
finding right the positive inthat. Because this is absolutely
true, I don't think I would bethe person that I am today if my
mother would have lived. But Ilike to put a positive spin on
things. But here's the thing,who knows, who knows? I might
(28:44):
have turned out way better. Imight have turned out way better
if I had had my mother for morethan 12 years of my life. I like
to think that, you know, I say,Oh, I wouldn't be who I am
today. Of course not, becausesurviving that and all of that
is a is a big deal, right? Like,I learned a lot about myself and
(29:04):
the world and violence andpeople, but I don't know. Maybe
I would have turned out waybetter she had lived, right? But
I'll never know that. I'll neverknow that I don't have the
opportunity to know that I don'thave a choice in that, so I
gotta work with what I've got,
but that's me. With me. Withother people, we have to be
(29:28):
wicked careful that we don't tryto assign meaning to what's
going on for them. And I seepeople do it all the time. I see
it in spiritual communities. Isee it in quote, unquote,
positive vibes only. I see it inspiritually, like positive
talks, like toxic positivity. Ithink I did a whole podcast on
(29:48):
that we it's so important youguys, that we do not spiritually
try to bypass away otherpeople's experience or pain,
what they're going through. Letme give an example. Yeah, so in
in the spiritual community, andwe could argue all day on what
spiritual really means. I knowthere are tons of people out
there who think spiritual justmeans like tarot cards and
(30:10):
frigging, the Enneagram andhuman design and incense and
psychic readings, right? Thatthat's not how I like define
spirituality. I'm not sayingit's not that's not a can be a
part of it. That's not how so wedon't have time for that. But
let's just say, in the spiritualcommunity in general, I often
hear people say things likethis, everything happens for a
(30:33):
reason. Everything happens for areason. I understand why we say
that. I understand what peoplemean when they say this,
however, saying that to a personwho recently lost somebody that
they love, no matter what thatloss is, whether, whether it's
(30:56):
whether it's a child, whetherit's your grandpa who's 97
whether it's somebody who had,you know, took their own life,
whether it's a tragic caraccident, whether it's whatever,
when you say to somebody who'sreally suffering, everything
happens for a reason. It is sotone deaf. It's like read the
(31:20):
room. Because here's thereality, everything happens for
a reason. What that means is youare now putting the impetus on
the other person that they'resomehow supposed to come up with
some positive reason why theirchild is no longer here, or
their loved one is dead, ortheir dog, who they've had for
(31:42):
14 years, who was their bestfriend or companion, is no
longer there, doing all the mostbeautiful doggy things, right?
It's like, we see these things,and it's like, because Americans
especially, have this very likeindividualistic, like, pull
yourself up by the bootstrapsmentality, and certain parts of
the country even more so there'san expectation that you're just
gonna suck it up, right? Stuff,it down and get on with shit,
(32:05):
right? Everything happens for areason, kid, yeah, but here's
the thing, sometimes the reasonis because somebody had
uncontrollable rage. It's notlike, oh, everything happens for
a reason, because somehow thisis gonna benefit you. Oh yeah,
you're gonna say that to a rapevictim. You're gonna say that to
a murder victim. You're gonnasay that to the people in
(32:26):
Palestine, people who are inwars, the people who are
starving, the people who areunhoused and homeless.
Everything happens for a reason.Okay, let me just go out there
with my like, spiritualitysprinkles and just like pour
pink paint over everything andmake this nice. No, sometimes
the reason that something ishappening again is because
(32:47):
somebody had uncontrollablerage, or somebody lost their
frigging patience and had roadrage, or somebody is out of
their mind, or somebody had nofrigging tools. Or, as my
stepfather used to say when wewere kids, they're sick in the
fucking head. Sometimes peopledo really fucked up sick, awful
things, and a lot of times whensomething hap awful happens to
(33:10):
somebody, this is not the timeto be putting your little
spiritual jimmies on things,little spiritual sprinkles on
everything. We don't get todecide for other people what the
meaning is for them. And youknow, people need time to
process, to feel their feelings,to ride the waves, to ride the
(33:32):
waves of grief, and that mighttake years, might take forever.
So we don't just get to goaround silver linings,
playbooking everybody, becausethe reality is, is we try to
force that positivity sometimesin other people because we're
uncomfortable with other peoplesuffering. We're uncomfortable
(33:52):
with other people's grief andother people's emotions and
other people's feelings. That'swhy we say things like, you're
not over that yet you think youdealt with that already. We
don't get to assign the meaningfor other people or the
timeline. We don't establishthat for other people. Okay, we
want to talk about this for awhile. We don't get to decide
for other people whether or nottheir loss or their tragedy or
(34:16):
their trauma gets a positivespin. That's not our job. We
don't get to play DJ on thatrecord. You know what I'm
saying? Here's another one.Here's another one. And I've
said this before too. I've saidit before too. It is like a
mindset, self HELP mantra,right? It happened for you and
not to you. We love to say thatone, don't we? It happened for
(34:40):
you and not to you. If you hadtried to tell me that, if you
had tried to tell me so much,not even just my mother's
murder, but so many of thethings that I went through in my
younger years, if you had triedto tell me that that line back
then, I would have. Into karatechop you right in the throat. I
(35:01):
would have been like, nope, hi,yeah, not having it. Everybody
was kung fu fighting. That'swhat would have happened. I
would not have been having it atall. Because at first, when
things happen to you, andespecially when you're a child,
everything does feel like it'shappening to you. Nothing feels
(35:26):
like it's happening for you. Idon't have the wisdom yet. I
didn't have the insight yet. Ididn't have the perspective. I
didn't have right my 50 plusmore years of wisdom or
whatever, when you're littlekids, everything is happening to
you because you don't have a sayand you don't have a choice when
things are being imposed on you,because people outrank you,
(35:50):
outweigh you, have more powerthan you, sure, maybe with time
and experience and a littlewisdom, right? People will have
a different perspective. Butit's not for us to say to other
people, and we say it all thetime. And the truth is that
there are things in life thatare going to happen that just
make no sense. We try to findthe meaning. We're desperate for
(36:12):
meaning. We want to understandwhy did this happen? And this is
how sometimes we see people incrisises of faith, right? Deeply
religious people, I've seen themcrumble when something really
big happens to them, and they'llsay things like, Why did God let
this happen to me? Right? Cuzthey'd think that God did this
(36:33):
thing to them, to their family,to their community, to their
town, to their marriage, totheir life, whatever, right? And
there are things in life thatjust make no sense. Like,
honestly, I can make no sense ofthis whole big, beautiful Bill
thing. Again, some people mightget pissed at me, but, like, it
just boggles my mind. It bogglesmy mind that so many people like
(36:55):
when I see all the the WhiteHouse people praying, praying
over this bill, the Christians,all the Christians, praying over
this bill. It makes me want to,like, bang my face off my desk.
Like, how are so many peoplesupporting legislature that's
designed to hurt so many people?And then they're praying over
it, and they're clapping andthey're celebrating it. I don't
get it. Make it make sense. Makeit make sense, because I don't
(37:19):
think, I don't think my littleChristian friends that Jesus
would have your back on thisone. I don't think so, not for
me to say I'm not Jesus, just mypoint of view. So and we're back
and we're back, let's get backto my point. We love to make
sense of things. We are meaningmaking machines. Our brain are
meaning making machines. Butsome things just make no sense.
(37:43):
And I know I tried to do it withmy mother's murder. Part of my
suffering for a wicked long timewas me trying to make sense of
it, like I spent so much timetrying to make sense of what it
finally dawned on me was asenseless act, because even
(38:05):
though I could come up with allkinds of possible scenarios and
reasons and explanations formaybe why this guy did what he
did, none of them weresufficient. None of them made
any sense. It never made anysense. And this is sometimes
(38:26):
where our humanity and ourdivinity get to meet. This is
when we say things like, right,like God works in mysterious
ways. There are just things thatare going to go down on this
planet, in this experience, inthis illusion, what some people
call the Maya, the illusion, thedream, the human right, the
human experience that are justnever going to make any sense.
(38:51):
We want to make sense. We'redesperate to assign meaning. But
part of this is accepting themystery that we don't have all
the answers. We don't alwaysknow why things happen, and
sometimes we will go to ourgraves not knowing why a thing
happens, and then that workbecomes how do I make peace with
it? How do I still find joy inmy life, even though X, Y and Z
(39:15):
went down? How do I still findmeaning and hope? How do I still
find resourcefulness? How do Istill maybe find joy or
happiness despite what'shappened, sometimes we can
bounce back from really awfulthings. I see people miraculous.
(39:36):
I see people that inspire me allthe time when I think Jesus
Christ, like, how did theysurvive that? And then how did
they come out on the other sideof it? And sometimes I'm kind of
asking rhetorically, becausesometimes I know they got
through it because of theirfaith, or because of the tools
in their spiritual toolkit, orbecause they worked with a
(39:57):
really fantastic therapist or ahypnotist. This, or a coach or a
mentor, or they had anincredible family support or
friends that surrounded them,that held them up when they
couldn't walk for themselves,when they couldn't feed
themselves or clean themselvesor take care of themselves.
You're surrounded by incrediblecommunity who actually cares
about you and loves you andsupports you. You know, we
(40:24):
always want to make meaning, andwe always want to understand.
But the reality of it is, isthat sometimes we don't get we
don't get the reason. I'm comingback to my first point, we're
going to be like, make it makesense, and we can do that for
(40:45):
ourselves. That's part one. Wedo get to choose. We do get to
choose what kind of a spin, whatkind of a point of view, what
kind of perspective are we goingto go for love or fear? Are we
going to look for the miracle?Are we going to look for how
this empowered me and I grewfrom it, and maybe even the
outcome wasn't what I wanted,but even that outcome I could
find, I always say, I you know,like, work with what happens. We
(41:06):
got to work with what happens.But it's not our place to tell
other people everything happenedto our. Reason didn't happen to
you. It happened for you. Letthem decide that when the time
is right, and maybe it willnever be right for them. We
don't get to decide otherpeople's journeys. You know what
I'm saying. So I mean, I couldliterally talk for hours about
(41:31):
making meaning as a storyteller.One of the things that I do as
somebody who you know am writinga memoir, is trying to make
meaning, trying to understand,not just as my friend Andre De
Buse the third says, whathappened, but what the hell
happened? That's the hot beat ofit. As a writer, and I'm
(41:51):
actually going to be doing aworkshop, an online workshop for
writers, that's coming up inAugust. So stay tuned for that.
If you're a writer and somebodywho might want to might want to
write online with me, I've beeninvited to lead a calling it
fearless flow writing. And I'vebeen leading, you know, I've
(42:12):
been leading writing workshopsfor a gazillion years, but we'll
talk more about that later. Butin the work that I do with
people, a lot of the times whenpeople are coming to me, they're
trying to make sense of like,how did I end up here? Why do I
feel this way? Why do I thinkthis way? Why can't I get out of
my own way? They're trying tounderstand. They're looking for
(42:32):
meaning in their life. They wantto have purpose. They want to
understand. They want, as I say,get under the under. They want
to know, why do I do? What I dothink, what I think? How can I
how can I shift from feelingthis way that I don't want to
feel anymore to feelingdifferently, and whether that's
stopping a habit or a pattern orbeing able to see themselves
(42:53):
with more love and compassion orkindness, that's why I call it
your story to your glory. It'sthis transformation. It's a
process that we go through, youknow, and it's different for
everybody. That's why I don'tsay I solve this one problem,
because everybody's journey isunique. Everybody's journey.
Yes, there are universal thingsthat we can all point to, but
(43:17):
they happen on a very personallevel. And that's why I love
working one to one person. Youknow, womano. I always say mano
imano, or womano e wamano, orperson to person, human to
human, hat to hat, right?Because there's so much right
now in the world that we aretrying to make sense of. And I
gotta tell you, a lot of themath is not math, and a lot of
(43:38):
the math is not adding up. Sowho can I be, and how can I be
in the world? You know, thatmaybe feels like it's being,
it's adding, it's contributingin a positive way. So I hope
your meaning making machinetends to lean towards the
positive for your own benefit.Because when we get out of that,
(44:00):
you know, being hijacked byfear. We get out of the fight
and the flight and the traumaresponse, we let the amygdala,
like have a break, right? Webecome a little more regulated,
feel a little more safe enoughto do what we came here to do.
That's when we can be helpful toother people and to ourselves
and to the animals. So I thinkI'm going to stop there, because
this already feels like it'swicked long. So I hope this was
(44:22):
helpful in some way. If youenjoyed it right, share it with
somebody. If you found ithelpful, share it with somebody
who you think you can either whowill recognize themselves in it,
like, Oh, me too. I kind of knowhow to find the positive in
that. Or maybe there's somebodywho's struggling with something
and letting them know, right,that you hear them, that you see
(44:45):
them, that maybe this will behelpful in some way to them. If
you found it beneficial, maybethey will too. And I appreciate
that. I appreciate your support.So thank you for being here.
Thank you for listening as youalways know you can find me how
to work with me, what I have. Onin my group, mentoring program,
the nest, working with me one toone in spiritual mentoring, the
quest hot to hot days. There'sall kinds of ways to get in
(45:08):
touch and stay in touch. So youcan just join my newsletter
also. Karen kenney.com/sign, upand I'll put you right on my
email list. So you can get theseyou can get these suckers, these
podcasts, right into your youremail inbox every Thursday
morning, bright and early. Okay,thanks for being here. I
appreciate you wherever you go.May you leave yourself and the
(45:31):
animals and the other people andthe planet and the environment
better than how you first foundit wherever you go, may you and
your love and your energy andyour presence and the meaning
that you make be a blessing.Bye. You.
Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super
duper excited to be here withyou today, and you guys. I can't
believe I've never done anepisode with this title. If I
have, I'm totally losing my minda lot of times I have to google
my own show. Oh,
Unknown (00:20):
it. Oh, my God, I'm
Karen Kenney (00:23):
totally losing my mind. But I do. I have to google
my own show to figure out if Iever did an episode. Look, I'm
like 322, episodes in. I do notremember what happened six years
ago. So okay, this episode iscalled, meaning making machines.
And I made myself a bunch ofnotes, because there's so many
things. There's so many things Idon't want to forget that I
(00:46):
wanted to say, Sophia, those ofyou who are watching, if you see
me looking down, that's what I'mdoing. But here's the thing, so
you've probably have heard mesay on this podcast before, that
humans are meaning makingmachines. And what I mean by
that is we like to assignmeaning to all of the events and
(01:06):
the experiences and theenvironments and the people that
have happened to us, like andit's that's way back when we're
little kids, because we'retrying to figure out, like, what
is going on a lot of the time.So we look around at the events
that have happened. We lookaround at the experiences that
we're having. We're lookingaround at the environments we
(01:29):
grew up in, the people we grewup around, everybody from your
origin family, to the people atschool, your church, or, you
know, where you played softball,like whatever, the people, the
the cast of characters that youcome in contact with as a child,
right? It leaves a mock itleaves an impression. And so
when these things are happening,the way that our brains work,
(01:53):
right? Yes, we are meaningmaking machines. We love
meaning. But this is the job ofthe brain. This is what the
brain does. The brain loves toassign meaning to things, and we
especially love to try to figureit out and assign meaning to it.
I think because to me, when Ican assign meaning to something,
(02:13):
then it makes me and my nervoussystem feel a little bit more
safe. I don't always like themeaning that I've discovered, or
think it is, especially when themeaning I've come come to is
that person's just an assholeand they're wicked mean and
they're not nice, right? Like,it's not always soothing, but at
least it's like, in my brain,there's a thing that's like,
(02:35):
make it make sense, right? Like,make it make sense. So our
brains really love to assignmeaning to things, especially
when meaning isn't wicked clear,when something doesn't make
sense. So our brains areconstantly trying to make sense
of the world around us, andsometimes this can lead us into
either assigning positivemeaning or quote, unquote,
(02:58):
negative meaning. So this canlead us to see something, or
this person, or ourselves, orwhatever, it can leave a
positive imprint or a negativeinterpretation, depending on who
you are as a person, dependingon how your brain tends to work.
It's not the same for everybody.So where this can get a little
(03:21):
wonky, and where it gets wonkymost of the time is that meaning
is getting assignedsubconsciously. We're not even
aware that we've assignedmeaning to a person or a tone of
voice or a look or an event or asituation. The brain we I've
talked about this before, on onprevious episodes, but the brain
(03:44):
tends to have a negativity bias,which means we often assign
things a negative meaning out ofhabit or based on past or
previous experiences. That'sjust the nature of us being us,
us being human. We tend to leana little bit more towards the
negative. Not all people, butmost people, most brains, but
(04:08):
the fact that, you know, wecould decide one of the other is
wicked good news, becauseultimately it means that we can
choose the meaning that we giveto things, to situations, to
events, to experiences, andsometimes the meaning that we
(04:29):
assign to things can change overtime, over the years, with new
insight, reading a book, gettinga new teacher, getting a new
POV, a little point of view, alittle shift in perception. It's
really powerful. So it's notlike we're stuck with the
meaning that we assign things.We can update the file. We can
(04:51):
update the system. I always say,when we get smarter, better,
right? When we get smarter, whenwe get better, when we get a
little more experience.Experience or knowledge or
insight or information orwhatever we can upgrade or shift
or change. And I can't talkabout meaning and making meaning
(05:13):
without also talking about and Ishould say that there's like a
pot one and a part two to thisepisode. So please stick around,
because I want you to hear aboutright now, we're talking about
making meaning for ourselves,but in part two, we're going to
look at how we don't makemeaning for other people, and
I'll explain that when we getthere. But I can't talk about
(05:36):
being meaning making machineswithout talking about one of my
people, on my spiritual team,one of my heroes, and he is
Viktor Frankl. If you've beenaround for a while, you have
probably heard of Viktor Frankl.He was an Austrian psychiatrist.
He was a neurologist, he was aphilosopher, he was a writer and
(05:57):
author. He was a Holocaustsurvivor, and he wrote the book
called Man's Search for Meaning.He's also the founder of a type
of therapy called logo therapy,and it's a school of therapy
that actually centers aroundmeaning creation. And Victor
Frankel kind of talks aboutthis, and I want to, I want to
(06:19):
pause for a second and just askyou to think about this for a
second. You can even hit pauseon the podcast. Just come back.
But think about how you assignmeaning to every little thing in
your life, because we do it tobig things, little things,
things that we would think areinconsequential. Okay, so based
on, let's I'll just give you aperfect example, if you grew up
(06:41):
in a household where you had towalk on eggshells, whatever the
experience was, maybe you had amother or a father or a guardian
or somebody who was an alcoholicor had drug substance use
disorder, whatever, but younever knew who You were getting.
Things were completelyunpredictable. You don't know
(07:03):
maybe they were. There wassexual abuse in your home,
mental, physical abuse, whateverit was. So kids that grew up in
those kinds of environments, andwe become kind of like hyper
vigilant for other people'senergy, for the vibe in the
room, like we I call it liketaking the weather like you're
always keeping an eye on theweather, and the way that we do
(07:24):
that is by often clocking whatother people are doing, saying,
feeling, looking, whatever. So Iused to say I would always be
looking at my stepfather'sforehead, because I could tell
by the landscape of his foreheadwhat kind of trouble was about
to go down. Right? Sometimesit's a mood. Sometimes it's the
way they're talking their toneof voice. So if you grow up in
(07:47):
that kind of environment, right?And it like I said, it could be
the way somebody sighs, it couldbe the way somebody puts their
purse down, like, whatever itis, like you were absorbing all
of this as a child, okay? Nowyou're an adult and you're in a
relationship, okay? And yourpartner, your sweetie, whoever,
right, the person you live with,all of a sudden they, like, do a
(08:09):
big sigh, or they shut thecabinet door a certain way, or
you hear them put their keys in,like, the key bowl by the front
door. And all of a sudden you'reon alert because you're like,
something's off. This personisn't happy. And for those of us
who fond, right as a traumaresponse, fight, flight, freeze,
fawn, those of us who fond, it'slike, oh my god, oh my god, I
(08:32):
gotta fix this. I gotta make itright. Because if you're not
okay, I'm not okay. And like, Ohmy God. And like, are you okay?
Like, you know, somebody like,looks at you a particular way
for a second. It could be asplit second and you're like, oh
my god, I'm in trouble, right? Idid a whole podcast on that
called you're not in trouble.For those of us who had really
sensitive we all have sensitivenervous systems, I think. But
(08:53):
some of us are, like, wickedsensitive, highly sensitive
people. So double A man hands,if you know what I'm talking
about, right? So we hear thosethings, we feel those things. We
sense a shift in the weather inthe room, and all of a sudden we
start to assign meaning to it,right? So we assign meaning to
every little thing from like,again, the way that somebody's
(09:13):
talking, walking, what somebodysaid to us, the fact that they
didn't respond to a text rightaway, like really wicked, big
things and very small things.Our nervous systems are always
attuning into like, what's goingon. And we hate uncertainty.
Most people hate uncertainty. Welike to know what to expect,
(09:36):
because we get a little moresafety now, of course, there are
exceptions to every rule. Tonsof people are like, I don't like
I don't like things to befamiliar all the time. I like
adventure and newness andadrenaline rushes and whatever
you know they want. They wantthings to be mixed up. They
don't always want to know what'saround the next corner. But most
(09:56):
people, the nervous system andthe brain really likes what's
familiar. Yeah, okay, I wantedto just say that, so I'm sure
you can relate on some level towhat I'm saying. And if you can,
I apologize. Maybe you don'twant to keep listening.
Okay, but those of you that arestill with me, Viktor Frankl,
right? So he came up with thisschool of therapy called
(10:18):
logotherapy, which is allcentered around meaning making,
and I'm going to share with youlike so part of his core
philosophy was that a person'sdeepest desire, right? He wrote
this in his book, Man's Searchfor Meaning. A man's deepest
desire is to find meaning in hislife, and if he can find that
meaning, this is wickedimportant. Listen to this. He
(10:39):
says, if he can find thatmeaning. He can survive
anything. And this is comingfrom a guy who survived three
years in concentration camps,right? He's a Holocaust
survivor, and he says this, hesaid that he found meaning in
his experiences in theconcentration camp by deciding
that he was going to use hissuffering as an opportunity to
(11:00):
make himself a better person. Soinstead of becoming, you know,
feeling like totally doomed,becoming apathetic, he chose to
embrace his suffering. Now,Viktor Frankl talks about that
there are three ways to findmeaning in life. He says, you
can find it through work, youcan find it through love, and
(11:21):
you can even find it throughsuffering. And I thought that
this was so fantastic. And togive you like examples of each
of those, his desire to live ameaningful life, even though he
was in Auschwitz and he was in aconcentration camp and there was
no guarantee that he was goingto live, he says that he kept
himself alive during those threeyears in the camps by focusing
(11:47):
on the potential meanings thathe could create for himself. So
let's go back to finding meaningthrough work. So before he was
put into the camp, he wasworking on a manuscript on
logotherapy, and the Germans,like took it away from him. The
Nazis took it away from him whenthey put him in the camps. And
so he held on to meaning bythinking about the work he was
(12:10):
going to create, the manuscriptthat he was going to rewrite and
recreate once he got out of thecamps. That was one thing that
he focused on. He also focusedon Love by he put his faith in
in the hope of love byremembering the image of his
wife. That he said, the image ofhis wife and his mind helped him
through most of his difficulttimes. And he also found
(12:33):
addition meaning in suffering.And he said, I'm going to,
basically, I'm determined tofind meaning in this suffering.
And here are some quotes that Iabsolutely love that have helped
me over the years when I wasgoing through my own suffering,
right? And when I bump upagainst my own self made
suffering, right? Suffering ofmy own making because of the
(12:56):
meaning I'm assigning to thingsor because of what's going on,
and times when thingsunexpectedly, awful things
happen in the world, right?There's just being suffering is
part of this human experience.There's no getting away from it.
And I always say, like we'regonna suffer. For me, I'm not
saying for you. For me, I get todecide how long that suffering
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is gonna last. Now, sometimes wehave physical ailments, so I
want to make sure, right, like,I can't cover all the nuances of
this. We don't have time, butsure. Of course, there are times
when we're going to bephysically suffering with
something, and we're like, Idon't know when this flu is
going to end, but what I can dois do all the things that I can
possibly do to try and helpmyself, like, stay hydrated, get
(13:42):
rest, you know, like, eat when Ican eat. Like, you know, all the
shit that you can do to, like,try and like, end your
suffering, or shorten yoursuffering, or whatever. But
listen to these quotes. He says,everything can be taken from a
man, but one thing the last ofthe human freedoms to choose
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one's attitude in any given setof circumstances, to choose
one's own way. I love this.Everything can be taken from
you, he says, Except this lasthuman freedom, which is to
choose one's attitude in anygiven circumstances, which is to
say, no matter what ishappening, you get to decide how
(14:27):
you're going to respond. Andhe's famous for saying, like, in
between the stimulus, the event,the experience, right, the thing
that's happening, um, in betweenthat event and your response,
there is a pause. There is amoment when you get to choose,
who am I going to be, how am Igoing to be, what am I going to
(14:48):
say, right? And, of course, inmiracles, we say that there's
but two emotions, love and fear,which is another way of saying
that there's two teachers,right? There's the ego, and then
there's like, spirit holy.Spirit love, the ego is the
voice of fear, the internalteacher, Holy Spirit. Some
people might call that Jesus.Some people might call that
(15:08):
love. We get to decide in thatmoment, right, who and how we're
going to be, and we'll we'llcome back to that in a minute.
Okay? He also says, when we areno longer able to change a
situation, we are challenged tochange ourselves. And to me,
this is also a challenge to beable to do what A Course in
(15:29):
Miracles calls a miracle, whichis a shift in perception, a
shift in our mind from fear tolove. That's where this concept
comes from. Not Viktor Frankl,but in A Course in Miracles, it
says a shift in perception fromfear to love, like that is the
miracle. You know, if we cannotchange a situation, we are
challenged to change ourselves.We're challenged to change the
(15:52):
way that we're thinking aboutwhat is happening. And we see it
a lot in what's going on in theworld right now. There's a lot
in the world that I cannotcontrol, but I can choose how
I'm going to respond to what'shappening in the world. I can
choose to how I'm going tocontribute to the world. Okay?
He also says this, in some ways,suffering ceases to be suffering
(16:15):
at the moment. It finds ameaning, such as the meaning of
a sacrifice, Wow, I love this somuch. Suffering ceases to be
suffering at the moment. Itfinds a meaning. Because
sometimes you have to do wicked,hard things, and you'll say,
Yeah, this is hard, yeah, thissucks. Yeah, this is awful. But
(16:36):
on the other side of this, thatperson is going to know that I
love them, that I showed up,that I kept my word, that I did
this thing. If we can findmeaning, it changes everything.
And this is the last of this.I'll say, I mean, I could talk
about Viktor Frankl, on and onand on and on. His book, again,
is Man's Search for Meaning. Ifyou've never read it, I highly
(16:57):
encourage you to check it out.But he has a final quote from
him. He says, Those who have awhy, a why to live, can bear
with almost any how. So havingthat why, that understanding, is
one of the most powerful thingsthat there is. So we are going
to continually search formeaning. And my whole thing is
(17:21):
become really aware, like in thework that I do with people, it's
always like, know why you dowhat you do, think, what you
think, say, what you say,believe, what you believe, tell
the stories that you're telling.Why? Understand causal. We love
to focus on effect. Oh, they'redoing this, and this is
happening. And Murmur, murmur,right? But it's like, if we can
(17:42):
get to causal to the why, we canusually figure out the how and
deal with the how and livethrough the how. Okay, so coming
back to this, we can choose togive things either a positive or
more empowering spin, a moreempowering and helpful meaning
(18:03):
to things. Or we can choose tolook at things in a more
negative light. We can use to wecan choose to look at something
as you know, what? That wasreally hard, but that was a
great opportunity. I gainedwisdom. I gained insight. I
gained something rather thanfocusing on the loss or what it
costs me, okay, and I'm gonnajust stay with me, because this
(18:26):
is good, not like what you know,what I'm saying. Stay with me.
We can look for ways thatsomething either totally blows
and totally sucks, or we cankind of look for okay, this is
something that eventually isgoing to it might be feeling
like it's pulling me down rightnow, but eventually this Sucka
(18:47):
is going to build me up. Okay? Igrew stronger because of this. I
grew more resilient because ofthis. I surprised myself with my
own strength and my owntenacity, right? So even things
that sometimes in the moment,the meaning might be like this
doesn't feel very soothing, ifwe It might surprise us when we
dig deep, what we discover aboutourselves along the way. And
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here's the thing, I think it wasShakespeare, but there's a
saying that says something like,
like to paraphrase, it's likethings that are both positive
and negative, but it's ourthinking that makes it so,
because I believe that likesituations hold both negative
(19:30):
and positive aspects withinthem. They're not all always
positive or all always negative,but what we choose to focus on
will be right, whether we chooseto focus on the positivity or we
choose to focus on thenegativity of it, that is what's
going to create, the meaningthat we make and the stories
that we continue to tell, andthe meaning that we assign to
(19:53):
things, the beliefs that wecreate, the stories we tell,
those things become our identityin the long run. Yeah, so it's
wicked important to be aware ofthe meaning that you are
assigning to the things in thepeople, in the events that are
happening in your life, right?And again, we can view those
(20:14):
things through different lenses,through the ego, in the fear
lens, or through the spirit orthe love lens, and we get to
choose what lens we are using.You know, I used to tell my
Course in Miracles people who Iused to do A Course in Miracles
Study Group A long time ago, andI used to say to them, you got
to put your love glasses on,man, you got to put your love
(20:36):
glasses on. Because sometimeswe're just looking around like,
make this make sense. Like thismakes no sense, and sometimes
it's the lens that we're usingto view a person, place or
thing, that's making it cloudy,that's making it hard for us to
see that there's anotherpossible meaning to this. Now
here's something that's reallyimportant. I keep using the word
(21:00):
choose. You can choose whichlens you're going to use. You
can choose the meaning you'regoing to assign to something,
but it's a there's a caveathere. Until we are aware that we
have a choice, that thereactually is even a choice, we
are just going to run with thePOV, the point of view, the
(21:23):
perspective that we're used to,that we were taught, that we
grew up with, or that we arefamiliar with. I talk about this
a lot, about how, why reading areturn to love? Why discovering
Marion Williamson as a teacherand now, of course, later as a
as a friend and a spiritualgodmother and a mentor, right?
(21:44):
Why discovering A Course inMiracles was so incredible for
me, in my brain, for me and mymind, right? Is because up until
that point, I did not realizethat my suffering was a choice.
I didn't realize now I wantagain. I want to be wicked
clear. I'm not talking aboutchildren. I'm not talking about
(22:06):
people who have no power, right?There are times when you are in
awful fucking situations andconditions and places and you
end up there by no fault of yourown. I'm not talking about that.
There are true victims in theworld. Okay? I'm talking about
how once you become awarewhether that's again, through
(22:30):
meeting somebody new, gettingnew information, finding a
teacher or a mentor who impactsa new way of looking at the
world, a new way of looking atyourself, of treating yourself
with respect and kindness, ofnot being caught in the victim
loop, etc, etc, right? But untilwe're aware that we actually do
have a choice, we don't think wehave a choice. And when I picked
(22:51):
up a return to love, and I readthat book a gazillion years ago,
back in 1992 and Mary Annbasically was breaking down some
of the principles of A Course inMiracles, and I realized, like,
holy shit, I had a choice. Itboth. I always say this. It both
pissed me off and got me wickedexcited. I didn't know. So a lot
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of people are walking aroundjust playing as we often. We say
these terms, like caught in thevictim loop, playing the victim
cod stuck in their old storybecause they don't know. They
don't know yet it has notoccurred to them, or they just
don't want to. Sometimes peoplejust don't want to change. They
want to stay stuck in it. That'stheir, that's their that's
(23:33):
their, right. They can dowhatever they want to do. That's
not how I want to live my life,but it's not for me to judge
them, right? But until we knowwe're going to just keep playing
the old game, we're going tokeep running the old racket,
right until we get newinformation, we update the
system, and you'll see ithappening around you, if you pay
really close attention. I alwayssay negativity can run in a
(23:54):
family like a wildfire. Youknow, I sometimes feel like I'll
be around certain, you know,family or whatever, people that
I know and you see them, they'reall competing to like for the
award of fucking. Who has it theworst? Who has the most aches
and pains, who has the mostailments, who has the most like?
Right? You see it, I'm justsaying like out in the world.
Just pay attention. Just payattention. Groups of people that
(24:17):
come up together, hang outtogether, whatever. You'll see
there's a certain kind ofmindset, a certain kind of way
of looking at things andapproaching things that's not
like racism happens too, right?And this shit gets taught and
gets passed down. This is howhate continues to spread in the
world. So we need people whostart to like, get, get like.
They always talk about beingwoke. I'm like, I don't have a
problem with waking up to likehow things are, right? Like, I
(24:40):
want to be woke. I want to beawakened. You know what I'm
saying? Okay, so here's thething, you got to pay attention.
You got to pay attention. Andonce you recognize and realize
that you have a choice, you haveto start asserting that
authority, that agency, thatauthorship, that power, right to
to go like, Oh, yeah, I. Have tolook at it this way, even though
(25:01):
this is the way that I've lookedat it for a wicked long time, or
this is what my family taughtme, or this is what my
caretakers showed me, or this iswhat I was taught through this
religion or that coach or thatperson. We have autonomy, we
have agency, we have authorship.We can decide, okay, and so this
is when we're getting up, butnow we're about to come up to
pot too. The last however longI've been talking, it's all been
(25:24):
like you like you get to decide.You get to decide. You get to
choose. Notice how I'm sayingyou and your your mind, because
you cannot. I always say thisfor the love of all things holy,
we want to take control over themeaning making machines of our
own mind, of our own mind. ButWelcome to part two. Here's what
(25:48):
we can't do. We cannot decidefor other people the meaning
that they make of things. It'snot our place and it's not our
right. We cannot rob people oftheir experience or their
meaning that they're assigningto something. So let me give you
an example. This is what Ialways say. I'm like, I can flip
a script. I would say I canscript a flip a script like a
(26:09):
motherfucker, like I can findthe silver lining, the positive,
the positive in anything. I canfind the gift. I can find the
lesson. I can find the blessingin all kinds of personally
difficult things. Okay, maybe Iwas born that way. I don't know.
I see pictures of myself when Iwas a little kid and I was,
like, smiling all the time.However, there was, there was a
(26:33):
certain period in my life when Ikind of had, like, a wicked
negative perspective. I kind ofhad a little bit of an attitude
problem, you know what I mean,and so I wasn't always, you
know, I think I was a reallyhappy little kid. And then some
stuff went down. Some people gota hold of me, some things
happened. And then I wentthrough, like a little dark
(26:55):
night of the soul, you know whatI mean, I came out the other
side. Thank you Jesus, right?Like, thank you spiritual team.
Thank you mom. Thank you God.Thank you all the divine
helpers, the teachers, thementors, the books, the
cassettes, the pro Thank youanybody, thank you or anybody
who's given me some insight intomy own insanity, I super duper
(27:15):
appreciate it. Okay, so I had tolearn how to train my mind. It
was after learning how to trainmy mind which, of course, in
miracles was a huge role inwhich yoga, yoga was a huge
thing in all the different toolsthat I put in my spiritual
toolkit. Amen. Thank you verymuch. Double. Amen. Hands. Okay,
(27:37):
so I now have a tendency to leantowards the positive. Okay, I
don't turn on my blindness tothe awful shit that's going on
in the world. But for myself,like me personally, I try to
find what I can use, you knowwhat I mean, like, I try to find
(27:57):
what I can use in a situation. II try to find what is helpful
for me, even when I don't likeit. I try to find what is
helpful. And I said this before.I just, actually just said that.
I've said it on a other podcast,but I most recently said it on
my my friend's podcast, on theit has to be me podcast with
test masters. I said I wouldn'tbe the person that I am today,
(28:20):
if my mother had lived, Iwouldn't be the person I am
today if my mother had lived.Now that right there is me
finding right the positive inthat. Because this is absolutely
true, I don't think I would bethe person that I am today if my
mother would have lived. But Ilike to put a positive spin on
things. But here's the thing,who knows, who knows? I might
(28:44):
have turned out way better. Imight have turned out way better
if I had had my mother for morethan 12 years of my life. I like
to think that, you know, I say,Oh, I wouldn't be who I am
today. Of course not, becausesurviving that and all of that
is a is a big deal, right? Like,I learned a lot about myself and
(29:04):
the world and violence andpeople, but I don't know. Maybe
I would have turned out waybetter she had lived, right? But
I'll never know that. I'll neverknow that I don't have the
opportunity to know that I don'thave a choice in that, so I
gotta work with what I've got,
but that's me. With me. Withother people, we have to be
(29:28):
wicked careful that we don't tryto assign meaning to what's
going on for them. And I seepeople do it all the time. I see
it in spiritual communities. Isee it in quote, unquote,
positive vibes only. I see it inspiritually, like positive
talks, like toxic positivity. Ithink I did a whole podcast on
(29:48):
that we it's so important youguys, that we do not spiritually
try to bypass away otherpeople's experience or pain,
what they're going through. Letme give an example. Yeah, so in
in the spiritual community, andwe could argue all day on what
spiritual really means. I knowthere are tons of people out
there who think spiritual justmeans like tarot cards and
(30:10):
frigging, the Enneagram andhuman design and incense and
psychic readings, right? Thatthat's not how I like define
spirituality. I'm not sayingit's not that's not a can be a
part of it. That's not how so wedon't have time for that. But
let's just say, in the spiritualcommunity in general, I often
hear people say things likethis, everything happens for a
(30:33):
reason. Everything happens for areason. I understand why we say
that. I understand what peoplemean when they say this,
however, saying that to a personwho recently lost somebody that
they love, no matter what thatloss is, whether, whether it's
(30:56):
whether it's a child, whetherit's your grandpa who's 97
whether it's somebody who had,you know, took their own life,
whether it's a tragic caraccident, whether it's whatever,
when you say to somebody who'sreally suffering, everything
happens for a reason. It is sotone deaf. It's like read the
(31:20):
room. Because here's thereality, everything happens for
a reason. What that means is youare now putting the impetus on
the other person that they'resomehow supposed to come up with
some positive reason why theirchild is no longer here, or
their loved one is dead, ortheir dog, who they've had for
(31:42):
14 years, who was their bestfriend or companion, is no
longer there, doing all the mostbeautiful doggy things, right?
It's like, we see these things,and it's like, because Americans
especially, have this very likeindividualistic, like, pull
yourself up by the bootstrapsmentality, and certain parts of
the country even more so there'san expectation that you're just
gonna suck it up, right? Stuff,it down and get on with shit,
(32:05):
right? Everything happens for areason, kid, yeah, but here's
the thing, sometimes the reasonis because somebody had
uncontrollable rage. It's notlike, oh, everything happens for
a reason, because somehow thisis gonna benefit you. Oh yeah,
you're gonna say that to a rapevictim. You're gonna say that to
a murder victim. You're gonnasay that to the people in
(32:26):
Palestine, people who are inwars, the people who are
starving, the people who areunhoused and homeless.
Everything happens for a reason.Okay, let me just go out there
with my like, spiritualitysprinkles and just like pour
pink paint over everything andmake this nice. No, sometimes
the reason that something ishappening again is because
(32:47):
somebody had uncontrollablerage, or somebody lost their
frigging patience and had roadrage, or somebody is out of
their mind, or somebody had nofrigging tools. Or, as my
stepfather used to say when wewere kids, they're sick in the
fucking head. Sometimes peopledo really fucked up sick, awful
things, and a lot of times whensomething hap awful happens to
(33:10):
somebody, this is not the timeto be putting your little
spiritual jimmies on things,little spiritual sprinkles on
everything. We don't get todecide for other people what the
meaning is for them. And youknow, people need time to
process, to feel their feelings,to ride the waves, to ride the
(33:32):
waves of grief, and that mighttake years, might take forever.
So we don't just get to goaround silver linings,
playbooking everybody, becausethe reality is, is we try to
force that positivity sometimesin other people because we're
uncomfortable with other peoplesuffering. We're uncomfortable
(33:52):
with other people's grief andother people's emotions and
other people's feelings. That'swhy we say things like, you're
not over that yet you think youdealt with that already. We
don't get to assign the meaningfor other people or the
timeline. We don't establishthat for other people. Okay, we
want to talk about this for awhile. We don't get to decide
for other people whether or nottheir loss or their tragedy or
(34:16):
their trauma gets a positivespin. That's not our job. We
don't get to play DJ on thatrecord. You know what I'm
saying? Here's another one.Here's another one. And I've
said this before too. I've saidit before too. It is like a
mindset, self HELP mantra,right? It happened for you and
not to you. We love to say thatone, don't we? It happened for
(34:40):
you and not to you. If you hadtried to tell me that, if you
had tried to tell me so much,not even just my mother's
murder, but so many of thethings that I went through in my
younger years, if you had triedto tell me that that line back
then, I would have. Into karatechop you right in the throat. I
(35:01):
would have been like, nope, hi,yeah, not having it. Everybody
was kung fu fighting. That'swhat would have happened. I
would not have been having it atall. Because at first, when
things happen to you, andespecially when you're a child,
everything does feel like it'shappening to you. Nothing feels
(35:26):
like it's happening for you. Idon't have the wisdom yet. I
didn't have the insight yet. Ididn't have the perspective. I
didn't have right my 50 plusmore years of wisdom or
whatever, when you're littlekids, everything is happening to
you because you don't have a sayand you don't have a choice when
things are being imposed on you,because people outrank you,
(35:50):
outweigh you, have more powerthan you, sure, maybe with time
and experience and a littlewisdom, right? People will have
a different perspective. Butit's not for us to say to other
people, and we say it all thetime. And the truth is that
there are things in life thatare going to happen that just
make no sense. We try to findthe meaning. We're desperate for
(36:12):
meaning. We want to understandwhy did this happen? And this is
how sometimes we see people incrisises of faith, right? Deeply
religious people, I've seen themcrumble when something really
big happens to them, and they'llsay things like, Why did God let
this happen to me? Right? Cuzthey'd think that God did this
(36:33):
thing to them, to their family,to their community, to their
town, to their marriage, totheir life, whatever, right? And
there are things in life thatjust make no sense. Like,
honestly, I can make no sense ofthis whole big, beautiful Bill
thing. Again, some people mightget pissed at me, but, like, it
just boggles my mind. It bogglesmy mind that so many people like
(36:55):
when I see all the the WhiteHouse people praying, praying
over this bill, the Christians,all the Christians, praying over
this bill. It makes me want to,like, bang my face off my desk.
Like, how are so many peoplesupporting legislature that's
designed to hurt so many people?And then they're praying over
it, and they're clapping andthey're celebrating it. I don't
get it. Make it make sense. Makeit make sense, because I don't
(37:19):
think, I don't think my littleChristian friends that Jesus
would have your back on thisone. I don't think so, not for
me to say I'm not Jesus, just mypoint of view. So and we're back
and we're back, let's get backto my point. We love to make
sense of things. We are meaningmaking machines. Our brain are
meaning making machines. Butsome things just make no sense.
(37:43):
And I know I tried to do it withmy mother's murder. Part of my
suffering for a wicked long timewas me trying to make sense of
it, like I spent so much timetrying to make sense of what it
finally dawned on me was asenseless act, because even
(38:05):
though I could come up with allkinds of possible scenarios and
reasons and explanations formaybe why this guy did what he
did, none of them weresufficient. None of them made
any sense. It never made anysense. And this is sometimes
(38:26):
where our humanity and ourdivinity get to meet. This is
when we say things like, right,like God works in mysterious
ways. There are just things thatare going to go down on this
planet, in this experience, inthis illusion, what some people
call the Maya, the illusion, thedream, the human right, the
human experience that are justnever going to make any sense.
(38:51):
We want to make sense. We'redesperate to assign meaning. But
part of this is accepting themystery that we don't have all
the answers. We don't alwaysknow why things happen, and
sometimes we will go to ourgraves not knowing why a thing
happens, and then that workbecomes how do I make peace with
it? How do I still find joy inmy life, even though X, Y and Z
(39:15):
went down? How do I still findmeaning and hope? How do I still
find resourcefulness? How do Istill maybe find joy or
happiness despite what'shappened, sometimes we can
bounce back from really awfulthings. I see people miraculous.
(39:36):
I see people that inspire me allthe time when I think Jesus
Christ, like, how did theysurvive that? And then how did
they come out on the other sideof it? And sometimes I'm kind of
asking rhetorically, becausesometimes I know they got
through it because of theirfaith, or because of the tools
in their spiritual toolkit, orbecause they worked with a
(39:57):
really fantastic therapist or ahypnotist. This, or a coach or a
mentor, or they had anincredible family support or
friends that surrounded them,that held them up when they
couldn't walk for themselves,when they couldn't feed
themselves or clean themselvesor take care of themselves.
You're surrounded by incrediblecommunity who actually cares
about you and loves you andsupports you. You know, we
(40:24):
always want to make meaning, andwe always want to understand.
But the reality of it is, isthat sometimes we don't get we
don't get the reason. I'm comingback to my first point, we're
going to be like, make it makesense, and we can do that for
(40:45):
ourselves. That's part one. Wedo get to choose. We do get to
choose what kind of a spin, whatkind of a point of view, what
kind of perspective are we goingto go for love or fear? Are we
going to look for the miracle?Are we going to look for how
this empowered me and I grewfrom it, and maybe even the
outcome wasn't what I wanted,but even that outcome I could
find, I always say, I you know,like, work with what happens. We
(41:06):
got to work with what happens.But it's not our place to tell
other people everything happenedto our. Reason didn't happen to
you. It happened for you. Letthem decide that when the time
is right, and maybe it willnever be right for them. We
don't get to decide otherpeople's journeys. You know what
I'm saying. So I mean, I couldliterally talk for hours about
(41:31):
making meaning as a storyteller.One of the things that I do as
somebody who you know am writinga memoir, is trying to make
meaning, trying to understand,not just as my friend Andre De
Buse the third says, whathappened, but what the hell
happened? That's the hot beat ofit. As a writer, and I'm
(41:51):
actually going to be doing aworkshop, an online workshop for
writers, that's coming up inAugust. So stay tuned for that.
If you're a writer and somebodywho might want to might want to
write online with me, I've beeninvited to lead a calling it
fearless flow writing. And I'vebeen leading, you know, I've
(42:12):
been leading writing workshopsfor a gazillion years, but we'll
talk more about that later. Butin the work that I do with
people, a lot of the times whenpeople are coming to me, they're
trying to make sense of like,how did I end up here? Why do I
feel this way? Why do I thinkthis way? Why can't I get out of
my own way? They're trying tounderstand. They're looking for
(42:32):
meaning in their life. They wantto have purpose. They want to
understand. They want, as I say,get under the under. They want
to know, why do I do? What I dothink, what I think? How can I
how can I shift from feelingthis way that I don't want to
feel anymore to feelingdifferently, and whether that's
stopping a habit or a pattern orbeing able to see themselves
(42:53):
with more love and compassion orkindness, that's why I call it
your story to your glory. It'sthis transformation. It's a
process that we go through, youknow, and it's different for
everybody. That's why I don'tsay I solve this one problem,
because everybody's journey isunique. Everybody's journey.
Yes, there are universal thingsthat we can all point to, but
(43:17):
they happen on a very personallevel. And that's why I love
working one to one person. Youknow, womano. I always say mano
imano, or womano e wamano, orperson to person, human to
human, hat to hat, right?Because there's so much right
now in the world that we aretrying to make sense of. And I
gotta tell you, a lot of themath is not math, and a lot of
(43:38):
the math is not adding up. Sowho can I be, and how can I be
in the world? You know, thatmaybe feels like it's being,
it's adding, it's contributingin a positive way. So I hope
your meaning making machinetends to lean towards the
positive for your own benefit.Because when we get out of that,
(44:00):
you know, being hijacked byfear. We get out of the fight
and the flight and the traumaresponse, we let the amygdala,
like have a break, right? Webecome a little more regulated,
feel a little more safe enoughto do what we came here to do.
That's when we can be helpful toother people and to ourselves
and to the animals. So I thinkI'm going to stop there, because
this already feels like it'swicked long. So I hope this was
(44:22):
helpful in some way. If youenjoyed it right, share it with
somebody. If you found ithelpful, share it with somebody
who you think you can either whowill recognize themselves in it,
like, Oh, me too. I kind of knowhow to find the positive in
that. Or maybe there's somebodywho's struggling with something
and letting them know, right,that you hear them, that you see
(44:45):
them, that maybe this will behelpful in some way to them. If
you found it beneficial, maybethey will too. And I appreciate
that. I appreciate your support.So thank you for being here.
Thank you for listening as youalways know you can find me how
to work with me, what I have. Onin my group, mentoring program,
the nest, working with me one toone in spiritual mentoring, the
quest hot to hot days. There'sall kinds of ways to get in
(45:08):
touch and stay in touch. So youcan just join my newsletter
also. Karen kenney.com/sign, upand I'll put you right on my
email list. So you can get theseyou can get these suckers, these
podcasts, right into your youremail inbox every Thursday
morning, bright and early. Okay,thanks for being here. I
appreciate you wherever you go.May you leave yourself and the
(45:31):
animals and the other people andthe planet and the environment
better than how you first foundit wherever you go, may you and
your love and your energy andyour presence and the meaning
that you make be a blessing.Bye. You.
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