July 24, 2025 • 45 mins
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, we’re talking about something we all do and sometimes struggle with: judgment.
You know that voice in your head that's wicked quick to criticize you, make assumptions about others, or have an opinion on things that you may not really know anything about?
I'm sharing why that ego-voice of judgment is full of shit and how it's actually keeps us stuck and separate from real human connection.
I also drop us all (myself included) a gentle reminder about how we literally have no idea what kind of situations or suffering other people are navigating or going through.
I share stories about friends who've lost parents, who’ve had to say goodbye to beloved pets, and are dealing with massive life challenges - all while looking totally fine on the outside.
People are sometimes walking around with “open wounds” we can't see, so maybe we could all use a little more compassion and care, and a lot less judgment.
My big takeaway (and challenge to you) is to get curious instead of critical.
When you catch yourself judging someone - whether it's how they look, what they're doing, or who they are - pause and ask, "What don't I know about their story?"
Turns out, we're not all-knowing gods after all, and pretending we are is just our ego playing tricks on us. 😆
I wrap this episode up by sharing some spiritual wisdom about self-observation, and how humor can be a powerful tool to interrupt those harsh inner-narratives.
The thing is, we're all just a bunch of clumsy humans, so let's do our best to reserve judgment, and instead, let’s lead with love, curiosity, and a whole lot of grace!
KK’S KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Judgment is the ego's default mode, but we can interrupt this pattern with curiosity and compassion.
• We just don’t know the full story of what someone is experiencing or going through.
• Personal discernment is different from judgment - it's about choosing what's right for you, not condemning others.
• “The highest form of spiritual practice is self-observation without judgment.”
• Humor can be a powerful tool to break the cycle of self-criticism and judgment.
• Most people are walking around with unseen wounds and fighting battles we know nothing about.
• Our brains naturally want to categorize and judge to feel safe, but this limits our understanding of others.
• We cannot truly judge anything - because we lack an omniscient perspective on the past, present, and future.
• Compassion and curiosity are more transformative than criticism and quick assumptions.
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 retreat leader. Via her programs The Quest and The Nest, she coaches individuals and groups.
With The Karen Kenney Podcast, she encourages listeners to shift from a...
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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'm so happy to be herewith you today, and I just want
to talk about something that'sbeen kind of weighing on my my
hat. In my mind, it's been kindof like ricocheting ricochet.
Remember ricochet rabbit?
Unknown (00:21):
Some of you are going to be in the right age group to
remember that cartoon. Bing,bing, bing, Ricochet rabbit.
This, these
Karen Kenney (00:29):
thoughts of what I want to talk about today. I've
been kind of ricocheting aroundin my hat and in my mind, and I
know that I've talked about thisand other episodes and little
snippets, like little sip sips,as Linda Ty says here and there.
But I wanted to kind of diveinto this a little bit more,
because I think now more it's, Ialways say it's not now so much,
(00:52):
now more than ever, but rightnow in the world, we really,
really, really could use alittle bit more of reserving
judgment, and what I mean bythat is, and I'll share some of
the experiences that I've beenhaving and how this this episode
(01:15):
came to be. But really it juststems from talking with people,
you know, not just talking withpeople, but really listening to
people, really just kind ofbeing with people and hearing
them when they talk. You know, alot of times when we're engaging
in conversation with people,especially people that we are
(01:37):
very familiar with or know andlove, like relationships that
are close, and whether that'syour sweetie or family or
friends or whatever, people thatwe've already kind of created an
idea of in our mind. You know,we tend to, you know, the brain
likes to keep things in thefamiliar. That's how it
experiences safety, and it feelslike it saves time and it's
(01:59):
efficient, but it also can do usa disservice, because it doesn't
allow us to kind of see outsidethe boxes of our own creations.
So I've been thinking about thisidea of reserving judgment,
because the fact of the matteris, is that we often don't have
(02:21):
all the information. We do notknow the full scope. We don't
know the whole story of a personand their history and what
they're currently going through,and the ego loves to judge and
to slap labels and to determinethings when it doesn't have all
(02:42):
the facts, it doesn't have allthe helpful information. And so
I was at a workshop I wasinvolved in. I led a workshop
for this five day residency atSt Anselm's College, and I'm
going to talk about that in asecond. And but because of that
residency, and me doing thatworkshop, I ended up stopping by
(03:06):
a place where a couple offriends work, and I talked with
them, and, you know, I've justbeen interacting with people and
really listening. And, you know,it's fascinating, because it's a
powerful, powerful reminder,when you sit down and talk with
people, that we and I will justtalk in the first person. So my
(03:31):
own experience, I often have noidea what another person is
going through, and it's reallyeasy to look at another person
and judge them. It's really easyto hear somebody else talk, and
you might just hear theiraccent, or you hear something,
(03:53):
and you immediately try to labelthem or judge them, right? And
we don't look past the surfaceof things. The ego doesn't like
to go very deep. It doesn't. Itlikes to stay on the shallow
part of life. It likes the brainlikes to stay in its conditions
and its patterns. And we'relike, this equals that, right?
We hear this, we think that, weassume that, right? We label
(04:17):
that, we judge that. And sooften I'm so grateful. Let me
say this like, I'm so gratefulfor the reminder that I don't
know shit. You know what I mean?Like, I'm so grateful for the
reminder that it's reallyimportant that I keep my hat in
my mind open, I keep my earsopen, and I kind of keep my big
(04:41):
mouth fucking shut. Sometimes,you know what I'm saying, it's
like to really listen. Andbecause I was interacting with
all these different people, mysweetie also had a sold out show
or own almost sold out show atHampton Beach casino ballroom
this weekend. So I was justpeople. Thing this past few
days, right? I was around a lotof people, listening to a lot of
(05:04):
people talking with a lot ofpeople, shaking hands, catching
up, giving hugs, the wholething. And one of the things
that I walked away with again isthat things aren't always
obvious on the outside. Youknow, I was talking with a
friend, and, you know, we werejust kind of like catching up.
(05:24):
We hadn't seen each other inmany months, and as we're
talking, they just kind of letme know that both of their
parents had died within days ofeach other. These are parents in
their 60s. These were youngpeople, and I just looked at
them, and I was like, wait,what? Now? On the outside, if
(05:45):
you just saw this person, youwould just think, they're fine,
they're beautiful, they'rebubbly. Life is good, like going
through, they're working,they're doing whatever. And when
they told me this, I literallyjust like, was stopped in my
tracks, and I said, Wait, what?What did you just say? And I
realized, you know, again, it'snot like this is a new
(06:08):
realization. This isn'tsomething that you, dear
listener, haven't thought beforeor realized before, but we
forget it. We like let it slipthrough our fingers. We too
casually, forget that we do notknow what our brothers and
sisters and fellow humans,right? The other, other gods,
(06:29):
other kids, right? The other,the other humans and animals
that inhabit this planet. Wesometimes stop really seeing
them. We stop being curious. Andthis is, this is one of the
worst things about judgment, isit kills your curiosity, because
you show up in a place ofassumption, you show up in a
place of judgment, you show upin a place of I already know
(06:53):
when we don't know. Again, it'snot always obvious on the
surface, externally, what peopleare showing us doesn't always
match what's actually going oninside of them. And, you know, I
have another friend who losttheir precious dog who was like,
you know, those of you animallovers are often having a really
(07:16):
different experience than peoplewho are just like, Oh, it's just
a dog. No, it's not just a dog,right to us. It's like our
family members. It's our belovedcompanions. It's they're our
furry kids. They are part of thefamily like we love them deeply,
deeply, deeply. And you know,when you lose a beloved animal,
(07:36):
a beloved pet, it rocks yourworld. And I've known people who
the loss of an animal, for themwas worse than the loss of a
human, a family member, becauseit's very uncomplicated. The
love that we have with ouranimals, there is a sweetness,
there is an unconditional lovethat can happen. It's not
(07:57):
complicated like it is withhuman relationships. So that
loss can be such a searing loss,you know. And I was talking to
this friend who had lost theirdog. And, you know, on the
outside again, they're usually avery bubbly person, a very
upbeat person, and underneaththis, you know, because life
goes on and people do still haveto go to work, and they do still
(08:17):
have to show up at their jobs,and they do still have to kind
of participate in life. Theycan't just, like, lock up in
their houses for weeks on end.But so many people are moving to
the world with at the moment,like an open wound, like a
gaping wound from some searingloss that they just had, you
know. And I read about howanother friend, you know, her
(08:39):
husband, just got the diagnosisthat his cancer treatments, that
there's nothing else that theycan do, that this is it. They've
now shifted. They're on hospicewatch, you know, and yet these
people are just out in the worldwalking around. And I often
think, you know, we're not, howdo I say this? You know, we're
not damaged goods. It's not likewe're broken and we're a mess
(09:02):
and whatever, but we aresometimes temporarily wounded,
and sometimes we're walkingaround carrying burdens and and
and trying to navigate lifechanging, life altering news or
situations or whatever. Andeverybody else is so caught up
in their own thing, in their ownperceptions, in their own
(09:23):
judgments, and we have no ideawhat our fellow human beings are
going through. We make theseassumptions and we cast our
judgment, you know, and somebodymight be short with you at the
checkout line at the grocerystore, and it's so easy to be
like, well, aren't they a crankypants, or they're such a bitch,
or they're this, or they'rethat, or they're not very nice,
(09:44):
or they're, you know, somebodyjust might be simply shy because
they grew up in an environmentwhere they weren't ever seen.
And to be seen was to be hurt,right? Was to be attacked or
abused or maimed in some way.And so they. Withdraw, and then
people think they're stuck up orthey're a snob because they are
not investigating. And there's aquote, I don't know if I'm going
(10:10):
to get it right, but I just Idoesn't matter. I might even do
a whole podcast about this andbut it says something like,
there is nothing more ignorantthan contempt prior to
investigation. I think I'mgetting that right. There's
nothing more ignorant thancontempt prior to investigation,
and this is what our judgmentdoes sometimes, is we cast
(10:32):
judgment on another person whenwe don't have all the
information because we weren'tcurious enough to ask, we didn't
care enough to slow down toactually ask, and we like to ask
these kinds of questions, like,how are you when we actually
really don't care the about theanswer? We don't want to hear
the answer. We don't want tohear about your trauma or your
(10:54):
drama or your stuff. People arejust like, I'm too busy. I'm too
bogged down with my own shit. Idon't have room or time for your
shit. And the thing is, is thatthis, if we could just all,
like, remember, like, sear thisinto our brains, like, leave
(11:14):
ourselves notes somewhere thatreminds us that that old phrase,
right? Everybody is fighting abattle, and I would say an
unseen battle. So like, be kindto one another. Like, I cannot
stress this enough, we have noidea what people's stories are.
We have no idea. Again, we makeassumptions based on people's
(11:40):
like, what the human eyes cansee. So when we look at another
human being, a lot of times,what people are doing with their
eyeballs is they're sizing upwhat they're seeing in front of
us. They do this by gender. Theydo this by skin color. They do
this by body shape, height,weight, form. They look at the
(12:03):
form in front of them, and theymake all kinds of judgments and
assumptions about people. And ifthey just took a little extra
time to actually inquire and getto know, and I'm like, you don't
even have to like as part ofthis, right? Because it's really
easy to then judge yourself forjudging, right? And I'm like,
(12:26):
judging is what the ego does.The ego is just gonna do it. The
battle isn't about or the workisn't around. You know, stop
judging, because the likelihoodof that happening is probably
not very high, but what we cando is get way better at
(12:48):
recognizing that we are in theprocess of judging, or that we
have judged, and then to stopand pause and recognize, oh, Oh,
I often say to myself, Okay.Judge Judy,
okay. Judge Judy, what do youhave your own fucking TV show?
(13:11):
Why don't you just relax overthere a minute. Why don't you
get curious? Why don't you like,like, stop your role, like, just
slow your roll, put a comma inyour commentary there Judge Judy
and pause because you don't knowall the facts. And I am showing
this like, I am shown this like,S, T, o, t, J, spiritual team on
(13:31):
the job. I am shown this againand again and again. You would
think. You would think it wouldget through my thick head. You
would think that this would justbe so like, seared into my brain
right now. And literally, I feellike this is how, like, Jesus
walked the world like he did notshow up in judgment. He showed
(13:52):
up with love, he showed up withcuriosity. He saw his brothers
and sisters as himself, thatwe're all just walking around in
fear. We're all walking aroundfeeling separate. We're all
walking around feeling like onsome level, I have no idea like
what I'm doing, but we don'twant to appear that way, so we
put on ads, or we pretend, or weblow ourselves up, as you know,
(14:16):
and this is what the ego does.The egos main racket is it loves
to keep you separate. It lovesto keep you special. It will
keep you special in yoursuperiority, your perceived
superiority, right, your pretendsuperiority. But it will also
try to keep you separate andspecial with your shittiness,
with your victimization and howbad you have it, right? The ego
(14:38):
is just always running a game.It's always running a racket on
us. And if we don't have somepractices, some tools to be able
to put a comma in ourcommentary, to slow down, to
pause, to recognize, oh yeah,like I'm running that judgment
racket. I need to stop and Ineed to. Get a little more
(15:01):
curious and a little more caringand a little more compassionate,
you know what I mean. And I wasreminded of this too. I met some
people. So as I was saying, Iwas invited to do a workshop at
St Anselm's College inManchester by my friend, the
brilliant Dr Loretta Brady. Andshe was doing, it was like a
(15:22):
five day artist residency, andit was about ludographic
medicine. It was calledludographic medicine, healing
stories. And what these artistsand peoples and creatives were
coming together to do was tocreate like a game, and the game
was all around, like traumastories and healing, trauma and
healing through writing and theguest, the guest resident,
(15:44):
artist la flesh, she had writtenor was working on a graphic a
full length graphic memoir. Sothink of it like a memoir, but
through like panels, like in acomic book, it's fascinating.
And they created a game, and Ithink they called, ended up
calling it like the come comeback kids story, The Comeback
Kid game. And it was reallyfascinating. So I was invited to
(16:07):
come to do a workshop, and wecalled it preparing, preparing
your bodies and brains. And itwas like yoga and writing with
trauma. And it was like, how dowe prepare ourselves when we
know that we're going to have todo some work, work that might
hurt to do, right? And whetherthat's revisiting your trauma,
writing about your trauma,whatever, but it's work that
(16:30):
might hurt to do, but ultimatelyheals. And it was so fantastic,
and it was such it was such anhonor to do this. It was such a
beautiful group of humans that Igot to interact with and and
share with and learn from andteach. And during this workshop,
I got to meet a guy named MAV.And MAV used to be a prison God,
(16:52):
and I thought this was sofascinating. And he said
something that just like,really, really like, caught my
attention because I was talkingabout how it's so easy for us to
judge people right, because theyhad just come and this came up
in conversation, because thesepeople had just come from a
visit to from the YDC, the youthdetention center in Manchester,
(17:16):
and the YDC is going throughthis major, like, reform
overhaul, because, like, I don'teven know it's like over 1000
kids now adults, right? It mighteven be closer to 1300 or 1500
people have come forward andhave filed complaints against
their time in y DC and all ofthe abuse, and all of the sexual
abuse, the emotional abuse, themental and physical abuse that
(17:38):
happened to them while they werein the YDC. And it's just
horrifying when you think aboutit. You know, when he goes,
Joe's goes to prove my point.You know, you might be talking
to somebody, and they might bestruggling. You might be over
there judging them, and you haveno idea what these people have
survived. You have no idea whothese people are, what their
(17:59):
start in life was, and what theyhave been through and what they
have survived. And so MAV wasone of the people who was part
of this group, and he used to bea prison God, and we were
talking about how I said, youknow, I said, nobody wants to be
judged for the worst mistakethat they've ever made in their
(18:20):
life. And this is something thatwe do with the incarcerated
people with with people who havemade poor choices, and a lot of
times, I'm like, you know, whoends up in prison, people who
have trauma, people who were notgiven the opportunity to learn
differently, people who did nothave good role models or mentors
or coaches, people who grew upOften in poverty or in
(18:41):
situations. I'm not sayingeverybody in prison, you know.
I'm just saying but a lot ofpeople who end up in prison, our
kids who had trauma, who had nosupport, who had no guidance,
who had no tools, were nottaught any differently, you
know? And when you think aboutwhy DC, think about nine year
old kids being put in a prisonlike environment when there's
(19:03):
there's cells, nine year olds,11 year olds, 12 year olds, 13
year olds. Think about what thatdoes to a child and their
development. Right? So MAV and Iwere talking, and he said
something that struck me sodeeply. And he said, a lot of
(19:23):
prison gods, they like to readthe files of the people that
they're like, you know, gutting.They like to know their
background. They want to knowall the stuff. And he says, I
don't read their files. He says,I don't want to know what
they're in there for, because Idon't want to meet them with my
judgment. Man, when he saidthat, I was just like, it was
(19:48):
just so powerful. He's like, Iwant to go and talk to them and
meet them like face to face, andget to know them, get to know
who they are. And this is what Istarted thinking about, is get.
To know who people are, not whatthey've been or what they've
done in their past, like meetingpeople right there, and he says,
(20:08):
I don't want to judge them. AndI just thought, he's like, based
on what they've done. I justthought, Oh, my God, can you
imagine if we all kind of movethrough the world this way? And
the thing is, is that we are allborn, and we have this ego. And
the ego, again, its main job isto judge, and it loves to based
(20:31):
on only what its eyes like,literally, the physical eyes
see. And the thing about thehuman eyes is, and I've
mentioned this before in otherepisodes, is that human eyes
don't really see. Human eyes arejust the little cameras, I think
about that record that take theinformation in it sends the
(20:53):
information up to the brain.It's the brain that interprets
what it's seeing. It's the brainthat is going into that
judgment, right? And again, thebrain likes to categorize
things. It likes to save time.It likes to be efficient. So it
likes to label and keep thingsas familiar, and kind of group
things together and to judgethings based on past
(21:14):
experiences. So it's like, ifsomebody gets bitten by a dog,
any dog that it meets goingforward, unless we introduce
some sort of pattern interruptor some new way of thinking
about a thing, right? It's goingto perceive all dogs as
dangerous. And we can do thiswith other groups of humans. We
might label, oh, this personlooks different than me. They
(21:36):
must be fill in the blank.There's our judgment, whatever
we judge it with and if we don'thave a pattern interrupt, we
just so much of the work that Ido with people, right is to
interrupt our own patterns ofconditioning and the stories
that we tell and the beliefsthat we have. You know, we have
to be vigilant, vigilant aboutwhat's going on in our minds,
(21:57):
okay, but the ego doesn't liketo kind of do much work beyond
what it only sees. It doesn'tlike to go, you know, beyond
that. And you know, I've sharedthis quote before. It's a very
kind of A Course in Miraclesthought. It also gets attributed
to like John overdurf, who says,you know, a person can only be
as good in your presence as theyfirst are in your mind, and if
(22:21):
in our mind, all we're doing iswalking around and judging
people, of course, we're goingto have these experiences where
in our presence, we cannotactually even see who's in front
of us. We can't see them whothey really are. Is one of God's
kids as just like us, as one ofour brothers and sisters. We're
going to show up with ourlabels. We're going to show up
(22:43):
with our stuff. And you know,that is one of the fastest ways
that we keep ourselves stuck inthat kind of separation, which
just leads to suffering, and ourjudgment leads to suffering. And
I want to be really clear aboutthis,
(23:03):
about the ego, mind in judgment,and I'm just going to read a
little something from A Coursein Miracles, because I'll never
forget when I first read this,how it kind of like it was
literally like, I feel like oneof the greatest things A Course
in Miracles has done for me is,if you imagine A house and this
house, the doors and the windowshave been sealed, and they're
(23:24):
never open, so no sunlight comesin, no fresh breeze comes in,
nothing new. It's like, it'slike, stuffy. It's like, you
know, it's not moldy, but it'sjust like, it's not a good
environment in there. And it'slike, all of a sudden, A Course
in Miracles for me, in my mindin my brain, right? The way that
my my thought system worked, itlike blew open, it like opened
(23:46):
all the windows and all thedoors and all of a sudden, all
this freshness, these freshideas, this like, oh, like,
there's more. There's more tothan just what my little ego
perceives, right? And so. And ofcourse, in Miracles is this
phrase, like teachers of God.Teachers of God can be anybody.
It's like all humans can beteachers of God. It's not about
(24:09):
being special. So, and if youdon't, I always say, if the word
God upsets you, insert your ownhappy word there, right?
Universe, love, higher power,whatever. Don't get hung up on
the word. But it says this. Itis necessary for the teacher of
God to realize not that heshould not judge, but that he
(24:29):
cannot. When I first read that,I was like, what is that mean?
Right? And here's, I'm going to,I'm going to, I'm going to go,
I'm going to tell you why weactually cannot judge. We
fucking love to judge. We loveto judge, and then we feel
guilty when we do judge, becausewe think, Oh, my God, I
(24:50):
shouldn't be judging. But it'snot that we shouldn't be, it's
that we actually cannot judge,and I'm going to tell you why in
a moment. All right, so staywith me when we. Judge
ourselves, people situationsotherwise, from our very limited
POV, from our very limitedpersonal experience and personal
(25:11):
knowledge, what that does is itbasically, it basically involves
a certain amount of arrogancethat we believe that we know how
it should be, what should bedone, how they should be acting.
We believe that we know what'sbest when, in reality, right? We
(25:36):
do not have the capacity to knowall of everybody like, why it's
going down, how it's going down,all the multiple aspects of a
thing, right? What might beinfluencing a certain person to
be that way? What their historyis, what their story is, what's
gone on, what's going to go on,what's about to go on, right? We
(26:00):
do not have that kind ofomnipotent vision. Okay? So A
Course in Miracles says it isnecessary for the teacher of God
to realize not that he shouldnot judge, but that he cannot.
And then it goes on to say this,in order to judge anything
rightly, one would have to befully aware of an inconceivably
(26:25):
wide range of things past,present and to come, one would
have to recognize in advance allthe effects of His judgments on
everyone and everything involvedin them in any way, and one
(26:46):
would have to be certain thatthere is no distortion in his
perception, so that his judgmentwould be wholly fair to everyone
on whom It rests now, and onwhom it's going to rest in the
future. So who is in a positionto do this, who's in a position
(27:12):
to do this, who, except ingrandiose fantasies, would claim
this for himself, that, and Ithink of this like right who
would claim for himself thatthey have omnipotent vision,
that they know exactly whyeverything's happening and
exactly what that one should bedoing and that one should be
(27:34):
doing and that one shouldn't bedoing that or should be doing
this. Who can claim that theyknow of all time and space,
exactly why everything is goingdown, and hence they can, from
their god seeded place in theworld, be able to cast judgment.
Who would do that, exceptsomebody who is completely
fcking delusional, and when youthink about it like that, I
(27:55):
cannot help but laugh, becausethis is kind of what we're doing
when we go into judgment. We arejudging everybody and everything
based on our very, very, verytiny, teeny, tiny, weeny point
of view, our little limitedscope of perception and
(28:16):
perspective. And yet we think weknow. And the thing is, is I am
taught again and again andagain, that I know jack shit,
that there are people walkingall around me in every single
moment when I'm out in theworld, people that I'm
interacting with online, onsocial media, whatever. And it's
(28:39):
so easy to cast our judgment.It's so easy to be cruel. It's
so easy to be lacking compassionand care and to show up with our
sarcasm and our cutting commentsand our judgments. And you
should do this, and you shoulddo that, and why are you doing
that? And we don't knowanything. And what a different
(29:01):
world we would live in if wewould all just reserve our
judgment. Reserve our judgmentfor when maybe we have a little
bit more information, and eventhen, I would hesitate to judge.
You know, in The Great Gatsby,there's a line by one of the
characters Nick, and Nickbasically says reserving
(29:22):
judgment is a matter of infinitehope. Reserving judgment is a
matter of infinite hope. To me,when we reserve judgment, so
much more becomes possible,because as soon as you judge,
you literally close down thewindows and the doors of
opportunity, they just they slamshut because you are not going
(29:46):
to be able to see past yourjudgment. You have basically cut
yourself off from yourcuriosity, from your compassion,
from your desire to know moreand understand more and to
really learn about another humanbeing. Being or a situation, you
know? And I want to say this wedo as human beings, because I
(30:09):
know somebody somewhere outthere is saying like, so what?
We're just supposed to walkaround and not judge anything
like so we just let everybody dowhatever they want to do. No, of
course not. We have to havecertain perimeters in place,
right? This is why we haverules. This is why we have laws.
Because we don't want just totalchaos and madness out there. We
do need to, need to set somethings in place, like, hey, to
(30:31):
go into another person's houseand take their shit, like,
that's not okay, right? This iswhy we have laws, right? Hey,
you cannot X, Y and Z. This iswhy we have rules. And even that
can get a little little, youknow, sketchy when we kind of
look at the Supreme Court rightnow and all the all the bullshit
that's like going down in theworld and whatever, because
(30:51):
everybody thinks that they'reright, and everybody don't get
me started. Okay, let me staylet me and we're back. Let me
stay on track here. Okay, ofcourse, we have to have what I
prefer to call personaldiscernment. So I get to discern
whether or not a person, aprogram, a place, a
(31:13):
relationship, a product, isright for me. I don't get to
judge whether it's right foryou, right, like, look as a
vegan, like, I always say it'sthe easiest example I get to
decide what I do or do not wantto participate in. I really try
my best not to judge people whomake different decisions. I do.
(31:39):
Like to educate people thatthere are different ways of
being in the world that does notinflict harm and cruelty and
rape and abuse and murderagainst our poor little animal
friends who don't have a voiceand don't have a say and are at
the mercy of our compassion andkindness, right? But walking
around in contempt of otherhuman beings is not how things
(32:01):
change. Walking around, judgingother people, is not how things
get done, right? We have to stayopen, we have to stay curious,
we have to do our best to try tounderstand, right? But we do get
to have a certain amount ofpersonal discernment, where we
discern, yes, I'm not going todo that, but if that's your
thing, that's your thing, right?Where we do get to speak up is
(32:23):
when somebody is maybe doingsomething against a person or
people or animals who have nopower, and whether that's
because they're children orthey're disenfranchised, or they
don't have a voice, or whateverit is, then those of us right,
do get to, to show up and say, Idon't think that that's right,
(32:43):
and we need to intervene here,or whatever.
I think we have to use ourpersonal discernment, but we
also have to be careful whenthat discernment starts to move
into I'm rightness right, thatrighteousness like I'm right.
This is how it's supposed to be.This is how it has to be, you
know. And there's that old, thatold fable about, you know, the
(33:06):
farmer who's like, son, youknow, falls off the horse or
whatever, and breaks his leg.And, you know, the neighbors are
like, Oh, that's too bad. Andthe farmer says, maybe it is.
Maybe it isn't. And then thearmy shows up, looking for young
sons, you know, young men to,like, draft into the war, and
the son can't go because he'sgot a broken leg. And then the
(33:27):
neighbors are like, What goodfortune. And then the, you know,
the Fauci, is like, maybe it is,maybe it isn't like the story
continues on with all theseexamples. The fact of the matter
is, we are not God. We are notomnipotent. We are not all
seeing and all knowing. We don'tknow. But what if we showed up
with curiosity instead ofleading with our judgment, our
(33:52):
judgment towards ourselves, ourjudgment towards others? How
radical would it be to movethrough the world. How different
would it feel in your body? Youknow, one of the fastest ways I
know so many people who are soafraid of being judged, and I
always say, you know, one of theways that we can help lift that
(34:15):
burden of fear of being judgedis to do our best to stop
judging others. Again. Don'tbeat yourself up for it when you
do it. Don't make yourselfguilty and wrong and bad and
sinful and blah, blah, blah, butjust catch yourself. Move from a
mindless state where you're justkind of automated and doing all
this shit to becoming moremindful, to slowing down. This
(34:38):
is why a DSP, a daily spiritualpractice can be so powerful
because it helps us to kind ofcreate a pause so that we can
choose, we can slow down, and wecan see ourselves. We have more
personal awareness, right? AndSwami Kripalu, you know ba buji,
(34:58):
so if you've ever been to theKripalu. Lucenta out in the
Berkshires in WesternMassachusetts. You know, I was
trained and I lived at Kripalu,and I was trained there as a
yoga teacher a gazillion yearsago. You know, we lived there
for a month, and every day inthe hallways, I would walk past
these pictures of Swami Kripalu,who we call lovingly, Bapuji,
(35:20):
you know, kind of likegrandfather. And whenever I
would see this one particularpicture of Swami Kripalu, I
would always stop, and I wouldget, like, teary eyed, like,
there's just, there was justsomething that transcended time
and space. I mean, he died, Ithink back in, like, I want to
say 1981 or 82 or 83 somewherein there. So I never got to
personally meet him, but therewas something, and the word
(35:41):
Kripalu actually meanscompassion. And so there was
something about looking at hisface. And so in the hallways,
there are these pictures, andthey have these quotes. And one
of the things that Swami Kripalusaid, or it's attributed to him,
he says, the highest form ofspiritual practice there is, is
self observation withoutjudgment, to observe, without
(36:06):
casting our judgment, to observeourselves to be curious about
ourselves. Right to wonder. Andthis is so much of the work that
I do. Why do we do what we do?Think, what we think, believe,
what we believe, say, what wesay, show how. Why do we show up
the way we show up, right? Whydo we tell the stories that we
tell? And how can we maybe tellbetter ones? How can we come to
(36:29):
really understand ourselves?Because if you don't know,
again, right to exist inignorance. I always say, like,
you know, confusion is evenbetter than ignorance, and
there's no higher form ofignorance than contempt, prior
to investigation, to thinkingthat you know how a thing is,
and to turn your nose up at it,to cast judgment on it when you
(36:50):
haven't even asked, well, what'sreally going on here? What's
going on under? The under. Andthis is why so many of us cast
judgment on ourselves. We have alack of self esteem, a lack of
self love, because we have somuch self judgment, like I
should be over this by now, andwhy I thought I already dealt
with this, and why haven't Ifigured this out? And why am I
this way? What am I just fuckedup or broken, or I'm a mess, or
(37:13):
whatever? And it's like, no,just, I always say, and I'm
doing a whole episode on this,you know, we are not really, we
are not really taught how toknow ourselves and understand
ourselves, and we certainly,certainly not taught how to love
ourselves. And so much of thiswork that I love to do, first
(37:38):
and foremost with myself andalso with others, is to learn
how to kind of come home to thetruth of ourselves. And as long
as we are judging ourselves andeach other, love cannot happen
in that state. We need morecuriosity. We need more care. We
need more compassion, you know,and so as I think about my
(38:04):
friends who are navigatingreally difficult things, when I
think about whole communitiesand whole groups of people who
are navigating really difficulttimes right now, people just
behoove us all to show up with alittle more kindness and
compassion and curiosity andsoftness and mercy and
(38:25):
tenderness. I'm not saying don'tbe fierce when fierceness is
called for. I'm not saying thatwe walk around like big, squishy
marshmallows, right? I mean,right now we are in times when
we need to, kind of like, findthat Sanctum Sanctorum, we need
to find some strength. We needto find this inner kind of
resiliency. And we can also dothat, though, while reserving
(38:52):
our judgment and makingassumptions about others,
because, again, most peoplearen't walking around with a
billboard that is broadcastingtheir inner pain and their fear
and their suffering. You knowwhat I mean. So as you move
through you know, maybe this isjust another gentle reminder. I
don't think we can hear thisenough. We don't know as much as
(39:16):
we think we know. You know weneed to realize not that we
shouldn't judge, but that wecannot, because we don't know
all things past, present andfuture we can't possibly know.
And who's in a position to dothis, who, except in the
grandiose fantasies, would claimthat they know what's best for
(39:38):
everybody? We can't do it. Soyou know, maybe it will help
you. And one of the ways, andthis is just a little tip, take
it or leave it, I use humor alot. I use humor a lot towards
myself, like the things that Isay to myself, right, even when
I'm kind of wagging my finger atmyself a little bit. It, they
(40:00):
make me laugh. And I'm like, oh,okay, Judge Judy, I start to
laugh because even laughter,it's a pattern interrupt, right?
It stops me from being too meanor too harsh for myself when I
catch myself doing exactly whatthe ego loves to do. And I'm not
trying to fight the ego. I'mjust trying to accept how
ridiculous the ego is. And if Ican look at my ego and those
(40:23):
behaviors we talk about in ACourse in Miracles, is kind of
looking at it with with HolySpirit, I kind of just like, put
on my love glasses, and I lookat it through this lens of like,
Oh, look at that. Ego's doingits thing again, right? I don't
have to contempt, condemnmyself, make myself bad. It's
like, okay, Judge Judy hasstepped forward. Forward, hit
(40:43):
the gavel, the gavel, and take alunch break, right? It's kind of
funny, so I use humor to kind ofbreak myself out of the habit,
or the pattern of judging myselftoo when I slip up, because
we're all going to slip up. It'sjust human it's just human
nature, right? Human nature?You're going to look at somebody
and be like, Why are theywearing that? And you're like,
(41:04):
Oh my God. Like, where does thatvoice come from? Like, what?
Like, what? Who do they thinkthey are?
Unknown (41:09):
Like, that ongoing chatter.
Karen Kenney (41:14):
And it's really just the voice of fear, you
guys. It's the voice of fearthat is the ego, but we have
within us also, whether you callit Holy Spirit, spirit, the
inner, inner teacher, the voicefor love, the voice for God,
whatever you want to say, thereminder of God's love, right?
That is also in there. And wehave a decision maker, and the
(41:38):
decision maker can choosewhether we're going to choose
the ego, voice for fear ofjudgment, attack, blame, shame,
or the voice for love and careand compassion and recognizing,
oh, they're also me. We're inthis together. They're no
different than me. I hope thislands in your heart in some way,
(42:00):
or I hope it's helpful in someway. And if you found it
helpful, I would love if youshare with somebody else who
might also find it helpful. Thatwould be fantastic. And you
know, these are the kinds ofthings too. Like, I'm always
inviting you guys into the NASS,my little spiritual group
program, my little mentoringcommunity. It's such a community
(42:22):
of beautiful human beings, andthese are the kind of things
that we talk about andcontemplate. You know, it's
about more deeply understandingourselves and how we move
through the world and how we canshow up more in love instead of
our fear. You know how we canshow up and use these practical
tools of neuroscience andspirituality, and you know these
(42:42):
pattern interrupts and rewiringthe subconscious so that we
actually show up as who we aremeant to be, which is love. So
if you want to join the nest,it's a monthly commitment. You
don't want to do it. You do itfor a month. You don't want to
you don't want to stay like notfor me, you leave. No big deal.
But give it a shot. So go toKaren kenney.com/nest and if you
(43:04):
want to work with me togetherone to one, it's Karen
kenney.com/quest Q, U, E, S, T,and if you want this sucker
delivered right into your inboxevery Thursday morning bright
and early, just get on my emaillist. Karen kenney.com/sign up
one word, and you'll you'll geton that sucker. And just, I
(43:24):
appreciate you so much forlistening or watching, and if
you're going through a toughtime right now, if you're
struggling, if you're sufferingin some way, just know that you
are not alone. My heart goes outto you and that you know this is
how we're going to get throughit. We're all going to get
through it together, and it'sokay, like I said, use your
personal discernment. Do I wantto wear the red shirt or the
(43:46):
blue shirt? Should I eat thatfood? Of that food? Personal
discernment, right? We need to.We need that to navigate life.
You know, sometimes we have tomake a judgment call, as they
say, to do it or not do it. Butwe want to reserve our judgment.
You know, when it comes towalking around thinking we know
everything, and judging otherhuman beings and sometimes
judging ourselves, becausesometimes we were doing the best
(44:09):
we could with what we had at thetime. You know what I mean?
Sometimes, sometimes the ego isjust really being strong. You
know, the ego voice we say,speaks first. It speaks loudest.
And I always add and it's alwayswrong. So we want to be
listening for that voice oflove. Remember the highest form
of spiritual practice is selfobservation without judgment. So
(44:31):
let's, let's quiet those judgeduties. Reserve our judgment and
just know you guys. I superduper appreciate you. Thank you
for tuning in. Wherever you go,may you leave yourself in the
animals and the people and theplanet and the environment
better than how you found itwherever you go, may you and
your presence and your energyand your love and your lack of
(44:55):
hash judgment be a blessing.Bye, you.
Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney
show. I'm so happy to be herewith you today, and I just want
to talk about something that'sbeen kind of weighing on my my
hat. In my mind, it's been kindof like ricocheting ricochet.
Remember ricochet rabbit?
Unknown (00:21):
Some of you are going to be in the right age group to
remember that cartoon. Bing,bing, bing, Ricochet rabbit.
This, these
Karen Kenney (00:29):
thoughts of what I want to talk about today. I've
been kind of ricocheting aroundin my hat and in my mind, and I
know that I've talked about thisand other episodes and little
snippets, like little sip sips,as Linda Ty says here and there.
But I wanted to kind of diveinto this a little bit more,
because I think now more it's, Ialways say it's not now so much,
(00:52):
now more than ever, but rightnow in the world, we really,
really, really could use alittle bit more of reserving
judgment, and what I mean bythat is, and I'll share some of
the experiences that I've beenhaving and how this this episode
(01:15):
came to be. But really it juststems from talking with people,
you know, not just talking withpeople, but really listening to
people, really just kind ofbeing with people and hearing
them when they talk. You know, alot of times when we're engaging
in conversation with people,especially people that we are
(01:37):
very familiar with or know andlove, like relationships that
are close, and whether that'syour sweetie or family or
friends or whatever, people thatwe've already kind of created an
idea of in our mind. You know,we tend to, you know, the brain
likes to keep things in thefamiliar. That's how it
experiences safety, and it feelslike it saves time and it's
(01:59):
efficient, but it also can do usa disservice, because it doesn't
allow us to kind of see outsidethe boxes of our own creations.
So I've been thinking about thisidea of reserving judgment,
because the fact of the matteris, is that we often don't have
(02:21):
all the information. We do notknow the full scope. We don't
know the whole story of a personand their history and what
they're currently going through,and the ego loves to judge and
to slap labels and to determinethings when it doesn't have all
(02:42):
the facts, it doesn't have allthe helpful information. And so
I was at a workshop I wasinvolved in. I led a workshop
for this five day residency atSt Anselm's College, and I'm
going to talk about that in asecond. And but because of that
residency, and me doing thatworkshop, I ended up stopping by
(03:06):
a place where a couple offriends work, and I talked with
them, and, you know, I've justbeen interacting with people and
really listening. And, you know,it's fascinating, because it's a
powerful, powerful reminder,when you sit down and talk with
people, that we and I will justtalk in the first person. So my
(03:31):
own experience, I often have noidea what another person is
going through, and it's reallyeasy to look at another person
and judge them. It's really easyto hear somebody else talk, and
you might just hear theiraccent, or you hear something,
(03:53):
and you immediately try to labelthem or judge them, right? And
we don't look past the surfaceof things. The ego doesn't like
to go very deep. It doesn't. Itlikes to stay on the shallow
part of life. It likes the brainlikes to stay in its conditions
and its patterns. And we'relike, this equals that, right?
We hear this, we think that, weassume that, right? We label
(04:17):
that, we judge that. And sooften I'm so grateful. Let me
say this like, I'm so gratefulfor the reminder that I don't
know shit. You know what I mean?Like, I'm so grateful for the
reminder that it's reallyimportant that I keep my hat in
my mind open, I keep my earsopen, and I kind of keep my big
(04:41):
mouth fucking shut. Sometimes,you know what I'm saying, it's
like to really listen. Andbecause I was interacting with
all these different people, mysweetie also had a sold out show
or own almost sold out show atHampton Beach casino ballroom
this weekend. So I was justpeople. Thing this past few
days, right? I was around a lotof people, listening to a lot of
(05:04):
people talking with a lot ofpeople, shaking hands, catching
up, giving hugs, the wholething. And one of the things
that I walked away with again isthat things aren't always
obvious on the outside. Youknow, I was talking with a
friend, and, you know, we werejust kind of like catching up.
(05:24):
We hadn't seen each other inmany months, and as we're
talking, they just kind of letme know that both of their
parents had died within days ofeach other. These are parents in
their 60s. These were youngpeople, and I just looked at
them, and I was like, wait,what? Now? On the outside, if
(05:45):
you just saw this person, youwould just think, they're fine,
they're beautiful, they'rebubbly. Life is good, like going
through, they're working,they're doing whatever. And when
they told me this, I literallyjust like, was stopped in my
tracks, and I said, Wait, what?What did you just say? And I
realized, you know, again, it'snot like this is a new
(06:08):
realization. This isn'tsomething that you, dear
listener, haven't thought beforeor realized before, but we
forget it. We like let it slipthrough our fingers. We too
casually, forget that we do notknow what our brothers and
sisters and fellow humans,right? The other, other gods,
(06:29):
other kids, right? The other,the other humans and animals
that inhabit this planet. Wesometimes stop really seeing
them. We stop being curious. Andthis is, this is one of the
worst things about judgment, isit kills your curiosity, because
you show up in a place ofassumption, you show up in a
place of judgment, you show upin a place of I already know
(06:53):
when we don't know. Again, it'snot always obvious on the
surface, externally, what peopleare showing us doesn't always
match what's actually going oninside of them. And, you know, I
have another friend who losttheir precious dog who was like,
you know, those of you animallovers are often having a really
(07:16):
different experience than peoplewho are just like, Oh, it's just
a dog. No, it's not just a dog,right to us. It's like our
family members. It's our belovedcompanions. It's they're our
furry kids. They are part of thefamily like we love them deeply,
deeply, deeply. And you know,when you lose a beloved animal,
(07:36):
a beloved pet, it rocks yourworld. And I've known people who
the loss of an animal, for themwas worse than the loss of a
human, a family member, becauseit's very uncomplicated. The
love that we have with ouranimals, there is a sweetness,
there is an unconditional lovethat can happen. It's not
(07:57):
complicated like it is withhuman relationships. So that
loss can be such a searing loss,you know. And I was talking to
this friend who had lost theirdog. And, you know, on the
outside again, they're usually avery bubbly person, a very
upbeat person, and underneaththis, you know, because life
goes on and people do still haveto go to work, and they do still
(08:17):
have to show up at their jobs,and they do still have to kind
of participate in life. Theycan't just, like, lock up in
their houses for weeks on end.But so many people are moving to
the world with at the moment,like an open wound, like a
gaping wound from some searingloss that they just had, you
know. And I read about howanother friend, you know, her
(08:39):
husband, just got the diagnosisthat his cancer treatments, that
there's nothing else that theycan do, that this is it. They've
now shifted. They're on hospicewatch, you know, and yet these
people are just out in the worldwalking around. And I often
think, you know, we're not, howdo I say this? You know, we're
not damaged goods. It's not likewe're broken and we're a mess
(09:02):
and whatever, but we aresometimes temporarily wounded,
and sometimes we're walkingaround carrying burdens and and
and trying to navigate lifechanging, life altering news or
situations or whatever. Andeverybody else is so caught up
in their own thing, in their ownperceptions, in their own
(09:23):
judgments, and we have no ideawhat our fellow human beings are
going through. We make theseassumptions and we cast our
judgment, you know, and somebodymight be short with you at the
checkout line at the grocerystore, and it's so easy to be
like, well, aren't they a crankypants, or they're such a bitch,
or they're this, or they'rethat, or they're not very nice,
(09:44):
or they're, you know, somebodyjust might be simply shy because
they grew up in an environmentwhere they weren't ever seen.
And to be seen was to be hurt,right? Was to be attacked or
abused or maimed in some way.And so they. Withdraw, and then
people think they're stuck up orthey're a snob because they are
not investigating. And there's aquote, I don't know if I'm going
(10:10):
to get it right, but I just Idoesn't matter. I might even do
a whole podcast about this andbut it says something like,
there is nothing more ignorantthan contempt prior to
investigation. I think I'mgetting that right. There's
nothing more ignorant thancontempt prior to investigation,
and this is what our judgmentdoes sometimes, is we cast
(10:32):
judgment on another person whenwe don't have all the
information because we weren'tcurious enough to ask, we didn't
care enough to slow down toactually ask, and we like to ask
these kinds of questions, like,how are you when we actually
really don't care the about theanswer? We don't want to hear
the answer. We don't want tohear about your trauma or your
(10:54):
drama or your stuff. People arejust like, I'm too busy. I'm too
bogged down with my own shit. Idon't have room or time for your
shit. And the thing is, is thatthis, if we could just all,
like, remember, like, sear thisinto our brains, like, leave
(11:14):
ourselves notes somewhere thatreminds us that that old phrase,
right? Everybody is fighting abattle, and I would say an
unseen battle. So like, be kindto one another. Like, I cannot
stress this enough, we have noidea what people's stories are.
We have no idea. Again, we makeassumptions based on people's
(11:40):
like, what the human eyes cansee. So when we look at another
human being, a lot of times,what people are doing with their
eyeballs is they're sizing upwhat they're seeing in front of
us. They do this by gender. Theydo this by skin color. They do
this by body shape, height,weight, form. They look at the
(12:03):
form in front of them, and theymake all kinds of judgments and
assumptions about people. And ifthey just took a little extra
time to actually inquire and getto know, and I'm like, you don't
even have to like as part ofthis, right? Because it's really
easy to then judge yourself forjudging, right? And I'm like,
(12:26):
judging is what the ego does.The ego is just gonna do it. The
battle isn't about or the workisn't around. You know, stop
judging, because the likelihoodof that happening is probably
not very high, but what we cando is get way better at
(12:48):
recognizing that we are in theprocess of judging, or that we
have judged, and then to stopand pause and recognize, oh, Oh,
I often say to myself, Okay.Judge Judy,
okay. Judge Judy, what do youhave your own fucking TV show?
(13:11):
Why don't you just relax overthere a minute. Why don't you
get curious? Why don't you like,like, stop your role, like, just
slow your roll, put a comma inyour commentary there Judge Judy
and pause because you don't knowall the facts. And I am showing
this like, I am shown this like,S, T, o, t, J, spiritual team on
(13:31):
the job. I am shown this againand again and again. You would
think. You would think it wouldget through my thick head. You
would think that this would justbe so like, seared into my brain
right now. And literally, I feellike this is how, like, Jesus
walked the world like he did notshow up in judgment. He showed
(13:52):
up with love, he showed up withcuriosity. He saw his brothers
and sisters as himself, thatwe're all just walking around in
fear. We're all walking aroundfeeling separate. We're all
walking around feeling like onsome level, I have no idea like
what I'm doing, but we don'twant to appear that way, so we
put on ads, or we pretend, or weblow ourselves up, as you know,
(14:16):
and this is what the ego does.The egos main racket is it loves
to keep you separate. It lovesto keep you special. It will
keep you special in yoursuperiority, your perceived
superiority, right, your pretendsuperiority. But it will also
try to keep you separate andspecial with your shittiness,
with your victimization and howbad you have it, right? The ego
(14:38):
is just always running a game.It's always running a racket on
us. And if we don't have somepractices, some tools to be able
to put a comma in ourcommentary, to slow down, to
pause, to recognize, oh yeah,like I'm running that judgment
racket. I need to stop and Ineed to. Get a little more
(15:01):
curious and a little more caringand a little more compassionate,
you know what I mean. And I wasreminded of this too. I met some
people. So as I was saying, Iwas invited to do a workshop at
St Anselm's College inManchester by my friend, the
brilliant Dr Loretta Brady. Andshe was doing, it was like a
(15:22):
five day artist residency, andit was about ludographic
medicine. It was calledludographic medicine, healing
stories. And what these artistsand peoples and creatives were
coming together to do was tocreate like a game, and the game
was all around, like traumastories and healing, trauma and
healing through writing and theguest, the guest resident,
(15:44):
artist la flesh, she had writtenor was working on a graphic a
full length graphic memoir. Sothink of it like a memoir, but
through like panels, like in acomic book, it's fascinating.
And they created a game, and Ithink they called, ended up
calling it like the come comeback kids story, The Comeback
Kid game. And it was reallyfascinating. So I was invited to
(16:07):
come to do a workshop, and wecalled it preparing, preparing
your bodies and brains. And itwas like yoga and writing with
trauma. And it was like, how dowe prepare ourselves when we
know that we're going to have todo some work, work that might
hurt to do, right? And whetherthat's revisiting your trauma,
writing about your trauma,whatever, but it's work that
(16:30):
might hurt to do, but ultimatelyheals. And it was so fantastic,
and it was such it was such anhonor to do this. It was such a
beautiful group of humans that Igot to interact with and and
share with and learn from andteach. And during this workshop,
I got to meet a guy named MAV.And MAV used to be a prison God,
(16:52):
and I thought this was sofascinating. And he said
something that just like,really, really like, caught my
attention because I was talkingabout how it's so easy for us to
judge people right, because theyhad just come and this came up
in conversation, because thesepeople had just come from a
visit to from the YDC, the youthdetention center in Manchester,
(17:16):
and the YDC is going throughthis major, like, reform
overhaul, because, like, I don'teven know it's like over 1000
kids now adults, right? It mighteven be closer to 1300 or 1500
people have come forward andhave filed complaints against
their time in y DC and all ofthe abuse, and all of the sexual
abuse, the emotional abuse, themental and physical abuse that
(17:38):
happened to them while they werein the YDC. And it's just
horrifying when you think aboutit. You know, when he goes,
Joe's goes to prove my point.You know, you might be talking
to somebody, and they might bestruggling. You might be over
there judging them, and you haveno idea what these people have
survived. You have no idea whothese people are, what their
(17:59):
start in life was, and what theyhave been through and what they
have survived. And so MAV wasone of the people who was part
of this group, and he used to bea prison God, and we were
talking about how I said, youknow, I said, nobody wants to be
judged for the worst mistakethat they've ever made in their
(18:20):
life. And this is something thatwe do with the incarcerated
people with with people who havemade poor choices, and a lot of
times, I'm like, you know, whoends up in prison, people who
have trauma, people who were notgiven the opportunity to learn
differently, people who did nothave good role models or mentors
or coaches, people who grew upOften in poverty or in
(18:41):
situations. I'm not sayingeverybody in prison, you know.
I'm just saying but a lot ofpeople who end up in prison, our
kids who had trauma, who had nosupport, who had no guidance,
who had no tools, were nottaught any differently, you
know? And when you think aboutwhy DC, think about nine year
old kids being put in a prisonlike environment when there's
(19:03):
there's cells, nine year olds,11 year olds, 12 year olds, 13
year olds. Think about what thatdoes to a child and their
development. Right? So MAV and Iwere talking, and he said
something that struck me sodeeply. And he said, a lot of
(19:23):
prison gods, they like to readthe files of the people that
they're like, you know, gutting.They like to know their
background. They want to knowall the stuff. And he says, I
don't read their files. He says,I don't want to know what
they're in there for, because Idon't want to meet them with my
judgment. Man, when he saidthat, I was just like, it was
(19:48):
just so powerful. He's like, Iwant to go and talk to them and
meet them like face to face, andget to know them, get to know
who they are. And this is what Istarted thinking about, is get.
To know who people are, not whatthey've been or what they've
done in their past, like meetingpeople right there, and he says,
(20:08):
I don't want to judge them. AndI just thought, he's like, based
on what they've done. I justthought, Oh, my God, can you
imagine if we all kind of movethrough the world this way? And
the thing is, is that we are allborn, and we have this ego. And
the ego, again, its main job isto judge, and it loves to based
(20:31):
on only what its eyes like,literally, the physical eyes
see. And the thing about thehuman eyes is, and I've
mentioned this before in otherepisodes, is that human eyes
don't really see. Human eyes arejust the little cameras, I think
about that record that take theinformation in it sends the
(20:53):
information up to the brain.It's the brain that interprets
what it's seeing. It's the brainthat is going into that
judgment, right? And again, thebrain likes to categorize
things. It likes to save time.It likes to be efficient. So it
likes to label and keep thingsas familiar, and kind of group
things together and to judgethings based on past
(21:14):
experiences. So it's like, ifsomebody gets bitten by a dog,
any dog that it meets goingforward, unless we introduce
some sort of pattern interruptor some new way of thinking
about a thing, right? It's goingto perceive all dogs as
dangerous. And we can do thiswith other groups of humans. We
might label, oh, this personlooks different than me. They
(21:36):
must be fill in the blank.There's our judgment, whatever
we judge it with and if we don'thave a pattern interrupt, we
just so much of the work that Ido with people, right is to
interrupt our own patterns ofconditioning and the stories
that we tell and the beliefsthat we have. You know, we have
to be vigilant, vigilant aboutwhat's going on in our minds,
(21:57):
okay, but the ego doesn't liketo kind of do much work beyond
what it only sees. It doesn'tlike to go, you know, beyond
that. And you know, I've sharedthis quote before. It's a very
kind of A Course in Miraclesthought. It also gets attributed
to like John overdurf, who says,you know, a person can only be
as good in your presence as theyfirst are in your mind, and if
(22:21):
in our mind, all we're doing iswalking around and judging
people, of course, we're goingto have these experiences where
in our presence, we cannotactually even see who's in front
of us. We can't see them whothey really are. Is one of God's
kids as just like us, as one ofour brothers and sisters. We're
going to show up with ourlabels. We're going to show up
(22:43):
with our stuff. And you know,that is one of the fastest ways
that we keep ourselves stuck inthat kind of separation, which
just leads to suffering, and ourjudgment leads to suffering. And
I want to be really clear aboutthis,
(23:03):
about the ego, mind in judgment,and I'm just going to read a
little something from A Coursein Miracles, because I'll never
forget when I first read this,how it kind of like it was
literally like, I feel like oneof the greatest things A Course
in Miracles has done for me is,if you imagine A house and this
house, the doors and the windowshave been sealed, and they're
(23:24):
never open, so no sunlight comesin, no fresh breeze comes in,
nothing new. It's like, it'slike, stuffy. It's like, you
know, it's not moldy, but it'sjust like, it's not a good
environment in there. And it'slike, all of a sudden, A Course
in Miracles for me, in my mindin my brain, right? The way that
my my thought system worked, itlike blew open, it like opened
(23:46):
all the windows and all thedoors and all of a sudden, all
this freshness, these freshideas, this like, oh, like,
there's more. There's more tothan just what my little ego
perceives, right? And so. And ofcourse, in Miracles is this
phrase, like teachers of God.Teachers of God can be anybody.
It's like all humans can beteachers of God. It's not about
(24:09):
being special. So, and if youdon't, I always say, if the word
God upsets you, insert your ownhappy word there, right?
Universe, love, higher power,whatever. Don't get hung up on
the word. But it says this. Itis necessary for the teacher of
God to realize not that heshould not judge, but that he
(24:29):
cannot. When I first read that,I was like, what is that mean?
Right? And here's, I'm going to,I'm going to, I'm going to go,
I'm going to tell you why weactually cannot judge. We
fucking love to judge. We loveto judge, and then we feel
guilty when we do judge, becausewe think, Oh, my God, I
(24:50):
shouldn't be judging. But it'snot that we shouldn't be, it's
that we actually cannot judge,and I'm going to tell you why in
a moment. All right, so staywith me when we. Judge
ourselves, people situationsotherwise, from our very limited
POV, from our very limitedpersonal experience and personal
(25:11):
knowledge, what that does is itbasically, it basically involves
a certain amount of arrogancethat we believe that we know how
it should be, what should bedone, how they should be acting.
We believe that we know what'sbest when, in reality, right? We
(25:36):
do not have the capacity to knowall of everybody like, why it's
going down, how it's going down,all the multiple aspects of a
thing, right? What might beinfluencing a certain person to
be that way? What their historyis, what their story is, what's
gone on, what's going to go on,what's about to go on, right? We
(26:00):
do not have that kind ofomnipotent vision. Okay? So A
Course in Miracles says it isnecessary for the teacher of God
to realize not that he shouldnot judge, but that he cannot.
And then it goes on to say this,in order to judge anything
rightly, one would have to befully aware of an inconceivably
(26:25):
wide range of things past,present and to come, one would
have to recognize in advance allthe effects of His judgments on
everyone and everything involvedin them in any way, and one
(26:46):
would have to be certain thatthere is no distortion in his
perception, so that his judgmentwould be wholly fair to everyone
on whom It rests now, and onwhom it's going to rest in the
future. So who is in a positionto do this, who's in a position
(27:12):
to do this, who, except ingrandiose fantasies, would claim
this for himself, that, and Ithink of this like right who
would claim for himself thatthey have omnipotent vision,
that they know exactly whyeverything's happening and
exactly what that one should bedoing and that one should be
(27:34):
doing and that one shouldn't bedoing that or should be doing
this. Who can claim that theyknow of all time and space,
exactly why everything is goingdown, and hence they can, from
their god seeded place in theworld, be able to cast judgment.
Who would do that, exceptsomebody who is completely
fcking delusional, and when youthink about it like that, I
(27:55):
cannot help but laugh, becausethis is kind of what we're doing
when we go into judgment. We arejudging everybody and everything
based on our very, very, verytiny, teeny, tiny, weeny point
of view, our little limitedscope of perception and
(28:16):
perspective. And yet we think weknow. And the thing is, is I am
taught again and again andagain, that I know jack shit,
that there are people walkingall around me in every single
moment when I'm out in theworld, people that I'm
interacting with online, onsocial media, whatever. And it's
(28:39):
so easy to cast our judgment.It's so easy to be cruel. It's
so easy to be lacking compassionand care and to show up with our
sarcasm and our cutting commentsand our judgments. And you
should do this, and you shoulddo that, and why are you doing
that? And we don't knowanything. And what a different
(29:01):
world we would live in if wewould all just reserve our
judgment. Reserve our judgmentfor when maybe we have a little
bit more information, and eventhen, I would hesitate to judge.
You know, in The Great Gatsby,there's a line by one of the
characters Nick, and Nickbasically says reserving
(29:22):
judgment is a matter of infinitehope. Reserving judgment is a
matter of infinite hope. To me,when we reserve judgment, so
much more becomes possible,because as soon as you judge,
you literally close down thewindows and the doors of
opportunity, they just they slamshut because you are not going
(29:46):
to be able to see past yourjudgment. You have basically cut
yourself off from yourcuriosity, from your compassion,
from your desire to know moreand understand more and to
really learn about another humanbeing. Being or a situation, you
know? And I want to say this wedo as human beings, because I
(30:09):
know somebody somewhere outthere is saying like, so what?
We're just supposed to walkaround and not judge anything
like so we just let everybody dowhatever they want to do. No, of
course not. We have to havecertain perimeters in place,
right? This is why we haverules. This is why we have laws.
Because we don't want just totalchaos and madness out there. We
do need to, need to set somethings in place, like, hey, to
(30:31):
go into another person's houseand take their shit, like,
that's not okay, right? This iswhy we have laws, right? Hey,
you cannot X, Y and Z. This iswhy we have rules. And even that
can get a little little, youknow, sketchy when we kind of
look at the Supreme Court rightnow and all the all the bullshit
that's like going down in theworld and whatever, because
(30:51):
everybody thinks that they'reright, and everybody don't get
me started. Okay, let me staylet me and we're back. Let me
stay on track here. Okay, ofcourse, we have to have what I
prefer to call personaldiscernment. So I get to discern
whether or not a person, aprogram, a place, a
(31:13):
relationship, a product, isright for me. I don't get to
judge whether it's right foryou, right, like, look as a
vegan, like, I always say it'sthe easiest example I get to
decide what I do or do not wantto participate in. I really try
my best not to judge people whomake different decisions. I do.
(31:39):
Like to educate people thatthere are different ways of
being in the world that does notinflict harm and cruelty and
rape and abuse and murderagainst our poor little animal
friends who don't have a voiceand don't have a say and are at
the mercy of our compassion andkindness, right? But walking
around in contempt of otherhuman beings is not how things
(32:01):
change. Walking around, judgingother people, is not how things
get done, right? We have to stayopen, we have to stay curious,
we have to do our best to try tounderstand, right? But we do get
to have a certain amount ofpersonal discernment, where we
discern, yes, I'm not going todo that, but if that's your
thing, that's your thing, right?Where we do get to speak up is
(32:23):
when somebody is maybe doingsomething against a person or
people or animals who have nopower, and whether that's
because they're children orthey're disenfranchised, or they
don't have a voice, or whateverit is, then those of us right,
do get to, to show up and say, Idon't think that that's right,
(32:43):
and we need to intervene here,or whatever.
I think we have to use ourpersonal discernment, but we
also have to be careful whenthat discernment starts to move
into I'm rightness right, thatrighteousness like I'm right.
This is how it's supposed to be.This is how it has to be, you
know. And there's that old, thatold fable about, you know, the
(33:06):
farmer who's like, son, youknow, falls off the horse or
whatever, and breaks his leg.And, you know, the neighbors are
like, Oh, that's too bad. Andthe farmer says, maybe it is.
Maybe it isn't. And then thearmy shows up, looking for young
sons, you know, young men to,like, draft into the war, and
the son can't go because he'sgot a broken leg. And then the
(33:27):
neighbors are like, What goodfortune. And then the, you know,
the Fauci, is like, maybe it is,maybe it isn't like the story
continues on with all theseexamples. The fact of the matter
is, we are not God. We are notomnipotent. We are not all
seeing and all knowing. We don'tknow. But what if we showed up
with curiosity instead ofleading with our judgment, our
(33:52):
judgment towards ourselves, ourjudgment towards others? How
radical would it be to movethrough the world. How different
would it feel in your body? Youknow, one of the fastest ways I
know so many people who are soafraid of being judged, and I
always say, you know, one of theways that we can help lift that
(34:15):
burden of fear of being judgedis to do our best to stop
judging others. Again. Don'tbeat yourself up for it when you
do it. Don't make yourselfguilty and wrong and bad and
sinful and blah, blah, blah, butjust catch yourself. Move from a
mindless state where you're justkind of automated and doing all
this shit to becoming moremindful, to slowing down. This
(34:38):
is why a DSP, a daily spiritualpractice can be so powerful
because it helps us to kind ofcreate a pause so that we can
choose, we can slow down, and wecan see ourselves. We have more
personal awareness, right? AndSwami Kripalu, you know ba buji,
(34:58):
so if you've ever been to theKripalu. Lucenta out in the
Berkshires in WesternMassachusetts. You know, I was
trained and I lived at Kripalu,and I was trained there as a
yoga teacher a gazillion yearsago. You know, we lived there
for a month, and every day inthe hallways, I would walk past
these pictures of Swami Kripalu,who we call lovingly, Bapuji,
(35:20):
you know, kind of likegrandfather. And whenever I
would see this one particularpicture of Swami Kripalu, I
would always stop, and I wouldget, like, teary eyed, like,
there's just, there was justsomething that transcended time
and space. I mean, he died, Ithink back in, like, I want to
say 1981 or 82 or 83 somewherein there. So I never got to
personally meet him, but therewas something, and the word
(35:41):
Kripalu actually meanscompassion. And so there was
something about looking at hisface. And so in the hallways,
there are these pictures, andthey have these quotes. And one
of the things that Swami Kripalusaid, or it's attributed to him,
he says, the highest form ofspiritual practice there is, is
self observation withoutjudgment, to observe, without
(36:06):
casting our judgment, to observeourselves to be curious about
ourselves. Right to wonder. Andthis is so much of the work that
I do. Why do we do what we do?Think, what we think, believe,
what we believe, say, what wesay, show how. Why do we show up
the way we show up, right? Whydo we tell the stories that we
tell? And how can we maybe tellbetter ones? How can we come to
(36:29):
really understand ourselves?Because if you don't know,
again, right to exist inignorance. I always say, like,
you know, confusion is evenbetter than ignorance, and
there's no higher form ofignorance than contempt, prior
to investigation, to thinkingthat you know how a thing is,
and to turn your nose up at it,to cast judgment on it when you
(36:50):
haven't even asked, well, what'sreally going on here? What's
going on under? The under. Andthis is why so many of us cast
judgment on ourselves. We have alack of self esteem, a lack of
self love, because we have somuch self judgment, like I
should be over this by now, andwhy I thought I already dealt
with this, and why haven't Ifigured this out? And why am I
this way? What am I just fuckedup or broken, or I'm a mess, or
(37:13):
whatever? And it's like, no,just, I always say, and I'm
doing a whole episode on this,you know, we are not really, we
are not really taught how toknow ourselves and understand
ourselves, and we certainly,certainly not taught how to love
ourselves. And so much of thiswork that I love to do, first
(37:38):
and foremost with myself andalso with others, is to learn
how to kind of come home to thetruth of ourselves. And as long
as we are judging ourselves andeach other, love cannot happen
in that state. We need morecuriosity. We need more care. We
need more compassion, you know,and so as I think about my
(38:04):
friends who are navigatingreally difficult things, when I
think about whole communitiesand whole groups of people who
are navigating really difficulttimes right now, people just
behoove us all to show up with alittle more kindness and
compassion and curiosity andsoftness and mercy and
(38:25):
tenderness. I'm not saying don'tbe fierce when fierceness is
called for. I'm not saying thatwe walk around like big, squishy
marshmallows, right? I mean,right now we are in times when
we need to, kind of like, findthat Sanctum Sanctorum, we need
to find some strength. We needto find this inner kind of
resiliency. And we can also dothat, though, while reserving
(38:52):
our judgment and makingassumptions about others,
because, again, most peoplearen't walking around with a
billboard that is broadcastingtheir inner pain and their fear
and their suffering. You knowwhat I mean. So as you move
through you know, maybe this isjust another gentle reminder. I
don't think we can hear thisenough. We don't know as much as
(39:16):
we think we know. You know weneed to realize not that we
shouldn't judge, but that wecannot, because we don't know
all things past, present andfuture we can't possibly know.
And who's in a position to dothis, who, except in the
grandiose fantasies, would claimthat they know what's best for
(39:38):
everybody? We can't do it. Soyou know, maybe it will help
you. And one of the ways, andthis is just a little tip, take
it or leave it, I use humor alot. I use humor a lot towards
myself, like the things that Isay to myself, right, even when
I'm kind of wagging my finger atmyself a little bit. It, they
(40:00):
make me laugh. And I'm like, oh,okay, Judge Judy, I start to
laugh because even laughter,it's a pattern interrupt, right?
It stops me from being too meanor too harsh for myself when I
catch myself doing exactly whatthe ego loves to do. And I'm not
trying to fight the ego. I'mjust trying to accept how
ridiculous the ego is. And if Ican look at my ego and those
(40:23):
behaviors we talk about in ACourse in Miracles, is kind of
looking at it with with HolySpirit, I kind of just like, put
on my love glasses, and I lookat it through this lens of like,
Oh, look at that. Ego's doingits thing again, right? I don't
have to contempt, condemnmyself, make myself bad. It's
like, okay, Judge Judy hasstepped forward. Forward, hit
(40:43):
the gavel, the gavel, and take alunch break, right? It's kind of
funny, so I use humor to kind ofbreak myself out of the habit,
or the pattern of judging myselftoo when I slip up, because
we're all going to slip up. It'sjust human it's just human
nature, right? Human nature?You're going to look at somebody
and be like, Why are theywearing that? And you're like,
(41:04):
Oh my God. Like, where does thatvoice come from? Like, what?
Like, what? Who do they thinkthey are?
Unknown (41:09):
Like, that ongoing chatter.
Karen Kenney (41:14):
And it's really just the voice of fear, you
guys. It's the voice of fearthat is the ego, but we have
within us also, whether you callit Holy Spirit, spirit, the
inner, inner teacher, the voicefor love, the voice for God,
whatever you want to say, thereminder of God's love, right?
That is also in there. And wehave a decision maker, and the
(41:38):
decision maker can choosewhether we're going to choose
the ego, voice for fear ofjudgment, attack, blame, shame,
or the voice for love and careand compassion and recognizing,
oh, they're also me. We're inthis together. They're no
different than me. I hope thislands in your heart in some way,
(42:00):
or I hope it's helpful in someway. And if you found it
helpful, I would love if youshare with somebody else who
might also find it helpful. Thatwould be fantastic. And you
know, these are the kinds ofthings too. Like, I'm always
inviting you guys into the NASS,my little spiritual group
program, my little mentoringcommunity. It's such a community
(42:22):
of beautiful human beings, andthese are the kind of things
that we talk about andcontemplate. You know, it's
about more deeply understandingourselves and how we move
through the world and how we canshow up more in love instead of
our fear. You know how we canshow up and use these practical
tools of neuroscience andspirituality, and you know these
(42:42):
pattern interrupts and rewiringthe subconscious so that we
actually show up as who we aremeant to be, which is love. So
if you want to join the nest,it's a monthly commitment. You
don't want to do it. You do itfor a month. You don't want to
you don't want to stay like notfor me, you leave. No big deal.
But give it a shot. So go toKaren kenney.com/nest and if you
(43:04):
want to work with me togetherone to one, it's Karen
kenney.com/quest Q, U, E, S, T,and if you want this sucker
delivered right into your inboxevery Thursday morning bright
and early, just get on my emaillist. Karen kenney.com/sign up
one word, and you'll you'll geton that sucker. And just, I
(43:24):
appreciate you so much forlistening or watching, and if
you're going through a toughtime right now, if you're
struggling, if you're sufferingin some way, just know that you
are not alone. My heart goes outto you and that you know this is
how we're going to get throughit. We're all going to get
through it together, and it'sokay, like I said, use your
personal discernment. Do I wantto wear the red shirt or the
(43:46):
blue shirt? Should I eat thatfood? Of that food? Personal
discernment, right? We need to.We need that to navigate life.
You know, sometimes we have tomake a judgment call, as they
say, to do it or not do it. Butwe want to reserve our judgment.
You know, when it comes towalking around thinking we know
everything, and judging otherhuman beings and sometimes
judging ourselves, becausesometimes we were doing the best
(44:09):
we could with what we had at thetime. You know what I mean?
Sometimes, sometimes the ego isjust really being strong. You
know, the ego voice we say,speaks first. It speaks loudest.
And I always add and it's alwayswrong. So we want to be
listening for that voice oflove. Remember the highest form
of spiritual practice is selfobservation without judgment. So
(44:31):
let's, let's quiet those judgeduties. Reserve our judgment and
just know you guys. I superduper appreciate you. Thank you
for tuning in. Wherever you go,may you leave yourself in the
animals and the people and theplanet and the environment
better than how you found itwherever you go, may you and
your presence and your energyand your love and your lack of
(44:55):
hash judgment be a blessing.Bye, you.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!