May 15, 2025 • 29 mins
On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, we talk about the true meaning behind my "Stop Playing Dumb" t-shirt and its powerful message!
Spoiler alert: it's not about politics or social issues, but about recognizing and remembering your true spiritual nature.
I dive into how we often suffer because we get stuck in over identifying with our bodies, our past mistakes, and perceived limitations.
But the thing is: you're not just a "meat puppet", some ol’ bag of bones with a long list of screwups.
You are a gosh-dang child of God, a part of the indivisible Universe, an extension of the Divine, and Love incarnate!
My mission with this episode?
To help you to “stop playing dumb” about who and what you really are.
One of the biggest reasons we resist owning our power is fear.
Sometimes we’re afraid that if we actually accept how awesome we are, we'll then be shit-out-of excuses for not finally doing “the thing”!
Whether that thing is pursuing your dreams, writing that book, asking for help, leaving a bad relationship, speaking your truth, forgiving yourself, or (fill in the blank).
Part of recognizing our true nature means that we’re willing to take responsibility for our own internal experience.
My invitation to you is simple: let’s begin by putting on our "big people pants" 👖 and claim our natural inheritance of happiness and peace!
You can also choose to start a Daily Spiritual Practice (DSP) and be more kind to yourself! Both of which are totally free to do!
It helps to remember that you have been given the mighty wings of an eagle, not the tiny wings of a sparrow. Let’s use those suckers!
It's time to stop playing small, to own your brilliance, and to keep showing up as the incredible Divine being you truly are.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• You are not this ever-evolving body, you are eternal spirit
• It helps to stop identifying with our limitations and past mistakes
• The ego will try to keep you feeling small and separate
• Enlightenment means shifting from a body identification to spirit identification
• Why taking 100% responsibility for your peace and happiness changes things
• Daily Spiritual Practice (DSP) costs nothing and can transform so much
• Recognizing your inherent worth as an extension of the Divine
• Choosing to own your brilliance, not just your wounds
• You have the mighty wings of an eagle
• The Nest - Group Mentoring Program
BIO:
Karen Kenney is a certified Spiritual Mentor, Writer, Integrative Change Worker, Coach and Hypnotist. She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-BS, down-to-earth approach to Spirituality and transformational work.
KK is a wicked curious human being, a life-long learner, and has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years! She’s also a yoga teacher of 24+ years, a Certified Gateless Writing Instructor, and an author, speaker, retreat leader, and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.
She coaches both the conscious + unconscious mind using practical Neuroscience, Subconscious Reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis/Change Work, and Spiritual Mentorship. These tools help clients to regulate their nervous systems, remove blocks, rewrite stories, rewire beliefs, and reimagine what’s possible in their lives and business!
Karen encourages people to deepen their connection to Self, Source and Spirit in down-to-earth and actionable ways and wants them to have their own lived experience with spirituality and to not just “take her word for it”.
She helps people to shift their minds from fear to Love - using compassion, storytelling and humor. Her work is...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Karen Kenney (00:01):
Hey, you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. If you are not watching this sucker, if you are listening instead, then you cannot see the t shirt that I'm
wearing. So the shirt that I'm wearing, I'lljust describe it. It's like a it's like a grayish heaven, a heaven like gray dot, gray t shirt with like teal ish, blue, aqua, kind
(00:31):
of blue, teal ish, whatever words that say,Stop playing dumb. Stop playing dumb. Now this is just a saying that I mean, of course, the words Stop playing dumb have
existed for a long time, but this littlephrase is something that I've captured and put on I put it on T shirts, I put it on tank tops, I put it on sweatshirts and
(00:54):
hoodies. And I used to sell these, and Iwould gift, gift them to my clients and stuff like that. And it's a really interesting thing about these T shirts. Let
me just tell you a little bit of a story.Because what's funny about these shirts is that they are one of the most remarked upon shirts. They are remarkable in that whenever
(01:16):
I wear it out in public, I would say almostevery time I've worn it out in public, somebody says something to me about it, because everyone who sees this t shirt
thinks that they know what it means. Andwhat's also interesting is I cannot believe that I've had a podcast for over six years, and I've never done an episode on this like,
(01:41):
if I did, I'm totally having like, like, amoment of forgetfulness, because I don't think I've ever really gone into it or talked about it on this show. Maybe I kept
saying, Oh, I'll talk about it later, buthere we are. So when I wear this shirt out in public, all right? Especially, especially around election season. If I'm in a public
(02:06):
place, like a grocery store or whatever,people see it, whether they see my shirt, the t shirt, whatever, and they either give me a nod, or they say, Nice shirt, or that's
right, or thumbs up, like they're they reacta lot because they think that they know what it means. So the Republicans think like, oh yeah, like, she's wearing this. Like, Stop
(02:29):
playing dumb about blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, those stupid Democrats and Democrats, or liberals, or whoever will see it, and think like, oh, like, yeah, she's like, on
our side. And then the vegans will see it.You know, I've been vegan for a wicked long time. The vegans will see it, and they'll be like, yeah, Stop playing dumb about animal
you know, animal suffering and animal rightsand, you know the horrors of big agriculture and blah blah. And I'm like, No, not. I mean it. No, no. I guess that's what I just want
(03:00):
to say that the shirt has nothing to do withany of that, although I can see why they think that, I can see why and how it could be applicable to their agenda. But let me
just dive into, let me just dive into what,what this shirt really means. So a lot of times when I'm working with clients, right? Or I'm working with people, whether it's one
(03:22):
to one, or even, like yoga students orwhatever, anybody who kind of comes into my world to work with me on personal development, spiritual mentoring, coaching,
hypnosis, you know, practical neuroscience,like being able to, you know, stop old patterns reprogram in more positivity, whatever it is, right? There's this idea
(03:47):
that something about them is maybe broken ormessed up, or they need to be fixed, or they need to stop doing this thing, or stop feeling that thing, or stop thinking this
thing or whatever, right? Because they haveidentified with, they have identified with this human body experience, right? And why I created these shirts, right? And I used to
(04:18):
say to people, you know, to my clients, it'skind of like, in a fresh way, I was being a little, I would say I like to be a little fresh, like a tiny bit fresh, like, not, not
mean, but a humor is a huge patterninterrupt, right? So a lot of the way that I teach, and a lot of the ways that I try to impact information is through humor, right?
(04:39):
It's one of my things. So I would just sayto people, you know, you are not this body. You are not this body that is going to age and die and wither away and drop off the
planet. That's not who you are. Who you areis really eternal spirit, right? You, my friend, are a child of God. You are one of. God's kids, you are a part of the
(05:01):
indivisible universe. You are an extensionof the Divine itself. You are loving kind it like that's who you are. Stop playing dumb about who you really are. Stop confusing
yourself for this meat puppet, for this bagof bones, for this thing that is clumsy is gonna fuck up, is gonna screw up, is gonna get it wrong, is gonna make a ton of
(05:25):
mistakes. Right? Certain fractions andfactions of religion are gonna call you a sinner, and this one's gonna call you this, and the world's gonna try to slap all of its
labels on you, and it's gonna try to slapall these labels on you, and I'm just here to say, like, no, like, No, you are not any of those things. And it's so funny because I
(05:49):
had written some notes to myself about this,and I make notes to myself all the time, and sometimes I find them, and I think they're wicked funny. And here's one of them. I'm
going to share it with you because it has,it has to do with this. It says Note to self, despite all illusions of separation and all delusions of guilt, you remain as
(06:11):
you were created. Let me say that again, anote I wrote to myself. It says, Hey, despite all illusions of separation, meaning separation from God, separation from Mother
Nature, separation from each other, broughtmy brothers and sisters of the world, separation from the animals, whatever, because we do in these individual bodies,
(06:32):
feel incredibly separate, and once we getinto feeling separate, you know, once we get into feeling separate, We're in big trouble, because that's when we start to get into our
either superiority or our shittiness, right?The ego loves to separate us and make us special, either through thinking we're better than everybody else, that ego or
(06:55):
thinking like, oh, we have it so much worsethan everybody else, right? So I this note, despite all illusions of separation and all delusions of guilt, right? Like because
that's the that's the other racket of theego, mind is it loves to keep us in blame and in shame and in guilt and all of these attacks, attacks on ourselves, right? But
(07:17):
despite all of this, you remain as you werecreated, and that's a really powerful thing. There's a line in A Course in Miracles that says, If you remain as God created you, you
must be strong and light must be in you.Like How fantastic is that this is how I want you to remember and think of yourself. Here's here's a bit of it, right? If you
(07:42):
remain as God created you, you must bestrong and light must be in you. So rather than like over, identifying with this part of us that we think, right? This, this,
again, this, this, fallible, limited, quote,unquote, wounded, right? People think of again, of themselves as being broken and screwed up and like, blah, blah, blah,
(08:06):
right? Instead of thinking about that, whatif we think of ourselves as strong, thinking about ourselves as having the light within, how much more of a different experience
would we have in the world if we saw, if westopped playing dumb about who we think we are, and we started showing up that way. You know, I did a whole, like, I've talked about
(08:27):
this before. I did a whole challenge, like a30 day challenge on this concept of the good, the beautiful and the holy, right? Child of God, it says in A Course in
Miracles. And look, I always say, if youdon't like the word God, insert another word, right? Use the word good. Use the word love. That's all that's all to me. God is
all the love that's ever been given and allthe love that's ever been received, right? God, God is like the eternal mind of love, like, that's all that there is, right? So,
(08:56):
but don't let that G word make you weird,right? So insert another word, your own happy word, if it gets you tied up, right? But so it says this. Remember you were
created to create the good, the beautifuland the holy. Do not forget this.
You already are good, beautiful and holy. Sothis spiritual work isn't about becoming good or, quote, unquote, acting good, right? It's also not about, oh, my God, all this
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suffering, and we've gotta bust our asses toearn our worth, and we've gotta beat ourselves up for all the times we blew it, and I've gotta Cirque du Soleil myself into
some version of what the rest of the worldmight deem is lovable, like, that's not the gig. We only do all those things because we've forgotten who we are. We've forgotten
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that we already are capital l love, likethat's who we are. So the gig here in the human experience, the job is, of course, a miracle cell. This. It isn't to seek for
love. Oh, I gotta go out. I've gotta bethis, do this, earn this much money, look a certain way, be a certain weight, have like, certain friends, live in a particular place,
(10:11):
be all faint, like whatever the thing is,right? The job isn't to seek for love. The job is to is to simply remove all the barriers that we've built against our own
awareness of love's presence. This is what ACourse in Miracles reminds us of, you know. And of course, in miracles, let me also be clear, it's not a religion you know, so many
(10:32):
people, there's no dogma in it. There's nodoctrine. I think, of things like, you know, the eight limbs of yoga and and and the daily lessons of A Course in Miracles and
all these, all these incredible spiritualteaching tools. I just think of them as almost like reminders, like hey, when you've lost your way. Here are some spiritual
(10:53):
breadcrumbs, some things that you can readand practice to remind yourself, to re mind, to put your mind back in connection with your own goodness, your own beauty, your own
holiness, right? So you can remember who youalready are, which is love, right? So this is less about becoming and doing and performing and hustling and all this stuff.
(11:19):
It's really just about remembering,remembering that you, my friend, are already a kick ass child of God. You're one of God's kids. You are love. You are eternal spirit.
And the thing is, is that the ego mind isgoing to try to tell you again and again and again that you are this body, and you can hear me. I'm slapping my arms right. The ego
(11:40):
mind is going to try to convince you thatyou are a body. And not only you are a body, you are a body who has made like, all these mistakes. You are a body who has all this
trauma and all these dramas and all thesethings, these things that you've done. And the ego mind loves to keep a list, right? It's got, like, it's got, like, a chalkboard
(12:01):
somewhere. It's like writing down. Rememberback in 1974 when you stole that kid Tony's like, uh, box car, you know, you stole, you stole his toy, or whatever. Remember that
time you shoplifted that Snickers bars fromthe corner store. Remember that time when you blah, blah, blah, blah, right? The ego keeps track of it all. It wants you to feel
(12:30):
it wants you to feel bad about yourself. Itwants you to feel guilty and shameful and guilty and separate and up. And that's just not how it is. You know, one of the things I
also remind my clients is like, you know,it's fine. We you. We want to, we want to do shadow work. We want to look at our darkness. We want to look at the places
where we have some things to work on.Absolutely. Let's take 100% responsibility for how we're showing up in the world. I am all about that. And we also have to be
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willing. As I always say, you gotta own bothyour brilliance and your bullshit. And some people tend to be wicked good at owning their bullshit, but they refuse to see the
goodness, the strength in them, the light inthem. Other people are a little less, little less hesitant. They're little more hesitant to look at the places that could use, like,
(13:21):
maybe shine a light on and like, kind ofbring some of that, bring some of that darkness into the light. Some people don't really like to do that work, but it's really
important you guys again, to stop playingdumb about who we really are. The great spiritual traditions all tell us, you know, you are not an ever changing body. You are
not this body like when you lay this bodydown, when this I always say, like, imagine if your body like you're renting a costume from from the costume shop and after the
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party. And may, may your party last a wickedlong time, right? My, one of my my best friend, Katie, her grandpa, just passed away, and he lived, he was 100 he was about
to turn 101 like seven days before hisbirthday, he passed away, and he was just ready to go grandpa was like, ready to lay his body down. He just wanted to go home and
(14:16):
be reunited with his beloved, with his wife.He wanted to be with grandma, and he wanted to return and see his son who had passed, Katie's dad, Kent. And I just think, like,
but grandpa's gonna live on. His body hasfallen away, these bodies that are constantly changing. I don't know about you, you might be a younger person, right? I'm 56
(14:40):
I don't think that's old, but one of thethings is, you live long enough you're going to start to see like, oh yeah, I got some wrinkles, oh yeah. It looks like my nose and
my ears are growing bigger, right? My boobsare sagging a little bit like, it's like, okay, the body is changing. Hello. But I am not this body, and I. Think so often, if
(15:01):
you've lived long enough, my sweetie isabout to turn 60, and he said to me the other day, like, I don't feel 60, like on the inside, like I don't feel 60. And I'm
like, I know, because we're not thesebodies. The body's just doing what it does, which is organic matter. This shit is gonna decay right here, in the illusion, here in
the dream world. You know it's gonna actout. The whole thing is gonna like the whole play, the whole movie is gonna like play, play itself out. But who we are inside is
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eternal spirit. We are not these everchanging bodies. We are eternal spirit. And that's really what enlightenment is, you guys. Enlightenment is a shifting away from
an over identification of the body, fromthis body identification to a spirit identification. That's really what that's that's really what. Sorry, I wanted to make
(15:50):
sure I read this. I didn't leave this offthe thing. Note to self, that's what enlightenment is, a shift from body identification to spirit identification. So
a reminder to self that we are not limited.We are limitless. But so many of us don't want to believe it. We don't want to accept this truth. We don't want to stop playing
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dumb about who we really are. Now look,there could be a lot, a lot a lot of different reasons for this, but one of them is this. I really believe this one of the
reasons why we don't want to stop playingdumb, why we want, why we don't want to identify as as the goodness, as the beautiful, as the holy, as one of God's
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kids, as having that strength and that lightin us, one of the reasons why we don't want to have To identify with it. Because if we were to actually accept it, if we were to
accept our awesomeness, if we were to ownour power, if we were really like, okay, yeah, I am eternal spirit. I am one of God's kids. I am an extension of the Divine. I am
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a part of the cosmic universe, right? Like,holy shit. Well, one of the reasons why we don't want to accept it is because then just one of the reasons why, but it's a big one,
we might be shit out of excuses as to why wethen can't, why we then can't, finally do the thing. And the thing for you might be writing the book. The thing might be leaving
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an unhappy marriage. It might be quittingyour job, it might be saying yes to something really big. It might be speaking your truth. It might be letting go of your
grievances. It might be forgiving yourselfor forgiving somebody else. It might be, you know, if we started to realize just who we are, what we're capable of, we'd have to
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take 100% responsibility for our peace andour happiness,
and that can be a really big thing. That's areally big thing. You know, if you've ever seen somebody, I was trying to like, give an example of this, but there are times when
people really, really, really wantsomething, but they're so afraid to be disappointed, or they're so afraid to find, like, to fail that they won't try very hard.
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Like, let's just say it was an audition forsomething, and they'll go in and they'll kind of do it half ass, and then that way, if they don't make it, they don't have to,
like, take responsibility for that. They canjust go, Oh, I didn't, I didn't try that hard, you know, I didn't try that hat. I didn't give it my all. So, you know, they
kind of just like, don't want to take 100%responsibility me personally. I kind of like, I like having to own both my brilliance and my bullshit. I don't want to
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blame it on somebody else or something else.I like to be able to have that kind of control to say, like, Oh yeah, that one was on me. I screwed that up. That was like me.
That was me, or, you know, really knowingwhat's mine, you know, and knowing that I have the ability to choose how I want to interpret something, how I want to see
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something, that I get to own my perspective,that I get to own that I've been playing dumb or playing small or whatever, because, look, time is limited. These bodies like
we're not all going to stick around toalmost 101 like grandpa. You know what I mean. So at some point, at some point in our adult lives, at some point in our adult
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lives, we got to stop playing dumb about whoand what we really are. You know, we just got to cut the shit already. I think that's on my website somewhere. Just cut the shit
already and own it. Stop resisting yourawesomeness, stop deflecting your strength. Stop fighting it. Stop fighting the truth of who you really are. Yeah. Recognize it,
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remember it, realize it like let it finallysink into your knucklehead, right? This is me also talking to myself. Remember everything I say on this show, it's for my E
is first. This is like a little love letterreminded to me too, like, hey, hey, stop playing dumb about who you are, because it is a choice to play small. It is a choice to
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play stupid. It is a choice to, on somelevel, stay stuck right in our childhood wounds, and I recognize that not everybody has access to say, like, you know, hiring a
spiritual mentor or working with a hypnotistor a therapist or whatever. But one of the good things I will say about the internet is it gives us access to books. It gives us
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access to a lot of things, a lot of tools,right? And starting a DSP, starting a daily spiritual practice, it costs nothing, zero, $0 if you can sit quietly in a room with
yourself, okay and pray or meditate or quietyour mind or start to pay attention right when you start to let all the chatter go, when you slow down, when you learn how to
(21:18):
like help your nervous system. Now, I getit, we can't always do that work on our own. And thank goodness for for people who, you know, who offer the help is of the world.
Thank God for them, right? We're reallylucky, you know? So I don't like to, you know, I don't like to point a finger. I recognize that everybody, not everybody's in
the same socio economic situation, noteverybody has privilege or white privilege or access to resources right at the same level? I totally get that. And I want to say
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one of the beautiful things, again,libraries. You know, you can go to a library. Maybe you don't live close to a library. Maybe you don't even have internet
or a phone or whatever. I get it. Andhopefully, hopefully there, there's a wise man or a wise woman in your village, in your family, somebody who imparts some knowledge
about how to about how to remember who youreally are and to own your power. And so this, this episode, is really just an invitation to, as I jokingly say, to put on
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our big people pants, to put on our bigpeople pants, and to claim our power. Because if nobody has reminded you, you you are a child of God, you are an extension of
the Divine itself. You are Love incarnate,and now we just gotta go out and be the thing that you actually, yeah, that's the work. That's the gig, right? That's the job,
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you know, is to stop playing dumb, to stopmaking excuses, to stop, to stop. Stop owning our light, to stop, stop owning our brilliance, and to start saying, like, oh
yeah, I am not this body. I am eternalspirit. I am an extension of the Divine. And I always say, You, you. I would sometimes say, You're a fucking CHILD OF GOD. Start
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acting like it. Start acting like it. Stopplaying dumb. Start owning your natural inheritance, which is happiness, which is peace. And I'm going to leave you with this,
right? And you might say, Oh, my God, butagain, we go back to that ego, the ego list of all the things that you've done or blown it or whatever. But you know how we heal
(23:35):
those things? One of the tiny steps is, fromthis day forward, we look at that thing and we say, like, Hey, I'm making this up, right? I never want to steal again. I never
want to lie again. I never want to cheatagain. Moving forward, I can be kind to every animal that I meet. I can do because healing happens in the present moment. We
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can't go back and build a better past, asthey say in the 12 step tradition traditions, it's like, right now. Okay, so there's a final little quote from A Course
in Miracles that I love. And it says this.It's talking about, like, the qualities, the qualities of the quote, unquote, teachers of God. And I think we're all teachers of God
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to teach simply, just means to teach us todemonstrate. So who you are being in the world, you could be demonstrating the love that you are all the time. And that is a
powerful thing. But there's this line, andwhen they're talking about some of these qualities, and it says this. It says, Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of
(24:39):
a sparrow when the mighty power of an eaglehas been given him. I'm going to say that again. Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of a sparrow when the mighty
power of an eagle has been given to you?Paraphrasing a little bit right there. And. When we play dumb, that's what we're doing. We're just in that frenetic energy of the
(25:05):
ego and the anxiety and the turmoil and thesuffering, just flitting these little wings like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, right, just
trying to keep our heads above water, likeflying around, trying to gather our little nuts and seeds to survive. But you have the freaking mighty wings of an eagle. You have
the power of an eagle. Do not forget this.Stop playing dumb. Own your brilliance. Own your light. Use your voice, right? Like, like, like, just stop fighting the fact that
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you are remarkable and you are incredible.Stop playing dumb, my friend, because you are a work of art, you are a work of art, and you are already good enough, you are
already beautiful, you are already perfect,you are already holy, you are already worthy. You are more than enough, and you matter. So let's start operating from that
(26:01):
perspective, and let's see how that kind ofshifts. See how that shifts. Let's recognize, let's realize, let's remember who we really are, and that's the work, man. The
work is is going out and just being thething that you are, and how you think of yourself really matters. So we stop identifying and over identifying with this
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body and its history and its bio and itstrauma, its dramas, all the things right, all its mistakes, all the ways that we've, you know, have maybe not always been at our
best. That's normal. We're allowed to makemistakes, but now the gig is to turn our sights on who we really are, and how can we represent the love that we are and the love
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that flows through us. So we got some workto do, but it's exciting work, and it's important work, and I'm happy to do this work alongside others. So if you want to
find out about any of this stuff, how wemight do this kind of work together, coaching the unconscious mind and spiritual mentoring, etc, etc, just go to Karen
(27:09):
kenney.com/no
that's just it. Karen kenney.com I guess youcould do slash work with me, or nest, any st for my group, coaching program or quest for one to one work, but it's all on. Karen
kenney.com All right, you guys, thank you somuch. I hope this has been helpful in some way, and has helped you to maybe kind of shift how you're thinking about yourself.
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And we all do it. We all we all overidentify with these bodies, but it's so important that people remind us that that there's other ways to think about ourselves
and to view ourselves and to see ourselves,and that's that you know you are one of God's kids, and I hope you just have a fantastic rest of your day or your night,
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whenever you're listening to this. Thank youfor tuning in. Thank you for being here. I super duper appreciate it. And wherever you go, wherever you go. May you leave yourself
and the animals and the environment and theother people and the planet better than how you found it. My hair is like crazy right now. I'm just looking wherever you go. May
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you and your energy and your attitude andyour presence and your love and your awesomeness, right? Be a blessing. Bye. You.
Hey, you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. If you are not watching this sucker, if you are listening instead, then you cannot see the t shirt that I'm
wearing. So the shirt that I'm wearing, I'lljust describe it. It's like a it's like a grayish heaven, a heaven like gray dot, gray t shirt with like teal ish, blue, aqua, kind
(00:31):
of blue, teal ish, whatever words that say,Stop playing dumb. Stop playing dumb. Now this is just a saying that I mean, of course, the words Stop playing dumb have
existed for a long time, but this littlephrase is something that I've captured and put on I put it on T shirts, I put it on tank tops, I put it on sweatshirts and
(00:54):
hoodies. And I used to sell these, and Iwould gift, gift them to my clients and stuff like that. And it's a really interesting thing about these T shirts. Let
me just tell you a little bit of a story.Because what's funny about these shirts is that they are one of the most remarked upon shirts. They are remarkable in that whenever
(01:16):
I wear it out in public, I would say almostevery time I've worn it out in public, somebody says something to me about it, because everyone who sees this t shirt
thinks that they know what it means. Andwhat's also interesting is I cannot believe that I've had a podcast for over six years, and I've never done an episode on this like,
(01:41):
if I did, I'm totally having like, like, amoment of forgetfulness, because I don't think I've ever really gone into it or talked about it on this show. Maybe I kept
saying, Oh, I'll talk about it later, buthere we are. So when I wear this shirt out in public, all right? Especially, especially around election season. If I'm in a public
(02:06):
place, like a grocery store or whatever,people see it, whether they see my shirt, the t shirt, whatever, and they either give me a nod, or they say, Nice shirt, or that's
right, or thumbs up, like they're they reacta lot because they think that they know what it means. So the Republicans think like, oh yeah, like, she's wearing this. Like, Stop
(02:29):
playing dumb about blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, those stupid Democrats and Democrats, or liberals, or whoever will see it, and think like, oh, like, yeah, she's like, on
our side. And then the vegans will see it.You know, I've been vegan for a wicked long time. The vegans will see it, and they'll be like, yeah, Stop playing dumb about animal
you know, animal suffering and animal rightsand, you know the horrors of big agriculture and blah blah. And I'm like, No, not. I mean it. No, no. I guess that's what I just want
(03:00):
to say that the shirt has nothing to do withany of that, although I can see why they think that, I can see why and how it could be applicable to their agenda. But let me
just dive into, let me just dive into what,what this shirt really means. So a lot of times when I'm working with clients, right? Or I'm working with people, whether it's one
(03:22):
to one, or even, like yoga students orwhatever, anybody who kind of comes into my world to work with me on personal development, spiritual mentoring, coaching,
hypnosis, you know, practical neuroscience,like being able to, you know, stop old patterns reprogram in more positivity, whatever it is, right? There's this idea
(03:47):
that something about them is maybe broken ormessed up, or they need to be fixed, or they need to stop doing this thing, or stop feeling that thing, or stop thinking this
thing or whatever, right? Because they haveidentified with, they have identified with this human body experience, right? And why I created these shirts, right? And I used to
(04:18):
say to people, you know, to my clients, it'skind of like, in a fresh way, I was being a little, I would say I like to be a little fresh, like a tiny bit fresh, like, not, not
mean, but a humor is a huge patterninterrupt, right? So a lot of the way that I teach, and a lot of the ways that I try to impact information is through humor, right?
(04:39):
It's one of my things. So I would just sayto people, you know, you are not this body. You are not this body that is going to age and die and wither away and drop off the
planet. That's not who you are. Who you areis really eternal spirit, right? You, my friend, are a child of God. You are one of. God's kids, you are a part of the
(05:01):
indivisible universe. You are an extensionof the Divine itself. You are loving kind it like that's who you are. Stop playing dumb about who you really are. Stop confusing
yourself for this meat puppet, for this bagof bones, for this thing that is clumsy is gonna fuck up, is gonna screw up, is gonna get it wrong, is gonna make a ton of
(05:25):
mistakes. Right? Certain fractions andfactions of religion are gonna call you a sinner, and this one's gonna call you this, and the world's gonna try to slap all of its
labels on you, and it's gonna try to slapall these labels on you, and I'm just here to say, like, no, like, No, you are not any of those things. And it's so funny because I
(05:49):
had written some notes to myself about this,and I make notes to myself all the time, and sometimes I find them, and I think they're wicked funny. And here's one of them. I'm
going to share it with you because it has,it has to do with this. It says Note to self, despite all illusions of separation and all delusions of guilt, you remain as
(06:11):
you were created. Let me say that again, anote I wrote to myself. It says, Hey, despite all illusions of separation, meaning separation from God, separation from Mother
Nature, separation from each other, broughtmy brothers and sisters of the world, separation from the animals, whatever, because we do in these individual bodies,
(06:32):
feel incredibly separate, and once we getinto feeling separate, you know, once we get into feeling separate, We're in big trouble, because that's when we start to get into our
either superiority or our shittiness, right?The ego loves to separate us and make us special, either through thinking we're better than everybody else, that ego or
(06:55):
thinking like, oh, we have it so much worsethan everybody else, right? So I this note, despite all illusions of separation and all delusions of guilt, right? Like because
that's the that's the other racket of theego, mind is it loves to keep us in blame and in shame and in guilt and all of these attacks, attacks on ourselves, right? But
(07:17):
despite all of this, you remain as you werecreated, and that's a really powerful thing. There's a line in A Course in Miracles that says, If you remain as God created you, you
must be strong and light must be in you.Like How fantastic is that this is how I want you to remember and think of yourself. Here's here's a bit of it, right? If you
(07:42):
remain as God created you, you must bestrong and light must be in you. So rather than like over, identifying with this part of us that we think, right? This, this,
again, this, this, fallible, limited, quote,unquote, wounded, right? People think of again, of themselves as being broken and screwed up and like, blah, blah, blah,
(08:06):
right? Instead of thinking about that, whatif we think of ourselves as strong, thinking about ourselves as having the light within, how much more of a different experience
would we have in the world if we saw, if westopped playing dumb about who we think we are, and we started showing up that way. You know, I did a whole, like, I've talked about
(08:27):
this before. I did a whole challenge, like a30 day challenge on this concept of the good, the beautiful and the holy, right? Child of God, it says in A Course in
Miracles. And look, I always say, if youdon't like the word God, insert another word, right? Use the word good. Use the word love. That's all that's all to me. God is
all the love that's ever been given and allthe love that's ever been received, right? God, God is like the eternal mind of love, like, that's all that there is, right? So,
(08:56):
but don't let that G word make you weird,right? So insert another word, your own happy word, if it gets you tied up, right? But so it says this. Remember you were
created to create the good, the beautifuland the holy. Do not forget this.
You already are good, beautiful and holy. Sothis spiritual work isn't about becoming good or, quote, unquote, acting good, right? It's also not about, oh, my God, all this
(09:26):
suffering, and we've gotta bust our asses toearn our worth, and we've gotta beat ourselves up for all the times we blew it, and I've gotta Cirque du Soleil myself into
some version of what the rest of the worldmight deem is lovable, like, that's not the gig. We only do all those things because we've forgotten who we are. We've forgotten
(09:49):
that we already are capital l love, likethat's who we are. So the gig here in the human experience, the job is, of course, a miracle cell. This. It isn't to seek for
love. Oh, I gotta go out. I've gotta bethis, do this, earn this much money, look a certain way, be a certain weight, have like, certain friends, live in a particular place,
(10:11):
be all faint, like whatever the thing is,right? The job isn't to seek for love. The job is to is to simply remove all the barriers that we've built against our own
awareness of love's presence. This is what ACourse in Miracles reminds us of, you know. And of course, in miracles, let me also be clear, it's not a religion you know, so many
(10:32):
people, there's no dogma in it. There's nodoctrine. I think, of things like, you know, the eight limbs of yoga and and and the daily lessons of A Course in Miracles and
all these, all these incredible spiritualteaching tools. I just think of them as almost like reminders, like hey, when you've lost your way. Here are some spiritual
(10:53):
breadcrumbs, some things that you can readand practice to remind yourself, to re mind, to put your mind back in connection with your own goodness, your own beauty, your own
holiness, right? So you can remember who youalready are, which is love, right? So this is less about becoming and doing and performing and hustling and all this stuff.
(11:19):
It's really just about remembering,remembering that you, my friend, are already a kick ass child of God. You're one of God's kids. You are love. You are eternal spirit.
And the thing is, is that the ego mind isgoing to try to tell you again and again and again that you are this body, and you can hear me. I'm slapping my arms right. The ego
(11:40):
mind is going to try to convince you thatyou are a body. And not only you are a body, you are a body who has made like, all these mistakes. You are a body who has all this
trauma and all these dramas and all thesethings, these things that you've done. And the ego mind loves to keep a list, right? It's got, like, it's got, like, a chalkboard
(12:01):
somewhere. It's like writing down. Rememberback in 1974 when you stole that kid Tony's like, uh, box car, you know, you stole, you stole his toy, or whatever. Remember that
time you shoplifted that Snickers bars fromthe corner store. Remember that time when you blah, blah, blah, blah, right? The ego keeps track of it all. It wants you to feel
(12:30):
it wants you to feel bad about yourself. Itwants you to feel guilty and shameful and guilty and separate and up. And that's just not how it is. You know, one of the things I
also remind my clients is like, you know,it's fine. We you. We want to, we want to do shadow work. We want to look at our darkness. We want to look at the places
where we have some things to work on.Absolutely. Let's take 100% responsibility for how we're showing up in the world. I am all about that. And we also have to be
(12:58):
willing. As I always say, you gotta own bothyour brilliance and your bullshit. And some people tend to be wicked good at owning their bullshit, but they refuse to see the
goodness, the strength in them, the light inthem. Other people are a little less, little less hesitant. They're little more hesitant to look at the places that could use, like,
(13:21):
maybe shine a light on and like, kind ofbring some of that, bring some of that darkness into the light. Some people don't really like to do that work, but it's really
important you guys again, to stop playingdumb about who we really are. The great spiritual traditions all tell us, you know, you are not an ever changing body. You are
not this body like when you lay this bodydown, when this I always say, like, imagine if your body like you're renting a costume from from the costume shop and after the
(13:48):
party. And may, may your party last a wickedlong time, right? My, one of my my best friend, Katie, her grandpa, just passed away, and he lived, he was 100 he was about
to turn 101 like seven days before hisbirthday, he passed away, and he was just ready to go grandpa was like, ready to lay his body down. He just wanted to go home and
(14:16):
be reunited with his beloved, with his wife.He wanted to be with grandma, and he wanted to return and see his son who had passed, Katie's dad, Kent. And I just think, like,
but grandpa's gonna live on. His body hasfallen away, these bodies that are constantly changing. I don't know about you, you might be a younger person, right? I'm 56
(14:40):
I don't think that's old, but one of thethings is, you live long enough you're going to start to see like, oh yeah, I got some wrinkles, oh yeah. It looks like my nose and
my ears are growing bigger, right? My boobsare sagging a little bit like, it's like, okay, the body is changing. Hello. But I am not this body, and I. Think so often, if
(15:01):
you've lived long enough, my sweetie isabout to turn 60, and he said to me the other day, like, I don't feel 60, like on the inside, like I don't feel 60. And I'm
like, I know, because we're not thesebodies. The body's just doing what it does, which is organic matter. This shit is gonna decay right here, in the illusion, here in
the dream world. You know it's gonna actout. The whole thing is gonna like the whole play, the whole movie is gonna like play, play itself out. But who we are inside is
(15:27):
eternal spirit. We are not these everchanging bodies. We are eternal spirit. And that's really what enlightenment is, you guys. Enlightenment is a shifting away from
an over identification of the body, fromthis body identification to a spirit identification. That's really what that's that's really what. Sorry, I wanted to make
(15:50):
sure I read this. I didn't leave this offthe thing. Note to self, that's what enlightenment is, a shift from body identification to spirit identification. So
a reminder to self that we are not limited.We are limitless. But so many of us don't want to believe it. We don't want to accept this truth. We don't want to stop playing
(16:12):
dumb about who we really are. Now look,there could be a lot, a lot a lot of different reasons for this, but one of them is this. I really believe this one of the
reasons why we don't want to stop playingdumb, why we want, why we don't want to identify as as the goodness, as the beautiful, as the holy, as one of God's
(16:34):
kids, as having that strength and that lightin us, one of the reasons why we don't want to have To identify with it. Because if we were to actually accept it, if we were to
accept our awesomeness, if we were to ownour power, if we were really like, okay, yeah, I am eternal spirit. I am one of God's kids. I am an extension of the Divine. I am
(16:57):
a part of the cosmic universe, right? Like,holy shit. Well, one of the reasons why we don't want to accept it is because then just one of the reasons why, but it's a big one,
we might be shit out of excuses as to why wethen can't, why we then can't, finally do the thing. And the thing for you might be writing the book. The thing might be leaving
(17:28):
an unhappy marriage. It might be quittingyour job, it might be saying yes to something really big. It might be speaking your truth. It might be letting go of your
grievances. It might be forgiving yourselfor forgiving somebody else. It might be, you know, if we started to realize just who we are, what we're capable of, we'd have to
(17:58):
take 100% responsibility for our peace andour happiness,
and that can be a really big thing. That's areally big thing. You know, if you've ever seen somebody, I was trying to like, give an example of this, but there are times when
people really, really, really wantsomething, but they're so afraid to be disappointed, or they're so afraid to find, like, to fail that they won't try very hard.
(18:25):
Like, let's just say it was an audition forsomething, and they'll go in and they'll kind of do it half ass, and then that way, if they don't make it, they don't have to,
like, take responsibility for that. They canjust go, Oh, I didn't, I didn't try that hard, you know, I didn't try that hat. I didn't give it my all. So, you know, they
kind of just like, don't want to take 100%responsibility me personally. I kind of like, I like having to own both my brilliance and my bullshit. I don't want to
(18:54):
blame it on somebody else or something else.I like to be able to have that kind of control to say, like, Oh yeah, that one was on me. I screwed that up. That was like me.
That was me, or, you know, really knowingwhat's mine, you know, and knowing that I have the ability to choose how I want to interpret something, how I want to see
(19:16):
something, that I get to own my perspective,that I get to own that I've been playing dumb or playing small or whatever, because, look, time is limited. These bodies like
we're not all going to stick around toalmost 101 like grandpa. You know what I mean. So at some point, at some point in our adult lives, at some point in our adult
(19:38):
lives, we got to stop playing dumb about whoand what we really are. You know, we just got to cut the shit already. I think that's on my website somewhere. Just cut the shit
already and own it. Stop resisting yourawesomeness, stop deflecting your strength. Stop fighting it. Stop fighting the truth of who you really are. Yeah. Recognize it,
(20:01):
remember it, realize it like let it finallysink into your knucklehead, right? This is me also talking to myself. Remember everything I say on this show, it's for my E
is first. This is like a little love letterreminded to me too, like, hey, hey, stop playing dumb about who you are, because it is a choice to play small. It is a choice to
(20:23):
play stupid. It is a choice to, on somelevel, stay stuck right in our childhood wounds, and I recognize that not everybody has access to say, like, you know, hiring a
spiritual mentor or working with a hypnotistor a therapist or whatever. But one of the good things I will say about the internet is it gives us access to books. It gives us
(20:49):
access to a lot of things, a lot of tools,right? And starting a DSP, starting a daily spiritual practice, it costs nothing, zero, $0 if you can sit quietly in a room with
yourself, okay and pray or meditate or quietyour mind or start to pay attention right when you start to let all the chatter go, when you slow down, when you learn how to
(21:18):
like help your nervous system. Now, I getit, we can't always do that work on our own. And thank goodness for for people who, you know, who offer the help is of the world.
Thank God for them, right? We're reallylucky, you know? So I don't like to, you know, I don't like to point a finger. I recognize that everybody, not everybody's in
the same socio economic situation, noteverybody has privilege or white privilege or access to resources right at the same level? I totally get that. And I want to say
(21:47):
one of the beautiful things, again,libraries. You know, you can go to a library. Maybe you don't live close to a library. Maybe you don't even have internet
or a phone or whatever. I get it. Andhopefully, hopefully there, there's a wise man or a wise woman in your village, in your family, somebody who imparts some knowledge
about how to about how to remember who youreally are and to own your power. And so this, this episode, is really just an invitation to, as I jokingly say, to put on
(22:20):
our big people pants, to put on our bigpeople pants, and to claim our power. Because if nobody has reminded you, you you are a child of God, you are an extension of
the Divine itself. You are Love incarnate,and now we just gotta go out and be the thing that you actually, yeah, that's the work. That's the gig, right? That's the job,
(22:46):
you know, is to stop playing dumb, to stopmaking excuses, to stop, to stop. Stop owning our light, to stop, stop owning our brilliance, and to start saying, like, oh
yeah, I am not this body. I am eternalspirit. I am an extension of the Divine. And I always say, You, you. I would sometimes say, You're a fucking CHILD OF GOD. Start
(23:12):
acting like it. Start acting like it. Stopplaying dumb. Start owning your natural inheritance, which is happiness, which is peace. And I'm going to leave you with this,
right? And you might say, Oh, my God, butagain, we go back to that ego, the ego list of all the things that you've done or blown it or whatever. But you know how we heal
(23:35):
those things? One of the tiny steps is, fromthis day forward, we look at that thing and we say, like, Hey, I'm making this up, right? I never want to steal again. I never
want to lie again. I never want to cheatagain. Moving forward, I can be kind to every animal that I meet. I can do because healing happens in the present moment. We
(23:56):
can't go back and build a better past, asthey say in the 12 step tradition traditions, it's like, right now. Okay, so there's a final little quote from A Course
in Miracles that I love. And it says this.It's talking about, like, the qualities, the qualities of the quote, unquote, teachers of God. And I think we're all teachers of God
(24:17):
to teach simply, just means to teach us todemonstrate. So who you are being in the world, you could be demonstrating the love that you are all the time. And that is a
powerful thing. But there's this line, andwhen they're talking about some of these qualities, and it says this. It says, Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of
(24:39):
a sparrow when the mighty power of an eaglehas been given him. I'm going to say that again. Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of a sparrow when the mighty
power of an eagle has been given to you?Paraphrasing a little bit right there. And. When we play dumb, that's what we're doing. We're just in that frenetic energy of the
(25:05):
ego and the anxiety and the turmoil and thesuffering, just flitting these little wings like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, right, just
trying to keep our heads above water, likeflying around, trying to gather our little nuts and seeds to survive. But you have the freaking mighty wings of an eagle. You have
the power of an eagle. Do not forget this.Stop playing dumb. Own your brilliance. Own your light. Use your voice, right? Like, like, like, just stop fighting the fact that
(25:36):
you are remarkable and you are incredible.Stop playing dumb, my friend, because you are a work of art, you are a work of art, and you are already good enough, you are
already beautiful, you are already perfect,you are already holy, you are already worthy. You are more than enough, and you matter. So let's start operating from that
(26:01):
perspective, and let's see how that kind ofshifts. See how that shifts. Let's recognize, let's realize, let's remember who we really are, and that's the work, man. The
work is is going out and just being thething that you are, and how you think of yourself really matters. So we stop identifying and over identifying with this
(26:24):
body and its history and its bio and itstrauma, its dramas, all the things right, all its mistakes, all the ways that we've, you know, have maybe not always been at our
best. That's normal. We're allowed to makemistakes, but now the gig is to turn our sights on who we really are, and how can we represent the love that we are and the love
(26:47):
that flows through us. So we got some workto do, but it's exciting work, and it's important work, and I'm happy to do this work alongside others. So if you want to
find out about any of this stuff, how wemight do this kind of work together, coaching the unconscious mind and spiritual mentoring, etc, etc, just go to Karen
(27:09):
kenney.com/no
that's just it. Karen kenney.com I guess youcould do slash work with me, or nest, any st for my group, coaching program or quest for one to one work, but it's all on. Karen
kenney.com All right, you guys, thank you somuch. I hope this has been helpful in some way, and has helped you to maybe kind of shift how you're thinking about yourself.
(27:33):
And we all do it. We all we all overidentify with these bodies, but it's so important that people remind us that that there's other ways to think about ourselves
and to view ourselves and to see ourselves,and that's that you know you are one of God's kids, and I hope you just have a fantastic rest of your day or your night,
(27:54):
whenever you're listening to this. Thank youfor tuning in. Thank you for being here. I super duper appreciate it. And wherever you go, wherever you go. May you leave yourself
and the animals and the environment and theother people and the planet better than how you found it. My hair is like crazy right now. I'm just looking wherever you go. May
(28:14):
you and your energy and your attitude andyour presence and your love and your awesomeness, right? Be a blessing. Bye. You.
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