On this episode of The Karen Kenney Show, I talk about why you can't explain yourself to everybody all the time and how trying to do so, will just wear you the heck out!

I also share how the tendency to over explain is often rooted in a fear of being misunderstood, and yet our words often get filtered through other people’s history, trauma, beliefs, and stories long before they land anyway.

Which means that the "message sent is almost never the message received.”

We dive into why some of us became over-explainers and people pleasers in the first place -and I tell a few personal stories about choosing to do what I knew deep down inside was right for me - even though I couldn’t fully explain it to others - and I knew that those other people wouldn’t like it. 😳

We explore how some folks will insist on misunderstanding you - just so they can keep their old story about you alive - and why it’s not your job to keep defending or justifying yourself to them.

Instead, you get to practice using discernment to explain things when and if it truly matters and you feel like the person or the relationship are worth the time and energy to do so.

Otherwise, you just gotta' say, "Go ahead and judge me"… because they’re probably going to anyway! 😆

KAREN KENNEY BIO:

Karen Kenney is a writer, podcaster, certified spiritual mentor, and coach.

She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent, and her no-bullshit approach to spirituality, self-development, and transformational work.

She’s been a yoga teacher since 1999, and a Thai Yoga Massage practitioner since 2008.

She's also a speaker, a certified Gateless Writing Instructor, and host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.

She works with clients individually in her 1:1 program THE QUEST and in her HEART-TO-HEART DAYS via Voxer. She also leads a group coaching program and community called THE NEST.

Her down-to-earth approach brings together practical tools, resources, and storytelling that encourage curiosity, invites self-awareness, and helps people to know, love, and trust themselves more​!

CONNECT WITH KAREN:

Website: http://karenkenney.com/

Podcast: https://www.karenkenney.com/podcast

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karenkenneylive/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenkenneylive/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KarenKenney

It's the Karen Kenney show.

You guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super duper

excited to be here with you. And look, today's episode is just

like a little love letter

from from my over explaining heart to yours. So maybe you're

like me, like when I think back, not so much anymore. These days,

I've really put some effort into this thing, but this little part

of my personality,

and I did it because I don't think it really served me, and I

certainly didn't need to be exhausting myself anymore. But

if you've ever felt like you should join over. Explain. Is

anonymous.

Just, just go ahead and raise your hand right now, along with

me, double Amen, hands right? Oh, my God. Ova explain is

anonymous, which comes from, right? This desire to it's

really less of a desire. I think it's actually has roots in fear,

like being afraid of being misunderstood, all right? But

we're gonna dive into this. And here's what I was gonna say,

like, I saw this really funny meme, so something happened last

week that kind of made me think, or like, was it last week or two

weeks ago? And I was like, Oh, I kind of want to do an episode

about this around this kind of incident, right? And then I was

like, and then I saw this meme yesterday, and this is kind of

how my spiritual team works, or the universe works, or whatever

you want to call it, divine timing. I just got the little,

the little universal nudge, and I saw this wicked funny meme,

and it's, it's from an account called just, instead of saying,

just forget about it, it was just frog, get about it. So it's

like using the word frog instead of forget. And this person draws

these really cute little frogs, right? And there's basically,

I'll hold it up real quick for those of you who are listening

and not watching, I'll explain it. So there's like, a little

frog laying in a field on his back and his legs across his

arms are behind his head or her head, whatever, and and their

eyes are closed, and they just look really peaceful laying out

in this field, right? Just forget about it. And this is

what it says. Explaining myself is too much work. Just Judge me.

You it.

I was like, Oh, my God, definitely been hands to that.

Okay, so let's get into this. Let's get into this. Here's the

bottom line, guys, we cannot explain everything to everybody.

We cannot explain ourselves to everybody, especially in this

day and age, one of the things that I cannot stand about social

media, and you know, some people love the challenge. When Twitter

first came out, everybody loved that challenge of like, oh, 144

characters I have to write in a really succinct way to get my

point across, whatever. And Instagram, same thing, like

Facebook allows you to be a little bit more of a long form

writer, which I am, right? So, yeah, I can write short, punchy

little one liners if I have to. But the way that I like to

communicate is, I like to make sure that what I'm trying to

convey is actually understood. You know, Tolstoy Leo. Tolstoy

has this quote, I'm paraphrasing, but it's basically

like the heartbeat of it is, is like at a at is transferring

feeling from one heart to another. And when I'm

transferring things from my my hat or my mind, I want them to

kind of be understood. Now, message sent right my and I've

mentioned this before on my show, my my first year at BU, at

Boston University, my communion community, it was like my third

year, my communications teacher,

my first class with her. She said, the message sent when

you're communicating, the message you send is almost never

the Message received. And I've never forgotten that, and

obviously, because I keep talking about it. But what I

think about is I imagine these two people. So just imagine two

people standing facing each other, right, and one is sending

words across the void between the two of them to the ears of

the other person. Well, you're not just communicating to this

person. You're communicating to their history. You're

communicating to their trauma. You're communicating through

their stories, their beliefs, their culture. You're

communicating to what they think of themselves. You're

communicating to their subconscious and their conscious

mind, right? That's a lot of layers, that's a lot of filters,

that's a lot of interpretation between what you say and what

they actually hear, right? So it's it's as human beings, it

really is helpful to like and this is why, like a daily

spiritual practice, can be so powerful, because it teaches us

how to Slow the fuck down. So we can actually pause. We can put a

little pause in between what we think and what we say, what we

think and what we do right that that that little gap is Viktor

Frankl talks about in between stimulus and response.

Response. There's a space. There's that little moment where

you get to choose, right? But here's the thing, no matter how

mindful you're being, sometimes other people just are not gonna

get the message. So some of us who are really sensitive, or

some of us who have felt, and this was me, right? I often felt

misunderstood growing up, I always felt like I shouldn't say

always, there were a few handful of people who saw me, who got

me. My mother was one of them, Miss Lefebvre, Kayla, Feb, miss,

totally got me. You know, there were certain friends and people

that you had in your life that they just saw you, they

understood you, they got you. You didn't have to over explain

yourself, but those relationships are usually few

and far between, so I often felt like I had to explain myself to

be understood, and I was so afraid of people

misinterpreting, misunderstanding what I said or

what I did, and they weren't curious enough to follow up. And

that's the thing, if you're talking to another person who

doesn't really care about you, doesn't really like you, doesn't

really want to put in the time, they're not they're not somebody

who really gives in relationships. They're not going

to lean in and give you the benefit of the doubt and say,

Huh, I don't really know what she meant by that. And instead

of writing some story about you, like, Oh, she's an asshole or

she's mean, or she's this, she's that, they ask you to clarify.

They ask you for more information, like tell me more,

so that they can truly understand you. But think about

right now. Just pause and think in your adult life, who are you

in continuous or constant relationship with, like a person

or whoever, who you feel like this person really, really gets

me. And here's what I want to say to you, if you can think of

at least one person, take some time the next 24 hours, to call

them, to write them, send them a handwritten note, text them

something, communicate to them how much you value the fact that

not only have they taken the time to truly get to know you in

your heart, but that they often, I always say to people, we're

always writing stories about ourselves and each other in the

world, right? What if we started writing stories in each other's

favor? What if we just don't assume that person's being an

asshole, that person is this way or that way, right? So here's

the thing, I was an over explainer, and I'm sure to other

people, it could be exhausting. They'd be like, Why are you

saying this three different ways? I got it the first time,

right, but for me, for a long time, I was like, I just didn't

want this to be misunderstood. And there are still times to

this day where if I'm speaking on a stage, or if I'm like,

having a conversation with somebody or whatever, you know,

and if my sweetie is there, I will often turn to him later. I

do this with my best friend, Katie, too, and I'll always go

like, this, was I mean? Was I just mean? Because I've all

like, I never, I never want to be mean. I never want to be

unkind, right? I do like to be clear, and I don't mind being

loving and firm, right? Loving, but firm, that I can do with but

I never want to come across as as being like, unkind right?

That just doesn't feel good in my body. But here's the truth.

We can do our best to try to explain, but there are going to

be times when you you just can't You can't explain, you can't

explain why you feel the way that you feel. And there have

been times I'm going to give you a couple of personal examples.

There have been times in my life when I just knew that I had to

do a thing, and I knew it was going to be misunderstood. I

knew the other person wasn't going to be happy. I knew the

other person was probably going to be upset. And so there were

these two collaborations that were possibilities. And the

first one, it goes way back. I'm talking like 2003

a wicked 23 years ago, when I was first thinking about opening

up a yoga studio, and I was friendly with this woman, and we

were talking about doing it together, and we were looking at

spaces, and we were going back and forth, and I finally found

this space, and I realized, like, just something in the

deepest part of me was like, you Need to do this on your own,

like this is your thing to do, and to figure out on your own.

And and so I found the space, and then I had to communicate

with this person that, and it was fine. They went on to open

up their own space, and I think that was great. And over time, I

think I can't speak for her, but I can tell you for myself, I

came it became very clear to me that our styles and our

approaches to things were really different. So thank God, thank

goodness, right, that we didn't do it. We saved ourselves that

cluster fuck. But in the beginning, it was really

uncomfortable. And if, especially if you were a kid who

kind of grew up in a household or a world where what you wanted

didn't matter, right? There are a lot of things when you're a

kid. This is the thing I always try to remind adults and parents

sometimes, is that when you're a little kid, so much is out of

your control. And that can be really frustrating, because

you're told basically, when to get up, when to go to bed, when

to brush your teeth, when to eat, what to eat, how to eat.

People are deciding your food.

Choices for you, like everything, your clothes, like

whatever, right? So much when you're a little kid like you

have no say, right? And you do feel that's why little kids,

once in a while, will go, You're not the boss of me, because

their own agency and their own authorship and their own

autonomy is like rising up, right? But they're just going to

be times when you know you don't have a lot of control about

things. Okay? So there are going to be times when, and I'm back,

there are going to be times when you can't explain why you feel

the way that you feel, and you just have to do a thing. And I

knew I was going to upset that person, and they were upset with

me for a little bit, and I was like, but I just knew, like, I

had to do this thing, and I'm glad I did it. It was wicked

uncomfortable at the time, you know. And here's what I was

going to say when you were a kid who didn't have a lot of choice,

right? When you were when you were younger, you know, when you

get older, like, you kind of want that autonomy and stuff

like that. But what you also end up doing sometimes when you

when, how do I say this? When you're a kid who grew up with,

like, trauma, let's stop there. When you're a kid who grew up

with, like, a lot of trauma and stuff like that, and you just

wanted to make everybody around you happy, right? When you

became a little bit of a people, please? Because that deep, deep,

deep, like, subconscious fear is, if I do something they don't

like, I'm going to be kicked out of the tribe, right? I'm going

to be kicked out of the family. I'm going to be sent to Siberia.

As my sewing teacher used to say, when she didn't like you, I

was gonna, she would threaten to send you to Siberia, right? And

that's a truly primal, like deep fear is that I am going to get

ousted from my family, from my group, from what keeps me safe,

or what I know, right, what's familiar, or whatever, and it

can be really scary to stand up to us for yourself and to claim

something and to say, this is what I want, right? When you

weren't taught that what you wanted mattered what you needed.

And that goes back to when you're a little kid and you feel

out of control. People are always telling you, this is what

you're getting. You didn't have a choice. So, you know, in order

to feel safe, you would just kind of like, try to make

yourself irreplaceable. You would, I always say, I would

Cirque de Soleil myself. I would contort myself into all these

shapes. I'll be whatever you need me to be. Just love me,

right? And as I got older, I was like, No, like I had to start

exercising that muscle. Was like, I have to trust my inner

teacher. I have to trust that inner calling, that inner voice.

Call it gut instinct, intuition, divine intelligence, loving

intelligence, spiritual team, Holy Spirit, whatever you call

it, that inner nudge, that inner voice, that's like, no, you've

got to do this, and it won't be fucking comfortable. It's not

going to be comfortable when you start making choices for

yourself. So that was the first time. The second time is that

there was a workshop that I was that I wanted to lead, and

in the beginning it had been talked about possibly doing it

with this other person. And then there was some things that

happened. I don't want to get too much into it. There are some

things that happened and in the in the end, I was like, I got an

opportunity, brought to me. I didn't seek it out. Somebody

reached out to me. They offered the gig to me, and I took it,

and I just knew. And I lamented over this. I literally cried

over this. And I was like talking to my sweetie about it,

and I was just like crying, and I'm like, I just need to do

this. And he agreed with me, he's like, You should do this.

And I know that I upset that other person, and things were

strained for a bit afterwards, but I just knew that I was doing

what was right for me, and that was really, really hard to

exercise that muscle when you were a person who was always

thinking about other people first, partly Yes, because

you're a nice person, but partly out of survival instincts,

right? It wasn't always because, like, Oh, I'm just such a nice

person. Like, part of it was like, desperation, right? And so

that was really, really hard for me, because the hottest part not

only was having other people be upset with you or whatever that

you were, that they were like angry or felt hurt or whatever,

because I hate hurting people, but my inner critic voice. You

know that inner critic voice can be really loud, and it's like,

you know you are so selfish, they're going to be mad. They

will like you. They're not going to understand. And then you try

to over explain, and they're still not getting it, and the

whole thing just gets mucky and messy and sticky and icky, and

the whole thing was just so not soothing. But here's what I've

come to accept as a grown ass adult, right in 2026

you just by the nature of being human, you cannot please

everybody all the time. You can't make everybody happy, and

you will let people down. You will disappoint people.

Sometimes you'll even disappoint animals, right? This is the

nature of being human, is that there are going to be times when

we need to do something and say.

Sometimes we can explain ourselves, but other times we

can't explain ourselves. We don't know. It's just like, I

just have this feeling that I need to do this thing. I can

tell you story after story after story, right? But I think about

like, let like, let me give you an example of how like, you

can't explain yourself to everybody. You know, when little

kids are sick and you have to give them a medicine, and the

medicine tastes like shit, and they don't want to take it and

they're crying. Or you take your kid to go get a shot, right? Or

something like, whatever it is, or they have to go get stitches.

Who knows what it is, right? Little little kids, little

babies, or whatever like, they don't understand why you need to

give it to them, really. They don't understand that what

you're doing is is good for them, and it's awful. I can only

imagine, as a parent, you know, watching your baby cry because

they're getting a shot or they're getting some sort of

procedure or whatever, and they're just like, why? Like

taking them to the dentist or whatever the thing is. And when

you think about dogs, when dogs get neutered or spayed, it's,

it's good for them, it's the best thing for them, right?

Like, you have to do it. You know, it's how we keep the

populations down in the shelter so animals aren't getting

euthanized. It's good for their health, it's good for

aggression, it's good for mocking, it's good for, like so

many things, right? And but they have to wear that cone of shame,

or they have to wear the little bodysuit, so they have to wear

the little donuts, and they don't like it, and you can't

explain to them, because they don't always understand, right?

You can't say to them, Look, I'm doing this because I love you.

It's what's best for you, right? Like, sometimes you just can't

explain it, and it happens with adults, too, sometimes, and the

you know, I had a situation recently. I'm not going to go

too much into it, except to say that there was a really big

misunderstanding with somebody that I was communicating with,

and they got really upset. They got really angry, like, yelling

angry, and they had misinterpreted something that I

was doing with my face and a sound that I made, that's all

I'm going to say about it. And they were yelling at me, and

they I let them, like, get their feelings out and say how they

wanted to feel. And at some point, because we don't know

each other that well. We had recently met, and just at some

point, I just said

they're like, You did X, Y and Z. And I said, Yeah, I did do

those things, but that's not how I meant it. That's a

misinterpretation, right? So here's my greatest fear. Here's

my greatest fear happening in real time. It's not my greatest

fear. Here's one of my big fears, that I am being

misunderstood, and I'm being misunderstood in a way that

doesn't reflect who I truly am, which is unsoothing on multiple

levels. But you know, it was frustrating and I also got

angry. But what happens when I get angry and frustrated is I

cry so it looks like I'm sad, which on one level, I am,

because I could clearly see that this was a breach of like this

is a big miscue, miscommunication and

misunderstanding.

But I was also frustrated because I was being seen in a

light that wasn't true. But we both felt that way, right? In

fairness, we both felt that way, and what I finally said to this

other person was, you don't know me well enough yet to know that.

That's not what I was doing, that that's not what I meant. I

said, You don't know me well enough yet. And I said, if you

knew me, you wouldn't think that about me.

If you really knew me, you wouldn't think that about me,

and this is just something that I'm like, oh yeah, this, this.

This is something that I can, that I can, I can see how things

go really wrong when we're trying to communicate. And

sometimes we just have to say, like, Look, you don't know me

well enough to make that assumption about me, because

here's the truth, and I'm not saying this next piece about

that person. I'm just talking about humans in general. Now,

some people are going to insist on misunderstanding you. Some

people are going to insist on being offended, and some people

and this is why I believe because some people need to keep

the story they've written about you true in their own head. They

need to keep it alive. They need to keep it true in their head so

that they can keep making excuses, so they can keep making

you the bad guy, so that they don't have to take

responsibility, so they don't have to own their part of

things, and they don't have to look at themselves. And that's

just facts. Some people want to put you in a little box and see

you in a very particular way, and they are not open to

software updates. They're not open to new information. They're

not interested in different perspectives, putting themselves

in your shoes, or looking at things from a different point of

view. They're just not into it. And how they think of you is not

open to change. They're just not willing to do it. And this is

what I would say to you, don't waste your time trying to

convince them otherwise. You can tell them, just judge me.

Like this little frog. Explaining myself is too much

work. Just Judge me. There's certain people that it is not

worth your time. Don't waste your time.

Because, here's the thing, tell them just judge me, because

they're going to anyways. This is what the ego mind does. The

ego mind judges all day long, right? We look at people outside

immediately a thought comes in your head. You're making a

comment about their glasses or their clothes or their whatever,

or how they're talking or what they're doing or why they doing

it that way, right? The ego mind loves to separate. It loves to

make us special, either by making us superior or shittier.

It loves to play that comparison game, right? All this judgment,

right? There's a difference between judgment and

discernment. There's a difference between judgment and

observation. There's a difference between judgment and

then just kind of making your report about what you're seeing,

but people are going to judge us, or just let them do it. And

all you can do, I'm going to wrap this up now. All you can do

is to do your best to be clear in your communications.

Remember, message sent is almost never the Message received. But

all you can do is do your best to be clear in your

communications, be kind in your delivery. If there's one thing I

would say to people, and I had to say it to myself 1000 times

over the years, is you got to watch your fucking tone of

voice. You got to watch what it's like right when you're

talking, when you're saying things, and try to put yourself

on the receiving end of your own message, your own words and your

own tone, right? Oh yeah. Like, once in a while you have to go

like, Oh yeah, I could. I can see how you would have perceived

it that way, right? What was my face doing? What was my tone of

voice doing? This is how misunderstanding happens, and if

people don't know you, a lot of times, they're going to assume

the worst. Okay, so be clear in your delivery. Try to be kind.

Watch a tone of voice and the rest is kind of out of your

hands. Sometimes, though, it is worth explaining yourself when

there's a genuine misunderstanding like I recently

had, right? And you care about the person, or you care about

the relationship, and you want to repair it, and you want it to

be, you know, to feel good, and you want there to be like, you

know, you you like you care enough to make the friendship or

the relationship work. It's important that you take a little

bit of time, but you also have to use discernment, because the

rest of the time you just got to let go of it. You get it's out

of your control, and you got to say, to say, let them judge me.

Right? They're going to judge me anyways. Just Judge me. I don't

have the time and the energy. And what I was saying about

social media earlier, I don't know if I finished. My point is

that, you know, there was never like long form content is why I

love is because I can be clear and there's enough room so to

not for there to be nuance. A lot of times on social media,

they're trying to force you to communicate in these little

quips and these little snippets and these little catchy things,

because, for whatever reason, people can't read longer than

two sentences, right? I am not a TLDR person. Too long, don't

read. I'm a reader. You know, who reads things? Readers do,

people who love words, people who love books, etc, right? So

we're often being forced into these little containers, and we

can't be. How do I say it? It's really this is the best way to

say it, where it's really easy to be misunderstood online,

because there's not enough characters that are not enough

room in a post to hit all the different ways. And that's why I

always say on the podcast, hey, I reserve the right to change my

mind. I reserve the right to be smarter next time. I reserve the

right to have learned something on 357 episode than I did on

episode 62 I might become a little smarter, a little better,

a little kinda, you know what I mean. So that's my thing to you

guys. You can't explain everything to everybody. You

can't explain yourself to everybody. Some people are going

to insist on misunderstanding you, because that's how they

want to look at you, and that's how they want to see you when it

matters. Take the time to do it. But other than that, just tell

them, just judge me, right you guys. I hope you have a

fantastic rest of your day, wherever, whatever time you're

listening to this. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you

for helping me to celebrate seven years of the Karen Kenney

show. I super duper appreciate it wherever you go out in the

world. Please leave the animals, the people, the places yourself,

the planet better than how you first found it. Wherever you go,

may you and your energy and your love and your presence and your

communication be a blessing. Bye. Hey, thanks so much for

listening to the show. I really love spending some time

together. Now, if you dig the show or know someone that could

benefit from this episode, please share it with them and

help me to spread the good word and the love. And if you want to

be in the know about all of my upcoming shenanigans, head on

over to Karen kenney.com/sign,

up and join my list. It'll be wicked fun to stay in touch.

Bye. You.