I often say, “Humans love to put other people up on a pedestal of praise and then move them over to the cross of crucifixion when they see their humanity.”

Today on The Karen Kenney Show, we’re talking about how people like to build others up onto a pedestal of praise and then when they eventually discover that other person’s humanness, weaknesses or even failures - those same people love to yank that pedestal out from under them.

It's like there’s this expectation that because someone is good at something, whether that be science, acting, sports, writing, business, or music - that they’re then automatically predisposed to be good at all things straight across the board.

That they are never going to make a mistake or God forbid, show the unhealed version of themselves.

In people’s worshipping of internet heroes, influencers and “gurus” - it’s easy to forget that they are human. They are not God or even otherworldly. In many ways, they’re no different than people without the big platforms.

Like us, they have their own insecurities, character flaws and unhealed places that could also use some inner work.

As human beings, we should do our best to praise one another, love one another, and build each other up... and I have no problem with this practice of helping, supporting, cheerleading and lifting someone up!

However, it’s a totally different thing to put somebody up on a pedestal and then toss our common sense out the window - only to then be disappointed because we find out oh, yeah, they're human.

The reality is if we keep building people up on these wicked high pedestals and holding them to these impossible standards; when they're that high, there's only one place to go, and that’s down.

Key Points:

• The Tendency to Idolize + Tear Down Famous People (03:28)

• The Human Tendency to Praise + Criticize (08:59)

• Meeting Stephen King (14:22)

• Spirituality, Ego + Equality (19:01)

• The Dangers of Idolizing “Gurus” (24:19)

• Inner Wisdom + External Teachers (29:38)

• The Importance of Lifting Others Up (35:54)

• Self-Awareness + Ethical Behavior (40:26)

Karen Kenney is a certified Spiritual Mentor, Hypnotist, Integrative Change Worker and a Life Coach. She’s known for her dynamic storytelling, her sense of humor, her Boston accent and her no-bullshit approach to Spirituality and transformational work.

She’s been a yoga teacher for 22+ years, is a Certified Gateless Writing Instructor, and is also an author, speaker, retreat leader and the host of The Karen Kenney Show podcast.

A curious human being, life-long learner and an entrepreneur for 20+ years, KK brings a down-to-earth perspective to applying spiritual principles and brain science that create powerful shifts in people’s lives and businesses.

She works with people individually in her 1:1 program THE QUEST, and offers a collective learning experience via Group Coaching. She supports both the conscious and unconscious mind by combining practical Neuroscience, Subconscious Reprogramming, Integrative Hypnosis, and Spiritual Mentorship. These tools help clients regulate their nervous systems, remove blocks, rewrite stories, rewire beliefs, and reimagine what’s possible!

Karen wants her clients to have their own lived experience with spirituality and to not just “take her word for it”. She encourages people to deepen their personal connection to Self, Source and Spirit in tangible, relatable, and actionable ways without losing sight of the magic.

Her process called: “Your Story To Your Glory” helps people to shift from an old thought system of fear to one of Love - using compassion, un-shaming, laughter and humor, her work is effective, efficient, and it’s also wicked fun!

KK’s been a student of A Course in Miracles for close to 30 years, has been vegan for over 20 years, and believes that a little kindness can go a long way and make a miraculous difference.

Well, hello there beautiful human. First of all, let's just start with why my voice sounds funny. My friend Katie was telling me that I sound like, like the dude version, the male version of Karen Kenny. So here's, here's the scoop. And we're gonna make it quick. You know, I knock on knock on wood knock on wood, I am lucky to have a pretty robust immune system. So I almost never ever, ever get sick. But when I do, it usually comes some because some virus or some big thing like comes along and kind of knocks me knocks me, you know, knocks me down a bit, which is interesting, because we're going to be talking about we're going to be talking about being knocked down in a moment. But I'm trying to you know, I'm like my, I'm starting to turn the corner, and I wanted to do a podcast. And so here we are. So thank you so much for tuning in. If you are a loyal listener, you know, I love you and appreciate you if you're new to the show. Welcome. I don't know how you got here. I don't know if somebody sent you a link or told you to watch yours. Like check this out. I love the show. I think you'll you'll dig it to whatever, however you got here. And we can happy to be spending some time together. So thank you for tuning in. I think if you're new to the show, kind of how I do things is I will start I'll talk about maybe the inspiration for the show where it came from tell a little story and then we'll kind of dissect in I'll extract some spiritual principles or some helpful tools or some practical pieces that kind of help us to navigate this human experience. Right? It's it's my goal is to always leave people better than how I first found them and to spread just to spread a little more love in the world. Can we please can we God knows that the world could use it. Okay, here we are. I think I'm gonna call this sucker praise up and pull down, praise up and pull down. And it's actually kind of similar. It's so funny that I'm doing this. So like, this is my I'm now in my fifth year of doing the Karen Kenny show, right my podcast and way back on like, I want to say like April 4, like 4444 of 2018. So five years ago, I did an episode on the message and the messenger like basically the message versus the messenger. And this just seems like a really great time to kind of come back around five years later to this topic because the world has changed a lot in five years, the internet has grown like so much has happened. But you know, it hasn't really changed that much. People the right people be peopling so this topic of praising up and pulling down in the messenger in the messenger app. Why I want to talk about it because you know that song from way back in the day, another one bites the dust, right? Another one bites the dust. That's what I was thinking. Because another Helia another so called quote unquote I can't stand this world but quote unquote influencer another person famous podcasts or whatever is finding themselves in some in some, some hot water. Okay, a little hot water, a little trouble. And the internet's losing its collective mind. People are losing their shit, you know what I mean? And people are like, just go into town about I always knew that there was something off about this person. And you know, everybody's got an opinion, you know, what they say about opinions? You know, what they say about opinions? Everybody's got one right. So everybody's kind of losing their mind is a little bit of this Kancil culture like you know, their surrounding there. It's like back in the day with Frankenstein. You know, the town's folk are outside the castle with their pitchforks in there and they're the one of those things called you know, the fire the fire on the stick that watches and they're just ready to burn it all down. And I always think that it's so fascinating that human beings like all you have to do is look around if you just look at famous people let's just start that you look at famous people whether they're actors and actresses or billionaires or professional athletes or musicians rappers right whatever it is, whenever people like get a certain level of success or fame, man do human beings love to praise them up praise them up right so that they can just later Oh, I'm down. They love to a rack these kind of like statues I would say oh, they put up on the statues of all the heroes. I was an all the Savior's and man, do they love to tear them down afterwards? It's this really bizarre thing to me that we love to do this, we love to build idols. Think about it, we even have a show in our culture called American Idol. I'm like, what's that about? Because somebody can sing. It makes them an idol because they have a God given talent, or they have a talent that they, you know, we're born with it that then they put, you know, lots of hours into it. We will we'll talk about that in a minute. But I think it's a very dangerous thing that we do, we and I think it's kind of a very bizarre thing. But it says more, I think, and look at this show, I always say I reserve the right to change my mind, I made say something today that I will change my mind about like two weeks from now, because I'll be smarter. And I'll have be more, I'll have learned better. I'll have learned something or whatever. So I don't stress about like stuff. I was saying like five years ago. I'm like, I'm sure if I went back and listened to my old episodes, I'd be like, you're doing that one. I cringe like, Oh my God, what did I say? What did I do, but I'm different, you know, we were continuing, hopefully, hopefully, we're continuing to grow, evolve, and become more ourselves and remove more of what is not us as we kind of stand in the remembrance of like who we really are. But I don't stress about it. But this is what I'm kind of thinking about today is that, you know, we kind of get off on creating these illusions, these ideas about people. And we love to like I always say, I was talking to a friend, like two weeks ago and called me for referral about something. And in through our conversation, we were catching up and I said something I said, Oh yeah, people love to put you up on the pedestal and then move you over to the cross. And he's like, What do you mean, what do you tell me more about that. And I said, oh, people love to put you on the pedestal of praise, just so they can then shift you and move you over. Once they find out once they find out that you're actually human, then they love to put you on the cross of the crucifixion, man, they love like, it's just like, it's just insane to me. And, you know, I, I've had a lot of opportunities in my life, to spend time around people who have had a certain amount of, of Fame in different areas, you know, and I lived in California, I lived in Los Angeles, I got to meet a lot of people, I dated a famous person for a while. And so I've seen it up close is what I'm trying to say. And it's just like, as a culture, there's something that happens, you know, where we love to, we love to devalue ourselves. And what I was gonna say a few moments ago is, we think we're standing here on the ground floor pointing up, right, pointing up and saying there, you know, first of all, we were like, Oh, they're amazing. Oh, my God, they're amazing. Like we build them up and build them up and build them up as a culture, right, as a society. And then we're, then we're still there, like trying to tear them down, because they have now revealed some part of their humaneness to us. And that that somehow is not allowed, right. So not allowed to make mistakes, you know, perfection at all costs, you know, so we love to tear people down. But this process to me says more about the people on the ground who were doing the building and doing the tearing the people who are doing the praising and then the pulling, than it does the beings a lot of times that are up on the pedestal, and who I'm specifically talking about, like what inspired this doesn't even really matter because the pattern is there. Right? The pattern behind this kind of insanity that we do. And I think so much of this desire to praise people up and then to pull them down has so much to do with our own in relationship to ourselves. And it's a combination of like, it's like a popery dish, right. It's like a, it's like a potluck, let's call it that. It's like a potluck of a lot of different things. It's a giving away of our own power. It is a lack of discernment. And then it's like a pity party, right? It's like, oh, you know, how could you do this to us? And like, this person doesn't owe you anything. Now look, there are certain times of course, when

the disappointment or the the reaction makes total sense, right? If we were to just look at particular things that have happened, we can look at the church and like priests and just the rampant like child you know, sex abuse and stuff like that. We can look at Allah, we can look in a lot of different places where we say, hey, we hold these people to a different standard and a higher standard. That's one thing right? You don't expect certain people right We don't expect parents to molest their children, right? We we have certain expectations where we're like, we That's not cool. Like that is not okay. Okay. And so many levels, when you just take people who happen to have a skill, or happen to have a certain level of brilliance or genius or talent in a particular area, and then the humans around them, whether it's the people who, you know, can this word, consume their content, or buy their albums, or watch their shows, or watch their movies, or watch their games or whatever, they do this thing, where they love to just bolster you up, and you know, where it's actually happening in your mind, first and foremost. And what happens in your mind is very causal, and then the effect happens out in the world. So our thinking is the cause and we build these faiths, these fake idols, these false idols, and we build them up and build them up and build them up. And we give them a certain amount of specialness. So I want to tell you a story. And I told this story like five years ago, and I write it about it in my memoir, my book, excuse me. And so I'm just gonna give you a super fast snippet of it. But when I was a kid, in most of you know, if you've been a listener of the show, or you just know me personally, you know, you've been around the block, and you know, who I you know, my story, you know, parts of my story, you know, that my mother was murdered when I was 12 years old. And there was so much that happened before that, and also after that, or whatever, but it was a very, very, very had a wicked had time in my life. In my life was never the same again. And I had always found solace in books, right. I was a lover of words, I was a lover of reading, I was a lover of stories. I was a storyteller. I was a little writer, you know, I just loved books. And in books were a way for me to kind of, in some ways escape, right to find solace. And I discovered Stephen King when I was like, you know, 12 I was 12 when my mother died. So around like 12 or 13, I got my first Stephen King book. And I read this book called Fire, Stata. And all the details don't really matter, except to say that I became like, obsessed with Stephen King, and I just thought he was the bee's knees. In the cat's pajamas, or the cat's meow, I thought he was like, just next level, like I beat him because it was because, believe it or not his character in that book, pious data, really, I could relate to her. And there were so many similarities and I was like, Oh, my God. And I was, you know, I was in a family that didn't talk about things we didn't talk about, you know, what had happened and it was a really, you know, lonely and scary and challenging time for me in this book. Like I felt like I was seen I felt like somebody got it got me like whatever. Okay, so that's like around 12 or 13 and I continue to sad to consume like any book of his right like fire static Cujo Salem's Lot Like all the oldies but goodies, right? I just start like consuming them. So then I go off, I'm 17 years old, I go off to school, I go off to be you. And I find out I'm trying to I'm just gonna give you the soup. I find out that Stephen King is going to be speaking at Boston University. I don't have the money to like buy a ticket tickets are sold out or whatever. But I it's around my birthday. Okay, it's in October. And my friends are like, let's go to this dining hall instead. Like normally we would eat on West Campus where my dorm was but we decided to go down, you know, further down calm and we just happen to be in the same building, where they were having Stephen King speak, I did not know this. Okay, much. To my surprise, though, I got up to go to the bathroom from the table where we were celebrating my birthday. And as I'm walking down the hall to go to the bathroom, I happen to just turn over my shoulder to the left and I look and who do I see? Like one of the doors was open to the big event space and who do I see walking towards the door? But Stephen King himself and I literally just think I'm gonna die like I'm just like, oh my god, you guys, you cannot imagine that the way my heart was pounding in my chest like, don't don't go. Like I was like, out of my mind excited. And so I'm like, he's obviously leaving the room and I see that he's heading towards the bathroom and I don't want to stop them because I'm like, guys gotta pee or whatever. Like, I gotta let him go. You know? He's gonna get on stage. I don't know. So he goes into the bathroom. I'm like, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna hold it. I'm not even gonna I am not going to risk go into the bathroom and like Miss, like seeing him come out of the bathroom. So I wait like a weirdo outside the bathroom, and he comes out. And I just go, Mr. King, you just have to imagine, you have to imagine there's a much longer story in the book. But I basically say this to Him. You know, he's got his big glasses on you can imagine, right? He's got the big glasses on there, like wicked thick and stuff like

that. And I'm like, Mr. Key. Oh, my God.

I am like, literally, like a loss for words, but I do blurt out like a total psycho. I'd say to him, Oh, my God, I love you. And I'm like, you're like God, to me. This is literally what I say to my literary hero. Right? My literary idol. I'm like, you're like God to me. And I see for a moment it like, takes him aback. And he looks at me, and he says, like, I think he said, you know, thank you, of course, for my enthusiasm. So then he says, but I'm just a man. But I'm just a man. I will never ever, ever, ever obviously, I will know, I'm 55 I will never forget that. And one of the reasons why I will never forget it is he did me such a service to check myself right and check yourself before you wreck yourself, as the song says, right? Because I was taking this idea of this person that I didn't know, through my admiration of his work through my admiration and respect of his writing his accomplishments and successes, an author, you know, little did I know, the guy was going through his own his own stuff, his own addictions, his own problems, like whatever, but I'm just like, fangirling, right, right. Right. And he says, I'm just a man. And it got me, it planted that seed in my head, because it was only like four years later, you know, five years later, roughly, that I moved out to California, and was going to start having these experiences of meeting famous people, etc, etc. And so when he said that, to me, it was like, oh, yeah, like, don't forget this guy's humanity. And I think that's something that we do is when there's somebody that we admire, again, whether it's from an athlete to an actor to a quote, unquote, influencer, doing the air quotes, right? And influenza, it can be really easy. Remember so much in the media, you know, we're seeing a carefully curated and crafted version of a what? Either that person that influenza that agent, right, who kind of runs the show for that actor that way, what they want to see, we don't see the truth, we don't see nothing but the whole truth, nothing but the truth. You know, I'm saying, we see snippets and pieces of what's been curated for us to see. And then somehow we act surprised, we act shocked. Nay, We act betrayed, when we find out, Oh, this is just a guy or a girl or a person with problems like the rest of us, oh, this is somebody with a compulsion with an addiction with whatever, like the rest of us, you know what I mean? And one of the things that happens is we over identify with the body and with being human, and we forget, right, we forget about our own divinity and our own spirituality and who we are as spirit, we get so caught up in this ego personality turn, right. And we're going to talk about that in a second, that we forget that we are all equal in the eyes of God, we're all equal in the eyes of the Creator, we're all equal in the eyes of the universe. You know, and even in the Declaration of Independence, right, like even our Founding Fathers, if we want to talk about that, let's just like take a detour for a second. Right? What is that we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal. Like we tried this, this country tried to start on that premise that they are endowed by their creator with what is it certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and obviously the pursuit of happiness. But we start with that premise, we're all created equal. Right? That's not talking about, oh, we all have the same amount of money. We all have the same opportunities because Hello, we know that's not true. We know that there are systems of oppression and racism and hatred and all kinds of stuff that have been going on for, you know, gazillion years. So, but the premise is, is that underneath it all, who we are as extensions of the Divine, we are all equal, we are all the same. But then what the ego loves to do is to create this specialness. Like I was laughing I wrote this note to myself, I wrote it right here and it says ego hates equal. When your ego and I don't want me like you like you like I'll say our that's a better way to say it. Our egos hate equal because it's like what do you mean I don't want to be equal to, right? It's like the ego King thrives, thrives on being special. And the ego will make you special. I say in a couple of ways, one out of superiority, like I'm so much better than everybody else, or through shittiness like, Oh, you don't know how bad I've had and how much trauma I've had all the awful things that have happened poor me like you don't understand how hard it is, right? So the ego just gets off on being special no matter what. But you know what else it gets off on making other people special? Right, building them up and putting them on these pedestals and it it never ends? Well, right? There's very few beings, human beings. Now yes, we are all truly I think spiritual beings, who are here in this illusion, it called the dream, call it the Maya call it the human experience, the classroom, whatever you want to call it, the experience that we're having right now, the 3d, whatever, you know. We are all spiritual beings, but kind of living out this bodily human experience. And we sometimes forget, right? That we're spiritual beings. But instead, we try to build pedestals for the very human parts of us. The ego parts of us the personality parts of this, and those parts are not infallible. We all screw up. We are all clumsy. We all make mistakes. We all blow it. Sometimes we all you know, don't have the kind of finesse. That's why like, if you even think about if you're not a Catholic kid, you didn't grow up with like the Lord's Prayer, whatever, right? But there's that line that says, Forgive us our trespasses. as we forgive those who trespass against us. It's built right into this, this this kind of that tradition of like, knowing it's just like knowing Okay, humans. Yeah, we're probably going to blow it. But then so why do we get so surprised? When you start listening to somebody, you know, what's interesting, too, and this comes back to this lack of discernment is that because somebody is wicked, smart, or wicked good in one area, and whether that they're a neuroscientist, they're an actor, they're a musician, there are right out there a speaker there, whatever it might be, right. They're really good at starting companies and entrepreneur, whatever it is. Because they have an element of their personality that is strong and successful at making money or running fast or throwing the ball or like, whatever it is, we somehow think that they are supposed to be like, pristine and special and perfect across the board and all of the areas. And I'm like, Why? Why do we do that? Why do we say, oh, this person is famous. They must be I mean, I can tell you, I can tell you how many famous rich people I've met, and I've walked away thinking, hmm, yeah, there's so many unhappy famous people, there's a lot of unhappy rich people. Not all is as it seems, it's a very Wizard of Oz the experience right? Now, that's why that's why when we, it when we find people who seem really genuine like, you know, there's that phrase, that old story, that old phrase it what is it like, don't ever meet your heroes, that's built on the premise of like, a lot of times you're gonna meet these people that you admire. And I've been to so many musician, like, meet and greets. And I've just seen like, in and and when we know when I worked with, you know, some of you know that Marianne Williamson, if you you know, know who she is, you've read her books, you know, return to love, etc, etc. You know, she's my spiritual godmother, and I spent a lot of time you know, with her, and saw just how even to this day how people react to her, because they've built an idea of who they think she is in their mind and they put her up on this pedestal. So my point is to say that I've been around a lot of

pedestal building and I've seen a lot of it too in the yoga world, you know, like in so much of yoga, the way that it was, you know, first brought from the east over to the west. So you had all these like male quote unquote, you know, gurus, these teachers like Whatever, that people were turning into their gurus because of their wisdom that they brought over. And then you slowly started to see how many of those teachers could not balance that adoration in that newly found power. And then we saw all like a lot of like abuse, and a lot of weird shit happening, a lot of sexual inappropriateness and a lot of stuff that was going on these power dynamics that were not good. And were covered up, etc, etc. So we see it play out in a lot of areas. And then people get really surprised. Because they have this expectations. Well, this person is this, they're not supposed to be that and I'm like, but you've forgotten that they're human. They're not God, they're not otherworldly. They are riddled with their own flaws, insecurities, you know, character, you know? What do we want to call them character flaws, whatever, you know, the places where they need to do some work, you know what I'm saying? And so, I just think that, you know, in yoga, a lot of times two people would like, give their power away. And there have been several times where people have started to try and do that with me. When they'd say to me, You're my guru, or, you know, it's a sign of respect, in that culture to add, like jig, like to say, and so then we'd like to say, like Guru Ji or Babu G, right? And it's a, it's a, it's, it's a, it's a way of denoting respect, right. And somebody was, like, joking around calling me Karen G. And I said, Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and, and ixnay ixnay. On that, just stop, just stop right there, I'm doing a little, I'm doing a little bit of x with my, with my hand. Excuse me. I'm like, I am nobody's guru. The only guru that I am is my own group. And even that word guru, right? The word guru kind of means several things. But I'll interpret it like the, the, as I've been taught the best that I can by my teachers, which is, it's like, it's about one who was very heavy. It's like somebody who has kind of like that substance. It's, it is one who brings light to darkness. It is one who brings truth or wisdom, right? Enlightenment to ignorance. It's a really big, like, thing that you would denote right? And I'm like, I am not that. And I And I've always said, Please don't put me on a pedestal, please do not put me on a pedestal, because I will end up disappointing you. Because I am human. And I am still right. On my own path. I think as long as I'm alive, I'll be learning and growing and transforming and changing and removing the blocks and the barriers, right, that I have built against my own awareness is A Course in Miracles says against my own awareness of love's presence. And so the thing is, is that when we, when we give away our power, and we start giving it to these people who and a lot of times are strangers, like you don't even really know them, you just start to idolize them. And you're like, Oh, well, this guy has all these protocols, or this guy says to do this, or this one's been on that podcast. And all those quote unquote, again, influences they can support each other and feed off each other's fame. And it can be really easy to just take their word for it to not do your own homework or to you know, again, like forget, forget that you Don't devalue your own word, Don't devalue your own. Also, you're in a teacher, right? Your own gut instinct, your own intuition, your own divine intelligence, your own inner knowing, you know, and this happens a lot. Where, you know, I'll say, you're any good external teacher, so me as a spiritual mentor, as a hypnotist, as a coach, as a yoga teacher, you know, all all this stuff, right? What I always say is, I'm an external teacher, to the clients and the people that I work with or that I help in any good external teacher. All we are doing again and again and again and again, is reminding people and pointing back to their own internal teacher. What external teachers are really good for is reminding you that you already have everything you need inside of you. It's just that we don't know to look there. Like this. I'm Oh, I'm wearing my little fox shirt. Okay. So in some traditions, right, the little foxes called the trickster, right, they have like this trickster quality, they're cunning, right? And so there's this parable of kind of like how the divine Holic God call it source, call it whatever you want to call it. Right? But God often hides himself, you know, in the one place that you would never think to look like a little trickster, and that is inside of you. And so for a lot of us growing up, you know, we were not maybe taught these things or told these things are told that we are lovable, that we are worthy that we are enough like, just as we are like those things probably for a lot of New England kids were not was not stuff that we heard on the regular, you know what I mean? We were taught to work hard. Right? Shut your mouth work on no bitching and moaning suck it up, stuff it down. You know what I mean? So a lot of times, we don't know that we have tools and resources right? within us. We go looking for it externally spend a lot of money looking for answers out there. Because a lot of teachers are not they want that codependence, they want that unhealthy thing they want that adoration, right? This is why we got to be paying wicked close attention to who we're choosing to give our money to our time, our energy, our resources, right. But we have to remember, right, if you first of all, choose your teachers wisely. But what a wicked good internal to what a wicked good external teacher or mentor or coach or whatever is going to do is keep pointing back to the inner teacher. And what I always say to people is right, don't fall in love with the one who was pointing fall in love with what we're pointing to. Don't, I'm so sorry. Don't become enamored with the pointer. Pay weight and close attention to what we're actually pointing to, you know, and we but you know, we have all these systems that have been set up. And when you think about like the Pope, what do they say like kiss the ring, you see it in the mafia, where they'll kiss the ring of The Godfather, right? In some yoga traditions, like bogged down and touch the feet of your teacher, there's all these things of like kind of giving over your power. And I just think in this day and age, it's really, really, really important to be on the lookout, use your discernment Be on the lookout for inconsistencies in congruence sees when things do not feel aligned, right? That cognitive dissonance when you're like, I don't know, they're saying this, but I just can't feel it, it doesn't seem right. Trust that. Trust that. Trust yourself. Trust and be aware. Trust yourself. And be aware. Trust and be aware of and notice when you're trying to make other people more special. You know, there's a saying I hear it a lot. Sometimes, you know, you'll be watching something or at an event or whatever it is. And somebody will just kind of look up like wide eyed and glassy eyed and be like, I'm in awe of you or I'm in awe of them. Or I'm in awe of that, you know, and I'm always like, can we just like pump the brakes? Can we pump the brakes on that a little bit? Um, I think it's one thing you know, in A Course in Miracles, if you guys don't know what A Course in Miracles is, of course, this is a book of course in miracles. I've been a student of A Course in Miracles for a wicked long time. And, and of course, in miracles. There's a section that I love, and it talks about how I was paraphrase it to say, like words are okay, and we're back, hopefully, I'm not going to choke on this friendship and clock. Okay. But my throat was getting really irritated. So I'm going to wrap this up in a minute. But there's this piece that I kind of interpret as and paraphrase it as like, you know, observe, reserve your jaw for God, like reserve your jaw, right? But that that, that that thing, whatever you call it, the creative source love the divine universe, whatever. But let's please forgive, please forgive my coughing. Alright, I'm gonna try to wrap this up with you know, with no more of this. But here's the thing, reserve reserve, you're off for the divine, not so much for fellow human beings. And I always say I'm not I'm not in awe of people. I don't do that anymore. My days of pedestal. I've seen too much, you guys, I've just I've seen too much over the years. I've seen too much. I've seen too much to

keep building these kinds of like fantasy pie in the sky is about about human beings. It's one thing to be inspired by them. It's one thing to respect things about them. You know, there's also there's a great, great section again also in the Course of Miracles. Where it says this, I'm gonna read this to you because I love it so much. It says equals meaning you and I remember where you equals equals should not be in awe of one another, because ah implies inequality. It is therefore, an inappropriate reaction.

Inappropriate reaction, an elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience and his greater wisdom. So I think back to, you know, when I lived in Los Angeles, one of the places that I work was at a magic, a magic dinner theater. Some of the world's top musicians, magicians came and played there and perform now. And I did it a magician for a couple of years. And I just remember being so like, first of all, I love Merlin, I love this concept of magic, I just think I just think it's the coolest like sleight of hand stuff is so fascinating to me. And you can't, you can't date a magician or work at a magic dinner theater. Without starting to kind of see, you know, behind the curtain, you start to see how the illusions have done how the sleight of hand is done. And even though you start from me, I can't speak for other people. But even though you start to see how the things are done, for me, they never lost their magic. Because what I found so fascinating and incredible and powerful is how many times these humans had to practice, practice those skills, how many times they had to practice those skills to make it still feel and look like magic. So I wouldn't be you know, I'm like, I always say don't be in awe of them as people. But if you want to be inspired by their work ethic, if you want to be if you want to have some like reverence for their commitment to saving the animals, or, you know, whatever it is, I think that's really fantastic. Like if you want to say, Oh, this is a person that I really admire and respect for their values and how they show up in the world and how they help animals or they're kind to this, you know, and stuff like that. I think a lot of times, the things that we quote, unquote idolize are kind of bizarre, and kind of ridiculous. And here's the reality, guys. If we, if we keep putting, as a society, people up on these wicked high pedestals, if we try to hold them to these impossible standards, if they're that high, there's only one place to go, and that is down. And as human beings, our job should be to praise each other, to love one another to build each other up. Right? That's how you know, there's all those different sayings. And I say, but there's one right we rise by lifting others. I have no problem with this concept of helping each other supporting each other lifting each other up. But there's a totally different thing by putting somebody up on a pedestal. And just throwing your common sense out the friggin window I've got to me, it's just like, wait, what? And then getting disappointed because you find out oh, yeah, they're human. Because somehow we forgot what because you have a billion dollars like somehow that makes you special? No, you know, that makes you good at business are good at making money, or good at stealing money, or, right? You're over here. And it's like, oh, no, there's certain things I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, oh my god, do you how many balls he had to throw? Or how many times when you think about the great do you think about like athletes like Michael Jordan except Tom Brady, etc. Right? And you think oh my god, the amount of dedication, the amount of determination, the amount of discipline and devotion right when I talked about like doing anything, like a daily spiritual practice. You know, I call it the five ds of DSP, daily dedication, determination, discipline and devotion. You can have those kinds, those five DS, you know, you can have those things in other areas as well. And there's nothing wrong with having respect, again, for somebody's greater experience for their greater wisdom for their, you know, for being an elder for like, whatever. But even with that, don't give all your power away. Don't lose your common sense, your discernment, right? Your ability to say, Ooh, something feels out of alignment has Something smells fishy. Something is off here. This doesn't feel right. Right. Don't just abandon. Don't abandon your inner knowing. And if you catch yourself making somebody extra special, be wary of that. Be suspicious of what your ego you know, is up to be suspicious of what your ego is up to. And if you Find yourself just praising up to eventually pull down, knock it off, catch yourself. That's where self awareness is wicked important. When you notice yourself standing the fan girl, you know, because somebody can write good songs and they make a lot of money. It's like, Yeah, but are they a good human being? Like, do they treat animals nice? Are they kind to other people? Right? You know what I mean? So, know who you are, know what your values are, use your discernment. And don't don't delight. Don't delight in other people's, in this Kancil culture, right? Like, don't delight in other people's fall. We're not here, I'm not here to do public shaming, or to celebrate people. You know, their traumas, their dramas being played out on the public, the public stage. I just don't think it's very nice. Right? I don't think it's very kinda not nice to make, let's say it's not kind. It's not kind. And, you know, a lot of times like I said, there are exemptions to everything there are. There are not exemptions. What's the word? I'm looking for that E word? exceptions. There are exceptions to every rule. And there are people with certain, like I said, certain responsibilities, certain places, positions of power, where you like, you don't expect like, like, yeah, there's a certain standard, right? But a lot of times, these are just people Hawking their wares, and getting rich and getting famous. And then everybody likes to act like, oh, when we find out right? That, oh, they're human, and they've been screwing around over here or doing this or stealing that or whatever, you know, and it's like, yeah, okay. They're human. Right? That Yeah. Not super surprised. Not super surprised. Just remember what I said. People love to put on. People love to put themselves sometimes even. But we love to put other people up on pedestals and then we move them right over to the cross, we go from praise to crucifixion. And we got to be we got to be a little more aware of our tendencies to do that, or to delight in it or whatever. Because that's not really who we want to be as people. It's not it's not who we are. You know, we shouldn't delight when other people, you know, what is it Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, couldn't be put back together again, we shouldn't delight in those kinds of instances, you know what I mean? So, I hope this was helpful in some way. You know, it's always about giving us an opportunity to self reflect. It's really easy to look out there and be like, Oh, that person, that person? Like really what it's about is looking in the mirror and say okay, where in my own life am I doing this? Where Where am I building pedestals? Where am I trying to crucify people? Where am I delighting in the drama of this whole social media fucking, you know, this the all of it, it's just a racket, such a racket. And within that racket, we have a lot of people who are being built up to be something that they're not. So remember, I keep returning to yourself, keep going in, keep remembering who you truly are, to who you truly belong. You know, don't give away your power. And, and don't delight in pleasure when other people fall down. It's inevitably going to happen for probably all of us right in some sometimes more minor or small ways, and sometimes in very public ways. Because it's important, you know, it's important that we are representing who we really are, which is love. Okay, I hope this was helpful in some way. And please, please cross your fingers for me at this hacking cough is going to go away so I can stop doing like this episode, I had to pause it like so many times. So if it seems a little weird, I apologize if it's like pausing or if it feels a little like Blippi because I had to keep slamming on the pause button so I wasn't hacking in your face. So thank you so much for listening to the show, or watching the show. It means so much to me. I appreciate you so much. And wherever you go, may you leave the people the place yourself, the animals, the environment, the planet better than how you found it. Wherever you go, may you and your presence and your love, be a blessing. Bye