I recently told a funny little "Knock, Knock joke" - that also led me to some spiritual principles that I think are worth sharing!

So today on The Karen Kenney Show, I’m talking about my playful perspective on “Jesus and God”, and how I think that they’re available to people on all kinds of spiritual paths.

We’ll also discuss how the Divine is always open to everyone, regardless of childhood programming or cultural beliefs.

Plus, we'll dive into why it helps to reopen our connection to the divine, using that "private door" that exists within you!

KEY POINTS:

• Knock-Knock Joke

• Jesus’ Sense of Humor

• Private Door Within

• Trust Your Inner Teacher

• Divine is Always Open

• From Fear to Love

• You are Worthy

• The Nest - Group Mentoring Program

 KK 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 effective, efficient, memorable, and 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 make a big difference.

KK WEBSITE: www.karenkenney.com

Hey you guys. I'm so excited to be here. Welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I just got back from the gym. If you're watching this, you might be able to

see that my hair is a little kooky, still in my gym clothes. But I wanted to, I wanted to get this episode done, because I was cracking myself up thinking about this, so

some of you may know well, first of all, loyal listeners, thank you. Welcome back. So happy to have you here. If you're a new listener, I'm so excited that you're

choosing to spend some time with me. I always say like Life is short. Time is a high commodity, right? It's a precious commodity. And the fact that you choose to

spend a little bit of your time with me, it means so much to me. So thank you so much. Okay, so some of you may know that I have a group mentoring program called the nest, and

we have a Facebook group, you know, because one of the ways that we stay in touch in between the the calls, you know, the bi weekly calls and stuff like that. So I'm

always posting resources and little things in there, helpful things in there, spiritual concepts, blah, blah, blah, right, recommended books, all that stuff. But I

also love to just share little things that I think funny, right? Because we all, we all could use a little lightening up, you know? We could all use a little lovely sometimes.

So there's this knock knock joke that I have always found, like hysterical, and if you can hear, I don't know if you can hear it right now, but there's like a major like

thunder, lightning, rainstorm happening right now. So I apologize if there's any background noise, but this is wicked funny little knock knock joke, and I'm going to

set it up for you, right, so that you can see it. So imagine that there's like a wooden door, some concrete steps, and we can tell this is like way, way, way back in the

day, like ancient times. Okay? So it's like a round ash, way of stone and a wooden door, and it's shut, and then Jesus is standing. Jesus is standing on the outside of the

door. You can't see what's on the other side of the door. You just see Jesus on the steps, and he knocks on the door, which alone, I just find so funny. Jesus like

standing outside somebody's house, knocking to get in. Okay. Anyways, I'm going to try to keep it together and look, I apologize in advance, if you don't find this that funny,

but I think it's really funny. Okay, so Jesus knocks on the door. You see his hand go up in a little cartoon, and he's it says, knock, knock. And the person on the other

side says, who's there? And he says, Jesus. And they say, Jesus, who? And he says, Jesus Christ open the door. Oh,

my God, Jesus Christ opened the door. I think that is the funniest thing ever. Oh, my God. So I just shared it with my group. Now let me before I tell you what happened

when I shared this? Okay, um, if you please, like, Please, please. Just if this gets your panties in a bunch in some way, please don't let it okay, my Jesus. How I think of Jesus?

I think he's wicked funny, and he has a really good sense of humor. I think that he would find that joke really funny. And if you're somebody who doesn't watch the show,

if you only listen, I have behind me kind of what I call, like my Jesus wall. I have these great pictures of one of my favorite artists who does the spiritual and that's

the other thing. Like so many people, when you think of Jesus, they think of him as, like, this really, like religious kind of figure. And to me, Jesus is, like, you know,

I always say, like, my older brother who had, you know, the long hair, the cool hair, the cool car, and all the best albums. That's how I kind of think of him. And also,

like, of course, he was a living embodiment, I think of love, and he's a great I mean, I think, whoo. You guys hear that thunder and lightning. I think he was a great example of

what is possible, the divine possibility of humans. I think he was a walking and living example. So we don't have to get into the whole thing. But I just wanted to say this,

so Jesus and I are tight in our own way, right? I don't claim him to belong to any like, just to me, I think he's a free agent and all that stuff. Okay, but Okay, so I

posted this joke, you know, everybody's like, like, laughing and hiding it and whatever. And then one, one of the one of the members said, you know, with a wink,

she's like, Oh, as if the door was ever really, quote, unquote closed. And she did, like, you know, little, like, little quotes around it, as if, like, as if, as if the

door is shut, to Jesus, right? And we were kind of laughing, and I said, Well, here's the thing. And I think of, like, I said, I think of Jesus as the embodiment of God's

love, and we can talk about that word. To if the word God, if the if the word God, remember, words are just symbols of symbols that we have assigned meaning to. It's why I

did a whole episode. If you haven't listened to that podcast episode, don't let them ruin God for you. Go listen to that sucka. Because I think so many people because of

the way, like I was raised as a Catholic kid, right? But I know so many people who grow up with such a fear of God, with such this feeling of not, not unconditional love,

they feel like it's totally conditional. There's all this, like, just all this bullshit and guilt and stuff that this performing, almost the spiritual performing

that has to happen, right, in order for there to be a relationship between you and Jesus, or you and God or whatever. So whatever your faith background, I think

Jesus is, like I said, I think he's a free agent. I think he's available whatever, whatever your spiritual path is. You don't have to be a Christian kid, a Catholic kid

or whatever, right? I just think that you can have a relationship with the divine in many forms. Okay, I just want to say that, um, so one of the things that I was saying

is when she said, Oh, as if the door is ever really closed. And I said, yeah, the door is never closed, right? The door to God, that the pathway to connecting to love, source,

the creator, that creative, life force, divine, intelligent, God, whatever you call it, right? That door is never closed to us, but we can often feel and think, right?

Well, sometimes get up in our head and we start to get a little squirrely, we start to think that that door is closed. And I was saying to them in the nest, like, if it ever

feels that way there's only one person that's actually doing the closing I always say, like, you know the Divine is standing right there within your own heart. But as

this analogy, the Divine is always standing right there, right right in front of you, and it's you, and I'm doing a little thing with my hands. It's you that, like Moon

walks out of the room. You know what I'm saying. And so when I was typing out this response right to one of the people in the nest, and I said, the door is never closed,

you know, it's always open. And then as soon as I said that, you guys know how I say sometimes I hear, like, in my mind, you know, I hear it, but it's more like a word

impression. It's like, all of a sudden the words are there. And what I heard so clearly in my head when, when I wrote this, I said, the door is never closed. And I started to

laugh. And I said, Jesus is like an all night, Dinah. Jesus is like an all night. Dinah. He is, he is always open. 24/7, always open. Never closes. We can certainly

close our heart right to him. We can certainly close our heart to the Divine, however you define that, right and but it's always open and it's always available to us.

And when I was thinking about that. I was thinking, what often happens because of our childhood programming is we believe we have to be a particular way. Look like, look a

particular way, love a particular way, like, there's all these rules and regulations about what's what is available to us and where we are welcome and where we belong or

not, based on, you know, the programming that we got as children, often in the church or from your parents or your elders or your community or whatever it is, like your

culture, how you were brought up. And I just don't, I just have not. I just don't play that game like I just don't believe that God or love or Jesus or whatever is reserved for

certain populations like that to me, I just don't. I just my I just don't. That's just not how I operate and how I live, and it's not how I believe. And definitely as a

spiritual mentor, you know, my approach has always been, you know, similar to that great quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, where he says, You know, God enters by a private door

into every individual. God enters by a private door into every individual. And what has always been interesting to me is to help people, first of all, remember that there is

a door, there is a door within their own heart, there is a door that exists within them. And then to kind of point to the door, and I always say, like when it comes to

external teachers, right? So first of all, trust your internal teacher, right? Whether you call that Spirit, Holy Spirit, spiritual team, the voice for God, whatever you call

that, right, trust your inner teacher first and foremost. But if you're going to be looking to a an external teacher to support you, guide you, teach you like whatever.

When we're pointing towards something, I always say, look at what we're pointing to, right? Don't fall in love with the teacher so much. Fall in love with what we're

pointing to. And what I'm pointing to is the door within your own heart, your own capacity for your own person. Personal relationship to the beloved, to the Divine,

to God, to Jesus, to whatever right to love. It's not, it's not. There's no codependency here. This is about reminding you, like, hey, there's a door, and the divine enters

into every individual through their own private door. So you get to decide what that relationship looks like. So what lights me up is helping people to either discover that

relationship, to deepen that relationship, to sometimes recover that relationship, because sometimes there was damage done right through, through again, the

programming and all, all the the shit that people go through when they're kids, and what they're told about themselves, etcetera.

And people can come to believe that they're not worthy of unconditional love. They can come to believe that they're not good enough, that they're not lovable, that

they're not enough, period, and it's all a lie. Like we come through with our worth intact. We come through being enough, right? We are an extension of the Divine itself. So

like that door, 24/7 right? Remember God, right, Jesus, love. It is like an all night Dinah, open and available to us 24/7 and even if you have been away from it, from a

really long time, if you have not connected, right, whether through having a DSP or, you know, through your prayer practice or meditation or contemplation or journaling or

doing, you know, reading of spiritual books or whatever. If you feel like you have been like, you know, outcast or out in out abandoned, out in Siberia or something out

on the tundra by yourself. You can always, always, always come home, and you can always choose to swing open that love door. You know, it's like automated doors. Even you

don't even sometimes have to swing it up. Just step forward, right, step forward, and be like, hey, I want to get back in touch with this part of me that has never really

left the divine, the part of me that is in constant connection, communication and communion, because, like I said, you can't ever be separated from your source. It's

just that we think we can. We sometimes will feel like we have been abandoned. We'll feel like I can't feel that connection to anything greater. This is one of the things

that the nest is about. It's about bringing together people that are kind of trying to do the the work of personal development, mindset, subconscious reprogramming, with

with the Mojo and the magic, right, like the hot beat of spiritual principles and practices, to help us remember who we truly are as God's kids as an extension of love.

And like I said, I let people call it whatever they want to call it. I use that word God because I'm wicked comfortable with that word. That word doesn't weird me out.

If that word weirds you out, you insert your own happy word. You insert your own word, right there again. I don't care what you call it. I do care, and I am excited about

people remembering right, that they have a connection to the divine, to the universe, that there is a divine spark within you, right, that with just a little, a little

blowing on it, right, that that that little spot can turn into a flame. And I often say it's like a fire that you can keep yourself warm by. It is a fire that can give you more

light. It will help you to see better in the darkness. You know what I'm saying. So I think it can be really, really helpful. And so remember, you have your own private door

too. And if you feel like, hey, the door's been closed, if you somehow, and I hear this a lot with people not to pick on Catholic kids, it's just the thing that I often hear

is that, like, they are recovering Catholics, or they are like, you know, used to be Catholic and now, like, because a lot of kids feel like that when they left the

church. And this could be any kind of religion where you feel like it has failed you in some way. Right? A lot of times when people leave the church, they also leave all

the pots behind that maybe spoke to their hat a little bit, or maybe would, they would have found comfort or clarity in you know what I mean? And so I just think it's, it's

something to think about that, if you and I know a lot of people too, in 12 step programs, right when they're returning to this concept that there is a higher power,

or a higher you know, something of some kind, and even if you don't like to believe in something like that, feels to you as religiously I'm doing air quotes or too

spiritual. Just think of the highest love and the highest good and the highest self that you are getting in touch, reopening the door to that self can be a really powerful

thing. So just remember, you step up to the doors, they're like automated doors. Man, they open up. You go in, the lights are always on, and there's yummy snacks, you

know, whatever? See. So I just love this concept that that came into my head that, you know, I don't want to be like I came up with, but to me, I came up with, right, that

like Jesus is like an all night Dinah, like God's like an all night Dinah, always open, and you're always welcome to come on in and grab a seat and get some nourishment. You

know, get some nurturing and get some nourishment. And it also works this way too, right? I want to share another quote. It's from A Course in Miracles, because I think

what happens sometimes, when we do feel like that door is closed, we create a prison of our own making. We feel like we are shackled to our own attack, thoughts and judgment of

ourselves, that we're not worthy, we're not good enough, that why? Would like if you only knew who I've been and what I've done. You know God, Jesus, the divine, whatever

the will never forgive me. And I always say, Well, God doesn't have to forgive. I'm like, God doesn't do forgiveness, because God never condemns. I really believe that,

right? So you people can believe whatever they want to believe. This isn't a show of me telling you what to think. I'm just sharing kind of my POV and where I'm coming

from. And I always think it's safe to good to say that this is what I believe right now, and who knows where I'll be five years from now, but this is what I think right

now, and I always say I always reserve the right to change my mind, and as I get smarter and better, maybe something else will occur to me. But I kind of think that,

like everybody's welcome to the table, everybody has a seat at the table, everybody is welcome in the all night. Dinah, you know what I'm saying? Oh, and it makes me think

of my friend James Anderson, who wrote, wrote a book that has all my diner in the title. It's a fantastic book. So Google that too if you're interested. If you're somebody

who reads and you like good stories, it's a fantastic story. There's actually two of them, okay? But let me get back to the Course of Miracles. Quote. So a lot of times

we can feel like the diner doors are like, closed to us, right? Because of our past, because of things we said or things we did, or who we've been or whatever, and we create

a prison of our own making. And there's a line in A Course in Miracles that I have always, always, always loved, and it says, my chains are loosened. I'm going to say

this twice, right? I'll say it first one time, fast, my chains are loosened. I can drop them off merely by desiring to do so. The prison door is open. Okay? One more

time. From A Course in Miracles, my chains are loosened. I can drop them off merely by desiring to do so. The prison door is open. The door is open. You can get up and leave

right that belief of I'm not lovable, I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough. And we can choose to put more positive, more loving, more kind and compassionate and merciful and

forgiving thoughts in our own head. And this is some of the work, like I said, that I do with people. So if you are listening to this. And you're like, I want to, I want to

be in the all the all night, open, done. I want to be in the all night. I want to talk about these things and learn these things and practice, kind of practice these things,

right? And so much of the work that I do you guys, it's about shifting your mind from fear to love. It's about returning to love. It's about shifting from a a thought system

of fear over to a thought system of love. That's how the miracles happen. That's what a miracle really is. Is when we have a shift in perspective and when we can start to see

ourselves differently. Man. Is that a miraculous thing? When we can start to see ourselves with more compassion and grace and mercy and kindness and forgiveness? Amazing

things can happen. So you guys, if you want to ever join the nest, it's all the doors are always open. The doors are always open. You just go to Karen kenney.com/nest, N, E,

S T, all the information is there. It's an ongoing monthly group, right? We meet twice a month online. We do coaching calls. I do some teaching. It's fantastic. There's

discussion. We have a group. It's an amazing community. It's 50 bucks a month, right? Five zero, 50 bucks a month. You come in, and you can always find out what I'm up to

by following me on social media, obviously listening to this podcast where I announce whatever I'm doing. And also you can get on my email list. Karen kenney.com/sign, up one

word. Alright, you guys, I think that's what I have for you right now. I hope this has been fun or helpful. I hope the joke made you laugh or smile or whatever and wherever

you go. I hope you keep your sense of humor because it is getting extra weird out there. You know what I mean? And for me, humor and you know, Humor has been a way to navigate a

lot of things I'm not talking about, like bypassing your pain and your grief and like, you know, just always making I'm just saying, though we could all use a little

laugh once in a while, I do think that laughter is medicine, so hopefully that you get a little kick out of something that I shared today. And again, I appreciate you so

much. Thank you for being here and spending some time with me. And remember. Ba, right. Always open, right. It's like, it's like an all night Dinah, and you are welcome. You

are welcome at any time to come on home, to come back to love, okay, wherever you go. May you leave yourself and the animals and the people in the places in the environment

better than how you first found it wherever you go. May you and your presence and your energy be a blessing. Bye. You.