It Has To Be Me Episode

Redefining Spirituality

Karen Kenney

Episode #60: June 19th, 2025

THE GOLD FROM THIS EPISODE

“As a spiritual mentor, it’s about helping people develop their own personal relationship to the divine, whatever that is to them. You may call it god, higher power, source, universe, or something else.”

Karen Kenney

Spiritual Mentor and Writer

“My work as a coach is to help people shift the old negative stories. Not pretend like they don't have them, but to take a look at them so you can turn your story into your glory.”

Karen Kenney

Spiritual Mentor and Writer

“Call it God, spirit, intuition, instinct, I have helpers on my spiritual team. There have been all kinds of people who have loved me into being, and they are with me as potential. I can listen to the nature of my better angels.”

Karen Kenney

Spiritual Mentor and Writer

 

“Whether you believe in something greater than you or not, if you’re driving the bus alone, you're in trouble. A Course in Miracles says, ‘I will no longer make decisions by myself because I've realized it is no longer intelligent to do so.”

Karen Kenney

Spiritual Mentor and Writer

“A daily spiritual practice helps build trust in the inner teacher. The voice of God or spirit or love doesn't shout like the ego, it whispers. We have to turn down the noise and get quiet enough to hear it. Whether it's meditation, contemplation, journaling, being out in nature. There's a thousand ways to practice.”

Karen Kenney

Spiritual Mentor and Writer

“Prayer, however you practice it, is just the act of asking for help. Meditation is when you get quiet so you can receive the guidance.”

Karen Kenney

Spiritual Mentor and Writer

“The world is not completely safe. My work is not about insisting that I feel safety all the time. My work is: How can I feel safe enough in my mind and body and my own experience to do what I came here to do?”

Karen Kenney

Spiritual Mentor and Writer

“You don't have to do it all. We often time travel into the future and the dream seems so big and impossible. All you have to do is show up, ask for help, and take the next step.”

Karen Kenney

Spiritual Mentor and Writer

in THIS EPISODE

  • Struggling to process fear, anger, and grief? Karen Kenney—writer and spiritual mentor—gives us a masterclass in finding love, compassion, and resilience in challenging times.

  • When Karen was 12, her mother was brutally murdered. She and her sister were sent to live with strangers. Through years of trauma and confusion, Karen sought solace in books and stories. While others around her took satisfaction in vengeance, she found peace in forgiveness,  through guidance from mentors, and her study and practice of somatics, yoga, and other healing modalities.

  • This put Karen, who grew up Catholic, on an unexpected path to a different relationship with spirituality and the divine. After getting a communications degree at Boston University, she lived and worked with Marianne Williamson, then immersed in study of A Course In Miracles, finally claiming her role as coach and thought leader.

  • We discuss the impact of family and cultural conditioning in shaping internal narratives, and the importance of shifting limiting beliefs to temper the dialogue with ourselves and others.

  • Cornerstones of Karen’s approach are personal responsibility, harnessing the agency we have, recognizing what spirit and source mean to us, and developing a unique connection to them.

  • She maps how to assemble a team of spiritual advisors, noting the importance of tapping into our resources and community to consider things in different ways. Then shows us tools to resist fear, acknowledge risk, and feel ‘safe enough’ to take action toward what we want.

  • Karen’s story epitomizes “It has to be me.” But her message is: You don’t have to do it alone.

TESS'S TAKEAWAYS

  • A Course In Miracles is a workbook to prompt self awareness and growth.

  • Developing your own approach to spirituality supports self-love and compassion. 

  • Intimacy heals. Personal responsibility and deep relationships expand your choices.

  • Grief is a sacred path to your deepest healing and highest service.

  • You can feed a grievance or you can seek peace. You cannot do both.

  • Forgiveness isn’t forgetting. Choosing compassion means suffering doesn’t run the show.

  • You’re not the sum of what happened to you, but what you’ve been called to because of it.

  • We’re never completely safe. Feeling safe enough is enough.

ABOUT KAREN

Spiritual mentor and writer Karen Kenney uses humor and dynamic storytelling to bring a down-to-earth, no-BS perspective to self-development.

Bringing together tools that coach the conscious and unconscious mind, Karen helps clients deepen their connections with self, and discover their unique understandings of spirituality. 

Her practice combines neuroscience, subconscious reprogramming, integrative hypnosis, somatics, and other holistic modalities to help regulate the nervous system, examine internal narratives, remove blocks, and reimagine what’s possible.

A passionate student of A Course in Miracles, devout yoga teacher, and Gateless Writing instructor, Karen is a frequent speaker and retreat leader. Via her programs The Quest and The Nest, she coaches individuals and groups. 

With The Karen Kenney Podcast, she encourages listeners to shift from a thought system of fear to one of love, compassion, and personal responsibility.