Benefit of the Doubt

Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenney show I'm super duper excited to

be here and I got a little story to tell you. I always loved my

storytelling. Okay. Okay. Okay, get it together. All right.

Here's the thing. I'm super duper excited to be here. loyal

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how cute is little Bob Ross over there. Oh, I got this little,

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Brown, fuzzy afro. And he's holding this little pink palette

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you're listening to this show, you might want to just you know,

if you haven't seen him yet, he's worth he's worth taking a

little gander.

Okay, so this episode, this episode is called benefit of the

doubt the benefit of the doubt. Now, I am sure you have heard

that phrase before. It's a noun phrase I'm sure you've heard it

before. And I know what I think what that phrase means. But

whenever I'm doing a show where I'm talking about something that

is like kind of a part of the lexicon of the language of the

people, I like to look it up and see what the dictionaries you

know, have to say. So Merriam Webster says this about the

benefit of the doubt, it says it is the state of accepting

something or someone as honest or deserving of trust, even

though there are doubts.

For some reason, I find this so funny, okay, the state of

accepting something, or someone as honest or deserving of trust,

even though there are doubts. Now, I find that definition

fascinating in and of itself, but I really am trying to keep

myself from going down a rabbit hole. But I will say this, if we

just look at this part of deserving trust, even though

there are doubts, well, if there are doubts, then what that tells

me is there must already be some sort of a history somewhere.

Because otherwise, either you're just a person who doesn't trust

anybody, or somebody has given you enough proof that maybe

they're not to be trusted.

But I see how this shows up in the world, so often, how we

don't give people the benefit of the doubt. And so what I want to

talk about today is the power, the benefit, like literally the

benefit of the benefit of giving it because as I'm going to tell

you, it doesn't just affect the person giving the benefit. All

right, it all I mean, we It doesn't just affect the person

you're giving it to it also affects you. And I'm going to

get into that a little bit more. And of course, I have a story.

So some of the places that it's wicked good to extend the

benefit of the doubt and where you can practice doing that. It

100% in human relationships, okay, if you are relating to

another human being at all, and whether that is an intimate

relationship like your partner, your sweetie a lover, whoever,

you know, your fiance, your boyfriend, your girlfriend,

whatever. Or your friendships, your family, relationships, your

siblings, whatever, you're working at co workers, right

relationships are a great place to practice this.

But you know, where else is a great place to practice this?

when you're driving in the car! when you're driving in the car.

Because nevermind going from zero to 60 by stepping your foot

on the brake on the gas right? I see so many people's emotions go

from zero to 60 their anger their frustration, their

impatience, right boom. It does not take much to send some

people right over the edge right and they get wicked angry or

they're like flipping people the bird or that like she does

scream or pounding their dashboard like slamming on their

their lemon on this steering

We'll oh my god has given me flashbacks of being a student at

BU, Boston University. And back in the day when I was in

college, Ah, man, my nervous system was so dysregulated and I

had zero patience. And being in traffic made me mental like it

made me so insane and so crazy. And I would literally be like

slamming my, my steering wheel and like, cursing up a storm and

like, I think back and I'm like, I was an insane person. But it

was self inflicted.

Okay, but let me tell you the story, let me tell you the story

of why we're talking about this today. Okay. So the other day,

I'm driving in downtown Concord, and I'm coming down the street,

and I get to this stop sign. Okay, now I'm on one of the side

streets that come down and it intersects Main Street, okay,

now, if you're not watching this, I'm doing little hand

signals to show you where I am. I wish I could, I shouldn't draw

shouldn't draw a little extra for you guys. I'm gonna do my

best to describe it. So I'm coming down the street. And

where some of the streets. So the way that the streets in

downtown Concord work, it's like some are only one way coming up.

Some are one way come down, like whatever. But I'm on a two way

street. So I'm not I'm not doing anything insane.

But I'm on the right hand side, which is where we drive in

America. I'm at the stop sign. And there's a woman coming

perpendicular like a cross in front of me. And she's driving a

car. And then she stops and pauses because I realized, Oh,

she wants to turn left and come up the street like past me like

she you know, our driver's side of windows would be side by

side. But what she couldn't see, or she wasn't looking for,

because first of all, she had her phone in her hand. I saw it.

She wasn't really paying attention. Okay, so she wasn't

not necessarily paying attention to her own driving. But she also

was not looking for what I could see from my perspective.

Okay, so I pulled down, I'm at the stop sign. And there's a lot

of parking on Main Street. So you can't always see the traffic

that's coming if there's a big vehicle like packed in one of

those parking spots. So even though I stopped at the stop

sign, now I'm going left onto Main Street, she's turning left

coming up the street that I'm on, but I can't see what's

coming. So I have to keep inching out like just a tiny

bit. My blinker is on. I'm following the rules of the road.

But I also don't want to like turn out into traffic too fast

and then have somebody slam into me, right? So I'm just inching

out, inching out, inching out. So, again, she cannot see what

I'm seeing.

From my point of view, there is a method to my madness, there is

a reason why I'm doing what I'm doing. But she can't see because

she is clearly now I can tell, right? I mean, the work that I

do as a spiritual mentor, the work that I do as a yoga

teacher, as a hypnotist, as a life coach as a change worker,

right? I'm always like watching people's like body language, and

I'm wicked sensitive to other people's energy. I don't even

have to be in the same car with her. I could tell by the way

that what her face was doing what her shoulders were doing,

right? And her tone of voice. Now, you might be asking

yourself, dear, dear listener or watcher, you might be asking

yourself, "KK, but you were in your own car. How could you tell

what her voice sounded like?" Well, let me tell you because as

I'm inching out, but not dangerously I'm doing it wicked

slow. Anybody who was at the stop sign with me could see

probably like what I was doing and why but not this person. So

she takes finally she's sick of waiting, right? Because going

left on Main Street can be tough. Right? So finally she

gets her left hand turn. And apparently she does not approve

of how far I have edged the nose of my car out into Main Street,

which was not an obscene amount. It was just enough to keep me

from getting harmed or hit or whatever.

And so when she drives past me, it was kind of nice out, so my

window was halfway down. But she rolls down her window and I hear

her say - And now listen, listen if you're if you got little kids

around right now block me as I'm just giving you a warning. I'm

given fair warning. Okay. So she drives past me and she gives me

this look like she gives me the look. Right and if you can see

what shirt I have on today, right? I have I have my Masshole

shirt - I'm a kid from Lawrence mass. I'm a kid from Boston,

okay, so I'm in the car and she drives past me she gives me she

shoots me a quick like look with like daggers now I give her

credit. She doesn't flip me the bird. What she does instead is

she calls me this what she says to me she drives by and she says

like into my window. Fucking idiot!

Okay. Now, the best part of this though, is, I think I thought

that that was wicked funny. Like, I literally started

laughing. I was like, did she just call me an idiot? Right?

And I was like, Oh my God. Now, old me, Vicki with two K's from

Lawrence part of me back in the day, I would have like I the

stuff that probably would have come out, back to her. But I

didn't I just kind of laughed, because I realized a couple of

things very quickly.

Why this was happening. Her reaction now there could have

been there could have been a couple of reasons why, okay,

obviously, right. She didn't know me. Okay. She didn't know

me. So she made the assumption that I'm stupid, that I'm a

terrible driver. Okay, she, we have no relationship, right?

That could have been a nice little, like, you know, three

second relationship when she went by she could a smile that

maybe we could have had a much better relationship. But instead

she hurled she hurled insults at me, right. So she didn't know

me. So she doesn't know that I am, I am an intelligent human

being right. She didn't trust me.

She clearly seemed impatient, inflamed, frustrated, whatever,

zero to 60. Or maybe there was something going on in her own

life. And I'll get to that in a second. But she definitely

couldn't see what what I could see, she could not see from my

point of view, she could not see my angle. And we had different

perspectives. And because we had different perspectives, she

couldn't see why I was doing what I was doing, that I must

have had a good reason for doing what I was doing. So she chose

not to extend to me the benefit of the doubt. She decided

instead to make an assumption and an accusation and then

hurling insults at me, assuming that I am, in fact, an idiot.

Now. There's a lot of things you might be able to say about me.

One of them that I'm not, is an idiot. Now, there are certainly

a lot of areas in my life where I don't like I'm not super tech

savvy, like there's certain things that I'm like, yeah. But

by and large, I don't think I'm stupid. I got called Stupid a

lot as a kid. But my grades reflected otherwise, my ability

to survive my childhood in my life, and I went on to college,

and blah, blah, blah, like might reflect otherwise.

Now, I'm not saying I'm friggin Einstein or anything like that.

But I was like, wow, that was pretty like that was pretty

aggressive math. Okay, but here's the thing, here's the

thing, why I wanted to talk about giving the benefit of the

doubt, when I started to break this down, right, the benefit of

the doubt, it's really easy to think that you're the person who

is somehow like the better person, and you're extending

this benefit of, of like the benefit of doubt, like, even

though I might doubt that you know, something is going on, I'm

going to give you the benefit I am going to bestow to you.

Right, like you're the queen or the king, I'm going to bestow

upon you my benefit.

And we often think that we are, the benefit of the doubt is a

courtesy to the other person. And you know, the way that my

brain works is I really love to play with words and language and

flip things upside down and shake them and like see what

comes out. Like I have so much curiosity about these things.

And I started thinking about this. And I said, wow, you know,

even though we often think that giving the benefit of the doubt

is for the other person. Sometimes giving the benefit of

the doubt can actually bebetter for us. Or you, too.

There's something really magical about this. Because when we

choose to extend positive intent, right, and I made a note

to myself here, right? I said when we assume positive intent

and that somebody isn't just doing something just to be a

dick, right? When we assume that there must be a good reason why

a person is doing what they're doing, especially when we don't

understand it. Right when we get a little flustered, we get a

little upset and it's like right and I'm like throwing up my

hands and making funny sounds right we get so you get like our

panties in a bunch.

And if we do not have a regulated nervous system, if we

do not have any spiritual tools in our in our toolkit, if we do

not have any practical, again, practical tools to be able to

calm ourselves down. Right, then we're going to be like launching

these great needs of insults and, and impatience and hurry

and discontent.

And we think, oh, like I'm gonna bestow this gift upon somebody

else. But it's like no, you give, give, give yourself the

benefit of extending the doubt that you don't know what the

fuck is going on. Right That woman had no idea what was going

on, she could not see what I could see she and maybe if she

had taken 30 seconds or whatever to just pause and go like, Oh,

that big truck is there, she's probably pulling out because she

can't see past it. Like if she had just taken a second. But

whatever was going on in her own life did not allow her to slow

down her mind enough.

And this is why the power of a daily spiritual practice a DSP

is so important, because it helps us to show up as the kind

of people that we like to think that we are, which is kind or

compassionate or nice or empathetic or whatever. But when

we're all jacked up, right, when we're all like worked up, or

stressed out or anxious, or whatever, we're not able to see

outside and I'm making these little kind of like foveal

vision, I'm making these little cups around my eyes, like we

can't we lose our, our ability to, to expand our focus out, we

lose our peripheral, right, and we get so like, zoned in on of

like, they're doing something bad wrong, like "an idiot" you

know what I mean?

Okay, so this is what I said, when we can make the most

generous assumption that we can - I love that word here - to be

generous, to be generous, and maybe assume that we don't have

the whole picture. And I'm gonna do a whole other podcast on

perspective and why this is really important.

Okay, another way of saying this, for me, this extending the

benefit of the doubt is that when we choose to see through

the eyes of love, right, and I don't necessarily just mean like

with our eyes, right? We even eye doctors will tell you that

your eyes don't actually see. So when, A course in miracles, you

know, there's a line that basically say, we think that

human eyes see and human ears here, right? The reality of it

is we even just put the spiritual to the side and we

look at it just from a physic physical, a scientific

standpoint, your eyeballs are not actually the the thing that

sees.

The eyes take in the information, what really sees is

the brain, the brain is the thing that interprets the

information that is coming in through the windows that is

coming in through the eyes, that is gathering the information.

It's the brain that sees and if your brain has a history, right,

we're going back to that thing that I said earlier, right? If

the brain goes back to a history of this person can't be trusted.

People can't be trusted. People are stupid, women are terrible

drivers, like whatever stories that we've got floating around

up there, and our old noggin is going to shape and influence the

way that you're responding to the world around you.

So if we can choose to see through the eyes of love, right?

So to me, that's more kind of metaphysical, right then then

just physical. We can see through the eyes of love rather

than fear, then we don't give too much credit to our egos

first and loudest reaction. So in A course in miracles, there's

a line I'm paraphrasing it says basically, the ego speaks first

and it speaks loudest. And I always add, and it's always

wrong.

Because the ego isn't actually choosing how it wants to show up

- the ego is a reactionary, right. So love allows us to

choose and to act from a place of our choosing. The ego is a

reactor I think that love stands for... like love or fear. Love

is an actor it like love is the action of the heart. Fear is a

reactor from our history, from our stories from our, from our,

from our literally from our fears from our trauma from our

past, from those unhealed places within us, you know.

So when we extend the benefit of the doubt, our mental, our

physical, our emotional and our spiritual well being also gets

enhanced. Because when we go on the attack like that, and we

just choose to make other people wrong, when we aren't generous,

when we aren't generous. When we choose instead to like try to

attack them or cut them down or assume the worst of them. You

know?

And just think about like you can, I'm sure you can go back to

so many times in your life when you thought you knew what was

going on. And then later you got a itiny bit more of information

and you're like, oh my god, like you had just assumed the worst

about somebody and their intentions and their actions and

why they were doing a particular thing. When once you got a

little bit more information, it was like literally like the - I

don't know what that's called maybe the exposure on a lens,

all of a sudden it goes FWAH, and it just opens up in so much

more becomes possible, you know what I'm saying?

So, I was just thinking, like, how many times has our ego mind,

rather than extend the benefit of the doubt - the ego mind

loves to run around like a little, like a little I try to

think of, I try not to use - I love animals so much - and I I

just love them so much. It's why I've been one of the reasons why

I've been vegan for like 20 years. And so many examples that

we give, we use animals like in a negative light. So I was

trying to think of like, what's a creature... like magpies I

think, like collect, but I think that's cool. So I've tried to

think of a way to say this.

But so the ego mind will just go around trying to collect little

bits of evidence as to why somebody else is guilty, why

somebody else is wrong, why somebody else is stupid or lazy,

or an idiot yet, you know what I mean?

The ego mind when it is in its fear place, which is what it is

the home of guilt, and separation and scarcity and

competition and all all that stuff. Right? That's the ego

realm right? It's a cuckoo, kooky monkeys, as I like to say,

running around trying to grab all its evidence to prove to

prove that the other person is bad. But it doesn't stop at the

other person. It will also run that racket on you if you are

not careful.

So can you please also extend to yourself the benefit of the

doubt? You know, today, I woke up this morning. And one of the

after I did my my DSP, you know, I do I do a couple of things for

my daily spiritual practice. But the first the first thing that I

did right after that, I had this thought in my head, like, oh,

did I take care of that thing? Did I pay that thing? And I'm

like, I know, it was on my calendar, I know that I left

myself a reminder. So when I came upstairs, here to my

office, I checked my calendar. And I was like, I saw it. I saw

it on my calendar from two weeks ago. And I was like, Oh, I must

have done it because I left myself a note.

And then I went in and I checked, I checked and I was

like shiiiit, something it somehow it got past me even

though I saw the note and I was like, the first thing I thought

and this is this is a habit, right? This is a ingrained,

immediate response from my ego. And if we're not vigilant, if

we're not vigilant for the quality of our thoughts, the

quality of our words, the way we speak to ourselves, our internal

voice, right, I'm pointing at my head and my heart, the way that

we speak to ourselves first and foremost, but also how we speak

to others. If we are not vigilant for the quality of our

thoughts, words and actions, we are going to suffer. So before I

knew it, right, I recognized that I had made a mistake and I

literally blurted out, you're such a "fucking...."

And I was like, nope. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I heard

it and I caught myself and I was like, Nope, we don't talk to

ourselves like that anymore. Because I never talked to myself

like that, until an adult in my childhood started talking to me

like that. And our little brains when we're little kids, man,

they absorb everything. You know, it's an interesting thing.

Being a hypnotist. One of the things I often say that I use

hypnosis to dehypnotize people, from all the old stories, from

all the old beliefs from the old identity, from all the bullshit

that they've got running around upstairs in their subconscious

because of the things that we heard and were called repeatedly

as children.

You know, anything that is thought anything that is

thought, felt, like emotional like that you feel it, anything

that you think about, feel, and focus on and repeat enough

times... It's as if it becomes real in your head.

So when I caught myself saying that about myself, I stopped and

I said, Nope, we don't talk to ourselves that way anymore. And

I said to myself, you are allowed to make mistakes, and

you are still lovable. You are allowed to make mistakes. Making

a mistake doesn't make me stupid. I'm allowed to make a

mistake, and I am still lovable. I am still worthy of love.

Right?

I'm not going to let that old racket keep running in my head.

So I had to give myself the benefit of the doubt. Like,

okay, you're allowed to make a mistake. It doesn't all of a

sudden become some gospel truth about you across the board that

you're like, You're like as that woman called me an idiot. You

know what I mean? It was really, really, really important, and it

says, I also wrote this, I want to make sure I said this, "It

really behooves us and our entire well being. Right, it

behooves us and our entire well being benefits from not assuming

the worst about people, including ourselves.

Now, here's the caveat part of this. Okay, this is important.

It doesn't mean though, extending the benefit of the

doubt to others. So this is what I wanted to say. There is a

benefit to us to doubt, right? There is a benefit to us to

doubt our egos first fear reaction, right? There's a

benefit to that going like, Hey, what's that about? Like, I'm

making a lot of assumptions here. I don't really know this

person, right?

And it's like, what happened with that lady in the car. She

didn't know me. She didn't trust me. She didn't have any history

about me. So she assumed the worst about me. Plus, she didn't

have the right perspective... . well, I shouldn't say the right

perspective. She didn't have my perspective. She couldn't

understand why I was doing what I was doing.

Okay. But I am not saying across the board become a doormat,

right? When somebody does something awful, just assume

that they had good intentions. No, no, no, no, no, no, that's

not what I'm saying at all. It doesn't mean that you throw away

your common sense. It doesn't mean that you throw away your

discernment or your good judgment. Or like I said, you

don't just become a doormat for people, right?

Especially when there is enough evidence to the contrary. That

maybe that person shouldn't be trusted. Maybe that person

shouldn't be in that role. After enough times of you seeing a

habituated thing or repeated pattern, it might be wise to

have a little doubt. You know what I'm saying?

I'm not saying be a dream killer. I'm not saying put the

kibosh on people's excitement about things. I'm not saying

walking around being a Negative Nelly, that's not what I'm

saying. But there are times in life when we've gotten enough

evidence where we go like, yeah, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't

trust that. Or maybe I shouldn't invest my money there. Or maybe

I shouldn't, you know, trust that this car, which hasn't, you

know, had a tune up in 15,000 20,000 miles.

But whatever it is, you know, we have to be smart, like be a

smarty pants, right? Like do your homework, pay attention,

right, assess the situation. So we can still give the benefit of

the doubt, and not get to, like get walked all over and have

people treating us like crap, right? That's not what I'm

saying.

But what I am saying is there is a benefit sometimes to not just

listening to that first fear reaction, and instead, right,

and again, using your breath, using a mantra, tapping, like

there's all these different tools that we can use, say a

prayer, meditate, slow down, slow yourself down, slow down,

there is a huge benefit, right? There is wisdom. As my teacher

Easwaran says there is the wisdom of slowing down, take

your time, so that you can assess from a place of love.

And maybe it's important in that case, to extend the benefit of

the doubt, versus always coming from a place of fear, and

reacting and spewing out things that you can't take back. You

know, if I had maybe been in a different state of mind, or I

had been a different person altogether, a total stranger

calling me that, especially and this is why I thought it was so

fascinating. And how I know I've come such a long way - is that I

got called those kinds of negative things. You know, when

I was a kid, that if I hadn't done the work that I've done,

you know, with myself for myself to heal a lot of my old stuff

that could have been really damaging for me. That could have

like, maybe not taken me out at the knees. But there are a lot

of people who maybe that would have like, really given them

that final piece of evidence and proof that they needed to

solidify their own self loathing or their own self hatred.

Because if somebody had called a person an idiot or stupid or

whatever, enough times as a kid and then a total stranger yells

that out a window to them, some part of the brain right that

younger part of you, can easily say even they this person who

doesn't even know me like thinks this.

So look, it would also just behoove us to be kind. That's

it. Just be kind be kind be kind. When you find yourself

getting worked up into a tizzy, about to have a little

conniption fit, you get your panties in a bunch, you're all

worked up. You better check yourself before you wreck

yourself. Because someday sometime you We're gonna say or

do something that you cannot take back and it is going to

have consequences.

And always just keep your mind open to the possibility that you

don't know what the fuck you're talking about. That you do not

have all the facts, you do not have all the evidence, you do

not have a broad enough perspective. And I'm gonna save

that for another episode to go into a little bit more deeply.

So you guys, thank you so much for spending a little bit of

time with me. It's always a pleasure to just kind of share

the things that I'm thinking about. And always the you know,

the whole, the whole heartbeat of the show is my desire to

spread a little more love to do a little storytelling to share

some spiritual principles. And to help us all just kind of move

through this human experience with less suffering, you know

what I mean, just to navigate it with a little more grace and

mercy and compassion and ease, and also with a sense of humor.

So I hope this was helpful to you in some way. And if you're

somebody who is not already on my mailing list, so I will I

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And then sometimes on Tuesdays, usually on Tuesdays, I also send

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happenings like sometimes I just send out a little love letter,

right? Just saying like, hey, like today, I sent one out

today, just talking to people about celebrating the small

wins, you know. And that's, like I said, that's a whole whole

other thing. So you can get on my email list and just kind of

join the family. It'd be really fun. So thank you so much for

tuning in.

And I know I had mentioned a few episodes ago, about maybe

sharing a new way to support the show. A few people have reached

out to me and asked me they're like, What was that about? And

I'm like, it's coming. I will talk about it a little bit more

in the upcoming weeks. So I haven't forgotten to share. But

just thank you for your curiosity and thank you for

reaching out and I just really superduper appreciate you being

here.

And as I always end every show, okay. Wherever you go, and this

is also I'm like laughing I'm thinking about that lady,

because she was the exact opposite of what I was saying

Right? Where that lady yelled at me out of her car window, but

here's the deal, "Wherever you go, may you leave the people,

the place, the animals, the environment and yourself better

than how you first found them. Wherever you go, may you and

your presence and your love, be a blessing. Bye.