Don't Be A Karen

Life is challenging, and nobody is guaranteed a comfortable ride.

Other people bring to our experience complications, messiness, love, and joy.

Lessons only come when we meet head-on challenges, trauma, grief, and other struggles.

To know yourself takes making time for stillness, sitting with body sensations, and fully recognizing that we are ALL holding love, grief, rage, fear, calm, judgment, and a myriad of other emotions.

Karen’s seek out their personal comfort, and anything that brings uncomfortable feelings is deemed unsafe. They ask that the world bends to their needs.

The reality is the world is safe and also quite unsafe.

“If a differing viewpoint sends you to a fearful rage, the problem is yours entirely. ”

People who physically threaten your body or scream at you from irrational places can be considered dangerous.

People who make you uncomfortable or hold different views from your own are not harmful; they are merely think different than you.

I know this because I understand how we physiologically work where our nervous systems are involved.

We are looking with all five senses for threats at all times.

When we sense one, we typically can override it without overwhelm and keep on with our day.

When overwhelmed, the nervous systems turn to fight, flight, or freeze, and we can get stuck in these places if the event's crush is not healed.

The nervous system of a Karen has been wound tight for an extended period and created a system where common sense is not available.

If you know a Karen, recognize that they are struggling with shifting out of whatever hole they have dug in their nervous systems.

The swift, sharp reactions are all that can be experienced with them.

The fear they feel about you being too close, using a word that upsets them or conversing on a topic they deem scary is real, but it is not their truth.

Given a chance to heal whatever caused the initial trauma that started the overwhelm, they would perceive others' actions in a very different way.

Call me if I just described you or someone you interact with regularly.

We can all learn to feel safe in this world and handle ourselves with more grace and compassion than we have available to us now.

Free Somatic Therapy consultations available.