YOUR INNER GPS

Hey you guys, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm wicked

happy to be here with you, because look, if you can hear

the sound of my voice, it means we survived 2025 we did it. We

did it. I got my new Goonie shirt on the Goonies, we never

say die, right? Goonies never say die. We made it into 2026

here we are. Congratulations. I'm so happy to be here with

you. And here's one of the things that always happens, at

least for me, maybe you can relate. So at the start of a new

year, we start to ask ourselves, right? All these questions you

might be asking yourself. First of all, you might be asking

like, what the just happened? You're not watching this. I'm

like, grabbing my face. Okay, No, but seriously, start of a

new year, you might be asking yourself some questions like,

Where am I even going? Right? Like, where am I going? What's

my destination? What do I want to do this year? What do I want

to create? What do I want to accomplish? Right? Where am I

going? What am I doing? Who am I doing it with, right? All of

these are really normal questions to be asking. And for

me, it's kind of like having a treasure map, right? It's kind

of like, like asking myself, like, Okay, what treasures do I

want to, kind of, you know, try to find this year or experience

or create or whatever. And as we know with, you know, if you

watch the Goonies movies, you know, if you didn't, oh my god,

please go watch it. It's one of my favorite movies of all time.

Hey, you guys, right? You always hear me saying that the start of

my emails and stuff. But you know, the Goonies, they needed

to save their home, they needed to save their little town, and

they ended up finding, like this treasure map, and it takes them

on this adventure, right? And even as adults like we need,

sometimes a Map to navigate to get us where we want to go. And

the premise of today's whole show is, I believe that we each

have an internal GPS. We have an inner GPS and an internal

compass, and that's what we're going to kind of dive into

today, which I think is like, Thank you Jesus. Thank you baby

Jesus, in a walnut shell, right? Like that that is actually

available to us. Now, some of us might call it by different

names, but we're going to get to that. So let's just break down

what a GPS actually is. What is your inner GPS? We're going to

get to that. But the actual external GPS as defined, right?

I looked it up. So the GPS stands for a global positioning

system, or a global position system, and this is what it

does. It guides us by providing precise location, navigation and

timing information through signals that are sent from a

network of satellites, and it helps everything from our

smartphones navigate roads to critical infrastructure like

banking and emergency services. So it's essential, obviously,

for daily life and countless industries. It works by

receivers on the earth, calculating the distance from

multiple satellites to pinpoint location, speed and directions,

and it guides uses from point A to point B. And I got to tell

you, when I saw that, I just started cracking up laughing,

because I don't know about you, but there have definitely, I

mean, I would say pretty much, like every second of every day,

but there certainly have been some times in my life where I

needed some help getting my ass from point A to point B. I don't

know about you, and I don't just mean like in the car, I

literally mean like, oh my god, I have there were a series of my

own choices, thinking I knew best or better, like I had a

plan. You know what A Course in Miracles always says is, like a

healed mind does not plan. Doesn't mean you don't have a

plan, or you don't make a plan. You just don't make that sucker

by yourself, which, for me, just points back to this whole inner

GPS. But let me just tell you a little story, a couple of

stories, to put this into context, right? So I do not

always have a great sense of outer direction. I mean

literally, like when we're driving or whatever, but I sure

as shit know that I have an inner GPS, but this has come

through, like learned experiences. It's not like I was

born, just kind of automatically knowing this, or maybe we did

know it, but we were taught by the world and our environments

and experiences not to trust ourselves or trust the inner

knowing that we have. But here's a couple of stories. So when I

was a little kid, there are two, two times specifically, that

really stand out for me, because I was scared out of my mind,

like scared shitless, as we say, where I'm from, right, where I

got lost as a kid. The first time was at the tops field fair.

If you've never been. Into the top shield fair around here,

right? Massachusetts, New Hampshire kids, right? It's this

massive fair, and it's everything. It's like sights and

sounds and smells, and it's just like an overwhelming olfactory

kind of experience, right? There's so many noises, and

there's like every kind of, like, greasy, you know what?

Candy Apples, popcorn, fried dough, dead animals on a stick,

like everything you could think of, right? Everybody's Hawking

their wares, and there's like, 4h things over there, and

animals over there, and rides and games and noises, and it's

just a lot, right? So imagine being a tiny person, like three

years old, or whatever it is, and your parents somehow lose

you in this massive crowd, right? So nobody's paying

attention. It's like probably 1971 7273 I don't know. I'm

tiny, right? I'm a little kid four. I don't know, maybe I'm

four years old. I don't remember exactly, but I was little, and I

just remember, all of a sudden, I can viscerally, you guys, I

can literally, I have the memory of, like, you know, when you're

a little, you know, everything is either, like, you're looking

at people's thighs or knees or crotches or whatever, like,

everything is big to you. So remember, imagine being like,

close to the ground, because you're a little person, and

you're just looking up, and all you see are these bodies moving

past you. And I was, I was a kid that was wicked attached to my

mother. You know? I was a kid who would always be like,

grabbing the pant leg so to be lost in a crowd like that. I

just remember being so scared and crying my little eyes out,

and I was like, Oh no. And somebody came and helped me, and

they walked me over to like the lost and found and thank you

Jesus. Then like over the speaker system, or however they

communicated, my parents finally found me, but I remember like,

just not knowing where to go or what to do. And of course,

because I was a little kid, right, the second time I got

lost, we were at a babysitter's house in Andover. I don't know,

I was like, had we been there before? I don't know, but the

whole day, there's a series of events about like getting stung

by a bee, and my sister trying to get the bee away from us,

like shooting me in the face with the hose, probably longer

than necessary, because she was just being mean to me.

But at some point we were left unsupervised. We walked to the

park, you know, back then they would just be like, beat it.

Like, go away. Like, even though we had a babysitter, they were

like, yeah, go to the park down the street. And my sister and I

were coming back from the park, and again, I'm a little kid,

right? And we're coming back from the park, and it's like,

let's do a race and see who can get home fastest, right? But of

course, my sister's like, I'm going to take the streets. And

I'm like, I'm going to cut through the woods. I don't know

why I thought this was a good idea, but I start to go through

the woods, and instead of staying really close to, like

the tree line, the outline, I must have wandered into a little

bit further right into the woods, and all I remember is

just again, looking up at the trees, and it was a sunny day

out, at least, and I could hear like, all the critters, like in

the leaves and in the woods and the birds and the things, and I

was just like lost, like I didn't know what direction to go

in. You know, when you're little, like, you can't see over

bushes and trees and stuff like that. And I just remember

standing in the woods crying, calling for my mother. I was so

scared and so sad, and then all of a sudden, divine

intervention. I You guys, I swear to God, I was like, I

don't know how it happened, but I somehow wandered back towards

the tree line where I could start to see houses. And I was

like, please. Like I was, you know, I was like, little

Catholic kid, so I'm sure I was praying, asking God to help me.

And I wandered out of the woods into somebody's backyard. My

sister, I was like, had been crying, of course. My sister

thought it was wicked, funny that I was lost. She probably

preferred that I wasn't found. But my ass got out of the woods.

But I just remember like this, I this sense of like, not having

any idea of where I was in space, not having a good sense

of direction. And even to this day, now, again, I don't know

about you, but me, like, I prefer landmarks, like I do not

when people are like, Oh, go to the go to the second stop sign

and head west. I'm like, What are you talking about? Or

they're like, go north. I'm like, you go north. I don't know

what that is. Tell me there's a big white house on the corner

with red shutters. You're gonna see the fence. Go left there.

Banger right here. Like I need landmarks. I need locations. I

need things that are grounded in space and really, like obvious

right when I'm navigating the outer world. But my inner world

is something that I really trust, like, where I'm a little

more hesitant about getting lost, quote, unquote out there,

like in here, and I'm touching my heart in here. I'm touching.

Watching my like my head, you know, like I have a I have a

good sense of my inner GPS. And I think we all have an inner

GPS. I think we all have an inner compass. Now, again, we

might call it by different names, like I call it sometimes

the inner teacher, right? Of course, in miracles says we all

have an inner teacher, an internal teacher. Call it your

inner voice. Call it Holy Spirit. Call it your intuition.

Call it your gut instinct. I don't care what we call it right

in this episode, I'm just calling it your inner GPS. But I

remember the first time I was thinking about so I've been

teaching yoga since like 1999 but I hadn't become officially

certified or anything yet. So I got certified in 2001 at the

Kripalu. If you guys know what Kripalu is, out in the

Berkshires in Massachusetts, I became a, you know, certified

Kripalu Yoga teacher. And at that time, I was, like, driving

around, like, teaching at 1000 different places, alright,

that's an exaggeration, but a bunch of different places. And

so like every day, I'd be driving somewhere else to some

gym or some studio or some church where I rented space or

whatever. And I finally decided that it would be nice to, like,

have my own place. I didn't know where I was going to open one. I

didn't know what I was going to do. At this point, I was living

in Northwood, right? So off of Route four. So I was driving

from Concord, from one of the places I had been teaching,

right? And I've been driving through, driving from Concord

towards back to Northwood. And all of a sudden, as I hit the

the Epsom traffic circle, now I hear, I literally hear a voice,

right? And I say it's not. There are times when I say like I

heard a voice inside of me. And what I mean by that sometimes is

it's more like a word impression, like the words are

just there. I have the words. I know what to say. I know what to

do. This happens to me a lot when I'm when I'm on stage or

speaking or telling a story, or whatever, the words like, are

there. I have access to them, but sometimes it's like I

literally hear a voice in my head. And all I can tell you is,

as I was driving down, normally, I would go around the traffic

circle, take what is called, like the second exit, meaning

just I would continue straight on on Route four. But when I'm

pulling up to this, this thing. Now, you gotta remember, it's

like 830 at night, right? It's like 839 o'clock at night. It's

like late. And all of a sudden, as I'm getting up to the traffic

circle, I hear go right, like, turn right. And I was like,

wait, what? Like? But I know I'm old enough now at this point to,

like, trust that something smarter than me, something more

divinely intelligent is at work. So I just bang a right, and I

start to drive down Route 28 now, I had driven down Route 28

like going towards hooks, it and stuff 1000 times, because I also

was teaching at that time at Express fitness, which was like

a little sister club to the executive in Manchester. And as

I drive down, you know, there was always this little plaza on

there on the right hand side, if I was going right, and it used

to have like the post office in it, and there was a hair salon.

They were like different things. So I pull in, and as I pull in,

I can see on the left side of the building, it's dark, but on

the right side of the building in the front, all the lights are

on. And I'm like, Okay. And so, like, I'm like, Okay. I'm it's

like, it just again, it's like, pull in. So I pull in and I see

a little sign. Well, I saw the sign from the road. It said for

rent up on the on the larger sign. So like, I pull in, like,

space for rent, and I see the lights on in the lawyer's

office, so I knock on the door, and the lawyer who owns the

building, it's not like it could have been any random business,

but now it's the guy that owns the building who, like, answers

the door. I'm like, Okay, first of all, he's he's all the things

that had to line up for this to happen. He's working late. His

lights are on, not just his office light the lights in the

front office, like where his assistant would or associate

would sit. I see the light. I see the sign. I go in. He

answers the door. We end up talking. Now at this point, I

have, like, no money. I have, like no money, money to start a

business. What I have is a dream and a prayer and a hard work

ethic, you know what I mean. And so he and I end up talking, and

he makes a deal with me, because he says to me, I like you. Kid,

that's what he said to me, I like you, kid, I'm going to give

you a shot. He's like, he is the deal. So he's like, I'm going to

give you a shot. We're going to start your rent at this we're

going to do it for this many months until you get some

traction, and still you're until your business starts to grow,

right? And then once you do, you'll pay me X, Y and Z. It was

like a miracle, you guys. It was like having my prayer answered

that somebody, first of all, all the events that led up to this,

that he was there, that it was only, like 15 minutes or

whatever, from my house, that it. Like right off a route four,

but not so busy that people couldn't pull in and out of

that, the whole thing. And I was in that space for many years,

and it was the beginning of quest yoga studio. And I loved

it, loved it, loved it. And the thing is, this our inner GPS.

There really is, I believe, something smarter than us that

knows exactly where we are, knows where we want to go, where

we need to go, and it knows how to help us get there. And it

made me something, made me think about something that A Course in

Miracles, and Marion Williamson always says, and I wrote it

down. So I wrote down the quote so I didn't screw it up, because

I don't like to misquote other people. So Marianne always says,

and this is based on, obviously, a principle in the Course of

Miracles. She says, the universe is self organizing and self

correcting. It is always moving in the direction of good.

How much do I love that? I'm going to say it again. The

universe is self organizing and it's self correcting. And we're

going to get to the self correcting in the second part of

this. It's always moving in the direction of good. She goes on

to say, we live in a self organizing and self correcting

universe. For every problem, there is a potentially

miraculous solution. A closed hat deflects the miracle, while

an open hat brings it forth. This is so important, this part,

she says, in every moment, we make a choice between the

heavenly awareness of our connection to all living things

or the hell of the delusion that we are separate and alone. And

she says, the mind will manufacture according to our

choice, and whichever we choose, we will seem to experience this.

And I was like, Oh, my God, this line about the mind is going to

manufacture according to our choice. So just like when you

get in your car, let's say you're driving some place and

you've never been there before. Okay, she's talking about how

the universe is self correcting. And I want to give you an

example about GPS, like when you get in your car, and like how

this applies, because sometimes I need to hear a little story to

make sense of what of something I always say, like, the whole,

this whole podcast is about storytelling, telling and

spiritual principles and spirituality, right? And so I

always use stories to kind of teach, like the dip the deeper

thing, or to share the deeper thing. And remember, as I always

say, everything I'm sharing is for my ears first. It's to

remind myself the miracles and the love and what's available to

me, right? Okay, so here's the thing, whether you use Waze or

whether you use MapQuest, I remember when we used to use

MapQuest, back in the day, we would literally print out paper

maps. It was so great. We would print out our paper directions,

and once in a while, I'll still do it just, just for old time

sake. But so whether you're putting into your phone, you're

using Waze or Google, Google Maps or Mapquest or whatever,

when you type in that address of like, where you're trying to get

to that program, that little GPS system is going to lay out a

path right, and it's going to tell us exactly whatever voice

it's saying, like, at the end of this road, make a left or

whatever right. Now, sometimes the map can seem a little kooky,

right? If you ever done it and it's telling you, make a U turn,

make a U turn. Make a U turn. Like, there's a glitch. I'll

sometimes just go out of the app and, like, reset my destination.

That can be really helpful, right? There are going to be

times when the system that we're working within isn't working, so

we have to make a change, right to help ourselves. But there are

times when we have been given very clear instructions by our

inner GPS, by our inner teacher, by the divine intelligence, by

your intuition or your gut instinct or Holy Spirit or

whatever, we have gotten clear directions. It knows where we're

trying to go. It knows where we need to go. It's going to help

us get there. But then sometimes we get in our own way, and we

make a wrong turn. And the thing is, is that we're going to screw

up because we're human. We're going to make mistakes human,

and we're going to make wrong turns. But this is what's so

interesting about the inner GPS and the external GPS. Your ways

doesn't start talking to you like an asshole, like, the ways

doesn't start being mean to you or telling you that you're

stupid or start calling you names or judging you, and it

doesn't yell at you, and it doesn't tell you, like, doesn't

say things to you. Like, why can't you just, like, follow

directions? Why are you making this habit on yourself? Why are

you making the trip last longer? Right? It doesn't do any of that

stuff. We might do that stuff to us, but the thing that is

consistent and knows where we're trying to go and is trying to

help. Us get there. And whether you call that spiritual team,

your divine helpers, Holy Spirit, God source, the

universe, the divine I don't care what you call it. I do

think that there is something benevolent that is trying to

help us if we can just get out of our own ways. And when we

make mistakes, when we screw up, it's not more helpful to stop

beating ourselves up. And this is where self compassion, self

forgiveness, kindness, mercy, grace, tenderness, right? All

these things come into play when we get lost and screw up with

the ways or the Map Quest or whatever. Again, it doesn't

become verbally abusive to us. It doesn't say, oh, yeah, of

course, you screwed it up. Here we go again, right? It's not

doing that. All it does is it simply reroutes us right. If you

go left and you meant to go right, it will tell you take a U

turn. It's always going to support us so on the path that

we think we're on, there are going to be times when we When

we bang a UE, when we shouldn't, we're going to screw up. We're

going to go to the wrong place, but the route will just the map

will just re route us. So even though we might make mistakes,

even though the route may change, the path might switch

up, we might think, Oh yeah, I'm going to be married to this

person my whole life, and then you end up getting divorced, you

might think, Oh, I'm going to have this career, this job for a

really long time, or I'm going to be a dancer or a singer, I'm

going to be a machinist, or I'm going to work at whatever you

think, and then all of a sudden, it's like plot twist, right? So

sometimes the root might change. But here's the thing about the

GPS, it doesn't matter how many mistakes you make. It doesn't

matter how many times you screw up or how many wrong turns you

take. The thing is, is when you start to realize, like, Oh, I've

gone in the wrong direction. Don't keep driving in the wrong

direction. Sometimes you just gotta pack it. You gotta hit

pause. You got to forgive yourself. Take a breather,

right? Accept like, oh, I made a mistake. I got to forgive myself

for this, right? And then, and then, and this is the important

part. We got to listen for those directions. Man, whether it's

turning up the volume on your phone so you can actually hear

that little voice telling you where to go, or you got to

listen deeply to the inner voice. And whether you through

that, do that through having a daily spiritual practice, a DSP,

you take time for mindfulness or contemplation, but you slow down

the chatter, you turn down the external volume, right? Maybe

you get off your phone, or you get off the social media apps

for an hour a day, or a couple of hours, or whatever, take a

little break from all the noise so that you can hear the true

voice that is trying to direct you where you're trying to go.

You know what I'm saying? So we got to listen for directions,

and then we have to, like, take action. You got to stop moving

again in the right direction. You got to trust and you got to

take action. And all of this helps, right? If, first off,

you're spending some time with yourself, figuring out where it

is, exactly where you want to go. And here we are with a new

year. We have a whole clean slate to start to create the

life, the experiences, the relationships, right, the

business, whatever it is, the book you want to write, the

things you want to do, the places you want to go, the

people you want to do it with, right? This is the beginning of

a fresh new year. We might be thinking about these things, but

you got to know where you want to go, and then you got to pay

attention while you're getting there, while you're going there,

you got to know where you're going. You're going to know what

you're doing, because if you're not careful, you could hurt

yourself or others if you're moving too fast, you're going to

miss the exits, and if you're not paying attention, if you're

trying to multitask, right? I did a whole podcast on this such

a long time ago called single tasking. We got to be single

tasking when you're in the car, drive, pay attention, and then

we got to learn to listen. We got to learn to listen for that

inner voice, for that deep, that deep trust that can build over

time. Right? And you start small, start asking right for

support in the morning. I always say, like, start your day. Start

your day, whether you use the word God or source or universe

or higher self or higher power, or whatever it is, spend a

little time getting quiet. Right. Start with five minutes.

Just take five minutes and just breathe and get quiet and try to

drop in and if at first you can't do it sitting. Some people

say, I can't sit. A lot of times, people will say to me,

Oh, I can't sit and meditate. I can't be still. You know what I

often jokingly say back to them, that must be really hard, then

when you got to go to the bathroom, here's reality. We can

all sit still for at least a couple of minutes because you do

it every day. When you go to the bathroom.

But here's the thing, I'm not kidding, even if that's the time

when you can sit still and take a few deep breaths and like,

become more aware, that's really great, right? Because we want to

deepen our connection to our inner GPS, that inner compass,

that inner voice, that inner teacher. And I've always said

for years and years and years to me, what GPS stands for is God's

pretty smart. God's pretty smart. And the divine and the

higher beings in the universe, there's a sense of our purpose.

It knows where we're trying to go. What we're trying to where

we're trying to go is we're trying to come home to

ourselves. We're trying to come home, return to love, come back

to the truth of ourselves, that we are loved, that we are good,

that we are beautiful, that we are holy, that we are worthy,

that we matter, that we are seen right, that we make a difference

just by being here, all of these things, these truths. So if you

find yourself here, here's a daily prayer. I've mentioned

this before. Anybody who knows me has heard me say this prayer

like a gazillion times. It comes from A Course in Miracles,

right? And, of course, in miracles, it's in a slightly

tiny bit different order, but this is the one that's kind of

like sunk into the culture these days or forever, and it's this.

So each day, this is what I say. I say this at the end of all my

yoga classes, etc. So whatever the God of your own

understanding is, whatever it is that you ask for insight or

guidance from. I always say, I don't care what you call it. I

don't care about the name, but know what it is for you, right?

Well, try, you know, if you're building that relationship with

God, source, the divine, the universe, again, love whatever

you call it, and this is what we ask, please have me go where you

would have me go. Have me do what you would have me do, have

me say what you would have me say, and to whom. Please, use

me. Please use me. Please use me. And then I always say and so

it is Amen. So this is when we are making ourselves open for

business. We are making ourselves open and receptive to

guidance, to our own inner GPS. To align the assignment is

alignment. I always say, so we have to align ourselves with

those signals right the intersection between the heavens

and the earth. Where are we going? What's our longitude and

latitude? Man for 2026 I'm lining my things up. I got some

things going on that I'm excited about, and I hope you do too. I

hope you have some things that you're leaning into and moving

towards and creating. And I'm so excited to be able to kind of be

walking this path and on this journey, like with you, at least

auditorily right, at least like we're like, we're sharing a

little time together here on this podcast. So thank you so

much. If it's 2026, and you're still here, I appreciate you

loyal listeners. If you're new, welcome to the Karen Kenney

show, family. I'm so happy to have you as part of a community.

And here's the thing you guys, if you want to know where I'm

going, what I'm up to, what kind of shenanigans I'm going to be

or a foot, then just go to my website, right and join my list.

Get on my email list. Find out what, what's happening. You'll

get this, this, this sucker, this podcast, delivered right to

your inbox every week. And then also maybe a, you know, a couple

little things here and there to let you know what I'm up to. And

you just go to Karen kenney.com/sign up, right? Karen

kenney.com just spell my last name right, and it's easy. And

just go to the website. You can just see, like, the different

things that I'm up to there. But if you want to get on the

newsletter list, which I would love to have, you join Karen

kenney.com/sign up. Just thank you so much for listening. Thank

you for being a pat. You know, one of the things, one of the

reasons why I do this show, is to spread more love in the

world. And I have always, like ended, I shouldn't say always, I

think for a wicked long time, I've ended my show with saying,

you know, wherever you go, may you leave the animals and

yourself and the other people and the planet, the living

planet, you know better than how you found it. And that's that's

the gist of this. Is that we want to move into this new year,

leaving the people and the places and the animals and the

things that we create and do and whatever we discover, we want to

leave it better than how we first found it. Wherever we go,

may we and our presence and our love and our energy be a

blessing. Bye, you.