Use Your Voice

In this conversation, Karen Bergh discusses her experience of feeling blocked and stopped in her job due to political changes that conflicted with her personal values. She talks about the pressure to conform and the importance of finding a community where one can express themselves freely. She emphasizes the need to stand up for oneself and not be silenced, and discusses the erosion of individualism and freedom in America. She suggests that people should choose elected officials who prioritize the well-being of the people and adhere to democratic values. and Karen Bergh, my coach, will tell you how to dream it, see it, do it, say it, and be it. Welcome aboard, Professor Bergh. How are you today? Welcome in to Cross Country Connect. Thanks for the buildup, Ms. Linda. You always do that. You always make me sound so great walking in the door. And I have to say that, no, well, today I'm not completely prepared because I did want us to get on the line and talk because, as you know, in the past, I just kind of arranged these sessions when we both have time to get together and when something's on my mind, but maybe I'm not really sure how I wanna unpack it or share it with other people, but I was using the loose topic of using your voice or use your voice for today. Over the past two months in our Cross Country Connection podcast, we've been honing in on this topic of expressing yourself. And we, yes, we use the blog and the podcast, or I've been using it as a way to explore my own curiosity and my own life experiences and to share what I've learned along the way. You just played a song called If You Dream at the beginning of the show, and the lyrics are uplifting. They're about being unstoppable. And you always do that. You put something on there that really kind of sparks the direction we're going. And I wanna use that song and also combine it with my idea of using your voice to be unstoppable, because, again, I wanna bring into view some of my own experiences. So here's where I am. Two episodes ago, when we had the topic called You Matter, I was expressing my distress to you and to our listeners over the chaos that was being created by the power change in the state government and in the place where I live, in this new state. The changes, the political changes, were impacting my work because I worked at a state agency, was employed as a state employee, and it was impacting the morale of my colleagues and our culture at work. And more than that, these changes were creating a conflict with my personal values. I started feeling stopped. So this idea of being unstoppable. I started feeling blocked, stopped. Like the place that I had been and had enjoyed making a contribution, using my talents, and working towards a mission was suddenly arrested. Like the culture was required to change because the new administration brought orders and potentially harmful changes in law and policy. All of that on the ground, in terms of where I sat, felt like non-democratic behavior. And even if you look at things from a political perspective, even if you look at things like censorship and harmful laws as non-democratic behavior, and that's not really my topic. My topic is what was hardest for me to accept were the explicit expectations to conform to these orders without protest and without questioning them. Okay, so I hope you're following me on this little story because the reason I felt blocked, the reason I felt stopped in terms of my own personal value and expression as an employee was because I felt that we, me and my colleagues, were being asked to conform to all of these new orders without protesting or questioning them. And so for me personally, that felt oppressive. So, and I use that word. I wanna explore that word here in a little bit. I wanna talk about it and unpack it a little bit more because I chose that word for a reason. Voluntarily left that environment. I resigned to take a job elsewhere. So while I felt blocked or stopped in terms of my personal expression and the conflict of my personal values, I decided rather than stay and conform or rather than stay and fight it or rather than stay and endure it, I decided to go elsewhere. But before I left, as you know, Ms. Linda, because I talked to you offline later, I not only protested, but I also questioned. So we were told not to, I did both. I protested and questioned before I left. So me personally, I cannot remain silent to take a chance that my ideas, if I put them out in the world and I challenged this new administration and took it head on, that I could bring danger to myself or that I could potentially have gotten fired or I could have potentially gotten blackballed or all the things that happen when you don't adhere to the pressure to conform in a new environment or under a new order or administration. So I took a big risk personally, but I also know myself and was reminded by this life experience that it's just part of me to seek environments that align with my personal values. And obviously as you change and grow as a human being, values and your worldview ebbs and flows, it changes, it morphs, it evolves. We as individuals are always becoming, we are always growing. I don't believe, I personally don't believe that you ever stay exactly the same or that your beliefs are fixed through life. That's my philosophy anyway and that's probably why I gravitate towards things like life coaching and talking to people about getting unstuck because I believe change is important and I believe growth is important. I believe experiencing the world and putting yourself in it, for the benefit of personal growth and experience as a human being, I believe that all those things are meant to be done. Enthusiasm, that you're embracing life when you're growing and changing and that you're challenging assumptions, you're not resting on a way of being or a way of thinking because you're constantly, as human beings, we're constantly evolving. That's what our brains are for. That's why we're in these bodies. If you were meant to stay the same, the minute you're born, you would never grow. You would be fixed. You would be unmovable. You would be static and I personally think that is not the way of organisms. It's not. Right, right, okay. It's not and I don't wanna stop you but I have to put this out here because this was the quote and I was gonna bring it in later and the quote is about future and it says in order to succeed in the future, we must give present. We must win in every moment. That is a quote that I live by. My mentor, Dr. Hapuwee Kato, you know he's one of my mentors, along with many, many that I have but you're talking about to express yourself. When you're blocked and stopped, you have to take risks and change happens moment to moment so I had to put that in there so thank you so much for letting me put that in. Now I'm gonna be quiet. That's good, that's good, that's good and let's build that into the blog post and as we're talking in the podcast, I usually capture our notes and put them on the blog later for everything that we came up with during this hour. I'll have to ask you to spell that name for me later. We can do that offline. I captured the quote. I love it. Okay, so that's a very important marker. Okay, so here we are. We're sort of wandering through this discussion. We're saying, well Karen, wait, you were upset that things weren't going well at your job in terms of the way it made you feel and whether you still belong there or whether that was an environment where you felt you could do your best or that you could, as you just said with your quote, give it your all in a moment and so for me, before I protested and questioned and the laws, I was calculating, I had started looking for work elsewhere. I was calculating whether I truly wanted to stay and be a force for good and be a force for reasonableness in what was feeling like a, oh, I don't wanna dramatize it, but I did dramatize it. It felt like a hostile takeover. So, but without getting to the politics of it, basically what it reminded me of was that it's important to choose a community where you feel you can truly be yourself and from my life coaching perspective, it's important for our psyches and our wellbeing to strive to be a positive force for good in a place where your own ideas and talents are more likely to be accepted. So, if I truly had gotten to a place, even though it was great for a while, it was great. I was there for two and a half years. I had a fabulous year the year before. I was in a community where I felt I could be myself. I was making a difference with my own ideas and talents and then all of that changed because of this new order and the new way of doing things. And I'm not kidding about the censorship. We were literally given direction and told how to change words on our website and because it didn't agree with the new administration's worldview. And so, I found those things personally offensive and I felt like our first amendment rights were being abridged. And I also felt like it was a kind of authoritarianism that is unwelcome and is becoming more prevalent. So, here are my questions for today. Here's a couple of thoughts I had and I had trouble kind of organizing this. I hope it starts to make sense. But for me, it became about expressing your individualism within a community. So, here are my questions. Have you ever found yourself wondering where your quote tribe is? Wondering where your tribe is? Have you struggled with how to safely move out of an echo chamber when you cannot echo back what they want to hear? Have you struggled? So, we're gonna start to unpack these a little bit. Have you yearned to move into an environment that may allow more freedom of expression? And here's another kind of related question. Have you been bullied into having to listen to someone else's way of thinking while they had no interest in hearing your own views? Okay, so this is kind of the world that we're living in now. Looking for your tribe, struggling with echo chambers, looking for places that allow more freedom of expression, and not feeling like you have to be bullied with somebody else force-feeding you their ideas, but rather opting in to the places that welcome your own ideas. Or finding yourself being put in the position of being silenced as it felt like we were being done, like it was being done to us at that place. So, here's the first section. Okay, I'm gonna call this section Stand for You. So, we're talking about using your voice. So, the first section is Stand for You. So, my point leading into this was that the problem with the echo chamber is the pressure to conform. Mm-hmm. For many upright Americans, the desire to think for yourself and to be able to operate at optimal levels without oppressive political tactics is not only an affront to the democratic way, it's an attack on the soul of the individual, it is an inhibition to individual expression, and ultimately, it's a betrayal of the public trust. So, America's, this is my point, this is my sort of assertion, is that America's public dilemma has become our personal problem. Mm-hmm. Okay, so if you're one of those, yeah, if you're one of those people that desires to continue thinking for yourself and operating without being asked to not be yourself, not express yourself individually, if you feel it's an attack on your very soul and is an inhibition to your individual expression, and that, then that is a personal problem. And so, my question, yeah, so my question to our listeners, if we have any, is, okay, what do you do with that? What do you do with that when you find that your personal individualism is being stifled and you're wondering where your tribe is? That's the first question. Where's my tribe, where are my people? So what do you do when you have a personal problem and you're looking, okay? Well, you know, you don't wanna ask me that because, you know, if I don't see that tribe, then I double up and I become the tribe. I can answer that. And it is horrible to be in that echo chamber where you can't answer you or you're not listening to, and I'm with you, and I won't say that that is a problem for me, it's a problem for them because they're gonna hear about it and I'm gonna let you know about it and I'm gonna express it. So when you don't see your tribe and it's hard to find your tribe, you have to dig and make your tribe moves from within. You are your tribe. So you're gonna have to make some adjustments. You have to authoritarian ways and persons that don't wanna hear because it's my way or the highway, and then I choose to crank up the car and get on the highway because I know how to draw a map for myself. But it is very, very hard to be in that type of situation and I'm in total agreement to choose a community for you. I've been in several situations where, you know, you form with organizations and groups, you get in and you find out that the mission statement is wonderful but they're not following it. And then the way that they try to, I guess you would say, oppress in their, like, I would say, nicer ways, you know, thinking that everybody's stupid and you can't pick up on it, that angers you also. So you do. Do you speak on it? Do you tell them about it and stay there? Because there's a reason why you're there. People say, oh, well, you need to help them get to that point, uh-huh, or it might be for me to help myself move on. So you have to weigh that out, and especially if you're an individual that's about the good, okay? The good starts with you. So when we say stand for you, get away from the echo chambers, I'm a firm believer of that. And I know that you know how to make the impossible possible and you will take that next step, which I'll congratulate you on later, but I didn't want to interfere with this first question here. So that's my answer. I don't know about the other listeners. They can call us and let us know what they thought about it. Yeah, but no, you find you are your tribe, okay? You are your tribe. Well, I like that because when we have these talks, Linda, we go back and forth between operating as an individual and then operating as an individual in a community. And, you know, it's all about relationships. We can't get away from them, and in fact, we need them, and that's what makes us human. But because of these divisions in America and because the way people are drawing political and personal, you know, these lines for political and religious and, excuse me, other kinds of lines, they're forcing people to either conform or to remain silent or, and so there are these different ways you can react to pressure from, you know, a group, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And I'm wandering again on my thoughts, but I feel it's like this, and again, so I mentioned earlier that I thought about the word, using the word oppressive or repression, and that I wanted to be careful with that word and kind of unpack it a little bit because the definition of oppression has to do with unjust control of one group or people over another, right? And if you keep unpacking that word oppression, it can mean unfair, it can mean dishonest, and I think also related to that, not, it can be something that is not done to accepted moral standards. Okay, and so in America, we seem to be in disagreement about what our moral standards are, and so we, and some of the politics are making moral standards about religion and not about universal moral standards. So, Linda, you said, you know, you may be someplace and you see that the mission statement is wonderful, but they're not following it. So the same thing can be said for individual behavior. We elect our public, you know, figures, our elected officials, we put them into office. I guess I'm really complaining against the government, so my theme is government. We put them into office to represent what we think are accepted moral standards, and they may have personal beliefs that drive their behavior, but what has happened is that, and I see this probably now more than ever because I live in the South, and it's very much in sight, is that they're using their personal beliefs to sort of bludgeon other people, and use that power, because they've been elected into those positions, as a way to punish and demoralize and dismiss other people. So this is kind of a convoluted way to say this, but if we're talking about the great democratic experience of America, I think the founders, the original people who wrote the Constitution, even though they had their problems from being in the day and being products of their environment and that point in history, but the idea, if you take democracy as an idea, it, the idea was a good idea, even if the men who wrote it were flawed. So the idea was that we have this mission statement in America, and the tenets of the words, the values that we all hold precious in this democratic experience that we call America, are individualism and freedom, vital pillars. That we want to create and uphold as a community. And what has happened is, individualism is being torn down under the pressure of group conformity. And the First Amendment was meant to protect our right to dissent, the way I see it. You should be able to disagree with a public figure, elected officials, without being sanctioned. And I'm not saying that people should stand up in their public, their city council meetings or their, I'm not saying they should sit there and complete, and when it's time to do the public comment, that they should completely try to derail government, but I am saying that I want the elected officials to do a better job of listening to other voices and including other people in their decision making, because what has happened is it feels like America is on this fast train to somebody's idea of personal mission that doesn't represent all of us. And it doesn't represent all of us. Well, as I say, when you talk about democracy, I work with many clubs. I don't like the political title, but I like it because I take all political stuff as people. So if you're not for the people, okay, it doesn't matter what side you're on. You don't point things, but you must be for the people. And I'm a member of the East Area Progressive Democrats, okay, and they speak the way you speak. And for a long time, I ran because I said, I don't like politicians, I don't like this and that. I said, no, we don't do it that way. When the politicians get in office and they don't do what they say they're gonna do, we go after them. I said, okay, well, you sound like my kind of people. So they believe in decency and diversity, okay, which is the plan for democracy, not distraction and destruction. And when you speak, it's about destruction and distraction. We already understand about the distraction that's going on here. You know, you're confused. That's why you and your tribe, your unit, as we always say, have to stand up, see it, and speak it. But when you stand up, see it, and speak it, you're going against the grain. You're bullied or whatever. You know, you may feel like the things that we all go through, but it's up to us to make that decision. So the First Amendment and whatever was written out there, it's like, it seems like nobody's paying attention to me. I don't know what happened. Maybe it needs to be rewritten again. But you're absolutely correct. You see it. I tell people, you're getting ready to vote. It's election time. Another change. Do your research. Make sure that you put someone there who can understand you, okay, that speaks the same language. This is going to go pick a name or decide because that's the name that's floating out there in air that that's the one you're going to put that checkmark by. Do your research. I have persons on both sides. I say I don't care about the parties as long as you care about the people. So you're absolutely correct with what you're speaking of the oppression and understanding because no, if you don't conform, then what's wrong with you? And I'm like you. It's like, wait a minute. I don't think so. Yeah. I don't think so. Yeah, and the pendulum has one too far because this is what's happened. I think that we've got, there's an overreaction happening in America. People don't recognize oppression until it happens to them. Yes, you're right. You're absolutely correct. And so I think the overreaction that we're seeing in America is a, it's a swing to try to reverse the trend of populism and including all the people. See, we were on a trend to include all the people because we've been correcting that since 1776. Yes, yes. Yeah, and different people groups were given the right to vote over 200 years. Not everybody, but it took a long time to get there. And then we start, and then we put into these policies where individual rights are expressed through civil rights and that's a protection in America. And we fought hard for the protection of individualism and the expression of who you are within the legal system in America. But we have continued to challenge our belief based on outdated, anachronistic ways of doing things. And so when the people kept saying, let's keep evolving, let's keep changing, let's, we're on a good track because we're, the democratic experiment was meant to be about all the people, not just some of the people. And that oppression, the opposite of freedom is making people conform to a certain way or you don't belong or you don't feel that you belong or you have to be punished. I mean, we are, if we start censoring our language in America, we get very close to basically saying, you need to shut up. Yes. You must be silent. Yes. And what's the next? What, and in the worst form of human behavior, what that has meant in history, throughout history is you get punished for it. You get killed for it. So in other words, if a king comes in and says anybody who disagrees with me must be hung or must be shot, then that's not freedom. That's people living in fear. And I'm a little bit on my soapbox today because I haven't, I don't know if I'm gonna post this on my blog site, but I am concerned that based on my own experience, where I saw a new governor come in and then all of a sudden the whole state agency was told to change the way it does business and people need to stop thinking a certain way because we're gonna change the words we're gonna use and we're gonna ignore the words that have gone before and we're gonna kind of erase that history because we're gonna come in and do it my way. And so when I protested that and started asking questions about it, I also, I knew I didn't belong there anymore, but what if my punishment had been, well, you disagreed, therefore you will be hung. I mean, this is the direction, this is the direction I'm afraid America is going, and Linda, I'm over-dramatizing today. I am dramatizing, I'm going to the far extreme to make a point that we, the people, must stop this trend. We must find our voices and we must be able to, my theme is, use your voice. You must be able to use your voice, make a choice to use your voice, because if you do not, we will continue to find ourselves going down this path where silence is, that means if you don't disagree or if you don't stand up and use your right, individual rights and freedoms in America, people groups are gonna continue to be harmed by the people in power. And we've got that trend that we were on, really, for 50 years, to recognize, to look at ourselves, and I'm not talking about going to the other extreme, I'm not going to, I myself have problems with the cancel culture, I do, and I have problems with extreme and dangerous leftist views that are just kind of crazy. So, obviously, my politics and belief system are somewhere, somewhere closer to the center. I wouldn't call myself at all a conservative, but I wouldn't call myself a, you know, what do they call us, the liberal left, I don't consider myself the liberal left, either. I consider myself someone who is humanist, first and foremost. And that if you do right by people, and if you look at what is supposed to be accepted, what I mentioned earlier, is like accepted moral standards, so if we hold ourselves to what I think are those universal moral, those acceptable moral standards, we can continue to live in a democracy that restricts individuals and allows for freedom without giving in to the crazy people. And the crazy people are, the crazy people are doing things that are dangerous. We all know it, it makes no sense at all to put in, you know, and I'm not talking about the second Amendment and gun rights, I've talked about this on your show before, I'm not talking about, I'm for the second Amendment, I think we should be able to own guns, but I don't think it makes sense to put guns, you know, AK, whatever's they are, those rapid, what are they, the magazine, what do they call them, the, I can't even think of what the assault rifles are called, assault rifles, basically, that those should not be in the hands of regular citizens. Now, I know I have some, even have some friends and colleagues who disagree with me on that, so I'm not talking about that policy in particular, but what I'm saying is, if you look at the trend and you look at the statistics of mass shootings and the number of people who have been killed in the last 50 years, while we continue to relax those laws in many ways and continue to make that a political issue, more and more deaths happening this way. So it is common sense, you have more of those dangerous guns, you're gonna have more of those kind of mass murders. So have we lost our minds in America? So it's not even about politics. I'm ranting today about common sense and using your voice to express these commonly held and well understood moral objectives of our country. And we shouldn't have to be fighting about these things. We should be agreeing on them. And if more people will come to their senses and say, okay, I'm not gonna let anybody tell me that I don't have a right to free speech. And of course there are parameters when you work inside a company and there are policies that affect what you should be able to say and how you can act when you've opted into a specific environment. I'm not talking about that. I am talking about that a little bit, but I'm also talking about this greater experiment of the American democracy where we have been free to move around in this world of ideas and challenging them and people have died for them. People have spoken the truth. People have acknowledged the differences. People have had the benefit of the internet and to some degree social media because social media could be used to spread good ideas and good information and help people understand. But because of the factions that we have fallen into in these echo chambers of the bubble and the sticking to just one way of thinking because that is where I feel comfortable, I no longer have to listen to you. I no longer have to participate with you if your views or your ideas disagree with mine or something I don't want to hear about. So that's where we are and I'm not happy about it. I really want us to get back to a place where you can find your tribe safely, these were my questions at the beginning, safely move out of an echo chamber when you can't echo back what they want to hear and I want us to be able to move into environments freely in and out of environments that allow us more freedom of expression and not feel that we're gonna be bullied if someone is yelling at us, telling us we need to think like they do. So these are core issues, especially when you're a creative person and you are a thinking person and you're an idea person. We're talking about America is made up of great individuals and my new job, by the way, I get to work with people who are inventing things and creating technologies that can be brought to market for the betterment of mankind. These are people who are inventing things that are gonna change the world and I happen to believe that those people have good intentions. Most people, labs and research labs and idea labs and just sweating their passion out of their little butt because they're awesome people with this passion for whatever it is they know is their gift or their talent and they are operating in the world trying to make a difference and by the way, that's my job now is to try to help them get money to be able to complete their R&D and commercialize their product and take it into the world, which I love, that's very inspiring to me but I'm also kind of living in fear that science is gonna be next. I was working in the education department and education and the public education and the expression of how we've been trying to work on that system all these years is basically being thrown out with new administrations and I don't know if that's good or bad. I'm not making a judgment. I'm just saying the way it's being done, it's being forceful and it's uncomfortable. So education, K through 12 was the first thing on the docket for the new administration. Now I'm in higher ed but I'm also in business development like where we're doing economic development trying to create jobs and then allowing freedom for this expression of scientific discovery and so I'm a little worried because I'm sitting there going well, is this gonna be next? Is science and technology gonna be attacked and shut down or thrown out or just completely turned upside down? Is there gonna be? Yeah, they've always thrown out the science factor but you can't mess with that because science comes from the universe and it's things that's up there and the persons, I'm so glad that you brought up your new position. I wanted to ask you because our total was like expressing yourself so when persons are applying and trying to get funding, you can speak it and say it all day but when you have to put it down on paper, that takes a different kind of skill and I wanted to bring that up. You've listened and now you're reading and you're seeing this picture that's written here and that's an area where persons that seek funding or whatever type of research they're doing, wording is very, very important and I really want to, I wanted to bring that up. First of all, congratulate you on that move and when you say persons standing there and going for fear, you have to be fearless when you're going to do the right thing, okay? See, the right and wrong will always fight but who is to say what's right and what's wrong? That has to come from within. So if it's something that goes against your cause and your principles, you have to get away from it and while you're getting away from it or while you're participating in it, you have to be able to speak up and speak out and that is where the true grit comes in because those ways are given to you, it's in your DNA. I know it's in my DNA, so I'm out the South and what I admire about the South and that training is like you observe very quickly and you decide very quickly and when you're standing in that middle of should I or should not, you have to be right when you make that move. See, I had to leave down there because I had to be in a precious suit hanging on a tree because I was never gonna get up, okay, at all. So seven ways are different ways but they do a different kind of grit. So you're down there with do it my way or the highway. Well, I was trying to take the darn highway, okay, and leave them in the dust while you're leaving. You decide, see, that was my DNA, which I carry. So you're saying when you speak out, you go up against, you're not too popular but who's trying to be popular? I'm going for the good, okay, and when you go for the good, you don't bend at all and you have no fear at all. You're going for the good. I've been in situations and I know you, you know, even in classrooms, even in meetings, you know, you might be in a gathering and you got a diverse group there. You got some with the, and if you're trying to speak and somebody chimes in, mm-hmm, I shut them down. I will stand on the table and stomp my foot and say I'm still talking. You see where I'm going, but that's troubling me because I know where you're trying to shut me down and I'm not having it and I let the whole room know it and continue on with my spiel and we can talk about it later but I'm still talking up here. So that is a way of oppressing, we don't want to hear what you have to say or who are you that can even know how to say that. You got me? And it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck and I let you have it. But that's gonna be and will always be no matter what situation because I move with my own tribe and if I don't find you, tribes recognize each other and when the tribes are right, nothing has to be said. It's mutual understanding and most tribes don't really talk a lot anyway. They're action-orientated people. I think, well, that's an interesting concept in the midst of talking about speaking out. I mean, our whole topic is about using your voice and speaking out but you're right. I think that's a really great place to stop and that a little bit that when you are in the right community and when you are in your tribe, the understanding between you goes without saying and it's an instant connection and recognition of you are like me, we believe the same and we have the same heart. We share the same type of views about freedom and individual expression and love and kindness and the way that we think good operates in the world because we are spiritual beings in human bodies and I think the spirits kind of recognize one another and say, okay, this is my tribe and I understand, right? I do think there's some magic to that, I do. I think spiritually, there is some magic to that and I've always had that and we've talked about that, Linda that it's a spiritual connection that you can't explain. I would say that they're in the world and you're bumping into these other ideas and these other creatures and these other spiritual type beings are not ones that you recognize because you can't see their heart or you don't know if they are true or honest or you don't know if they have the ability to be kind because their actions make it appear that they're being harsh or cruel or dismissive. So we want, and I'm again going back to the elected officials, we want our elected officials to represent us. We want them to be the best parts of us and what I feel like has happened in America, back to the topic of government feeling oppressive and the people that are being elected to represent us is that if they're not listening to the people and if they're not the same kind of spiritual beings that have their hearts in the right place which should be for all people, then how can we trust them? Are they speaking the same language? Do, if I'm standing with them, do I feel that we are in communion spiritually because we don't even have to say a word? I know we're in agreement. I know that your heart is good but honestly, I tried. I, to some degree, I gave the new people the benefit of the doubt but something in me just said, well, I don't belong here anymore because I can't see their heart. I can't, I can't, I can't pick up on the vibe that I need to understand that they're coming from a good place and for me, that was spiritual. It was like, well, I feel like I'm in danger here or, and I don't mean that, I don't want that to sound like I'm a victim but I mean, I felt like I was on another planet. At that point, the environment was, you know, the environment was more moderate. You know, we even had the same political party in power in Arkansas before this new governor came in but the expression of those politics was more inclusive and more, more moderate and more, I wanna say, more humanistic and instead of, instead of the new language that's being used and the new behavior that's being exhibited is this new playbook that feels like, it's not playing by the rules that we used to have. So, it's all been very stingy and upsetting. So, I guess I ranted earlier, I guess if I could close for my part for anything, I think we're coming up on our hour, is that, you know, we're talking about to sum it up and how important it is to be able to do that in the environment that you work in, in the state that you live in, in the community that you choose to be a part of and if you wonder where your tribe is and Ms. Linda said to some degree you make your own tribe and that is by standing up for yourself, that is by speaking for yourself, that is for being true to who you are and then you attract your other spiritual beings who recognize that you are part of their tribe and you're standing up for what you believe and who your voice is. Do not lose that people in America. Don't lose the ability to do that. Don't be browbeaten, don't be forced to conform and don't feel like you can't speak up for fear of punishment because the minute that we give into that, we do become a lot. We're not a democracy, we're living in an authoritarian society and so we have to swing the, I mentioned the pendulum, we have to start pushing and swinging that momentum the other direction in order to keep allowing us to use our voices and allowing freedom of expression and as Linda pointed out really importantly, learning the issues, knowing the people who are running for office, knowing what their issues are and what their heart is and how they're likely to behave if you give them the keys to the kingdom and don't let their, I would say, don't let their personal belief system, if it's dogma and if it's oppressive and if it's meant to hold other people down or to put other people in a lesser position, if it's not of a humanistic nature, be wary of it because their motivations are not clean, they're not honest, their motivations are bad and so I'm not saying they're bad people, I'm just saying listen to your heart and look closely and get to know who they are and study the way they present themselves and the way they operate in the world because you don't wanna be living in a place or working in a job or part of a community where you're being bullied by the people who you've put in power somehow or that you've allowed to be in power. If you are gonna be in power yourself, I'm not saying become a bully, I'm saying learn to use your voice and don't allow it to be silenced. So that's it. Well, I appreciate that, I'm glad that you came on to share it, I knew about the things, I know about your unstoppable attitude also, I know about how you accept things and take a good look at it, that's why you do what you do. Your life coaching skills, it's really all about life and all we speak about is what we go through and since we're all individuals, that's why we have to be individuals. You have choices out there, you have options out there and you must share it, you must do it and you must be it. Not only do you speak on it, you have to demonstrate it by your behavior and you have to get the job done and in all three of those categories, there's always a block that's there but it's up to you and your tribal move or your humanistic way, however way you do it is to be able to recognize it and stand in the middle of that sidewalk or shall I say straddle that fence. Oh, so don't like you, okay, I don't expect them to. How can they like me when they don't like themselves and I move on because you cannot recognize or sympathize or empathize with something that you don't know about so you have to be able to quickly assess people. My statement is I'm always in observance mode, okay? You don't wanna say I don't trust because you want individuals to trust you but you must observe and pay close attention and understand if you wanna do a project. When you say, you look for mentors, you look for, they use the word diversity but diversity can do anything if it's not inclusive. Those two words go together. So everybody's calling democracy but yet their actions of distraction and destruction where you as an individual have to be able to understand, research. I can look, I love to watch people when they're in campaigns and when I see the ads going up there and when I hear the talk and I don't listen to any of that. You know what I look at? Who's surrounding you. That tells me a lot. A picture will tell you a lot. So then I start forming my opinion there, okay? In any situation, you have to actually really, really put yourself in a situation when you talk about spiritual. Spirit is very, very, how can I say? It's not a confusing thing. It's an awareness thing. You know when you step in a room what you're getting ready to walk into. You know when you make a statement, the type of reaction that you get, you know what you're dealing with. And at that particular time, you might sit back and smile. You're still in observance mode or you might stand up and speak. It just depends on where your heart pushes you. I'm very careful of the communities, the organizations, because I'm gonna let you know about yourself, okay? I'm gonna let you know that it's not gonna fly. All you're about is dues and donations. You're not doing anything that's stated in this mission statement. I don't see it. So at that particular time, I will either, you'll wonder where the yellow went or I'll tell you about yourself so you don't have to figure out why I'm gone. And as you mature, you decide what you wanna waste your energy on. Because there's no sense in telling somebody who cannot hear or choose not to hear. See, that's where the decision comes in. So by you not being comfortable and you're not a quitter, you don't quit anything, it's evident some people stay in those spots because of the money. Well, you got to pay me a whole lot to make me be in my principles, okay? Because just like I got some here, I can go across the street and get some more. Okay, those doors are gonna swing open for me at the time they need to so I'm not hearing your crap. Take it and shove it. I remember I was a supervisor with the postal service. I wore a big red badge. Postal service is excellent training because that's the people there, it's another world. And I would tell my supervisor, you can take this red badge and shove it if you want me to treat that employee that way because I'm not going to do it because that's not management to me. Okay, so I've had that type of mouth all my life. I have persons that know me, persons that don't. I'm very careful with how I, you know, this particular show, this is expression. This is my gift. I give this. And nobody can tell me how to get my gift, okay? But I realize that I have to do it and do it to the best of my ability at that time as it evolves more, more, and more. So this conversation and this talk that we had today covered a lot, a lot of expressing you because in each statement that you made, it's been your take on it. Some people, oh, stay. And they need you, uh-huh. They need themselves more than they need me. I'm not getting ready to get stashed out. I've learned how to sometimes take that deep breath, but if it's time for you to hear about it, I'm going to stash myself and don't care what the consequences is. So when you find an individual like that, you got something on your hand. And that is what coming out the South has taught me. The South is better than any other place because everything there is understood. They don't hide anything. It's up to you to what you accept and what you don't accept and what you're willing to do about it with no fear. So I had put me on the ground. I don't disagree with that. I don't disagree with that. Maybe that's what I'm experiencing living in the South is that it is very confrontational. And maybe because I've always kind of avoided confrontation, I'm being called to, you know, confront it. And, you know, and really what I'm looking for, Linda, I mean, just to kind of finish this out, and I know we've got to watch our time, but is this idea that we all want to be able to express ourselves, but we also want to feel like when we're in a community that there's a sense of a shared world, something that we do understand together that we feel good about. And where I kind of get my back up, and as you have too, and we've both been kind of ranting today, is that we want, I think you and I are saying this together, we want to be able to be heard and to speak ourselves, speak from our hearts and be ourselves, but we also want to be part of or to help create, it's me, it's you, it's us, it's the people we decide to surround ourselves with, is try to create that shared world where we feel that we are working towards a common mission. And so our behavior reflects that, and then we don't have to fight, and we don't have to have these differences. If we become better of like minds for good in the world, and I know this sounds idealistic, and I know I sound like some kind of nutcase right now, or fruitcake, saying, hey, can't we all just get along? But yeah, that's the world that I bought into when I was a teenager growing up in Arkansas, and that's the world that I fought when I went out into the world and ended up raising my own children in California, which is very egalitarian and open. I was looking for a place to live out my life in this human body, a spirit in a human body, living it out through this expression of wanting to feel good about myself, have my children feel good about themselves, feel good about the people that we encounter and take into our sphere, and feel safe, and want that for everybody. We want that for everybody to feel included and loved in the world. And I just, it's just my dream. And so your song was, if you dream, then you can do anything. Those are the lyrics I wrote, I grabbed them real quick. If you dream, you're halfway to destiny. If you dream, dream the impossible. If you dream, cause the dream's unstoppable. And so I believe the dream of individual freedom in a democratic society is unstoppable. And I think we have to fight for it and fight to keep it. And that the good people who are listening to our show today, who have good hearts, who understand everything that we're saying, will rally and be a voice and be a part in that dream that we've been evolving on and changing and growing and trying to do together. I'm, my whole lifetime, and I'm in my 60s, so, you know, I was born in 1959. And so I was raised through the civil rights era. And, you know, the first time I could vote when I was 18, I lived in the state of Arkansas and Bill Clinton was representing the Democratic Party. And, you know, then he got to the White House in 1991. And that was the South. And that was the direction we were headed, you know, and Clinton's administration is the one that is credited with, you know, balancing the budget. And he wasn't perfect. He certainly had his flaws as a human being, as we all do, but his heart was for the people and was in the right place. And also balanced with fiscal responsibility, which didn't happen to be the pillar of the Democratic Party at that time. Of course, the Republican Party claims that title now, even though they don't, you know, it's not apparent how, you know, holding the national debt hostage is gonna make that happen. But anyway, I don't wanna get into the political plot of it, but it has become very political. And so we have to hold our elected officials accountable. We have to hold our elected officials accountable. And we have to participate in the process. And we have to use our heart to help guide them to understand what's right and good in the world. And don't give up the dream and be unstoppable. And I'm gonna stop, and I've gotta go. I love it, Professor Byrd. It has been a pleasure. We have taken it everywhere, but we have taken it where it has to be. This is Professor Karen Byrd with karenbyrd.com, life coach, and as you can hear, she knows how to get into that dam. And I'm gonna say again, say it, say it, say it. When you see it, be it. Do it, do it, do it, and be it. Be it, be it, express yourself. We love you, Professor Byrd. Have a wonderful, wonderful evening, night, and everything, love you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, too. Bye, bye. All right, enjoy. ♪ Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm Some of us don't even wonder Some of us don't even care Couldn't we just help each other? Isn't there enough to share? There's got to be a way Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm