Watch the episode here
Listen to the episode here
It is not easy to talk about racism, misogynism, and patriarchy these days, even though they severely mess up the present state of our society. Karen, who goes by @kclmft on TikTok, bravely discusses these topics on the internet, mainly to put down the horrible concept of Trumpism and Project 2025. She joins Corinna Bellizzi to share how she is being hunted by the former president’s MAGA crew as she uses her online platform to call out his racist and misogynistic behavior. They two also talk about the dangers of individualism, the importance of collective human action, and the right way to keep your own racism in check.
About Guest:
Karen, whose handle on TikTok is @kclmft, is a women’s right activist who has a background as a licensed marriage and family therapist with over a decade of experience. She became involved in politics when Donald Trump came on the scene and she recognized his danger. Karen started making content online when she began receiving emails from his campaign, revealing the dog-whistles, the race-bating, and the all out calls to violence for all eyes to see. Because she’s been so critical of Trump, speaking out against his misogynistic behavior, his stoking of racism and division, and his connection to Project 2025, she’s under fire from Trump’s MAGA crew. For that reason, we won’t be revealing her full name, nor linking to her business on our podcast nor on our blog page. While she remains somewhat anonymous for the purposes of this interview, you are encouraged to find and follow her on TikTok @kclmft.
Guest Social: https://tiktok.com/@kclmft
Show Notes:
Emails From Trump - 02:15
Teaching And Learning - 14:30
White Women - 19:13
Communication - 26:56
Racism And Caste System - 33:04
Connectiveness - 40:27
Episode Wrap-Up - 44:36
Please subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform – and join the Care More Be Better Community! When you visit our website and join our email list, you’ll receive a FREE 5-Step Guide To Unleash Your Inner Activist!
Website: https://www.caremorebebetter.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@caremorebebetter
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CareMore.BeBetter/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareMoreBeBetter
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/care-more-be-better
Twitter: https://twitter.com/caremorebebettr
Join the Care More. Be Better. Community! (Social Links Below)
Website: https://www.caremorebebetter.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCveJg5mSfeTf0l4otrxgUfg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CareMore.BeBetter/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareMoreBeBetter
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/care-more-be-better
Twitter: https://twitter.com/caremorebebettr
Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/club/care-more-be-better
Support Care More. Be Better: A Social Impact + Sustainability Podcast
Care More. Be Better. is not backed by any company. We answer only to our collective conscience. As a listener, reader, and subscriber you are part of this pod and this community and we are honored to have your support. If you can, please help finance the show (https://www.caremorebebetter.com/donate). Thank you, now and always, for your support as we get this thing started!
--
Combating Trumpism And Project 2025 | TikTok Creator - Karen @kclmft
Welcome to another interview episode of the show. We’re going to dive into the weird and wonderful world of TikTok and politics as I’m joined by a friend from that platform. On TikTok, we refer to ourselves as mutuals. Karen, whose handle on the platform is @KCLMFT, for anyone wanting to find her, is a women’s rights activist who has a background as a licensed marriage and family therapist with over a decade of experience.
She became involved in politics when Donald Trump came on the scene and she recognized his danger. Karen started making content online when she began receiving emails from his campaign, revealing the dog whistles, race-baiting, and the all-out calls to violence for all eyes to see because she’s been so critical of Trump speaking out against his misogynistic behavior stoking of racism and division, and also his connection to Project 2025. She’s under fire from Trump’s MAGA crew. For that reason, we won’t be revealing her full name, nor linking to her business. That said, I very much encourage you to follow her at @KCLMFT on TikTok. Karen, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be here.
Emails From Trump
It’s so good to see you live as opposed to just regarding your TikTok and commenting back and forth or messaging each other. I have to say, I’ve been impressed with how quickly you’ve been able to grow your following on TikTok. I know it’s always strange to step into the limelight in this way. I wanted to ask you as we got started, what inspired you to share all of these campaign MAGA emails on TikTok?
I have recognized Trump as a very dangerous man probably even before 2016 when he was doing the Miss Universe and the pageantry stuff. I could recognize how dangerous he was particularly to women. There was some point when I started getting his emails, and that originally started. I know him because I signed up for a seat at his rally a couple of years ago. A bunch of us in my hometown did that. There would be empty seats. We thought that was funny and a little rebellious thing to do.
We did that. I know that’s how we got my email account. Within the last couple of months, I’ve been receiving emails from the Trump campaign like 6 to 8 a day. What I’ve known about his popularity is from Fox News. I was like, “Fox News is bad. It’s dangerous. It pales in comparison to the things that are in these emails.” Sometimes, I make fun of them and there’s some snarkiness and silliness, but the truth of it for me is thinking about his followers.
I know there are a lot of Boomers, and I’m thinking there’s loneliness and a lot of them see themselves in him. There are a lot of people who relate to him. Being at the receiving end of these emails, as I said, 6 to 7 times a day, not to include all of the stuff that’s being put out on his truth social, the emails or the text messages that they might be sending out, and whatever mailings are being sent out. It frightened me.
It was new. You’ve been on the email list for two years because I remember when this trend erupted. People are saying, “I’m going to sign up for a seat and I won’t show up.” I did the same thing. There was one in Santa Clara near me and I was like, “Maybe I’ll sign up for five. I have five different emails. Let’s make it fun.” I quickly unsubscribed from each of those addresses because I found them even then to be pretty offensive. It was as if over the course of the last few months, at least from your experience, they ratcheted up to the level of hate and extremism. Is that what I’m hearing?
I wasn’t receiving them until just a couple of years ago. I’m guessing that’s where they got my email from, which was a couple of years ago. This was new to me that they were landing in my email box. Maybe somebody signed me up for them as a joke or something. It’s my best guess.
That’s always possible.
I can’t remember but there was something that happened then, and after that, I started receiving them. I didn’t know that he was sending emails at that rate before then, but it was new to me.
Why don’t you give us an example of a recent one that you found to be particularly concerning and perhaps, created at TikTok about?
There are so many to choose from. With Vice President Harris, now being likely the Democratic nominee, his racism and misogyny have come out in full force. There was one that I received weeks ago. One of the comments was, “Swamp creatures are coming out of something in support of,” he called her Kamala or something crooked Kamala or dangerously liberal Kamala.” I was like, “He’s talked about draining the swamp. He’s talked about the swamp before. I’ve never heard of him use the term swamp creatures. Isn’t that silly?”
Some of my commenters were kind enough to say, “That’s not accidental. The fact that he’s using this term for the very first time, now that there is an African-American woman on the ticket. It’s not accidental.” What it was referring to is that when White people owned slaves, for example, in Florida, they would use Black babies and toddlers as alligator bait. They would put up on a collar and put the version of a fishing line or whatever. Put them out in the swamp. This is so hard to even talk about. The baby’s cries would attract the alligator. The alligator would come and have a meal then they would reel in the alligator. Those were the babies of the enslaved people. I get just full-body goosebumps every time about it.
The cruelty is insane.
I cried for two days. I could not comprehend and the comments section for that video, there were so many people like, “Everybody knows this.” People were saying, “My grandmother told me stories about this. This is part of our history.” A couple of people were just confounded like, “Did you not know this, Karen?” I was like, “I had never heard of anything close to that.”
There are a couple of things that this brings up for me because I was a witness to this on your page. I remember specifically that post and the comments. I had heard the term before. I had heard the term come up when people were critical of his language around draining the swamp in Washington, DC. That is perhaps also because of the community I’m connected to. It just came up in conversation and at that time, it was the first I’d heard that particular story.
At the same time, I’ve also had people in my midst be critical of women. In particular, White women or White men shedding a bunch of tears and doing nothing. This has been a common thread that the community of people of color has experienced. Even your name, Karen, calling you out as a Karen or being cruel about it or being mean in certain capacities not without reason, but because the Black community in particular has felt very much like we haven’t had their back for a long-ass time.
Our words are just words. They’re simply that, but when it comes down to brass tax, we’re going to vote in our best interests, which includes continuing the patriarchy. I can’t even say the word, I get so angry. Perhaps, I’m defensive on that front, but defending the patriarchy and keeping them down. In particular, I take issue with this because I’ve fought my whole life for people of color in my midst. I literally mean my whole life.
It’s different for somebody who doesn’t come from privilege and who also was very close with communities of color growing up. You identify with them in a different way. It’s not like you feel as much like you’re a White person over here. It’s like they’re part of your life and I don’t even like saying they’re because it feels like we’re together. I have an issue with that. I grew up in a hippie commune. Our community was very different. I attended Pow Wows Forever. Tribes women made me moccasins. These are my formative experiences.
I also experienced things like going to elementary school for the first time, having not been in elementary school before and not having been exposed to other White people much before, and having about six. Up until that point, not being in a common White community. Now I was in Lumberton, USA, essentially, in Southern Oregon with a bunch of White folks. The people I gravitated to build friendships with were of Mexican heritage or Native American because they seemed more like me in a way.
I know from the outside it didn’t look that way but they felt like home. I remember distinctly a girl coming up to me at one point and saying, “Why are you friends with them when you could be friends with us?” I experienced this whole White supremacy from a very different perspective than most White kids do. I shoot it. I didn’t like it. I felt disgusting and icky. I’m the person in the room when I hear someone slander another culture even ingesting a joke that points it out and brings it up, perhaps becoming unpopular in that moment. I’m comfortable being criticized.
I chose to wear a Red, White, and Blue shirt because I can be a patriot and critical, and that’s okay, too. I do think we have a system of White supremacy. We have to dismantle that to make progress. We have revealed over the last nine-plus years this dark underbelly of America, and I’m going to call it that. It’s the darkness of us. It is this thought process that one person can be better than another is essentially at the root of capitalism, too. It’s like we’re stuck in this. Trump is the epitome of all of that. I find it incredibly disheartening that people like Candace Owens, who’s a Black female, speak out so negatively against her entire community of Black people.
Teaching And Learning
They aren’t her community but she is a show essentially for the other side that would make jokes about swamp creatures. I’m having a difficult time with that even now. I still have a difficult time with that. I have to block certain people on social because I don’t need to see this every day. I don’t need that darkness to come into my life. I want to bridge that personal experience and talk about how, at that moment, you came to some realizations about what we disguise from our American culture, even with language and even using something like that.
Also, it suddenly drew people to you because I saw this almost immediately. The comment section burst with people who were in support of your personal education. Also, of the experience of what it would be like to come to this revelation now. That has resulted in, you were at about thousands or so followers. Something similar to me then, all of a sudden, you’re at 25,000 in a matter of days. What came next at this point?
For me, deep humility. After I made that post, I went on to make a couple of other posts basically saying, “I’m educated. I’m a therapist. I have clients of all colors, sizes, and shapes. I’ve known intellectually that racism exists. I get it.” I thought I got it. Hearing the stories directly from the mouths or the keyboards of people who have been so damaged dropped down into my heart. I understood it in a completely different way. I’ve been humbled.
I’ve been trying to be humble about not making it the responsibility of anybody else to educate me. That’s totally on me but also being very open to like, “Please send me resources. Give me books to read help me learn.” There’s been a lot of White women who have said, “Take us with you. Let’s do this journey together,” which has been overwhelming and lovely for me to see. I just think it became a very felt sense. It’s something that I feel very passionate about.
My core value is that every human being on Earth has equal and intrinsic value. When you are born, your Welcome to Earth gift basket is equal value. That’s what I fight for when I talk about patriarchy. Patriarchy includes misogyny, racism, and even nativism. We’re the only people that belong to this country or are allowed in this country. We devalue people who are different. I study Neuroscience as part of my ongoing education, and I’ve learned that there’s this deeply hidden in the back of your brain, the more primitive mammalian part of the brain. There’s a protective circuitry that is under threat.
Every human being on Earth has equal and intrinsic value when they are born.
People differentiate in-group from out-group. In-group can be anything you choose it to be. With racism, in-group is people that are the same color as me. Remembering, this is when you’re feeling threatened. This part of the brain says, “In-group, this is us. We fight together.” The out-group is completely dehumanized. They’re not even human. They’re like objects. There’s no value to them at all. That’s how racism, genocide, and misogyny happen. That’s how all of this hate happens. I don’t think hates the only piece of it. I also think there’s selfishness. Who wants to give a privilege? Privilege feels pretty good. I don’t remember exactly what the question was. I trailed around there.
You got there.
I would love it if I could build a community of White women and Black women together talking and sharing. Again, I never want it to feel like a Black woman is your responsibility to teach us because it’s not their job. It’s our job.
White Women
The first book that you gravitated to or that you shared on TikTok was called White Women. I wrote this down because I also just finished the book on an audiobook, White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better by Regina Jackson and Saira Rao. What inspired you to kick that off specifically to start with that book?
It was just the one that was recommended the most. I have a list and the two that were recommended the most were that book and one called The Bluest Eye, so just basically off of that.
Isn’t that a Toni Morrison book?
Yes. It’s on my list. Sometimes, I feel like I’m more of a book collector than a book reader. I’ve read the first couple of chapters of White Women. It’s a great intro to people who don’t have an understanding of their own privilege. I also would imagine for someone who doesn’t have an understanding of their own privilege. It would feel a bit confrontational.
I listened to the audiobook, so I heard them read their story directly. Regina and Saira read the whole thing. I found personally that I thought that the people who would benefit from this work the most would never touch it. It is those who are on the fence or awakening in a way to their own privilege and their own racism. Understanding their reactions, even clutching your purse a little tighter as you walk by a Black boy or something like that. These are moments that produce a negative impact and the people around you.
They can’t help but notice that you did that, too. You realize that was communication and so much communication is nonverbal. We do need to talk about these things. We need to shine a light on the dark places and get people to admit when they are just being performative. One of the things that Regina and Saira are critical of is how some White women in particular will be performatively in support of people of color but then behind the scenes, be taking credit for the work of team members who are of color or making assumptions that the, “I need some extra support for this catering setup. I’m going to ask the Latin American employee that’s on my roster.” Not even understand that they’re doing that.
It's shining the light, moving into self-awareness, and understanding if you’re going to be a part of the change to be an anti-racist, which means speaking up even when it’s uncomfortable. That’s something that culturally we’re uncomfortable with because we are taught that propriety is a thing. This is one of the masking pieces of a patriarchal society. It’s like, “That’s just not proper. That’s not how a real lady acts.” The guy spreading his legs on an airplane, moving into your personal space, and you just sit there daintily and never say a word. You just make yourself smaller. It’s the same thing.
We get so angered by it but yet do nothing and that’s their point. That’s the big point of this book but they have done so in a somewhat confrontational way, which makes it challenging for even the people that are on the fence to hear the message when they might even be ready. This point that they communicate through the book and I know you’re only a couple of chapters in. They make the point routinely that it’s like, “It’s not okay to be an angry Black woman or an angry person of color.”
When they come forward and their tone is perhaps not pleasant, and they’re pointing out something that was unjust or something that happened to them that they had an experience about. They’re not speaking about it all softly and meekly. That is criticized and that in itself, even criticizing, “You sure could have been nicer in your delivery,” is racist. I’m not sure I agree, but I also feel like the message of the book is that I’m not allowed to say that I don’t agree because of the positioning.
I think delivery matters. Nobody’s going to hear a message if you receive it in a defensive way.
The delivery of your words matters. Nobody will hear your message if you say it defensively.
Sometimes people do need to hear it and a direct fashion then come back to it later. We need to get to a space where it is okay to talk about your personal feelings and to say, “I didn't think that was right even if you have disagreement,” and then talk through it. We're getting to a space where it's almost like culturally we've forgotten how to have discussions. We've forgotten how to argue. We're just trolling each other.
I want to get out of the trolling of each other and see us move into something where it can be more of a collaboration. My feeling is that as a group of activists, we should be locking arms together and marching forward with strength and being willing to say the uncomfortable thing and speak truth to power and still be unifying.
Another thing that I fully agree with is this book and I'm curious to see once you get there. They talked about the fact that women in our culture are so cruel to each other. This is something I have seen time and again. I don't think I'm guilty of it. I may have been at some point in my life but, in general, I feel like I'm always trying to connect with the underdog and not be part of the gossip circle. I'd rather go and talk to the person and for my own opinions about something that happened. Rather than, “That person is now out. We're just going to shun them,” and be the caddy popular mean girl that there's a trope about for a reason. Anyway, those are just my thoughts. I’m just finishing it.]
Communication
One thing you talked about, I’ll say White woman because that’s what we’re talking about. Within communication, there are always two levels. There’s the content, which is the delivery which would be like, “That was racist,” or something like that then there’s the process like the meta of how things are talked about. It’s a great distraction when you don’t like what somebody is saying. You don’t like the content to jump up to the process and say, “I don’t like how you said that.” It’s a great distraction from somebody confronting you.
In that case, it’s a way to not take accountability for your action.
I get it. I get the point and the reason that they would say, “You just aren’t allowed to tell people they can’t be angry,” and I get that. I also think that you have to keep the door open. Part of the way you keep the door open is by being willing to converse through it and not get quite so confrontational.
As I said, I see that a lot in therapy. When people are talking about something, it’s so quickly moving from what they’re talking about to how they’re talking to each other where somebody’s like, “You forgot to do the wishes,” then it’s not like, “Sorry about that.” It’s, “Why are you always harping on me? Why are you yelling at me or something like that?” It’s something similar to that in the book that they’re describing. When White women get confronted with something, we’re like, “You’re an angry Black woman. That’s the only reason you’re saying that.”
It’s jumped to.
It needs to stop. It’s a defensive tactic. It’s like, too bad. If you don’t like the way that I’m saying it. It’s not my job to repackage it in this beautiful little sentence so that you can take it. The conversations are hard. I’ve had some commenters say, “Liberal White women are like the worst people ever.” The comments that I receive, some of the cruelest comments that I receive are from those who look like you can never tell on TikTok who’s who but seem to be from other White women, which does surprise me. As you said, the linking. I love the visual of linking arms and, “Let’s work together.”
If other people do not like what you are saying, it is not your job to repackage your sentences to make them more acceptable.
This is where also in the book they’re critical of things like, “White women love to do things like organize a women’s march.” I had to laugh. I know one of the people involved in our chapter here who was president of them. I’m like, “Oh, yes. On the nose a little bit here.” It’s a march but getting them to go ahead and come out and speak up in the moment by themselves as opposed to among an army of people is something different altogether. It takes a different strength, fortitude, and commitment.
It also comes with its own fear because how am I going to be penalized for speaking up or speaking out? Am I going to be seen now as the angry woman who is, “She’s such a ball buster. She is this. She is that.” We are held to a completely different set of standards than our male counterparts. There’s a risk that comes with action from a social perspective that does hold a lot of people back. I know people in my circle that has held me back. I know that I’ve been called the dragon lady and the ballbuster. I hear about them after the fact that the tropes about me because I wasn’t willing to be silent. They could say things like, “She’s a force of nature,” or they could call me a bitch. That’s it.
I’ve had a lot of my family members tell me that I’ve just lost my sense of humor. I’m too serious or I’m too sensitive now about things. It’s like, I’m sorry but if you’re making jokes about people. That’s not funny. Any kind of people, it’s not funny.
I’ve been watching the Olympics and there’s the specific French pole vaulter who has all sorts of jokes circulating now about French men that are pole vaulters. It’s like, “Oh.” Some of those are borderline on race because they’re talking about Frenchmen and things like that but it’s unjust obviously such a comical occurrence in general. For those who haven’t seen this French gentleman pole vaulter.
He made it over the jump but then his Johnson kept him from completing without pulling the pole down. His pole interfered with the pole. It was hilarious. We’ve all seen it dozens of times. I read that he received one of the largest porn contract offers if he chooses to take it because of this. This is just a moment sidetrack from an uncomfortable discussion.
Not an endorsement you would want, though.
Racism And Caste System
He’d say goodbye to any future Olympic prospects because that’s against their clauses around what’s proper in the Olympics. We could also have an entirely different discussion because they’ll let people with sexual assault threats compete. It’s the world we live in. I know that for you, this platform is one that provides you the ability to shine a light on some of those uncomfortable stories and you're opening yourself to learn more about how race relations occur in the United States and you are willing to stand up as an anti-racist.
I wanted to step back for a moment to my college education as an undergrad in Anthropology when I took African-American studies courses. I took quite a few African-American studies courses and one in particular, my first one was probably the most controversial. I was in a set of probably 25 students. It was a relatively small class. Our professor said in her opening lecture, “Racism in America exists on a spectrum, and everyone, not every White person or every Black person, but everyone in our culture exists on a spectrum of self-loathing or self-hate to racism. They're these two extremes. If you're White, you're inherently on the racism spectrum. If you're Black or a person of color, you're inherently on the self-loathing spectrum.”
This is what allows us to perpetuate racism in this culture. It's part of what allows us to prop up the patriarchy. It's part of what allows us to accept that this is normal and by accepting that this is normal, we are all essentially complicit because it's the programming that we receive in our society. I remember the class was made up of people of a variety of different races. Some of them were from mixed families, White mom and Black dad, Asian mom and White dad. Somebody from Laos or someone else from Trinidad, from all over the globe, and it’s a small class.
I was one of three White women and I think there was one White guy in the class then everybody else was of some other mix. People were pissed off. Very pissed off to hear this presented to them because all of the White people and myself included were like, “I am not a racist. You cannot call me a racist. This is calling me a racist,” getting defensive. The children of mixed-race families are saying things like, “How do you explain me? I come from this. What does that mean?” Everybody was raw.
I feel like that’s the same story that’s being told in this book, White Women, that we need to get over that hump. It can be uncomfortable to hear it the first time, especially. I remember the professor going, “I understand. I understand this is hard to hear.” She’s backing up and she was probably 60 years old, a Black woman from Oakland, California. Born and raised there and lived in NorCal her whole life. She’s teaching a course at a college in Cupertino. Through the course of that, it was roughly ten weeks course, we went over a hump together.
Part of that was accepting that even those of us who considered ourselves to be anti-racist like me who stood up to power. We’re willing to have the uncomfortable conversations that didn’t stay quiet, that stood up for the underdog. I’ve always gone to stand up for the underdog. My racism shows up in a different way. I’m sometimes even overly kind to a person of color. I see that because I might have been not particularly nice or whatever because I was having a rough moment then suddenly, tried to leap into something that, “I have to show my best foot and be my best self and make this person feel appreciated this is how it shows up for me.”
That’s not to say that that action is wrong but it’s to say like, I’m somehow trying to make up for something that exists in our culture. I’m acting differently because I’m trying to make up for something that I see occur every day when the person just backs up a little bit when somebody is walking through or looks a little longer than they should. We got over that together to land at this space where there’s more self-acceptance and understanding that race and culture are very complicated issues.
It will probably take us another 100 years to solve some of that. Some of these challenges may never completely go away because there’s something about humanity. This is part of my anthropological research where we have this tendency, as you said earlier, to go to that reptilian brain and protect and preserve what we consider to be our little pod or our group or our family. Whatever that is and however we define it. Sometimes, it gets as small as literally your children and your partner. That’s it. This is like the story that might be told from McCormick’s The Road. If you watch that film or if you read that book, where society has crumbled so quickly and so completely that you can’t trust anyone but yours.
The fact is that we will get closer to that if we aren’t careful and we don’t make big changes happen fast. One of the purposes of my life with this show is shining light, social impact sustainability, and regeneration. Those are the three topics I champion. You can’t create a sustainable future without addressing some of these social issues. We can’t continually raise certain people up and keep other people down by the color of their skin or their economic prospects.
We’re operating in a caste system here in the United States and we have been since our inception. We have been hiding that. Cast can be your background, your family, or money but it can also be your race. It’s what you’re born to, essentially. While we have this American dream, in order to keep it alive, we need to put people like Kamala Harris in the White House because she’s an example of what the country was supposed to be.
Connectiveness
Many of our so-called patriots, the nationalists, have been working hard to try and keep that truth from coming to the surface again. Those are my closing words and I know we’re close to yours. I wanted as we prepare to wrap this episode to offer you the floor to say a few words. If there was a question I hadn’t asked that you wish I had, you could ask or answer it. If not, just share some closing thoughts.
The most important thing that I have learned is that indigenous cultures throughout the world, philosophy and religion across time, and now neuroscience all know that human connection, kindness, and love are what matters. If you want the longest life, the healthiest life, and the life with the greatest satisfaction, your personal satisfaction can’t isolate you. You have to connect to others, other people, and other animals on Earth. We are all connected, every single one of us, to every blade of grass even.
I love that neuroscience is now proving what people have known since the beginning of time about connectedness. When we separate ourselves from people, we separate ourselves in-group, out-group, or anything. Any way that we separate ourselves, we’re harming ourselves and the connection of the Earth and everything. There are something called the three pillars of meditation. There are 6 or 7 physiological changes that happen within the body if you practice these three pillars of meditation on a regular basis. I’m not sure exactly how long you have to do it, but focused attention. Spend a couple of minutes focusing on something. You can literally look around the room that you’re in and notice something that you haven’t noticed before. Observe it and put your awareness on that.
When we separate ourselves from people, we harm ourselves and our connection to the world.
The second one is open awareness, so focused attention and open awareness to just being open to what you are receiving within your heart, head, and gut. Spend a few minutes being open. The third pillar of this meditative practice is kind intention. There is scientific proof that kind intention helps you, and it helps the world. That is what I am most passionate about in my life, is kindness, love, and connection.
I’m so happy to be connected to you now. I have to say that those closing words so nicely connect to my earlier content on Blue Mind, where I feature Dr. Wallace J. Nichols’ work, which is deeply rooted in neuroscience and talks about the importance of water and how it connects us all like waters in those plants you talked about and in the people. It brings our mind to a happier moment when we’re having a difficult moment. We all know that intrinsically. Thank you so much for joining me. I so appreciate you and the work that you’re continuing to do and I look forward to a long mutual friendship.
Thank you. It’s an honor to be here and to chat with you. I hope everybody has a good day.
Thank you.
---
Episode Wrap-Up
Talking about race is something that’s difficult and talking about culture as it relates to race. These systems of challenge are also very hard. I’m thankful for Karen’s friendship and for her willingness to speak out on these things, both on TikTok and this show. To find out more about her, I encourage you to visit her TikTok page and follow her. Her handle would simply be found by going to TikTok.com/@KCLMFT.
I encourage you to read White Women and try to keep an open mind. I know that some moments of it are a bit rough, but if we can move into that discomfort, if we can be comfortable getting uncomfortable and grow with it, great. You can still be critical. You can think, “I’ll take part in this and not the other.” That’s okay too but this is a growth opportunity.
Now, while you once found all of these resources on the website, CareMoreBeBetter.com, we have transitioned our platform to CircleB.co, which is also a cause-before-commerce shopping site. I offer environmentally friendly products, things that seek to help you eliminate plastics from your home, from the clothing you wear to the textiles you buy. I encourage you to visit the site.
When you sign up for our newsletter, which is connected to this show, I will plant a tree on your behalf. Our goal is to plant 10,000 trees in 2024, and we are on our way. Visit CircleB.co, join the email list, and we’ll plant a tree to make the world a little greener. If you happen to shop on the site, we will also donate 1% of our sales to charities for the planet. Now, I want to say this simply. I want to thank each of you for coming on this journey.
Uncomfortable conversations are at the root of change. By being part of this, you are inviting your world to care a little bit more so we can create that better world together. It’s my goal, my honor, and my tribute to the moment to be a part of this and to put this into the world. It’s my belief that together, we can find a way to dismantle racism and the patriarchy and build a future that considers the rights of all people equally. Thank you for joining me.
Important Links:
- @KCLMFT – TikTok
- White Women
- The Bluest Eye
- CircleB.co