if you scroll through your Facebook
feeds though you've probably got a lot
of friends who are a little bit angry
it's been a tumultuous time with
politics than me - of movement black
lives matters there's a lot going on
yeah some of these issues can easily get
under your skin pretty quickly even
straining some of your friendships and
relationships but there are ways to keep
healthy boundaries and stay focused on
what's important joining us right now is
Karen Millsap the chief empathy officer
of agency first of all we're so happy to
see you this morning thank you for
having me
so how did you you know I feel like
you're really living your purpose here
helping people heal and helping people
maintain those healthy boundaries how
did you get to where you are now well my
husband was actually killed a couple of
years ago and it was during that time
that there were a lot of things that
come up when you're broken right but the
number one thing that came up for me was
how can I heal because I have a little
boy so I got really intentional I'm
figuring out how can I find my way back
to a whole heart and everything I've
done over the last five years I'm now
teaching other people actually heal is
the perfect acronym because H stands for
healthy boundaries which you have to do
you got to keep toxicity away from you
we'll talk about that a is for embrace
emotions we don't know how to handle all
the yuckiness a is for accepting what is
and L is for loving yourself which we
all could do a little bit better with
right yeah and you know you talk about
you know removing toxicity from your
life and it's tough I mean we're in very
tumultuous times and a lot of people
have conflicting views and you don't
want to lose relationships and
friendships but how do you keep things
under control well one thing that I
would suggest even before you get to
relationships and friendships is how are
you managing the amount of negative news
that you're consuming right we talked
about Facebook we talked about all sorts
of different social media platforms that
share this amount of information but do
you have to read it do you have to read
every single article and go down that
rabbit hole you know one of the best
ways that you can preserve your mental
and your emotional well-being is by just
deciding what you allow to be in your
space you have to keep your well-being
sacred very very important but if you
get involved in those conversations and
I would suggest two things one is to ask
yourself what do I want from this
conversation if you do not have a
positive intent
on where you are leading that
conversation then a you need to remove
yourself or be you need to question your
motives a lot of times we just want to
be right if we frame things as a
win-lose scenario and if that's not
helping your relationship if it's
hurting the relationship then there's a
little bit of self-awareness that needs
to come into play and how do you you
know coach people whether it's talking
to kids or even you know talking to our
peers about these things you know with a
standpoint of not getting on them but
just trying to help them you know make
better choices and how they communicate
well that's a good point there is making
better choices I think that all of these
topics are an opportunity for us to
really look deep to find out well where
am I in society what am i contributing
to as it pertains to kids I do think
that we have an obligation to protect
their innocence you know negative news
can desensitize everybody adults and
children and the more we expose them to
it at a younger age the more they're
going to think that that's normal now in
the event whether it's a child or
whether it's a friend who's has a very
hard stance on this then again you need
to ask yourself what can I learn from it
and a lot of self-reflection helps you
to process in a healthy way so
specifically for kids I would say if
there's a sexual assault scenario that's
on TV you can talk to them about well
this is how you protect yourself this is
how you can make sure that you are not
putting yourself in a scenario if they
see a shooting and stress the importance
of see something say something if they
see something that's completely bizarre
then you can talk to them about well
what does it mean to be a good citizen
all of these are opportunities for us to
learn and to decide how are we going to
let this impact our life I'll tell you
when my husband was murdered I had to
make a decision I was either going to
give up because I felt like life just
dealt me some terrible cards or I was
going to choose how that was going to
impact my life moving forward and that's
what I did we all have the same choice
and I know you and I talked about a
little bit about this on the phone you
know you talk about helping people heal
and I said well a lot of people might
look at you and be like well you've been
through this terrible situation and mine
doesn't compare to that so I don't have
a right to feel upset or grief-stricken
but you said we all have to heal from
different things absolutely I mean we've
all experienced pain it's just packaged
differently right it could be a divorce
it could be a breakup it could be the
loss of Booker
but that doesn't diminish what that pain
feels like it's completely different but
that's why we need to talk about our
pain because then what we recognizes
we're all connected through our
struggles and we can help one another
through there are things that help me
that may help you but may not but the
more you share your story you may be
able to help the next person and then it
creates a ripple effect which I think
creates a healing movement in this world
all right we could talk to you forever
thank you thank you for having me I
always feel better after I talk to you
[Laughter]