I'd love to talk today about grief and belief. Clearly there's something about the alliteration of those two words which is deeply pleasing and they feel deeply interconnected for me. Is going to be one of those stream of consciousness sessions and just to really see what gets revealed. Welcome to the Henny Flynn podcast, the space for deepening self awareness with profound self compassion. I'm Henny.

I write, coach and speak about how exploring our inner world can transform how we experience our outer world, all founded on a bedrock of self love. Settle in and listen and see where the episode takes you. So I've had some lovely feedback on the podcast recently And it all seems to point to these meandering episodes being the ones that most resonate. Now, that's the case for you, maybe not. I'd love to know what does really resonate for you.

I'd really love to gather some more thoughts around what's most useful out of this time that we spend in this space and if it's something other than what I'm doing today then I'm really open to hearing that and if it's aligned with what I'm approach that I'm taking today, then that would be really useful to know too. So just sort of offering that out really. And you can do that either by emailing me henyhenyflinn dot co dot uk or by leaving a review. Ideally, if you enjoy it. Not trying to lead the witnesses or anything, but hopefully you do enjoy it and that's why you're here.

So yeah, if that works for you, that would be really helpful as well. I'm so mindful about how do we share this work, this deep compassionate self inquiry, this way of checking in with ourselves and seeing, well, what is it that really resonates with me? And there's something for me about this way of allowing the words to form themselves without really engaging my brain too much. I've now got my eyes closed, I'm taking my glasses off and you know, let's go in, let's really go in. And I've often thought that these kinds of episodes, they feel to me a bit like verbal flow journaling, where, you know, a theme can arise and we can sink in, I can sink in, own it, honey and just see what emerges.

So these two words, grief and belief, grief is feeling present. It's something that I've been noticing in this beautiful community. I heard somebody reference their community as a village and I thought, oh, I really love that. Do you think we can become a village? Is that what we are?

These interconnecting threads that hold us, just as we have a sense that within a village community, there is this interconnecting thread where people know and recognize and understand each other. It doesn't mean, you know, everything is always rosy, but it can mean that there is a place of belonging there. And, you know, with these interconnecting threads within our village, I've noticed there's been the strum or the of grief has been appearing, in loss, the physical loss of a loved human, in the navigation of the path within grief. I'm very mindful not to say through grief because I don't think we ever really come through it. I don't think it's something that has an end point.

I think it's something that comes to us and we find our best way of accommodating it in whatever way we can. And sometimes our self defense mechanism is to resist it, to push it away somehow, to brightly get on, to sink away from it. You know, all of these different mechanisms and strategies that are so well worn, because they work. And then maybe, maybe there comes a moment where we're able to open the door to it a little more widely and welcome it. Welcome it in.

You know, grief is an expression of love. And, oh gosh, even as I say that, my little heart, she hurts. Oh, it's gonna make me wanna cry. Yeah, welcoming in grief. I saw a poem from the Astonishing Mary Oliver recently.

I shared it on Instagram actually, if you follow me on there. And the last line, I think the poem was called Today. And the last line of it is, Stillness is one of the doors into the temple. And that resonates for me here, you know, when we come into a place of stillness, we are more able perhaps to open that door to the temple, maybe depending on sort of how your imagination takes that imagery, that thought. For me, it feels a sort of two way thing.

You know, one, a kind of stepping into the temple of grief and simultaneously, and maybe paradoxically opening the door to the temple within me and allowing grief in. And I think one of our most wonderful, marvelous and deeply moving aspects of our humanity is that we are able to hold both of those images simultaneously and for them both to feel true. And that really connects into that word belief. You know, what does belief mean to each of us? What does the word grief mean?

What does the word temple mean? But if we work with, you know, non denominational concept of belief. Something which simply connects us with something other. Maybe for some of us here that means nature, that means earth, That means feeling grounded and rooted and deeply, deeply connected with the energy of the earth. The absolute material nature of the hummus beneath our feet.

You know, the rich, deep, nourishing, alive earth. And maybe for some of us, it means something that is up above us, you know, in some way formed of energy that flows up and around. And for some of us, it is something that flows through us. I think that's really, for me, that's what belief relates most to, this sense of trust and faith that I have, that there is something other, connection with the everything, the all, as I've often written in the My Darling Girl poems, this falling into the arms of the all really, really speaks to me here. And this comfort that it brings when we have a sense of something other than us, other than this individual, you know, physical carapace that we, inhabit, this physical body that we inhabit.

When we are able when we allow, or when we receive whatever wisdom it is that connects us, then I think it brings a deep amount of comfort that we are not alone. And I saw recently, I'm doing a really amazing course at the moment on somatic trauma therapy. And one of the tutors was saying, and it's something I've never really, considered before, but how the word individual, the roots of it, they literally mean that it's impossible to divide. It's indivisible, indivigible, individual. I can't even say it.

And, you know, I think we, many of us deeply, deeply recognise that we are made of many parts, that within us there is this whole system, of parts. And so therefore, of course we are divisible in that sense. And that also means that each of these parts is part of the wholeness of us, just as we are part of the wholeness of all humanity. And humanity is part of the wholeness of all nature. And nature is part of the wholeness of the universe.

And our universe is part of the wholeness of whatever is going on out wider and beyond us. And for me, that almost is the definition of belief. Belief in something other than us is a recognition that we are not indivisible and isolated and alone in ourselves. We are all deeply interconnected. And I think in many ways, that can bring comfort in times of grief and maybe even makes us feel our grief more keenly in some way, because we sense, as I once said when a dear friend of ours died, that a tree had fallen in our forest.

You know, we collectively, we all noticed this space where this beautiful, much loved human was no longer standing. And that sense of the interconnectivity made that feeling even more keen within us. And of course, all the other layers and layers and layers of grief and loss and the stories that we have carried with us about what it means for us when someone goes. And the stories we carry about ourselves when someone goes, these are all deeply moving and are all worthy of our attention. But it doesn't necessarily mean that it's our mental attention, our head sort of analyzing.

I mean, the I analytical part of me. She's astonishing and wonderful and oh, she's terribly clever. But what I really mean by attention is this felt sense of attention, this willingness to sit with the aching heart. Oh gosh, that's, you know, saying that again makes me wish to cry. I can actually feel a tear on my cheek just speaking, Because when we really feel into what our body is telling us, in a way that's an act of belief.

It's an act of deep connection and a belief in ourselves as part of this great vast wholeness that we are also part of, I believe. And as I'm saying all this, I'm wondering, you know, how is this resonating within you? Are there parts of you saying, oh yes, I feel that too. Or are there parts of you saying, no, that's not how it is for me. For me, it feels like this.

And whatever the responses are within you, I mean, that's right, isn't it? It's your truth. And only you know what your truth is. So, coming back to I feel like I'm sort of slowly returning into this space again now. I'm curious to listen back and hear what I've just been sharing.

But returning to this space, I can feel my feet on the floor, I can feel my hands in my lap. I can feel that tear on my cheek. It's cool as it slowly dries. And you know, there isn't a magic wand here, is there? There's no, oh, and here's the answer.

Here's the answer. If you're holding grief right now, here's the answer that's gonna make everything feel okay. Because of course there is no answer. There is only this expression of love that you are feeling, or that I am feeling that we are feeling. And I'm really mindful as well, of course, that we've been witnessing so much grief around us, you know, the news and everything that even if we've been mindfully not consuming, we still know it's there.

And so also honoring that feeling within us, This is a shared sense of grief that we are collectively holding. And some of us may be pushing it away, getting on brightly, sinking in because it's too hard to hold. But it's still there. And so, I suppose really what comes up for me now is about honoring that grief that we see and feel has been and still is happening all around us. Honouring the grief that we hold, Because we all hold grief in some way.

It may not be a loved one who's actually died. It may be the loss of something else within our lives. Maybe even a sense of losing someone that we thought we used to be and not yet knowing who it is that we're becoming. It may be the loss of a much loved animal that has been with us for, you know, many years or even a brief time, but made an enormous impact in our hearts. You know, living grief as well.

A sense of maybe a dream or a hope that hasn't, maybe yet, or maybe will never be realized. You know, these are all griefs. And I suppose a sense of belief that I talked about at, you know, at the beginning, the correlation between these two words is, you know, his belief in our ability to hold it, belief in our endless capacity to hold it, to hold the whole of us with the most profound and loving care. Yeah. That feels that feels like a point of closure.

I'm opening my eyes. I'm coming back into the room. Gosh. Gosh. That was a journey.

And if there's anything there that I shared that resonates deeply within you, that you'd like to share with me, please do. And I will always answer, you know. I will always reply. Okay, my darlings. I also just want to say that in and around all of this is the love within and the love without, you know, the love that surrounds us.

And whether we simply tap into it in this moment, here I am feeling it deeply right now and I'd like to extend that to you so So, much love. And of course, I send you a hug and a wave.