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A space to settle in and listen, and see where the episode takes you. This inspiring, reflective podcast is an invitation to travel deeper, with compassionate self-enquiry.
Henny shares insights from her own life, alongside practices that help us connect with our inner wisdom, explore our relationship with change and find a greater sense of flow. Henny believes we all hold our own answers, so there are no one-size-fits-all solutions here. This is a space to be with what’s true for you, and to grow from there.
If you’re drawn to slowing down, listening in, and exploring what it means to live with greater authenticity, this podcast is for you. Guided by psychology, mindfulness, therapeutic coaching, flow journaling, and everyday compassion, we explore ideas that help us step further into our inner worlds, in order to shape the changes we seek in our outer worlds.
Hey my darlings. Oh, entering into this new year with a new season of the podcast really good and there's something that I just wrote which has sparked the content for today's episode content that's a funny word content, contentment for today's episode and I'd really love to talk about the juxtaposition between energy and deliberation. 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.
Henny:Settle in and listen and see where the episode takes you. So the piece that I just wrote, if you're part of the mailing list you'll potentially recognise this if you saw the email I've sent out today. It's just a couple of paragraphs that I'd really love to share with you and then open them up and explore them a little more deeply. So they go: As I look towards 2026, I'm noticing myself moving with energy and deliberation. The juxtaposition between these two can sometimes feel misaligned, but right now it feels like clarity.
Henny:Letting go of things that no longer feel right, even if they once did. Strengthening the energetic trails that genuinely draw my attention. Choosing discernment over momentum, alignment over urgency. So gosh, these feel really big and I'd like to kind of let that sit for a moment actually, just to see is there something there that resonates with you? The part that feels really big for me is this sense of strengthening the energetic trails that genuinely draw my attention.
Henny:You know, even as I wrote that, I could feel the energy like kind of stretching out from me. For me it feels like lines of light you know, these energetic trails, they reach out to people, to places, to practices, to the offerings that I send out into the world offerings that may not even yet exist, but conceptually they're already here. And this feels really light, it feels really empowered, I feel the energy, not as something that is draining me as in it's like oh it's coming out of me into these things, but as something where there is this reciprocity between me and the practice, me and the people, me and the places, me and the offerings that I'm nurturing, birthing right now. And you know, and I'd love to, yeah, to sort of sit with that feeling and also it feels really important that this is something that for me anyway, I sense that I can return to this feeling. This feeling feels like an anchor point, at the beginning of the year.
Henny:And then there's something else here, which is about choosing discernment over momentum. You know, so often at this time of year, there's this rush and this push and even while there may be, you know, practitioners around us, you know, maybe in your Instagram or you know Facebook or if you do, you know, that world of what's it called TikTok, you know, maybe there are practitioners in there who are, you know, sharing messages around this is a time of rest and a time of being in winter. There's a lovely practitioner called Katie Theekston who talks of the winteria, you know, this idea of the interior winter and really inhabiting that. If you like that idea, Katie is on Instagram as owlapothecary and yeah, kind of you might resonate with that sense of, you know, really kind of deepening into the winteria. You know, so all of this is also here and I recognize that in my inbox, in my email inbox, oh gosh, there's still a lot of rush and push and even from places where I would expect there not to be a sense of rushing or pushing.
Henny:I'm still getting messages around, you know, resolutions, even using that word, you know, what's your New Year resolution? Or set your goals for the year. And of course, of course our examination of the human condition, it tells us that actually, you know, these intentional places of direction can be really, really useful. Sometimes, you know, having goals can be really useful and also depending on our kind of genetic, psychological, emotional, mental kind of makeup, you know, psychological sort of makeup. You know, having goals can be more or less useful depending on who we are or can feel more or less useful, but I still bulk at being told that it's something that I should have or I must make at this time of year.
Henny:And of course so much of those kinds of very pushy messages, they're there because that's become our tradition, it's become the practice, the perceived wisdom is that this is the time of year when organisations, businesses, practitioners should be, you know, telling their communities to take action and to step in, and at the same time we know that actually, really, this is a time of, you know, when the world is still resting, when the work in the natural sense is all taking place underground, you know, plants are drawing nutrients, you know, down in the dark, they're not expending their energy pushing up into the light, not yet anyway, and so, you know, this piece of writing that just kind of turned up and, you know, I sent out to my community, it felt like wisdom, it felt like that deep underground wisdom, that wisdom that grows in the dark spaces, that's not asking to perform anything, it's simply there and, you know, when we're quiet, when we're listening deeply, we can tap into that And I'm also very mindful that, you know, for me personally that's translating as energy and deliberation. You know, These decisions that are feeling very clear for me actually around what I am laying down with gratitude.
Henny:Maybe as we come to the year end of the year of the wood snake, you know, this last bit of releasing, I've made a couple of quite significant decisions actually just in the last couple of days about things that I'm letting go of, things that I've you know, have been part of my business, and also things that I had, you know, quite kind of intentionally planned to do this year, but no longer feel like the right path. And so allowing myself to release those without attachment, without clinging, without one of my favorite phrases without getting lost in the sunk cost fallacy, you know, this idea that, oh, but I've invested so much in this thing energetically, financially, emotionally. I've invested so much in this thing that I can't let it go now, because that means that all of that was a waste. And of course that's not true, because even if something has been with us, you know, for a long time, whether that's a people, place, practice, you know, it may be that it served its purpose now and that actually is time for us to move on, or maybe there's a shift that's asking to be made in the way that we relate to that person, that place, that practice.
Henny:All that sense of purpose as well can come out all the P's. So, this idea of, you know, being able to move with energy and deliberation, this is about discernment over you know, not rushing at something, but equally really listening deeply to 'hang on a minute, have I been having thoughts about this thing for a little while? Is it time now to lay that down?' And again, one of my favorite phrases is to lay it down in the deep green grass, you know, and trust that it will be cared for. We don't need to hold on to it anymore. And then there's something also about, in that piece of writing that I shared at the beginning, you know, is alignment over urgency.
Henny:That too feels really true, you know. If you're like me, if you're running a business, if you're creating something that you offer out into the world, if you're responsible for something that requires your attention, your energy, this idea of alignment over urgency. I think this feels really powerful. And this really is about sinking in and listening ever more deeply to what our deepest truth is, rather than feeling as though we have to rush at everything, because either that's what we've always done, or that's what we're seeing other people doing, or that's what we're perceiving we're being told to do. You know, there's a radical self care, it's radical alignment when we pause for long enough to say, well hang on a minute, that might be your truth or that might be the truth I'm seeing around me, but is it mine?
Henny:Is that my truth? And then really working out where your energy wants to flow as we move into this new year. And there's a prompt that I shared in this email as well, which might resonate with you. And the prompt is, as I listen ever more closely. And again, you know, I'm so mindful that we are at the beginning of this new year, we're at the end, astrologically speaking, we're at the end of a nine year cycle, which for many of us has held enormous change, you know, just looking at what's happened in the macro climate around us enormous change, the political systems around us enormous change, health enormous change, and also for so many people in their inner landscape enormous change, really deep profound disruption of what was and a burgeoning spiritually awakened, perhaps we'd like to use that phrase, maybe that's not something that resonates with you, but maybe 'awakened' we could use that, profoundly this different way of relating to the world, you know, so over these last kind of nine years and again, you know, I'm not an astrologer, but you know, I hear these things that you know, there's this being this like very significant kind of nine year cycle and certainly for me personally that nine year cycle has felt enormous.
Henny:You know, in 2016, so ten years ago, I was incredibly ill and almost died, and in 2017 I began the journey that has led here, making, I mean, such profound, significant changes in my life. You know, my life is barely recognisable, except of course what's actually happened is that I've removed layers and layers and layers and layers of beliefs and stories, and actually am present in myself, present as myself, I was always there, I was just covered up with a lot of protective layers. So the people who knew me and loved me, knew me and loved me as I was, but I didn't know and love myself fully at that point. So, you know, this time of year, you know, as we enter into a new astrological cycle, we're at the beginning of something new, we're at the beginning of a new year, maybe you notice that there are other things ending and beginning in your life, Maybe there are things that you feel are calling for your attention, you know, these energetic threads. Maybe there are things that you notice you've been holding on to that perhaps now could be laid down in the deep green grass.
Henny:And perhaps this journaling prompt, this flow journaling prompt of as I listen ever more closely, perhaps that could speak to some of this and actually, you know, help you lay some of it down on paper. I find this practice of flow journaling, as anyone who's been here for a while will know, I find this practice so informative and so useful, it's very practical compassion really, because it enables me to see what I might not be able to see until it's laid down on the paper. So I'll put that prompt into the show notes actually and, you know, see if it speaks to you and see what comes from it. If you haven't flow journaled before, the approach and it's very straightforward, you can read my books In The Flow or Letters Of Love, but if you want to just begin, simply write the prompt at the top of your page and let the words flow from that. And if you feel stuck, write I feel stuck and write how stuck feels.
Henny:Simply keep writing until you get to the end of the page or the end of two pages, whatever you want to write, and then close your book and let the words do their work. And if you choose to, you could potentially return to them, you know, maybe later in the day or in a few days and reflect. But really resist the urge to edit and resist the urge to judge what you've written. So just allow what comes. So, what else?
Henny:Is there anything else to share here? This has been one of those episodes and they're becoming more and more like this, this kind of very, it's like flow journaling but with my voice, know, this kind of stream of consciousness, so I'm curious to listen back and hear what's come through. Know, it's a form of channeling to own that word. When I use that word, it's really about channeling from the inside, know, allowing this kind of depth of connection and I suppose that's really what I've been talking about the whole time is how can we find the pathways to listen ever more deeply and to trust rather than, you know, to hear something, have a knee jerk response to it, but to hear something, notice our response to it and then to see, okay, well are we hearing it elsewhere too? Or have we had that thought before but we've squashed it and pushed it away?
Henny:You know, how are these things showing up in our wider world, the wider relational field that we're in and then what are we noticing about how we're responding to them And that's really what I mean by listening ever more deeply. So, I'm gonna close with the last part actually of that email, where I've said, this feels like listening ever more closely, and so I'm trusting that what's meant to grow will do so with care and spaciousness, and that what's complete can be laid down with gratitude. That feels like a practice in itself. And maybe there's something that arises for you from that it could be a beautiful prompt to journal to, as I listen ever more closely. And then I go on to say, for now let this be enough.
Henny:And that's really what I want to close with here. For now, let this, just this, whatever this is for you, let this be enough. And I am so glad you're here. Even saying those words, that brings this wave of emotion through me. I am so glad you're here and I mean that in every sense of that phrase and I am so grateful to be walking into 2026 with you and I am sending you so much love and a hug and a wave