Anton's been doing quite a lot of sorting and tidying and I'm mindful that it could be a little bit of the ear of the wood snake going on, know, the kind of the last bit of clearing as we come to the end of this Chinese year. But one of the things that he has uncovered, including a load of very beautiful photographs from his childhood and when we were young parents, was a book from our wedding day where people had written messages and I would love to share something from that book with you. 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 this isn't about making changes. This isn't about deep inner work, but it is about love. It is about how we can view love and the stories as well that we might hold about what love is and on the morning of our wedding my mum, who was staying in a hotel next door to the house where I was staying, rang and said that she had been up all night thinking and she had ended up writing something that she wanted to share with me and she actually wanted to read it at the wedding instead of reading whatever it was that I had originally asked her to read. And so in my kind of bridal pre wedding, you know, and nerves.

You know, I was just like, oh, okay, all right. Do you want to read it to me? You know, really not sinking in to the moment, if I'm completely honest. And I was sitting on the edge of the bath with my hair in curlers and a towel wrapped around me while she read me what I'd like to read to you. Needless to say, it had me in tears.

And I was deeply grateful when I heard her read it at the wedding ceremony, I had a mother who was able to put these messages into words. And when Anton came sort of down from the workshop and said that he'd found this book in one of the boxes, it'd probably been there since the day we moved here. The first thing I did was I opened the book up to read the poem from my mother and I thought, well, that feels like a lovely thing to be sharing. So I'd like to indulge myself, indulge my love of her and maybe indulge you and share this. And the poem goes, Love is not blind.

The rosy dawn soon fades, lets in the harsh light of familiarity, exposes cruelly the frailties and foibles, each to other. Love is not blind. See, be aware. The selves that are not one, but two. Each of you giving piece by piece, hour by hour, a sharing of two personalities, warts and all.

Love is not blind. Love sees, accepts, and knows the selfishness and pain, and yet loves still. Yet holds some secrets back, lest there should be an end to love's discovery. Love is not blind. Love sees deep into the soul, not only of oneself, but of the soul's own twin, the other self.

Love lasts a lifetime and beyond. If you want to read the poem, it's in the transcript for this episode. And I'd like to close it there, actually. And maybe you'd like to listen again. Maybe it resonates with you in some way.

I think it's a really beautiful piece of writing and I felt really privileged to be able to share it with you. All right, take care my darlings. Sending love, a hug and a wave.