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'Everyday Compassion with Henny Flynn' is a space to settle in, listen, and see where the episodes take you. It's an invitation to travel deeper, using compassionate self-enquiry.
Henny is a writer, teacher and guide. She 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 you won't find one-size-fits-all solutions here. This is a space to be with what's true for you, and to grow from there.
Drawing on psychology, mindfulness, therapeutic coaching and flow journaling, each episode explores the small, everyday ways compassion can help us step further into our inner worlds, and shape the changes we seek in our outer worlds.
If you're drawn to slowing down, listening in and simply seeing what emerges, you're very welcome here.
If you're watching on YouTube right now, hi! It's looking very moody in the room. It's getting dark outside and I've chosen not to put more lights on. I kind of like the, the shadows and the play of the plants against the wall behind me, so maybe this starts to inform where the podcast takes us today. Welcome to Everyday Compassion with me Henny Flynn.
Speaker 1:This is the same podcast with a brand new name to reflect the heart of what we explore here. The small everyday ways compassion can help us in making and managing change. This is a space to settle in, to listen and see where the episode takes you. I'm very mindful that this week has been very big in many ways. There's a lot going on in the news, much of it very hopeful.
Speaker 1:Maybe a sea change in what people are willing to put up with and also huge amount of bravery and courage, I think. This demonstration of people standing up against forces that feel very oppressive, standing up for what they recognize and feel is right, And standing up for each other. Standing up for people who they might never meet. You know that's incredibly powerful isn't it and and it's interesting. I didn't realize this was sort of where my thoughts were going to go but today and yesterday, I have been writing a new field note.
Speaker 1:Field notes are basically little articles. I think little gosh. Why did I why did I add that in? I mean they're not necessarily little. Sometimes they're really big.
Speaker 1:That was a you know it's one of those words isn't it? That we can drop in like just or only or simply. We drop these words in to diminish the power or the energy of something. Er maybe out of a kind of coyness. Oh, you don't you know you don't have to listen to little old me.
Speaker 1:Some kind of old story of staying small. So I'm just flagging that that these pieces that I write these field notes I write they're not little. They are what they are. Sometimes they're long sometimes they're short. There is no need to diminish them, Henny.
Speaker 1:So a little regroup on that one. I listened back to an episode of the podcast from 2021 and it was all about what are your new, in brackets, non negotiables. So I recorded that five years ago. And I can't really remember why it came across my field of attention, my field of awareness, but it did. And so I listened back.
Speaker 1:And I was struck by how many threads were present. Some very slight, maybe just you know one, you know, one tiny thread, know, when we when we see a piece of cotton, it's made up of many threads. So maybe just one like very tiny thread, you know, that that just points towards something which I now recognize to be a deep truth for me or you know and there were kind of multiple versions of this as I was listening. Thinking oh that's so interesting. How five years ago these thoughts these reflections were were already present.
Speaker 1:And I was also reflecting on how they have matured you know as I have matured They have consolidated, maybe softened, adapted, changed, and you know, they're all part of the work that I offer now into the world. But one of the things that became very clear as I was reading was how our non negotiables shift over time and so that's really the topic of the field note that I've written and shared on the website. I'll put a link to it in the show notes if you're curious to to read more and if you're in circle. Our circle space and you'd be so very welcome to join us there. It's a very quiet, spacious place for reflection and connection.
Speaker 1:And, I've shared a post in there inviting a reflection on, you know, how have your non negotiables changed? And maybe that's something that speaks to something in you now and if you want to share that with me, then please email me or or come into circle and and share within the community. So this idea that our non negotiables shift and mature with us, I think is really really really important. Because when we get stuck in certainty, it becomes a cage to our creativity. It is very difficult to be creative when we have a fixed mindset, when we have, absolute certainty about things.
Speaker 1:And so I feel that this there is such wisdom in spaciousness. And when we have these very fixed ideas about what's non negotiable for us, Sometimes that can be of huge benefit because it can help us really anchor into a boundary. It can help us anchor in to a behaviour that, that we're not willing to compromise on. And it can work the other way too, of course. So I feel as though this is this is one of those places, oh there are so many places like this, but this is one of those places where where it's both and.
Speaker 1:You know so for me when I feel into you know my sense of the non negotiables that I have now one is a non negotiable for me is that sense of spaciousness and a willingness to be with uncertainty, a willingness to trust myself, to feel my way through something without having to have, you know, very fixed ideas about it. And at the same time, you know, I'm very attentive to the deep voice of wisdom within me. The one that gives me my deep yes and my deep no. And I'm curious actually just saying that, you know, I wonder how much this is a reflection of what has been playing out in the world of politics recently, you know. Perhaps people no longer sticking to what they believed was a non negotiable in the past and and allowing themselves to shift and change and recognise that maybe underneath that there was something much deeper and much more humane, much more value oriented that perhaps anchors them More firmly into themselves that they're they're true selves rather than the self that is reacting to the world, perhaps from fear or from old limiting beliefs or from stuff that's being fed to them either from their family system or their cultural system or their you know, their faith system or their, you know, their societal system, their political, sociopolitical system around them.
Speaker 1:And and rather than just accepting this stuff that's being fed to them as being true, they've been able to get beneath that into something that is much more rooted rooted in their own deep inner truth. And perhaps that's really where our non negotiables sit. So I think it's really interesting when we start to play with this idea. And perhaps, you know, one of the things that I shared in Circle is, you know, perhaps, even that phrase non negotiable is outdated in some way. Or perhaps it gives us something that really helps us anchor in you know both and these two things they they can be both and.
Speaker 1:It's very interesting. I'm I'm sort of feeling a kind of quietness here too. And I'm so sorry if you're watching on YouTube. I'm finding it impossible to open my eyes right now. So you've got me with my eyes closed because I just feel as though I really want to feel into this.
Speaker 1:You know what is rising here as as we collectively sit with this this. I want to say awakening you know, perhaps there is an awakening for some for many. An awakening of awareness that perhaps what they believed. To be non negotiable in the past. Has shifted to something that they might never have realised would happen.
Speaker 1:And I know you know in this place I don't often reference what's going on in the outer world. You know, I don't I don't talk about Samhain. I often don't even mention Christmas even at the, you know, the, you know the episodes at the end of December. But there is something about the wider field which feels very powerful right now and I don't think it means that we have to be glued to the news to notice that. And maybe maybe the thing that is present is hope.
Speaker 1:And there's that beautiful quote isn't there? If hope is the thing with feathers. That beautiful piece of poetry. I don't know where this goes now. Maybe it takes us to a place of what does hope feel like for each of us.
Speaker 1:And I feel this this sort of speaks to this, the atmosphere of this room. There we go. My eyes are open again. Oh, no. They've gone closed.
Speaker 1:The atmosphere of this room that I'm in right now, it feels safe and comforting. It is lit, but it is not bright. It is warm. It feels safe enough. And I think that's part of what hopefulness gives us.
Speaker 1:It gives us a sense of feeling safe enough. And then safe enough in the sense that we can move forward. Maybe even safe enough in the space that we are in in order to be able to move forward. And also there's something about hope which is spacious in itself. Know it's not In my sense it doesn't feel like a you know a fixed thing.
Speaker 1:Hopefulness by its very nature feels creative. You know our ability to. To be with a sense of uncertainty and still trust. That we're going to be okay. And I suppose that brings me back to one of, I can't remember if I said this earlier, but one of my feelings that I have about this sense of like what's non negotiable for me and and that is a faith in myself.
Speaker 1:You know holding hope within myself. That I will find my way. I'm feeling drawn to share a poem. I've actually got my darling girl is here. Well, the book is open.
Speaker 1:The book is open on a page. I've just popped it down on the table and maybe this speaks to this idea of hope that I haven't, realized was what was going to arise today. But, yeah, this sort of sense that, we can sit with ourselves in hopefulness. It doesn't have to be a kind of striving, pushing forward, although of course you know thank goodness for those times when we do and thank goodness for the people that have stepped forward. You know in these political arenas and you know and brought hopefulness with them.
Speaker 1:But it doesn't always have to be that. It doesn't always have to be that push ahead. It can also be, you know, a sense of coming home within ourselves too. And the willingness to to be present with everything that is here and to still hold hope. Even when it feels hard.
Speaker 1:And of course, as someone very wise, Anton once said to me, without hope we are hopeless. And so maybe that becomes a non negotiable that we are hopeful. So let's read this poem. You know this this book is called my darling girl. If that doesn't resonate with you, just hear my darling.
Speaker 1:Just hear those words. It's my darling girl because they are the words that my pen wrote on the page of my journal from this wise inner voice that spoke to me and gave me these words. And I share them with you with love. Take my hand and come with me Back to yourself. Listen to your voice within.
Speaker 1:Be kind. Allow your breath to open up the spaces between your ribs. Breathe out from the soles of your feet into the tips of your toes. Rebalance, run and rest. If your smile can't yet reach your face, grow it deep inside your belly.
Speaker 1:Let it linger there. Slowly expanding with each breath warming you. Feel it rise up your spine and settle across your shoulders. Draped in its mantle. Rest in it.
Speaker 1:Don't wrestle with it. There is no win, no lose. There just is. Come back to yourself my love and be free. Well that feels like the place to close.
Speaker 1:I really have no idea where that went. What I said, I hope I hope it made sense. I can feel the kind of the the questioning within me rising. Yeah, did it make sense? Was there a connecting thread through it all?
Speaker 1:Only you will know whether it resonated for you. I think this is episode 10 of this season and ordinarily it would mark the end of this season. So maybe that is what this is. Let's see. Maybe there's another episode to come for season twenty one.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure. If it is the end of the season, then thank you so much for listening as always I send you so much love and so much gratitude for being here. And the new season will begin in a few weeks. I think this is the end. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That feels right. So there are two things that just want to share with you. One is immerse begins on the November 20. So if you've been circling, if you've been wondering whether it's the right thing for you, then you still have a little bit of time to make up your mind.
Speaker 1:And there's time to have a chat with me if that feels good. So that's available. And then the other thing is, if you're on the mailing list, you'll have seen this, but I have some lovely little blank page journals, sweet little things from my publishers in a work project. And I thought rather than have them sit on my shelf, I would like to give them to you. So if you would like to order any of my books between now and the end of November, then I will, I would love to offer you one of these books whilst stocks last.
Speaker 1:So there's lots more kind of like Ts and Cs that I really need to share. So what I'll do is I'll, I'll include a link, to this particular, bit of information. And if you'd like to order a book, know, maybe a book for yourself or for someone you love for Christmas, then, then that's there. And, and there's also an opportunity to get a bundle of my books as well. So I'll put all the Ts and Cs and stuff in the in the notes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's it. And I want to send you love and a hug and a wave. Take care, my dogs.