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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.
So I was thinking about what to explore today. The theme that feels strongest with me right now is this idea of looking back to look forward and so yeah I'd love to bring that into the space and let's see where that takes us. Welcome to Everyday Compassion with me Henny Flynn. 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.
Henny Flynn:This is a space to settle in, to listen and see where the episode takes you. So, so actually as a starting point with that, I am about to revive, a practice that I used to share called a piece of quiet and if you've been with me for a while then you might have heard me talking about it and essentially it's this idea that we can find these sacred pauses in our day and really settle in, come home to ourselves, to use some mindfulness, some relaxation, meditation techniques and from there to use a prompt and do some flow journaling. And I find that when we begin our journaling practice with some relaxation, with some centeredness, then it makes the words flow even more fluidly, which doesn't mean that that doesn't happen if we don't have time to take a pause, to do a kind of a short meditation before we journal. But I think there's something about the the kind of both end that it can be wonderful, you know, if you're like right up in your head and you don't know what to do about a problem and you use the prompt, how can I bring more compassion here?
Henny Flynn:And you just sit and write to that, like in your kind of activated, agitated state, it can be super interesting to see what might turn up on the paper. And equally, if you're able to find just a little bit more time and do a short relaxation practice, something that really enables you to settle into your body and really come into the journaling as a somatic practice. Writing that prompt, how can I bring more compassion here? Might reveal something very different. And I think they both have value.
Henny Flynn:And I think it's also really interesting how we can use one prompt in these two approaches. Sometimes when I'm doing group work, we'll do some like speed journaling, you know, we'll literally write just for two or three minutes to a prompt, we'll drop into it, I'll share the prompt, we write for two or three minutes, we see what's emerged. And, you know, so all of these different ways of approaching the practice of flow journaling or journaling in general, you know, they're all valid. They're all really useful in their own way. But the practice of a peace of quiet is really about this intentional pause.
Henny Flynn:And so I'm very excited to say that I am reviving it, relaunching it as a live practice. So before I used to record it and shared it as a private podcast for people who subscribed and now I am launching it as a live free practice. So every Monday starting this coming Monday the fifth, I think it is of October 06:30PM UK time. You can come and join me for twenty five minutes, no more, less if you want to, sort of drop out earlier of course, but we'll just be together for twenty five minutes and we'll have a few minutes to let everybody into the room, we'll then go straight into a relaxation practice, they'll be different each week and then out of that practice I will see what flow journaling prompt emerges. I will share it with you and we'll write together and then we'll close.
Henny Flynn:And the intention is that you don't need to have your camera on. You don't need to share anything. If you want to say hello in the chat, that would be lovely. But it's, you know it's very much a space for you to step into and for your nervous system to know because of the repetition week on week to know that this is a place where you are safe enough. When I first started thinking about A Piece of Quiet and the whole idea of it, a phrase from a Hilary Mantel novel kept coming up in my head and the novel is called A Place of Greater Safety.
Henny Flynn:And I just, my body loves that idea. You know, the whole idea of the whole concept, the notion of safety is something that I work with a lot. And how do we create environments which are safe enough for us? How do we become a space which is safe enough for other people. And I feel really strongly that right now there's an enormous need.
Henny Flynn:Oh, it makes me want to cry. There's such an enormous need globally for us all to become a place of greater safety for other humans. But more than that to be the place of greatest safety for ourselves. And you know, know this is quite a grand idea, isn't it? This idea that we could perhaps, you know, between us create that on these Monday evenings at 06:30PM UK time for twenty five minutes we can step in to a peace of quiet and feel safe enough feel safe enough to rest, to be present, to be still and to write and then to go on into whatever the rest of our day holds, whatever the rest of our evening holds.
Henny Flynn:That feels really important to me. And so that really taps into this idea of like looking back to look forward, because this is a practice that I created, crafted, imagined quite some time ago now, certainly at least a couple of years ago and it sort of came to its natural conclusion. I'm very, very keen on endings and beginnings, you know, I think it's really important that we learn how to navigate endings, how to let things go in order that something new can arise and I'm also really, really interested when something hasn't quite completed or when it re emerges as something that looks a little bit different. And I think that's the same, that's the case here for a piece of quiet, it just looks a little bit different. And so yeah if you'd love to join me on Monday I would be absolutely delighted, I'm going to put a link in the show notes for you but more than that, more than that really here is about you know, this idea that it is okay to look back and to see, oh actually that thing there, that still holds some interest for me.
Henny Flynn:And really to discern what is it about that thing that still holds some interest. And not discount something because it was in the past and it's done with and we're just moving forward. And equally not to hanker back to something because it was in some kind of mythical everything was better than kind of past. But this really present intentional discerning awareness of what was and could it be useful again? And also like how that maybe that learning, the experience, maybe the experience that I had creating a piece of quiet before, how does that guide me as I reshape it in some way going forward?
Henny Flynn:And it's been, yeah, it's been really interesting watching myself go through this process and trusting myself that this feels right. And also recognising that I know when I very first sort of realized that a piece of quiet in its initial iteration was sort of starting to draw to a close. Even at that point, I had this like, but it's not done yet. So I always knew there was something. And actually that really reminds me of when, I wish this a bit of a non sequitur, but when Anton and I were at university, my husband Anton, we met at university and we split up for a few months.
Henny Flynn:I ended up moving to Egypt like you do and once he graduated, he followed. He came and found me. Thank goodness. And I remember having this conversation with him sitting at the top of forest fields in Nottingham and sitting on a bench looking out over the city. And one of us saying, this feels more like a separation than a divorce.
Henny Flynn:And so actually, maybe there's something there. Maybe I learnt that it was okay to look back in order to move forward. Maybe that taught me something really important because six months later he came out to Egypt and here we are still together thirty six years later or thirty six years after we first met. And of course, in that particular scenario, if I wasn't willing to look back in order to look forward, then the relationship that is the love of my life wouldn't have continued. That's quite a sobering thought.
Henny Flynn:And I'm also really thoughtful about this whole idea of looking back to look forward, because as part of, it's sort of, it's arisen in the field as well, know, this seasonal group work that I do. And this idea of, I don't want to give too much away because we've got a session of the field next week and just in case you're in the field and I don't want to like air it too much. Just essentially this idea that it is useful to pay attention to stuff that has happened in the past in order to help us understand and navigate what is going on now. I think there is a really, I've sort of touched on it before really, there's a really sort of human, maybe it feels like a very kind of modern sort of capitalist kind of consumerist society trait. Don't know, you can challenge me on that.
Henny Flynn:I'd love to get your thoughts on this. But it feels like there's a bit of a sort of consumerist trait of discarding what we perceive to no longer have value. And that can include ideas, It can include relationships. It can include knowledge. It can include experience.
Henny Flynn:That's really interesting. Yes, I think we sort of see this a lot where ideas get rehashed and presented as though they're something new, but actually when you look at the root of it, it goes back to Socrates. Almost like the appropriation of other people's ideas and then packaging them up as though there's something new. I think that happens a lot on social media, by the way. And actually I think there's something really beautiful and really profound about paying attention to the threads that something has back into the past.
Henny Flynn:And that includes with ourselves, know, as we're moving forward, we're like, you know, our shape is sort of shifting in some way or we're revealing, we're becoming revealed as more of ourselves, not the shape shifting contortion that we might've had to do as children or adolescents at school or in the workplace, or even in our family systems, but this revelation of self, which I think is really what this work is all about, in that process, really sort of feel myself like opening up there, in that process of becoming, we can still honor and deeply respect all the versions of ourselves that came before. That we don't discard any part of ourselves or any version of ourselves that we have ever been. We are all here. We are, whole of us is present. The whole of us is worthy of our attention.
Henny Flynn:And in many ways, I sort of have this kind of sense on like almost like a sort of quantum basis that in many ways that really speaks to this idea of like looking back in order to look forward, that we can look back at all the iterations of ourself and gain the knowledge, the understanding, the confidence, the compassion, the clarity, the kindness, the courageousness, all the words beginning with k, to... That can support us with who we are now and who we are continuing to become. Wow. Blimey. Well, that's one I'm going to really enjoy listening back to cause I feel like there was a lot of truth in there.
Henny Flynn:My body is really like thrumming with what came through. I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'd love to hear what resonated for you if anything but I'd definitely love to hear what resonated for you. What tapped into the part of you that is deeply listening here. Yeah, then the last thing that I really wanted to share with you as well is, so alongside A Piece of Quiet, which is this lovely weekly, freely offered gathering, live gathering.
Henny Flynn:I also am recognising the importance of the small group work. We're almost at the end of our first year of IMMERSE, Immerse in the Heart of Change, which uses my book, The Heart of Change and use it across a whole year. And as a small group, explore change from many different perspectives. And obviously everybody has their own journey, their own experience, their own way of interpreting the material, and it's deliberately crafted and written and curated, I want to say, in such a way that it is available to meet people, meet you wherever you are. And if you are curious about how it might be to work with a small group, only eight people in the group, We meet once a month, we have a private space where people can share.
Henny Flynn:It's very un noisy, I have to say. You know, it's a really like beautiful, gentle space outside of the sessions. And then this really powerful place of connection each month and set of materials to work through. So if you're someone who loves homework, like you have that. If you're someone who loves like deep self reflection, then you have prompts that support that.
Henny Flynn:So it's really fluid the way that this material works. And what I have been seeing over this past year has absolutely blown me away in terms of the reflective power that has come out of this and the changes that people have recognised within themselves and the lives that they're creating around them. So, if that is resonating with you on any level, I'm going to put a link to IMMERSE into the show notes too. You're also really welcome just to drop me a note if you'd like to have a chat about whether it's the right space for you. We begin the new cohort of IMMERSE begins on the November 20, I think.
Henny Flynn:And my final session with this current cohort is next week, which feels very tender and very beautiful and something I'm so proud that I created. And actually in a way that speaks to looking back in order to look forward because I first wrote The Heart of Change out of a series of five one day retreats that I ran back in 2018, so nearly ten years ago. And then over time I became, I realised, well actually hang on a minute, this work, this work is actually a book. And then I realised, oh hang on a minute, this book is actually a course. This book is actually a guide for a group.
Henny Flynn:And so here we are about to begin our second IMMERSE cohort and I would absolutely love it if you wanted to join us there. So yeah let's close there and I send you love and a hug and a wave