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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.
It's such a beautiful day outside and yes I dearly hope that whenever you're listening to this that it feels beautiful for you too whatever the season you're in, whatever the weather you're in. And I was going to record this episode sitting outside but there's a very welcome and quite strong breeze so you'd have got lots of muffled noises over the mic and it might not have been that easy to listen to. 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 Flynn:Settle in and listen and see where the episode takes you. I've come back into the stable but I am sitting on a day bed that I have in here and I'm looking out of the window and the door behind me is open but you might hear the little beads that are hanging over it stopping stopping the insects from coming in rattling a little bit so yeah just to kind of set the scene of where I am, and I'm looking out into our fields or our grass meadows as they're slowly, slowly, slowly becoming, and the sun is shining and the sky is very blue. And yeah, it feels, feels really, I feel a lot of gratitude for being able to be here now and I was thinking about what to share, you know, the reflections to share today, and if you're part of the mailing list or you're with me on Instagram, then you'll know that right now I'm in the process of opening something very special and it's called The Field and it is a place, an online space for people who are navigating change. Whatever kind of change they're in, wherever they are in their change process, whether they're right at the beginning or deep in that messy bit in the middle, the bit that can feel messy in the middle, or if they're in the tail, you know, the tail of the change.
Henny Flynn:So, it's a space where people can gather gather wisdom and maybe share and maybe rest, maybe recognise how far they've come, maybe acknowledge, the steps that they've already taken and maybe have space enough to pause enough to be able to see what steps would most serve them now as they move forward. And this is a space that has been gosh, sitting quietly in my heart for a very long time and I've really sat with how to phrase it, how to name what kind of space it is, to really, sink deep into what it is that's been calling me to create and to offer this space out into the world. And so, when I was thinking about, you know, what to share with you today, that's obviously a huge part of it and do you know what? I'm actually going to All I can hear is the bees rattling. The bees?
Henny Flynn:The beads rattling. So, I'm going to pause briefly and come back to you. Okay, so I've taken the beads down and closed the door and hopefully that won't be so distracting, if you could hear it even. So yes, so I was thinking, you know, what do I come and talk about today? Because, you know, the field is really, I mean, literally in this moment front and centre, I'm looking out at a field, but it's really present within me right now so then I was thinking, you know, you can find out about the field.
Henny Flynn:I'll share the link for you and if you're curious to hear what we talked about last night at the opening event, I'm recording this on Friday and last night on Thursday, we opened the field. I was joined by a really wonderful group of people who, you know, wanted to come and hear more about it and, we also did a really wonderful practice which I'll, talk a little bit about in a moment, but if you would like to hear what we covered in that session, then I'll share a link, to that as well, so you can listen in. Maybe it will feel like an extra bonus episode of the podcast for you One of the things that we covered actually yesterday was a really, wonderful practice, which can help us see where we are in our process of change. So, you know, I said just now about, you know, we can be in many different places in our process of change. We might be right at the beginning, just dipping our toes into the water or in the analogy I shared in the session last night, putting our foot onto the bridge of change.
Henny Flynn:We might be standing right in the middle of that bridge, you know, looking down shallow water, you know, running by quietly or maybe it feels much more turbulent than that, or we might be at the far end of the bridge, you know, stepping into the new beginning that we've shaped or created or been part of in some way or are part of in some way. And so in the practice that I shared, we actually somatically embodied the experience of how does it feel and how can you recognise where you are when you tap into those feelings, in terms of being on that bridge of change and it's a really powerful practice. If you're curious about doing your own exploration of change, then you might really enjoy that. It's about halfway through the session last night, so you can hear about the field and you can do the practice. So, that's all there, you know, and I can share a link to the field and it would be wonderful to have you join me there.
Henny Flynn:But I also wanted to talk about how sharing this, how nurturing this idea, crafting this idea and getting out of my own way in order to share this idea into the world has been a practice, you know, a lived experience practice in the work that I support others in doing and you know intellectually I understand that of course, but it was interesting. Was only really today that kind of understanding sank deeper into my body and it was like, oh gosh yeah, like I really have gone through all the different sort of phases of doubt and fear and confusion and optimism and hope and doubt and fear and confusion, you know, we sort of we go through these don't we in these kind of ever repeating sort of spirals, as we move toward creating something new in our life, and I just wanted to name that, and to name it as much for myself, but also to say, you know, regardless of our experience or regardless of the knowledge that we've gathered, you know, we are all human and we all are going through these processes of change all the time and the thing that shifts, the thing that I see that shifts is the way that we hold space for ourselves as we navigate it.
Henny Flynn:Now, the idea for the field first came to me maybe five or six years ago. I didn't call it that. I didn't have a, you know, sort of clear kind of concept of what it was, but the root of it, like feeling deep in my belly, that landed in me a long time ago and what I have allowed it to do is to percolate and to sort of ferment and to, you know, sort of go into that gloopy goo of the, you know, the butterfly inside the chrysalis or the caterpillar inside the chrysalis, you know, before it emerges as the butterfly. Like, something to sit in that dark, gloopy place and form itself in a way is very different from what I would have done in the past, you know, ten-twenty years ago. I'd have really pushed at it.
Henny Flynn:I'd have, you know, wanted to birth it as fast as I could. I'd have wanted, you know, in the analogy of the bridge, I'd have wanted to get from one side of the bridge to the other in the quickest possible way, ideally without actually having to cross over the bridge, you know, and sort of go through all of the steps that it takes to move through that change. And if I had, you know, sort of, you know, done this, then, the end result, the sort of thing that got created, might have still had many aspects to it that were worthy and useful and very valid, but my feeling about myself and what I'd created would have been very different. I don't know if this any of this is resonating with you. It's kind of, you know, this is one of those episodes where I'm kind of through sharing with you, I'm kind of making sense of something to myself really, But what I recognise this time is that through almost like the discipline of allowing myself to sit with the discomfort of not pushing and not pulling an idea, but letting it just percolate and ferment and, you know, do its thing.
Henny Flynn:That feels to me like a much more mature response than the one that I might have had in the past, which is not to say that, you know, as I've got closer to launching the field, you know, there hasn't been a lot of work, because there has, you know, I've had to find a whole new platform, you know, in that and create that space for people to be able to come into sort of community with each other in a safe environment. I've had to do an awful lot of thinking about the language that I use and the technology that I use and the systems and the, you know, all of the kind of like the detail stuff, you know, that's all been a lot of work and my senses that I've held space for myself through that complexity in a way that I'm really proud of actually. That's what's coming up right now, and it's further evidence to me of the power and the significance of these two unifying factors, which I think underpin all, deep and lasting change and one is self awareness and the other one is self compassion and you know the combination of those two things is what I call compassionate self inquiry.
Henny Flynn:This willingness to be with ourselves, even when something feels immensely difficult and the willingness to be with the pain of something or the suffering that has come out of the pain of something and to attend to what it is that, you know, the part of us that is feeling the pain or the part of us that is feeling the suffering, to attend to those parts and really, really look after them, in order to then be able to understand, oh my darling, how are we then going to move forward?' So, a really concrete example of this is, back in March year, sort of mid March, I had a lovely few days away on the coast in Pembrokeshire and I think that I had this sort of idea that by the time I got back from my holiday, I would have all of the answers for the field that I hadn't yet managed to work out and of course that didn't happen, because for whatever reason it just didn't. And so what I was left with was a sense of frustration, a sense of I should have been working harder at it, I shouldn't have taken that time off, I should have, should have, should have.
Henny Flynn:Noticing that and being with that, meant that I could turn toward those parts and say, oh, what is it that you need? And so the part that was saying, oh, I should have worked harder. I was able to have a conversation really with that part and understand where does that story come from about, you know, that it's only hard work I'm putting inverted commas around that word that gets you to the outcome that you want to get to, because meanwhile, while you know all of those shoulds were rising, deep underneath them, I was actually working out the answers to the questions that I'd posed to myself, and by the time I returned home from that trip, I knew exactly how the field was shaped and how to share it. So it's like these two things were happening simultaneously. One, the kind of like, oh I don't know what I'm doing and then underneath that, the wiser part of me working it all out for me.
Henny Flynn:Now if I'd got stuck in the headspace of, I don't know what I'm doing, this is too hard, other people are good at these things, not me, you know, all of these stories that we can hold, I certainly can hold. If I got sort of stuck up there, up in the head, I may not have been able to also allow the freedom for my wiser, you know, calmer, kinder, clearer self to work things through in her own way. However, by attending to the parts that were feeling the anxiety or the doubt or the fear, by attending to them with kindness, by not beating myself up for, you know, not working hard enough, by not beating myself up for not having worked it all out yet, or doing the other thing, which I really nearly did, which was I nearly scrapped the whole thing, or that was one option, and then another option that came to me was, well, I could always move it to September, move the launch to September. So, you know, that all of these parts are all speaking, they're all desperately trying to look after me, and in and amongst it all was self.
Henny Flynn:You know the part that if you listen to the conversation with Sula last week, then you'll have you know, of hopefully a sort of clearer understanding of this sense of parts work and self being the container that holds all of our parts and it's the itself who has this kind of rooted, grounded quality and this compassionate curiosity and courageousness, that when we're really sort of standing in self, that's when we feel most aligned, and it's when we're kind of lost in pain, or doubt, or fear, uncertainty, or you know sort of hyper expectation of things, or you know sort of lost in imagination of how something you know could be, but it's not rooted in reality. All of those parts that hold those different ways of thinking and being, when we're lost in one of those, that's when life can feel quite challenging or very challenging, extremely challenging for us. So being able to stand in self and observe those parts and attend to them can be one of the most beautiful things that we can do for ourselves. I really hope that all made sense. This is sort of my reflection really, that that is the process that I've taken myself through, as I've been creating the field.
Henny Flynn:So, this is life imitating art, or art imitating life. It's direct embodiment of the purpose of the field, which is to be a place where people can come when stuff is feeling messy in life and find a place to pause and a place to maybe gather some wisdom that could really support them on their journey through whatever change it is that they're making. And the only sort of ask of any of us in this space is to come with curiosity, and that's really the compassionate self inquiry, you know, the curiosity about like, oh, what is it that I'm experiencing right now? And how can I hold space for myself and for others who are doing their work, while I do my own work too? I feel so, I feel this so deeply that our nervous systems need places where we can rest.
Henny Flynn:And when I say rest, I don't mean become inactive. I mean rest and through that rest actually become maybe even more productive and it's such a kind of, it's such counterintuitism, because you know so many of us we're brought up in this environment that says that productivity is all about things feeling hard and effortful and I really want to challenge that. I also want to challenge this idea that, you know, we have to do things on our own and that there's another sort of principle here, which is that, I want to challenge the idea that other people have got better answers than us, because my premise is that we all innately hold all of the wisdom that we need. It's just that sometimes it can be so valuable to listen and to observe others and to, you know, be able to, sort of, see, through our observation, through this witnessing of others, able to see, oh, maybe there's another path for me too. Maybe there's another way through this thing that I'm experiencing right now.
Henny Flynn:And this work with the nervous system, you know, it's something, that I've been running some retreats with the lovely Grace and we've actually got another one day retreat coming up in May, so I'll put that into the notes. It's an online day, so if you're not local to me, you can come along to that. It's a day of exploring the nervous system and really understanding it from the perspective of polyvagal theory. So, if you love a bit of science, we'll be sharing that, but more importantly, it's about the of, again the embodied experience of what does it feel like when our nervous system is out of kilter and what does it feel like when we're back online and we're really anchored within ourselves. And you know these two things, parts work and polyvagal theory, they sit together so beautifully, because we all know how it feels when we feel good within ourselves.
Henny Flynn:We all know how it feels when we're taking an action that feels like, oh yeah, that is the right action for me right now and we also know how it feels when something's happening that feels wrong, that just feels off, that feels not okay and you know so much of this work that to me feels so important and one of the reasons for creating the field is in order for us to have a safe enough space, where we can really practice and learn how to listen in to our nervous systems and feel into the deep okay and the deep not okay, what we sometimes call the deep yes and the deep no. So, I think that might be it for today. Other than to say, you know, if any of this has resonated with you, if anything about the field has resonated with you and you want to find out more, please do look at the link. It's my normal website, hennyflinn.co.uk and then enter the field, enter dash the dash field, but I'll put the link in the notes and, you know, I would love to see you there And it's also a place where you don't have to perform, don't have to there's no judgement, there's no comparison.
Henny Flynn:This is really the intention within it, is that we recognise that what someone else is working on is theirs and what we are working on is ours, and we hold space for each other together to allow that work to happen. So, if that calls to you, oh my goodness me, I would be so delighted to see you. It all begins from the May 1 and we have monthly gatherings I also share prompts and other, you know, maybe like bits of research around the themes that we're looking at. Our first season, which runs May, June, July this year, Our first season is all about standing in your own space and, you know, we look at the areas of self expression, you know, one of the most vital things for our mental health and our physical health as well. We look at boundaries.
Henny Flynn:You know, how often has someone crossed over a boundary or have you realised you hadn't set a boundary or do you realise that you'd crossed over your own boundary? And then we also look at the thing that I've come to call the vulnerability boomerang, you know, thing that can happen when we step outside of our conditioned norms, then we go, oh my goodness me, I feel so raw, this is so hard, and I've been really mindful of the potential of me experiencing a vulnerability boomerang with the field, because I've birthed this thing. It's really important to me. You know, there's strong emotion for me, as I think about this space and why it feels so important, particularly right now, in all of the chaos that we're experiencing in the outer world. And you know that could be very vulnerable.
Henny Flynn:That could be so vulnerable that there's a vulnerability boomerang that comes back and hits me and makes me want to retreat and hide and you know tell people, I'm so sorry, I didn't really mean it. I haven't actually opened the field at all, but that hasn't appeared, and I'm now going to add the word yet, because, you know, it might. It might show up, and then it's about how do I look after myself if that happens. So, you know, these are all things that are relevant, whatever kind of change we're going through, and you know, if you are experiencing change in whatever way, whether that's, you know, life stage change, so something like menopause or to do with your work changing or to do with a relationship or it's something that you want to change within you. Maybe you notice there's some limiting beliefs that are holding you back or there's a mindset that is maybe too rigid and you want to soften that in order to be able to expand more fully into the space that is available to you, or maybe there's some habits or behaviours that you wish to change or that you are changing.
Henny Flynn:You know, all of these things, They're all welcome in the field. You are so welcome in the field. There's a roomy quote that I've been sharing as I talk about this, and It's interesting, because the name, the field emerged so organically, and on so many levels. There are so many metaphors that arise for me, when I think about it, but also one of my favourite roomy quotes is, Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there, and I would love to meet you in the field, if it calls you.
Henny Flynn:I think there was another point I was going to make to close, but that's drifted away out into the blue, blue sky, and so I'm going to close here. Oh, other than to say that was it, you know, if something else about this resonates with you, about maybe some experience that you're having right now, and what I shared about what I've gone through as I've nurtured and fermented, you know, the idea of the field. Maybe something about that resonates with you, and it can just be really interesting to turn toward, you know, if there's a fear, or a doubt, or an uncertainty, or an excitement about what you're doing. It can be really interesting to turn toward that part, whether you have a visual sense of that part, or a felt sense of that part, or you could write in your journal Dear Part, Dear excitement, Dear hope, Dear fear, and ask them what it is that they need, and listen. Listen to what response you get, and if that all sounds like how on earth would you do that?
Henny Flynn:Then my guidance would be give it a go, and if you want to know more about that way of working, then we'll also be talking a little bit about that at various points in the field, but you can also come and work with me one to one, if that feels like more your thing. And then the last thing really is that there's no requirements on anybody in the field. I always say that when people come here, work, you know, on solo retreat to Batchbrook. This is the land of no requirements, and that feels so important to me, because, you know, we are bombarded by alerts and things that are trying to take our attention all of the time, and the intention for the field is that it is deliberately spacious, and if you don't want to speak and you don't want to share, you just want to listen, that is absolutely okay. It is absolutely okay to show up just as you are and in the right way for you, because you're the only person who knows what's right for you deep down.
Henny Flynn:We all do Sometimes the work can be how do I listen? How do I listen more deeply? I think that's definitely something I've sat with for a long time is really asking asking my wisest kindest self how do I do that? Anyway, there we go. I said I was going to end and then I didn't and then I said I was going to end and then I didn't but this time I definitely am and I am so grateful that you are here and so grateful that you allowed me to share all of that.
Henny Flynn:This is the work of course and I want to send you so much love take a look at the links and I send you hug and a wave.