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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.
Do you ever find yourself looking forward to your next holiday, even though the last one has only just finished? Or have you ever found yourself looking forward to lunch as I did today, when your day hadn't really even begun, simply because it means a break from what you haven't yet started doing? It's normal, and it's human, and it's what I'd love to explore today. So welcome back to season 18 of the podcast. Welcome to the Henny Flynn podcast, the space for deepening self awareness with profound self compassion.
Henny Flynn: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 desire to be somewhere else in time, maybe also somewhere else geographically. But I think it's this, this extension of ourselves out into the future that I'd really love to focus on today.
Henny Flynn:You know, it is so incredibly human, and of course, we all understand that it can mean we end up wishing our time away, not really fully experiencing what we're in right now. And often that's because what we're in right now we're not really enjoying. Maybe simply because it feels a little bit boring, we've become so accustomed to it, Or maybe it's because it is truly painful for us to be in this time. Or maybe we've just become so accustomed to thinking ourselves ahead, to thinking ourselves out into the future rather than being fully present in this moment, that we're not even consciously aware that's what we're doing. You know, there's a phrase, isn't it?
Henny Flynn:Always one step ahead of ourselves. And, you know, of course, so much of, you know, this kind of, self inquiry, this compassionate self inquiry can be about, supporting ourselves from languishing too long in the past or ruminating about things that have or haven't happened in the way that we wanted them to. And, you know, that is also a really important, area for exploration, but like I say, today I'd love to talk about this, habit that we can so often have of living ahead of ourselves. So, as I was reflecting on this I was also thinking about how when I was growing up, I was 15 and one of my brothers was working in France for the summer, and I went to see him with my mom and dad, and we had this fabulous night together. It was, like, one of the first times that I think he'd really seen me not as a child, and and more as a a sort of burgeoning young adult, and he said to me, don't grow up too fast.
Henny Flynn:I recognize he was also saying that to his younger adolescent self as well, you know, recognizing that maybe he had grown up too fast. And despite his advice, despite his guidance, I think that is what I did. I think it's what many of us do. You know, as children, we can't wait to be teenagers. As teenagers, we can't wait to be old enough to drive and, you know, maybe the desire is get the hell out of dodge, you know, to to leave home because for whatever reason it it doesn't feel great for us to be there.
Henny Flynn:Or maybe it's because we wanna leave school, we want to get a job, we want to go traveling. You know, we can so we're, like, endlessly looking to, to move out of the phase of life that we're in right now. And then as adults, of course, so many of us look forward to to being retired. You know, when I was, working in office environments, that was so often the subject of conversation, particularly when it came to, the kind of the time of bonuses or pay reviews or, if there was redundancy, looming, across the business, which so often there was because it was a place of constant reinvention. And, you know, people would often talk about being retired or, I worked in financial services so everybody had a pension, and that was often the kind of focus of I'll just work a few more years, build up my pension a bit more, and then I'll have what I need to do the retirement that I want, rather than really thinking about the cost of working those kinds of hours, working, with that level of stress, and the cost that that was actually having on how long retirement might actually end up being, because we know the impact of stress on our health.
Henny Flynn:So, you know and then, of course, you know, the irony is that as we get closer to retirement, you know, as it really starts kind of becoming something of like, oh, hang on a minute. I'm actually, almost of that age. So many people then wish that we'd spent more time appreciating all the things that we had when we were young. You know, what's that phrase? Youth is wasted on the young.
Henny Flynn:Like, we we rarely appreciate what it is that we have right now. And so whatever our age, you know, whether you're in your your twenties, your teens, your thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, you know, whatever our age, I think that, you know, the opportunity that we have is to learn how to be present with what is, to be with what is. And this phrase, be with, is something that has sits deep, deep, deep inside me. It's something I am often returning to in my journaling. You know, asking the question of, like, how how can I really deepen my ability to be with?
Henny Flynn:And, you know, and I there are so many wise philosophers who, who really talk about this concept, you know, using different language, but, fundamentally, it comes down to the same thing. You know, how can we be with what is rather than ruminating in the past or leaping forward into the present and, you know, trying to scurry through the time that we're in right now in this hope that what comes next will be in some way better. And so another thing that occurred to me when I was reflecting on this was a call that I had, yesterday, actually, with my son, where, I was telling him about a visit that we'd had, from some really, really dear friends who had me recently, moved from a village into Cambridge. It's a really beautiful city, Cambridge, and where they've moved to is wonderful, it's quiet and green, but it's in the center of this busy, cultured, thriving place. And listening to them really reminded me of the time that Anton and I had spent in our the early years of our relationship living in Nottingham where we went to university, and then the years that we spent living in Cairo in Egypt and Lisbon in Portugal.
Henny Flynn:And, you know, I we loved it. We loved aspects of it. So, I was really noticing the kind of yearn that I had for those years, and I was aware that it was a pink hued yearn. You know, how often we look back and and we only see the the good stuff. We we ignore the times when it felt boring or difficult or complicated or painful.
Henny Flynn:And, you know, and, obviously, we do the same thing when we look forward. We only see the kind of highlights that we imagine will come. We don't necessarily allow ourselves to also imagine the day to dayness of what the future will be. And, you know, and then when I was talking, with my son and I was telling him that I'd been reflecting on, you know, these thoughts about, like, oh, gosh, you know, I wonder what it would be like to live in a city again to to be surrounded by people because we are there is no one around us here. We are really quite isolated.
Henny Flynn:And and then telling him about lying in bed and looking out at the trees and thinking, but if we lived there then we wouldn't have what is here. And we began to talk about the importance of really noticing the beauty around us. He he lives in New Zealand, so he is surrounded by, you know, astonishing beauty. And, you know, that beauty that we see, it might be a valiant weed growing through the paving stones. You know, sometimes, like, how we see, like, weeds have actually cracked through concrete.
Henny Flynn:I mean, isn't that just the most incredible thing? That this tiny, tiny, fragile thing that you could bend down and pick with your bare fingers can crack through paving stones. You know, that is beauty and strength and resilience and power. You know? Or maybe the beauty is what I see here, and, actually, I shared something on Instagram this morning of a a view from the deck outside the stable of the valley that we live in topped by a crown of trees that was wearing this cloak of mist.
Henny Flynn:I mean, it's just the most glorious autumnal scene out there. And then today, Rue sent me Rue, my son, sent me a picture of where he's working today. And it's this wasn't accompanied by any message. It was simply a photograph of, the building site where he's working and the snow capped mountains in the distance. The snow capped mountains that, adorn the South Of New Zealand's South Island.
Henny Flynn:And, oh, I loved receiving that picture. It was such a beautiful nod to our conversation and to the importance of taking nothing for granted. Yeah. And maybe maybe that's landed with him, and as his mother, that makes me happy. So I suppose the the kind of essence of that is to allow ourselves to, to consciously, invite ourselves to really see what is right here, right now.
Henny Flynn:And, I'm sorry. If you can hear some scratching, it's Ronnie rearranging things again. But, you know, I think sorry. I've just also got a bit distracted by that right here, right now. So, obviously, thank you very much Fatboy Slim for that earworm, which will now be playing through my head and maybe through yours as well.
Henny Flynn:So, hey, you're welcome. But I think also that, you know, that phrase right here, right now, it, it really struck a chord with people, when it first came when the song first came out or the track first came out years and years ago now. And, of course, Ram Daz famously said, here now. And they were the words of his guru, and and I think they sum it up very nicely, you know, the simplicity of that here now. And, actually, if you have a a meditation or a mindfulness practice, just those two words can be incredibly powerful.
Henny Flynn:That's really a note to myself, actually. Because quite often what I will do is when I notice I'm being particularly distracted as I try to meditate try. There's that word. I will repeat the mantra, there's nothing to be, nothing to see, nothing to do, just this. And yet, actually, here now is much cleaner, much simpler.
Henny Flynn:So I'm just gonna make a, yeah, a little mental note to do that myself. Maybe that, maybe that's something that, you use too. So so where does that take these reflections, you know, from, you know, these kind of yearnings that we can have. You know, particularly, I'm really mindful. You know, we're at the September right now.
Henny Flynn:You may well have had a summer holiday or some kind of break over August or July. And, you know, as we come into September, there can often be this energy of, like, pushing forward again. This is this last hurrah of the abundance of the season. You know, deep in our DNA is this desire to gather the fruits and the vegetables. Even if we don't live in that kind of environment now, that urge can still be in there, even if we're not, like, consciously aware of what it is.
Henny Flynn:So so we're we're kind of driven, to prepare for winter. You know, incredibly human, to do that. And so, and amongst that, in and amongst that, can be this yearning to skip over this bit and just get there. You know, maybe maybe for some of us that's, thinking about Christmas, you know, planning for Christmas, but Christmas is how many months away? Four months away.
Henny Flynn:And yet it's you know, I suspect you're already seeing messages about Christmas in social media and the shops and the news and all of that. So, you know, also our society, our culture often pushes this drive to not be present, to be thinking about what is coming up. And when we're thinking about something, we're actually in it. That's the the kind of essence of, you know, the messaging about manifestation is, you know, think think your way into the thing that you want to create. Well, if our time is spent thinking about the future, then that's where energetically, that's where part of us is.
Henny Flynn:So being aware that we're we're we've also got these external pressures to be somewhere else, in time and space, can be really useful in helping us kind of gently draw ourselves back into this present moment. And, you know, if we find ourselves wanting to skip over this bit and just get there, wherever there might be, whether that's another holiday or Christmas or or lunch. Maybe maybe this concept of here, now is what could possibly help us remember, remember. That that word, remember, can be separated. So to remember means to bring ourselves home, to, you know, sort of make ourselves whole again.
Henny Flynn:Because when we're, out, thinking about something that isn't right here, right now, it means that in some way, we're slightly separated from ourselves, particularly if it's unconscious. If it's a a conscious, you know, process of planning, that's slightly different. But if it's an unconscious sort of just thoughts drifting out into some imagined future, it's not necessarily a whole experience. It can be that we've actually slightly separated from ourselves. I might talk about that separately, actually.
Henny Flynn:I think that feels quite an interesting thing, maybe the topic of another episode. I'd love to know if that kind of resonates with you, this idea of how we can consciously, take ourselves into the dreaming place of our imagination and manifestation compared with the unconscious, sort of living in the past or living in the future and not being present. Yeah. Anyway, that's that's, sparked something inside me. Maybe it sparked something inside you as well.
Henny Flynn:So, you know, one of the other thoughts that came to me is that, you know, when we're in this when we find ourselves in this place of the unconscious drifting and and our conscious awareness, rises up again, you know, something we can remember is that here was yesterday's there. You know, as a as a teenager, you know, we wanted to become an adult. Like, with we are where that adolescent wanted to be. So here is yesterday's there. And and therefore, kind of recognizing that, you know, as we look forward, one day, the there that we're feeling our way into, we're thinking our way into will be our here.
Henny Flynn:And so, really, it's all the same. You know? Time is a construct and and it's elastic. And I always think of it as like a, an accordion. You know, it it widens and stretches and it condenses and compresses according to what we're experiencing in the moment.
Henny Flynn:And, really, that means that we have this beautiful opportunity to make of it what we wish. And, therefore, I think that's all worthy of our most loving attention. And there's this this sort of lovely kind of, side thought, which is a a quote from Thich Nhat Hahn who taught that washing the dishes to wash the dishes is a practice of mindfulness. So even in the doing, we can focus on being. I'm gonna repeat that quote again.
Henny Flynn:Washing the dishes to wash the dishes. So rather than washing the dishes because we gotta get it done and we're moving on and we're busy and there's, like, 10 other things, we need to unload the washing machine and we need to get, you know, the dog fed and we need to, you know, clean our teeth or, you know, whatever the thing is. You know, we need to, like, brush, rush, rush. His teaching was washing the dishes, to wash the dishes, to be fully present in that moment. Now, obviously, Thich Nhat Hanh was a Zen master and, you know, I mean, I think his teachings are just so incredibly beautiful.
Henny Flynn:If you, if you haven't, really sort of dived into his teachings, then, oh, gosh. It's a really beautiful place, and I it's a constant, place of wonderment, for me. But I think it's, you know, it's such a, again, such a simple, beautiful phrase that, you know, clean your cleaning the teeth cleaning our teeth, to clean our teeth, not in a rushed way to get on to doing the next bit of the morning. It'll stay take the same amount of time, so we might as well be present in it and enjoy it. And maybe the hours before lunch or the days before our next holiday or the years before we retire can be that for us in some way, or at least maybe that can be part of our work, part of our compassionate self inquiry, and our way of relating ever more fully and kindly to ourself in this present moment.
Henny Flynn:And, of course, you know, this idea of being able to be present with what is, it doesn't preclude change. Oh, gosh. Like, we all know, you know, change is constant. It's the only constant from tiny micro shifts that happen, you know, as the weed grows through the paving stone to, you know, these macrocosmic happenings, you know, as the Mercury goes out of retrograde or, you know, this weekend, we're going to have, blood moon, this total eclipse of the moon, you know, to all of the things that we are seeing in the world around us. You know?
Henny Flynn:Some of them incredibly challenging to, to witness and to respond to in whatever way is available to each of us to respond to them, to try and play our part in making things better in some way. You know, we are all constantly in flux. Everything is constantly in flux. And for me, it seems that part of being with is noticing all the things that are always changing, you know, not with judgment and fear, but simply with the calm observation of our inner witness, our kindest, wisest self that can observe without getting lost in the stories and the imaginings that we might have about what will come from what we're experiencing right now and being present with it all just as it is. So, yeah, they were my thoughts today.
Henny Flynn:And I'm really, really mindful that there are so many incredibly wise people who are speaking about this right now. You know, and hopefully whatever feed of information you experience, whether that's, something in social media or, you know, however you get your news. Although I'd always recommend being very, very mindful about what news channels we access, you know, or conversations that you have. You know, I really hope that you also are hearing some of this sort of deep wisdom from these incredibly wise people who are able to give us, maybe, some tools for helping us navigate the hard things that we experience around us too. Personally I'm deeply grateful for what I see, in that, in that vein.
Henny Flynn:So, there we go. I think we've drawn to a close, drawing to a close. And, just before I go, I just wanted to share that, you know, that Thich Nhat Hanh quote is something that I actually shared in this week's episode of a piece of quiet. And if you aren't yet sure about what a piece of quiet is, It is my subscription only private podcast, and it is a beautiful, peaceful weekly pause. I have this vision that we can create a space where collectively, whether we do it all at the same time or not, it really doesn't matter.
Henny Flynn:Time is a construct, But that we can each spend a moment in our week where we simply rest. We simply come into ourselves, come into this present moment, and ground ourselves in the moment, and bring a deeper sense of peace within ourselves, that maybe, who knows, ripples out through our wider world. You know, there is so much evidence that when we are able to create a deeper sense of peace within us, it also profoundly impacts the interactions that we have with others. We're much less likely to be reactive. We're much less likely to, respond, you know, with kind of high emotion where, you know, the different parts within us are much more likely to to trust us, and to know that as our deep wise inner self, we can, respond to the world in the best way that we can.
Henny Flynn:And and so with a peace of quiet, you know, it's not a course. It's not a challenge, and there's nothing you need to do except be. It's twenty minutes once a week on a Wednesday lunchtime. You know, you can listen to it when you're at work, or, you know, sitting by a tree or walking your dog or whatever the thing is. And, you know, it begins with ten minutes of a guided practice led by me, and then I share a flow journaling prompt for that day.
Henny Flynn:And if you want to write, then write, but there's no requirement on you to do that. Maybe what you'd love to do is simply listen to the music I also share and reflect on what the prompt raises for you. And the whole thing takes eighteen minutes eighteen minutes from your day, eighteen minutes from your week to gift yourself. And if that's something that calls to you, then please do come and subscribe. It's, you know, a few pounds a month to receive this, and I think it's one of the most lovely things that I've created.
Henny Flynn:I don't know where it goes. I don't really even yet understand the power that it has, but I do recognize it is a really beautiful thing, and maybe, maybe you'll find it a really beautiful thing too. And I'll put a link in the show notes, and I send you so much love and a hug and a wave.