Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
Hey my darlings, so that last episode where I talked about voice notes and fairy tales It has prompted so many beautiful responses and so I wanted to spend our time today reflecting on that and then seeing where that takes us. So my story of Little Red Riding Hood, know it's no surprise to me that all those years ago where I saw a statue by the artist Paul Smith in a gallery in Cambridge and I had to go in and take a photo of this beautiful piece that spoke so deeply to me and in my memory, I don't think this is true, but in my memory it was a life size sculpture. I've since spoken with Paul directly and I don't think he ever made a life size sculpture of this, but it featured so big in my, you know, in my experience of it that that's how I remember it. Memory, our fickle friend. And the sculpture was of a reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf.
Henny:And the wolf is leaning down and he's up on his two back legs and he's leaning down and holding her in the most tender embrace and she's resting her cheek upon him with her arms wrapped around his furry body and she is so safe with him and for me at the time it really spoke to some work, deep work, that I didn't know was coming, but on some soul level I really knew it needed to be done and that deep work was how I could learn to relate to the part of me that I was afraid of, the part that appeared as a black dog. And I used to call that part anger and and I pushed it away and I pushed it away because, you know, growing up in the space that I grew up, anger was something that was present and I didn't want it I found it frightening, I never knew what to do with it you know through most of my adult life I've not known how to cope with other people's anger often resorting to fawning, trying to please, to jolly people out of it or treading on eggshells, know all these different strategies that are so human and you know they're tried and trusted we learn them from the hands of our own caregivers and also from our inner wisdom our survival strategies that we scrabble our way towards as children and you know I was afraid of my own anger, I never lost my temper ever and the one time I did when I was about 13 it frightened me and I never wanted to do it again and so I didn't and so I pushed it down and pushed it down and suppressed it and pushed it away, pushed away this part of me that actually was also held holding something very healthy you know anger can be very healthy when we see injustice, when we see someone being treated badly, when we see unfairness anger can be such a good you know power force within us and in those times anger would appear but I didn't like it.
Henny:I didn't like myself when it turned up And it took me a long time to recognise the connecting thread between that statue by the artist Paul Smith. I really recommend looking at his work he is amazing. So, looking at that statue that he created this reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf and recognising that actually my anger is, was, is a part of me that is actually seeking to protect me and specifically seeking to protect the little girl that I was in an environment that at times felt confusing and unsafe. Recognizing this thread also then led to me to commission a piece of work from Paul. It was a few years later and I put a random post on Facebook and received so many messages from people telling me they knew who the artist was and actually someone telling me that he lived just down the road from them and another friend of mine, Linda Glennon, who's an amazing ceramicist telling me about the work that Paul creates and you know how much she loves his work and it was like, oh okay hang on a minute, the universe is telling me something I really need to engage here and so I ended up commissioning a particular piece and so I have in my home a statue of little red riding hood and the wolf but it's actually me and my black dog embracing and Paul even gave her long dark hair and normally his female characters have sort of hair kind of to the shoulder length and she has long hair down past her waist and the expressions on our faces in this statue it does something to me every time I see it and it's actually it's down in the house so I can't show it to you here but and then a few years later having really worked with the black dog I realized that the black dog had actually transformed into a grey wolf, a beautiful female grey wolf who is up on the hillside somewhere always watching, always taking care of me, always making sure that I am protected and with a balance in our relationship that means that she also knows that I am here in my whole soul self looking after the whole of me including her.
Henny:So there's no longer this need for that fierce protector to be in charge. Now what I'm talking about here is parts work. If you're familiar with, I can't remember the title properly, the boy, the mole, the horse and the fox. Charlie Mckenzie is that his name? That's terrible isn't it?
Henny:I'll get it right in the notes. If you're familiar with his work, I've just seen a really interesting talk that he gave at the Hay Festival, the Hay Book Festival and he was saying about how he hadn't known that these animals were parts of him that speak to deep needs, wants, longings, resistances that are within him and you know these are this is animal parts work this is the work that I specialise in. You know you might have come across internal family systems the work that Richard Schwartz teaches us and you know it's amazing that therapeutic approach of IFS internal family systems. But I came to the work of parts work several many years ago and it sort of arrived piecemeal from lots of other things that I was studying at the time and I recognised that there was a question that I would ask myself and then would ask clients, you know, if that part of you were an animal, what animal would they be? And actually we explore this question, will be, hasn't happened yet, will be exploring this question in the field, this week which is just before this episode goes live but know if you ask yourself that question, if you notice that there is a strong emotion coming up, so for me anger connected to Little Red Riding Hood and all of that stuff that I've just talked through, you know, if I ask myself if that part was an animal, what animal would they be?
Henny:It was immediate, it was the black dog and so, you know as you go on through your day, whatever, through your week between now and our next episode, our next time together, you know the invitation is to ask yourself when you feel a strong emotion, pride, shame, joy, sadness, envy, love. If you ask yourself a question that part were an animal what animal would they be and just see what turns out it's not something we can get wrong or right it's simply a little window into our subconscious and the way that I experience this and the way that I see it is that it's like, that's how the part chooses to show up for us and often there are metaphors that are related to those animals that show up. So for me, anger being the black dog, fierce, baring its teeth, barking, highly protective, not letting anything near me, you know, for me really resonates with the image of a dog, you know, big, a big black dog. And, you know, I have many other animal parts within me, maybe I'll talk about those next time actually, maybe we continue this theme next time, but I don't want to sort of load this episode with that because I think it's really interesting to see what emerges for you.
Henny:And please do share, know it's been so gorgeous hearing from so many people about the fairy tales that resonate and in fact so beautiful because some of those messages have come to me via voice note, which as you know was one of part of the theme that we talked about last time was voice notes and fairy tales so I liked the way that they were like joining together. So yeah, so please do share with me, share with me on YouTube if you watch that there but we're continuing with this experiment of sharing the video on YouTube. Share with me by email hennyhennyflinn dot co dot uk whatever feels good for you or you can share it through the website through the contact form on the website hennyflinn dot co dot uk so I'd really love to also share with you some of the reflections that came from listeners about that fairy tale question. So the question last week was about what if there was a fairy tale that really stayed with you from your childhood which would it be? And if you haven't had a chance to have a listen to that episode I really you know invite you to have a listen after this one and just see what comes up for you.
Henny:I had so many responses and I've just hooked out, a handful of them to share, maybe have a listen see if it sparks any thoughts for you, maybe it's the same fairy tale that resonates for you, maybe it's a different fairy tale but the take that I'm offering up on what that fairy tale might be telling us, what's the message underneath the reason why it's resonated. You know, maybe some of that like sparks another thought for you about the fairy tale that resonates for you. So, I want to begin with Rapunzel, oh how appropriate was my, I have literally let my hair down, so this was shared with me in a voice note and I that was just so wonderful and Rapunzel is you know that story of Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair you know the beautiful girl trapped in the tower who lowers her hair for the handsome prince and initially she's tricked by him but then they fall in love and she's being trapped there by the witch, often a theme of fairy tales of course. And this voice note that was shared with me, disappeared from my phone. So this is not verbatim, but broadly, the listener's reflection was simply that it was a story they enjoyed.
Henny:Now that could be true and is true and perhaps there is something deeper here. When I reflect, I feel into that story of Rapunzel, I have a sense of themes of allowing things into our lives maybe even inviting them in even when it feels that we've been limited in other ways. Now that feels very strong inside me, that feels like a deep truth, and I trust that feeling. So I wonder if you're listening and you were the person who offered up Rapunzel maybe that resonates with you maybe not you know this is all simply an offering maybe even if Rapunzel isn't your story maybe there's something about that that resonates for you someone else shared that for them it was the story of the happy prince the story by Oscar Wilde and in there the prince and the swallow they give everything away and you know I think it's recognized that there's a moral that sits, there's a moral that sits in all of these stories of course, but there's a moral that sits within that, that speaks of you know true happiness and value that come from love and compassion and selflessness. And the person who shared this with me said at the time I thought it was such a grown up story maybe that's why I liked it because I thought I had to be a grown up.
Henny:You know I love that reflection you know just that little bit of insight of like oh okay yes that really speaks to a feeling that I had as a child. I also wonder personally, I wonder whether that tale might resonate with those of us who've got a love language of gift giving. If you're familiar with love languages you'll know what I mean, if you're not then I might cover that on the next podcast as well. So, you know, this thing about showing our affections through our generosity generosity without agenda or expectation of something in return. That's the love language of generosity and maybe and my senses because I know this person, maybe there's something of a truth in there.
Henny:And then kind of at another sort of end of the spectrum, someone on Instagram shared with me that they're working with Parseval, which is an opera by Wagner. I mean, it's huge everything by Wagner is huge and it's the story of this innocent naive young man who journeys from ignorance to spiritual awakening and along the way heals people as well as like, you know, has like this incredible growth themselves. It is such a big sweeping story and the person who shared simply said, I'm working with passable at the moment. Full stop. And as I read that, it was like, in my body, I was like, gosh, that brevity that speaks volumes about the depth of the work that they're doing.
Henny:And I think the reason for sharing that one is because, you know, these kind of folk tales, they appear everywhere, they appear in music, they appear in books, they appear in art, they appear in the songs that we sing to our children at night. They're not simply a book of Grimm fairy tales. Although there's another one here actually that I wanted to share with you which was called the magic porridge pot which is a Grimm's fairy tale and the person who shared it was talking about they really remember having the ladybird book if you're I think I'm not even sure if ladybird books exist now so it might be a kind of certain generation that that grew up with those but really the story of the magic porridge pot is a story about lack and excess and it's a story about magic but it's a story about not having enough and then having too much and there was a very deep reflection that came with that story which is actually about how food and fairy tale coincide with each other. Something I'm very aware of is that often food is used in children's books in the same way that kind of sexual intimacy is used in adult books.
Henny:So it's a way of like engaging with like appetites literally and so there's something here about like how the fairy tale speaks to the needs within us for comfort perhaps, for nourishment, for connection, you know, and yet it's a story about a magic porridge pot but there could be, maybe, perhaps something else that really sits with it and the person who shared this with me, you know, really had a deep insight and they said, I looked into the possible subconscious aspect and was enlightened and that speaks to me of something like learning something about ourselves. Oh, there were so many others, there was the princess and the pea and there was Hansel and Gretel, actually I really love the point around the princess and the pea, the listener says, because I found it and to some extent still do strange how the exquisite delicate princess was rewarded for being soft, She spoke her truth and revealed how vulnerable she was. And isn't that interesting because so many of the stories that we're told vulnerability isn't necessarily rewarded and yet in this story, she really stands her ground and says no it's uncomfortable despite the tower of mattresses she could still feel the pee at the base of them and so there was a reward for that softness.
Henny:And then of course we have Hansel and Gretel a tale of being abandoned terrible truths about not all adults can be trusted. Know that's a very challenging sort of, you know, inner interpretation of that story. And then we have things like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and someone else shared about Sleeping Beauty being their story and I shared a little bit about Sleeping Beauty in the last episode so I'm not going to go into that too much but simply to say that there is so many kind of rich elements and I think it's true within all of these stories and actually something about that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the retelling, this was a note on YouTube, a comment on YouTube, in the telling of that story this listener was sharing how it really felt, it was, it seemed to be interwoven with traveling home in the dark. She was six at the time, she's turning 60 in a few months and you know this was a very vivid memory from childhood and as she was writing, I had this sort of sense within me and I shared it back and a comment on the notes to say, it feels to me that maybe there's a theme about what home means or how it looks.
Henny:You know, I'm very mindful about that story with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that she is displaced from her home by the queen. Maybe there was something about as a little girl traveling home there was a sense of being displaced in the dark. Maybe not of course, you know all we can do is sort of is feel into what might be arising. You know, I really enjoyed receiving these from everyone and you know and as I said before, if there's something about the tale that I told of my connection with that story of the black dog, now the wolf, the grey wolf, there she is, up on the hillside next to me watching down listening in, I can feel them listening in. Then you know and you have a sense of maybe some of your own animal parts and what they might represent for you.
Henny:If you've worked with me as a client then this may well have come up in our work together and you know I would really welcome sort of reflections that have developed for you from that too. Okay, I think we're wending our way to a close. So what else is coming up? There's a lot going on this October and I think today what I'd like to leave with you is the retreat that is coming. Mean this actually really speaks to some of these themes around the fairy tales actually.
Henny:It feels to me like there's almost something magical about this retreat that we're offering in October. So it's the sixteenth to the October 19. It is in a beautiful house that looks out into beautiful land and is set within beautiful grounds. The rooms are opulent and nourishing and comforting and welcoming and I'm running this retreat with Adam Lind who you might remember from another episode, a couple of episodes actually in the podcast I've spoken with Adam and Adam and I are running this retreat together. So, you know this is very much an invitation to everybody, it's not female only, which a lot of retreats are for, you know, very good and very valid reasons.
Henny:This is actually something that's a broader offering and it's called the weekend of no requirements because Adam and I both have this very strong sense within us that this is something that we all need regardless of our gender, regardless of you know the work we do, the life we live. Everybody needs a space at times where nothing is demanded of us. We live, so many of us live in this activated state where family, work, friends, society, you know practical life admin demands a lot of us and so what Adam and I are offering is a space where you can deeply, fully, truly relax without feeling as though there is any pressure on you to have to perform, to be good at anything, you can just turn up. There is a wonderful flow of things that we're offering through the weekend and you can do all of them or you can do none of them at all and everything is equally welcome. The whole of you is fully welcome.
Henny:All of your parts, all of the fairy stories that have ever traveled with you. You know, everybody within you is welcome and nothing is required of you good food, good company, beautiful space and we would absolutely love to welcome you there. So I'm going to be talking a bit more about it in the emails and on Instagram and I would just be overjoyed to see you there. Alright my darlings, I send you love and a hug and a wave.