What is it you're calling in by being here? It's a question that I've asked in the, latest recording for A Piece of Quiet and it's something that I'm really curious about and it ties in with intentions, but I think it's got lots of other threads that lead into lots of other things too. 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.

Settle in and listen and see where the episode takes you. I've just listened back to that introduction and I can hear my voice sounds like it's dropped about three octaves. It is quite early in the morning I am sitting wrapped in a duvet in a friend's house where I'm staying for the weekend and clearly my voice hasn't yet woken up. I suspect it might might lift a couple of octaves while we're sitting here together today in fact it's already starting to come back to life so hopefully it still sounds like me and actually just recognising that, just recognising that I'm sitting here right now and thinking about what is it that I've called in by being here. Well, I'm back in the county of my birth.

I'm, going to be visiting, family and also I've been able to catch up with some friends that I haven't seen for a very long time and, in in an hour or so I'll be going to meet another friend for, a birthday breakfast and not my birthday, and, this is all this is all recognizing the intentional, meaning behind why, we do things or what it is that we really wish to call in and as with so many of these topics, we can sort of look at that and think well isn't it obvious, you know, you've travelled halfway across the country, you made plans, you knew what you were going to do and yeah, that's that's what your inverted commas calling in, but of course there are deeper layers here, because sometimes we might find ourselves making plans to do something and yet, we're so busy, life is rushing past us and suddenly we find ourselves in the middle of actual doingness of those plans and can have a bit of a question of like, what am I doing here? Why have I even come? Oh gosh, it's such a long way. Getting home is gonna be really tricky, which it is for me.

You know, we can start to question the rationale behind why we have put ourselves into a particular situation. Now that situation might be a relationship, it might be a job, it might be the place that we live, it might be going away for a weekend to see family and friends. So what I'd really love to talk about is just this principle, this kind of practice of being intentional, but I think that the deeper question within that can be what is it you are calling in by being here and and we can shorten that to be honest. What is it that you're calling in? But I think that the being here part has a lovely dual meaning.

I'm just gonna have to move, which means you might hear the rustling of the duvet. Hang on. It can have a dual meaning, which is by being here in this moment, in this geographic place that you're in, or it could mean by being here in an existential metaphorical sense, you know, by being in this part of your life, by being in this life that you've called in. So, you know, I think again as with these things that there are levels and layers to that question that will respond or will sort of call a response from each of us, maybe in a slightly different way. So, I think the, the place where I was originally coming to when I was thinking about this topic is I've noticed that my work is really busy at the moment and that's amazing.

I've got lots of, new clients are starting, lots of people are booking in to the, solo retreat, you know, it's really it's it's wonderful and and that brings a certain degree of, fullness into life. So, you know, I need to be doing a little bit more diary wrangling. I need to, be more intentional about how I'm using my time and I have noticed that there's been a kind of whisper of an old, pattern, and that whisper is is a feeling of, you know, maybe I'm very sort of hesitant to say to call it sort of stress because that's not the that's not the feeling that I have, but it's the whisper of that feeling and so when I was thinking about this, when I noticed that and I was thinking about it and I was thinking, oh, you know, it's okay my darling, you know, you've called this in. This is all work and ways of using my time and it's an energetic attention that I am very mindfully calling in. However, when we feel stressed about the stuff of life, the stuff that's turning up in our lives, it can be really useful to see what it is that we've called in, whether that's consciously or unconsciously.

So I just want to sort of pause there for a moment and just ask, you know, is this resonating with anything within you? Have there been moments in your life where you've thought, oh my goodness me, there's like so much going on, but then when you've actually stepped back and looked at it, can see, oh yeah, this is stuff that I've created and I mean that in a really positive way because I think it's also, the flip of this is that we can get caught in a bit of a negative spiral and sort and of begin to criticize ourselves for the stuff, that's happening and I want to I do want to touch on that but just for now kind of staying with the more kind of suppose not sort of toxically positive, but a kind of healthily positive perspective on recognising that sometimes, you know, when life feels full, is because there are things that we have had control over, that we have owned, that has opened the flow to that stuff happening or that stuff arriving. So just kind of checking in to see like how that is resonating with you, because part of that I think, that kind of healthily positive perspective can be recognising the value in the things that are turning up and I'm being deliberately sort of vague about like what are these things, because, because it will be so different for each of us, but it might be, it might be you, you run your own business like me and and work has got fuller, you know, more more work has been coming in.

It might be that you have got your sort of social life has become fuller. It might be that people are reaching out and connecting with you more. It might be that something that you're really curious about learning. You've sort of suddenly found yourself in a learning environment. So it could be sort of any number of sort of directions and really, you know, the only way of sensing into this is to sort of sit with the questions about, you know, what is it I'm calling in by being here, you know, what have I called in here, what is it that might be creating this feeling?

Maybe it's a feeling of a little bit of overwhelm and overwhelm isn't always because things are bad, inverted commas around bad, whatever bad means. So there's a Rumi quote which I think captures this beautifully and it's from the Guest House' this is from the translation by Coleman Barks who was, you know, is kind of recognized to be one of the kind of greatest Rumi translators. It's quite a long quote, so Rumi says, this being human is a guesthouse. Every morning, a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. And so Rumi is taking this this concept of what are we calling in, like even further, because with that for me, what I sense into on a much deeper level is that if everything that arrives is a guide, then on some soul level perhaps that's what I've been calling in. I've been calling in this guide to show me the way in some way, and I think, I think it's quite interesting when we, when we move sort of up and down through the layers of this kind of thinking, so we don't get kind of lost in a spiral of negativity as in like, oh, you know, I've made this all happen to myself, you know, that's why my life is so terrible.

We also don't get lost in a spiral of toxic positivity of, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and we are able to see, okay, this thing, this thing is challenging and I have the capacity to hold it and somewhere along the line I was also able to call in the resources that enable me to be with this difficult thing that's happening right now, just as I was able to call in the resources that enabled me to feel great joy and great pleasure and great happiness and gave me the resources to be in those moments as fully as I possibly could. As fully as I possibly could, not as fully as everybody else, not as fully as somebody else might, but as fully as I possibly could, and they gave me the resources to resolve this situation in the best way that I possibly could. So again, this is about really holding ourselves with the deepest loving attention, deepest loving kindness. I think that there's also sort of another kind of facet to all of this too and you know there's something about this word like manifestation that, you know, obviously gets used a lot and I have a sort of a curious relationship with it.

I kind of like it, kind of like the idea of, you know, look at what you're manifesting or I'm going to manifest that and I also have this sort of this very gosh, what is it? I like to hold it in sort of, you know, at a healthy distance as well, not getting kind of too caught up in the concepts of manifestation. I think for me there's something that resonates more for me, is about being clear about my intentions and recognising that I will be able to care for myself through whatever arises, so I can set my intention. I could set my intention for this weekend and I have very mindfully done that, because actually coming back, spending time with lots of people, seeing family, seeing you know, of people that we might not ordinarily, spend long periods of time within our life as it is now. That can be really stressful, can certainly be stressful energetically, very stressful to our our system and for me, you know, I spend an awful lot of time in my own company, you know, physically anyway, even though I work, you know, online physically, I'm often it's just me and Anton at the farm, but so therefore when I'm in the presence of other people that can be quite stressful to my physical body, because I'm sort of having to experience everybody else's energy and you know a couple of the things that I'm doing this weekend will involve a lot of people, so I need to be really mindful of my boundaries, I need to be really mindful of my energy levels I've been really intentional about that, so I'll be doing Yoga Nidra, I did one yesterday, in order to help my system, be able to be in this whole beautiful, few days I'm away in the most positive way that I can.

So that's really, what I mean by intention setting, because then I also recognize that if I get tired, or or it feels overwhelming, I'll be able to manage that too. And so, you know, back to this this concept of manifestation, which is, you know, it's a it's a really interesting thing, because I think we all know that there are times when we've called something in and then it's arrived, like me saying about, you know, how busy work is at the moment, you know, I've called that in and it's arrived and now I need to deal with that in the most beautiful way, and there's a there's this sort of email that you can get called notes from the universe. I don't know if, if, how many of us here are familiar with it, but it's like, I think it's daily email and it's, and it's like you get a message from the universe. They're funny, they're well written, they're very the sort of confidence boosting, kind of messages that I like them. They're a little bit like a version of my everyday compassion emails, if you have those, and anyway, Notes from the Universe, they tell us or it tells us that thoughts become things and this concept of thoughts become things is really what, you know, manifestation is all about and this idea of thoughts are things, it also turns up in books and teachings from many, many others, you know, it's not a it's not a unique concept and the idea being that everything begins with a thought, everything that we create, every word we speak, every action we take, it all begins with a thought And even, the wonderful angel cards, they tell us that every building begins as a castle in the air.

I love that. I love that concept. Every building begins as a castle in the air, and so we cannot create without first having the thought of what we wish to create. Now some of us might want to challenge that and say, maybe it begins with a feeling actually, and when I say some of us, I mean me, because I think, I think for me, this art of manifestation, this, or this kind of practice of being very intentional about what we're calling in, I think it begins with a feeling. I think for me, I think, oh that's interesting, I feel that it's something that my body understands way before my head catches up.

So just let that thought float around or that, concept float around. Although there was a thought, so hey, it's all maybe it's all much of a muchness. But it's also really, really important of course to be clear that things happen that are beyond our control and our work then becomes understanding how we can respond to those things with compassion and calm and clarity in order to find our own best way through and when I say our own best way through, what I really mean is the way that best supports our highest self and the highest self of those around us, so that we're really able to stand like fully grounded, fully present, fully able to see what options there are available to us and for us, regardless of what the situation is that's arising. And and the last thread that I wanted to just sort of draw out of this idea of what are we calling in is the thread of gratitude. You know, I am so grateful to be sat in this warm bed, in this beautiful home that belongs to my wonderful friend and I'm so grateful to be able to sit here with you.

I'm so grateful that this is my work that I am doing now, basically having a conversation with a wonderful group of incredible souls, who are here with me right now as I'm speaking, you know, whatever time it is that you're hearing this, whatever day it is you're hearing this, we're all energetically, we're all together and, you know it's it feels to me deeply, deeply important to recognise our gratitude for what we call in, You know, what are we grateful for right now in this moment that we recognize we have in some way through those micro and macro decisions that we've made along the way of our life, what are we grateful for that is arising right now or that we can see right now even if the situation that we're in feels impossibly painful? Where can there be a glimpse of light, a glimpse of something that we feel gratitude for? You know, might be that we see a friend, it might be that we see a tiny flower that some might call a weed poking up through a crack in the pavement as we walk down the street, It might be the blue sky after many, many days of rain.

It might be the sound of the rain. It might be the feel of the air on our skin. It might be the breath in our lungs. You know, somewhere, whatever our experience, there are places of gratitude and I think this is sort of one of the teachings of Viktor Frankl actually in his book Man's Search for Meaning, although I don't recall he explicitly sort of names gratitude, but really there's a there's a kind of essence to his writing that to me feels incredibly grateful for the decisions that he was able to make during his time in Auschwitz and and in the years afterwards, that meant that he was able to maintain himself through all of that incredibly impossible to imagine incredibly hard experiences that he had. So, recognising where decisions we've made, those micro macro decisions that we've made, have led to good outcomes.

Let's stay there, let's stay in the the stuff that feels good for us, just for a moment, you know, whether that's sort of something practical or tangible that's happened, you know, maybe a job that we really wanted or a friendship that we notice is deepening or maybe the way that we've resolved an argument or maybe, you know, giving ourselves some time in nature, maybe, maybe it's new sheets on our bed or clean sheets on our bed, you know, whatever it might be, these kind of big and tiny things, they're all really important and the practice of gratitude has got so much science behind it and that leads on to something I want to share actually in a moment. You know, I think sort of being able to recognise these things around us, within us, about us, being grateful for our sense of humour maybe, being grateful for our empathy, being grateful for our body, they're all important and I think sometimes we can have a very human desire to kind of minimalize the impact of what is good in our life, because we have this built in negativity bias and part of what gratitude does is it helps us rewire that.

It helps us being able to, to be in the world with less rumination, to, to be able to really honor and acknowledge the stuff that is good as well as being able to see the stuff that is tricky and challenging, but without perhaps so much judgment in the way that we see things. So this leads in rather beautifully, it's almost like there's a plan, leads in rather beautifully to a quest for gratitude or the quest for gratitude that I am offering up into the world. It begins on the February 26 with a gathering, so on Zoom. Everybody is welcome. It's completely free because gratitude costs nothing and you can find out more and you can sign up through the link in my show notes.

You can also, if you join the mailing list, you can just email me if you want to join that or again use the link in the show notes. I'll be sharing more in the the emails as well in the mailing list but essentially it is twenty one days of gratitude. That's the quest. Our quest is for twenty one days of gratitude. Now, in the gathering on the evening of the twenty sixth at 7PM UK time, we'll be I'll be sharing some more of the science behind gratitude too, so that we can really sit with understanding like why this stuff works and also inviting us personally reflect as well, not to share those reflections but to personally reflect on the power of gratitude in our own life.

I will share, my own story about how gratitude has significantly helped me in reshaping the way that I experience the world and, we'll also do a deeply relaxing practice and we'll do some journaling together. And then the next day on the February 27, I'll begin sharing some tiny little prompts, gratitude prompts, and the invitation is to write one or three or seven or maybe 21, points of gratitude, that you notice in your life each day. There's no pressure to keep up. It's not a challenge. It's a quest and a quest is something that we enter into with curiosity and and each of us embarks on this quest in in the way that's that's best for us.

Do the quest that's best. And then we close, I think it's on March 19, we come back together as a gathering and we do some reflections and I think it's going to be really, really beautiful. Over a 100 people have already signed up, which is lovely because I only, mentioned it, to into my community, a day or so ago and I'd really love to have you there too and I will explain everything on the twenty sixth and if you can't make it on the twenty sixth I'll be doing a recording and I'll share all of details about how we're going to do this at that point. I just want to say I am deeply grateful for you deeply grateful for you being here and I also want to say I'm very grateful to Anton because today it is Valentine's Day and it is thirty five years since we first had a kiss and I'm really grateful for that too. See the show notes, join the quest and I will see you next week and I send you a hug and a wave.