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To order your own copy of All the ways I tell myself I love you, direct from me, just click here
It's a wonderful book, full of affirmations and beautiful illustrations
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, I haven't really got a specific topic to talk about which actually, as I say that what I really mean is there are so many things inside me right now that I'd love to talk about that I want to just sort of see what appears, what emerges. This is really about being in flow and about seeing what wishes to come to the surface. So let's see where it takes us. Welcome to the Henny Flynn podcast, the space for deepening self awareness with profound self compassion. I'm Henny.
Henny Flynn: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 I've just poured myself a cup of tea and this feels like settling in for a really lovely chat actually. Rather than one of those episodes which has got a very clear purpose and direction, simply allowing ourselves to be present with each other. And I know it's a little odd isn't it?
Henny Flynn:Here I am recording this sitting in the converted stable where I work on a cold grey autumnal day, a cold grey wet autumnal day and yet the warmth that is in me as I sit here and speak with you is palpable and hopefully there's a sense of that warmth within you too. I'm sure there is, otherwise it wouldn't be here within me because we're always in relation with each other, you know, through the airwaves, through time, through space, we are in relation with each other. And that makes me reflect on how even thinking about another person brings them into our field of reference, our feeling field, and we can tap into something about the emotional resonance that we have when we're with that person. I mean, isn't that such a beautiful thing? And then that makes me reflect on how wonderful it is, those times when, you know, you're turning a corner on a busy street and you just know you're going to see someone that you know as you turn the corner and lo and behold, there they are.
Henny Flynn:Or when I was at university, and Anton and I were first together, I used to get this feeling like so often that I would just know he was about to walk up the road, or I just know he was about to come into the house. I've often wondered about that, whether it was because there was a pattern, know, a certain time of day or something like that, but I don't think so. You know, when we were at university, we didn't really operate to any particularly recognised pattern, and then I've sort of wondered whether it's maybe it's a bit like, you know, when dogs know that their owners are coming home, I'm not saying that Anton owns me by any means, let's just make that very clear, or that I own him, but you know when dogs are at home and they start to anticipate the people that they love to be returning home, even though there's no sort of sound of a car arriving or footsteps up a pathway or anything like that. And apparently it's to do with the smell molecules settling in a space. So when you go out of a morning to your place of work, if that's what you do, the dog becomes really sensitised to the pattern of the smell of you, diminishing slowly over time.
Henny Flynn:And then when it gets to a certain level, the dog knows that that's the indicator that you might be about to return. And of course, if we have that kind of pattern in our day, then the dog will quickly get used to it. It's Pavlovian, isn't it? So anyway, I've often wondered whether it was that, but I don't think it was. I have a feeling today might be a number of little segued thoughts.
Henny Flynn:Anyway, just coming back to that, that sense of how we're able to invite in the feeling of someone, that we love. And equally, of course, that can happen when we think about someone with whom we have complexity, that we feel, maybe old anger or old hurt or old pain, or old sadness or old fear coming up in our body. And you know, for our body, it's real. It's happening now when we have those sensations. Just as when we think of someone that we really love, someone with whom we feel really safe, someone with whom we feel joy, someone with whom we feel curiosity, someone with whom we feel silliness and light heartedness, Those feelings also are real in our body, they're happening right now and the memories that formed those feelings are happening right now.
Henny Flynn:That's a quantum state that we are in, when we get, you know, when a memory gets activated, feel the emotion attached to that memory and that feels like an astonishing thing to me, you know, obviously at times that can be a really challenging thing, I mean that's what we're talking about when we say that someone has got triggered or got activated, but it can also be an activation of something really soft and really wonderful. I'm actually, I'm sitting here with my hand on my heart as I talk to you, and you know, maybe that's a gesture that feels comforting for you too, maybe not, and if not, that's okay, but if it does, then, you know, maybe you have your hand on your heart now too. You know, in this feeling, this shared connectivity that extends out across all the people who are listening here. And I did something today, which, I'm quite it's interesting actually, because I have done it before, but I think I've sort of done it in a kind of intellectual of data way, whereas today I did it in a much deeper, more curiously human heart centered way. And I actually looked on the analytics from this podcast and sometimes, like anybody who's running a business, we need to keep an eye on some of the numbers.
Henny Flynn:I don't rule my work through the numbers, that doesn't work for me, makes me far too head oriented, but you know, but it is important to see them and on the podcast platform that I use, there is a map and the map is called global listener locations. And different parts of this map of the world are coloured according to the number of listeners there are. And oh my goodness me, we have listeners all over the world and I kind of knew that, but I just want to call it out and say, you know, if you're in Poland or Ireland or Spain, or The United States, or Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Qatar, Greece, Norway, France, Costa Rica, Italy, Laos, Turkey, Austria, Brazil. I mean, the list goes on and on. Croatia, Denmark, India, Sweden.
Henny Flynn:And if I haven't Oh, Uzbekistan. There's someone listening in Uzbekistan. You know, if I hadn't named the country where you're from, please let me know and I will make sure I name you the next time. But goodness me, isn't that astonishing that this tiny little podcast, by comparison with some of those mighty, vast million and million and millions of listeners podcasts, I would expect them to have this global reach. But here we are, this little podcast being made in this little corner of a field in Herefordshire.
Henny Flynn:And we have these threads of connection out right across the world. And well, A, that humbles me, B, that excites me, and C, oh, I don't know what C is, C, how amazing it is that, you know, in these times where we speak of separation, you know, the politics of separation, the politics of division, which is, you know, we're seeing all around us so sadly. We know that so many people feel isolated and disconnected, that through being here, each one of us is having an influence on each other, you know, we're creating this beautiful gossamer web that interconnects us all and I love that. So, what other thoughts did I have? Well, another one is about beginnings and endings, you know, are all quite disparate connection, beginnings and endings and whatever it was that I was talking about five minutes ago.
Henny Flynn:Beginnings and endings, I came to the final email for Everyday Compassion last week. It went out, if you have been part of Everyday Compassion since the beginning, which was back in March or May, I can't remember 1924 1924? Goodness me, Heni, that has been going for a long time 2024! Then you will have received the final message from me, the one that let you know that those two seventy two messages of everyday compassion have drawn very softly to a close. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, then please, and you're curious to receive some everyday compassion in your inbox, then please have a look.
Henny Flynn:There's a link in the show notes. And this was an experiment, an experiment in tiny, nuggets of joy as one person named niblets of joy, that was it, as one person named them. An experiment in sending out a couple of times a week this message with an inquiry, an observation, maybe an invitation, for extending our sense of compassion inwardly, so self compassion, and outwardly compassion for each other. And they were very short, they're very, very easy to digest and I thought I was going to do them for a whole year. I thought there would be three sixty five of them.
Henny Flynn:But I came to that two hundred and seventy second, I think it was two seventy two in the end, and that felt right to close there. It felt right that that was the last one that I wrote for now. And I think it was a really beautiful exercise for me anyway, in listening, like really practicing what I preach and really listening in to what felt right and to not keep pushing at doing something because I had created some kind of rule about it. To not keep going because I had determined, you know, eighteen months ago that I was going to do X and therefore I had to do X. It was actually recognizing that Y was also possible.
Henny Flynn:And the responses I've had from people who've been part of this journey since the beginning have been so beautiful, like such resonance and understanding of why this is the right step to take. And also if you signed up for everyday compassion, you know, at some point in the sort of months following when it started, you'll still be receiving them. You'll keep receiving them until you get that final message. And you can always begin again. And that's something I've seen quite a lot of people are doing.
Henny Flynn:They've just signed up and they're starting at the beginning of the sequence. They're gonna receive all of the messages all over again, because these messages are timeless and they are always resonant, always relevant. And if they're not, that's okay. You don't have to take everything on board, of course. So that's felt very present with me.
Henny Flynn:And I think that leads into this practice of recording the Tuesday thought episodes, these ten minute reflections that I do on these main episodes. And I've had some lovely reflections back on those as well. People saying how useful it is to just have brief, episodes rather than the kind of longer, like half hour, forty minute or even hour episodes that a lot of podcasts are. And, you know, it's really useful to have these kind of bite size pieces. So with that in mind, today isn't going to be that long, because I recognise, you know, we're all holding a lot and there's a lot going on in the world, a lot of good stuff as well as a lot of challenging stuff, know.
Henny Flynn:It's important we recognise both and our nervous systems can be very highly activated. That's what I spoke about at the beginning, wasn't it? About how we can, you know, our nervous systems get activated depending on the experiences around us and also the experience within us as well. And so, I really want to honor that and not kind of overwhelm us with too much today, especially seeing as I have cantered through a variety of thoughts. So, is there a reflection?
Henny Flynn:Is there a sort of takeaway? I think the takeaway is love, know, let's come right back to the very, very beginning of this recording and this offering, this conversation, this being with, and simply acknowledge the importance of connection, of love. And it doesn't always look like we expect it to. We can still experience really profound things through the medium of a podcast recording, through remembering, you know, a sweet moment with somebody. That is available to us.
Henny Flynn:And I think what that leads me on to as well, is just being really, really mindful of what we consume. And I think, you know, we're all aware of this now, aren't we? The importance of curating our own consumption of news and the challenging stuff in the world. And I've noticed that my own consumption had drifted into something that really wasn't serving me. A lot more news channels on my Instagram feed and I was getting caught in a lot more stories.
Henny Flynn:And some of that is important. It's important that we are engaged in the world and that we actively connect with what we believe to be important, you know, and deeply true within us. And it's important that we also take care to manage our resources manage our energy levels. So maybe that's actually the really kind of headline piece from today is about, you know, oh, I've been sharing some thoughts on Instagram recently that come from my book All the Ways I Tell Myself I Love You. I suddenly remembered how utterly gorgeous it is and really wanted to share it more widely with people.
Henny Flynn:I'll put a link to that as well in the show notes if you'd like to get yourself a copy. It is so beautiful. And, you know, are these ways that we can tell ourselves I love you, that are incredibly simple. And the one I shared today is about gazing at the view, just taking a moment and the view might be a vast distance across hills and mountains or the sea or if you happen to live somewhere that where that's available, or the view might be looking up into the clouds, or the view might be looking down into a patch of grass and seeing what's there, or you know gazing at the microcosm of a vast world that exists within a piece of lichen on a tree. You know, taking a moment to do that for ourselves, that's a way of extending self compassion.
Henny Flynn:And when we extend self compassion inward, it ripples out. It benefits all of us. So, there we go. But I feel a lot calmer than I did when I started this this recording. I came in with high energy and now it feels like it's steady and settled so thank you for that.
Henny Flynn:Alright my darlings, I'll send you love, a hug and a wave.