Looking Back to Look Forward (S21E5)

I recorded this one as the light was fading, choosing to leave the lamps off and let the shadows of the plants play across the wall. Perhaps that set the tone for where we went.I’ve been writing a new Field Note, sparked by listening back to an episode I recorded in 2021 about our non-negotiables. I was struck by how many threads were already there five years ago, and by how they’ve matured and softened since. In this episode I wonder about what happens when certainty becomes a cage, why I think non-negotiables can be both an anchor and a limit, and how a week of so much happening in the wider world led me somewhere I hadn’t expected: to hope.I close with a poem from My Darling Girl.This is the last episode of season 21. Thank you, as always, for being here. The new season begins in a few weeks.Field Note: how our non-negotiables shift Circle - I’ve shared an invitation to reflect on how your own non-negotiables have changed. You’d be so welcome to join us. Enter through the mailing list IMMERSE - my year-long small-group programme begins on 20/11/2026. If you’ve been circling it, there’s still time, and still time to have a chat with me to see if it's right for you. A gift with your books - order any of my books before the end of November and I’d love to send you one of the blank page journals from Inner Work Project, while stocks last. There’s also a book bundle. Details and Ts & Cs here.  ★ Support this podcast ★

This week someone in our community asked me a question that gently challenged an assumption I think many of us carry: what if we don’t know how to connect with ourselves?It took me straight back to a conversation with a nutritionist many years ago, and a moment of realising just how far from my own body I’d drifted. In this episode I share Some of what helped me begin to find my way backA curious idea I’ve been playing with about tracking emotion through the body (also inspired by someone in our community)And one of my own letters of love, written by the fire one evening.How do you connect with yourself? I’d love to hear.With loveHenny xLetters of Love - my journaling guide for writing letters of love to parts of yourself, to loved ones, to the natural world, published by Inner Work Project. The Circle of Compassionate Change - the community space where this week’s questions first arose. Join the mailing list and you’ll be welcomed in.  ★ Support this podcast ★

I’m recording this one from my bed. A low-level virus caught up with me after the retreat last weekend, and at the same time a couple of days opened up unexpectedly in my diary. In the past I’d have pushed on through. This time I took the space I’d been given.From there, looking out at the autumn leaves and the rain, I found myself reflecting on the bravery it takes to turn toward ourselves with love. I share something I witnessed on The Weekend of No-Requirements about what happens to our attention when we’re held well in a group, how my own feelings about group work have shifted over the years, and why I think the small moments of choosing ourselves matter just as much as the big ones.We don't always have to have the fierce courageousness of the Lion; sometimes it's the Butterfly who shows the deepest courage. I think there's a lot more to explore here so perhaps we'll return to this another time. It’s a shorter, quieter episode, with a question at its heart. If it stirs something for you, I’d love to hear.There’s no video this week (for obvious reasons) and normal service resumes next week.Coming up:The Nervous System at Work - a four-week short course with Grace Loveday. Thursday lunchtimes, 75 minutes, beginning 5/11/2026. A couple of spaces remain. https://events.humanitix.com/the-nervous-system-at-work-4-week-course-with-henny-flynn-and-grace-lovedayIMMERSE information session - a free, relaxed hour to find out more about IMMERSE, ask any questions, and perhaps share a gentle practice together. https://events.humanitix.com/an-evening-within-the-heart-of-changeIMMERSE - my year-long small-group programme. The new cohort first gathers on 20/11/2026. https://www.hennyflynn.co.uk/immerse ★ Support this podcast ★

Tomorrow Adam Lind and I open the doors to The Weekend of No-Requirements, and as I went about my errands today - posting books, a trip to the supermarket - the question of what does it mean to care kept running through me. Initially it was a reflection centred on the beautiful souls coming to the retreat, and on how I care for myself during the weekend... and (as these things so often do) it then expanded outward, and inward.So in this episode I find myself wondering aloud about what it means to care: for others, for ourselves, and how we allow ourselves to receive care too. I share the three words I return to as both mantra and intention, something one of my teachers said about what self care can look like when we’re tending to many things, and a story from Elizabeth Gilbert about a coffee shop, a loan and a very clean thank you.Some of this felt quite tender to talk about, touching as it does on identity and how we show up in the world. As so often happens, it unfolded in directions I didn’t expect.If anything stirs for you, I’d love to hear.Coming up:The Nervous System at Work - a four-week short course with my dear colleague Grace Loveday. Thursday lunchtimes, 75 minutes, beginning 5/11/2026IMMERSE - my year-long small-group programme, with the new cohort beginning 20 NovemberBook launch - 1/11/2026 in Presteigne. If you’re anywhere near Ludlow, Leominster or the Welsh borders, you’d be so welcome. Let me know if you'd like to join us. ★ Support this podcast ★

Today was the last day of IMMERSE, my year-long group programme, and I’m still feeling the tenderness of that ending. In our final session, one of the group said, quite simply, that change is not linear. It stayed with me, and that’s where this episode began.It sent me back to one of the earliest poems I wrote for My Darling Girl, from the very start of my own long and winding experience of change. It’s a poem about the estuary: the rise and fall of the tide, the times we’re left stranded high and dry, and the times we’re swept somewhere we never expected to go. I read it to you here, and then sit with what it stirs.There’s a lot in this one I think I needed to hear myself. It touches on what happens when we drift up into our heads, the treasure we gather along the way, and a small silver necklace that reminds me I can be both the river and the tree.If the poem speaks to something in you, perhaps a change you’re in the middle of or one you’ve recently come through, I’d love to hear.If you’re curious about IMMERSE, the new cohort begins towards the end of November. It’s a small group, travelling together through a year of deep work with The Heart of Change. Do get in touch if it calls to you.Discover more about Immerse ★ Support this podcast ★

Today we're looking back to look forward - and I'm announcing the new podcast name. I'm not completely clear how these two things are related but I expect they are! This is still the same podcast, the same space, now naming its essence: everyday compassion with Henny Flynn.As today's episode unfolded, the three threads that emerged:I reflect on what it means to look back in order to look forward - not as nostalgia, and not as a refusal to move on, but as a discerning kind of attention. I share a conversation with my husband Anton over thirty years ago, sitting on a bench in Nottingham, where one of us said 'this feels more like a separation than a divorce' - and how being willing to look back changed the whole course of both our lives.I think out loud about a kind of discarding I notice in the world - how easily we decide an idea, a relationship, versions of ourselves, as though they no longer hold value simply because it belongs to the past. And how often what gets presented as something new is really something old, rediscovered. I'd love to know whether that resonates with you, or whether you see it differently.And I share that A piece of quiet is itself a living example of all this - a practice I created, let go of, and am now bringing back as something free and live, every Monday at 6.30pm (UK), starting this coming Monday.Henny xResources & Ways of ConnectingTo join A piece of quiet... every Monday, 6.30pm UK, free - https://hennyflynn.kit.com/14116fc6c3To discover Immerse... grounded in The Heart of Change - https://www.hennyflynn.co.uk/immerseOn the Hilary Mantel novel... A Place of Greater Safety, if you'd like to find it for yourself (I loved this book)Tell me what resonated... I'd love to hear what landed for you - https://www.hennyflynn.co.uk/contact ★ Support this podcast ★

It's been a busy week, and I'm recording this a little bit tired, but happy.As today's episode unfolded, there were three threads that appeared:The life imitating art moment when my co-host Grace's camera failed, right as we were about to deliver a free lunch and learn on the nervous system at work - and how these moments in life can become live, real-time demonstrations of the very thing we seeking to learn (or teach)I also share three simple techniques for vagal toning that came up in today's session - a gentle hold at the back of the neck, a hand resting on the heart, and a gentle press at the inner corners of the eyebrows. And I leave you with a question: what actually nourishes your nervous system when it's activated, rather than simply soothing or numbing it?Lastly, if this work on the nervous system resonates for you, I share a little about a four-week course Grace and I are running together, starting 5 November, on understanding the language of your own nervous system.Henny xResources & Ways of ConnectingTo find out more about the-nervous-system-at-work-4-week-course-with-henny-flynn-and-grace-loveday we begin Thursday 5 NovemberTo join the mailing list... hennyflynn.co.uk/contact for all the free things, including this podcast  ★ Support this podcast ★

I hadn't planned this episode - it seems to be the way, these days - it arrived instead, out of a small, quite ordinary battle with a piece of technology that simply wouldn't cooperate - and the frustration that came with it.As today's episode unfolded, there were three threads that appeared:What happens when something feels hard - not the BIG moments but those small things that thwart us - frustrating, annoying, irritating - and the choices we might forget we haveHow trying to enforce 'unenforceable rules' can lead us to 'pushing on through', when perhaps something else might serve the situation betterAnd I share my new book, everyday compassion (365 days of ordinary kindness), is published on 22 September. Pre-orders are open now, and I would love to inscribe a copy for you, or for someone you love.Henny xResources & Ways of ConnectingTo order everyday compassion... https://www.hennyflynn.co.uk/everyday-compassionTo discover The Field... https://www.hennyflynn.co.uk/enter-the-fieldShare where you go... when things feel like they're thwarting you, I'd love to hear https://www.hennyflynn.co.uk/contact ★ Support this podcast ★

The response to last week's episode about fairy tales and voice notes has been extraordinary - so many of you shared your own stories with me, and I wanted to spend this episode reflecting on what came through, and inviting you a little deeper into mine.There are three threads running through today's conversation:I share the fuller story behind my own fairy tale - Little Red Riding Hood - including a sculpture that changed how I related to a part of myself I used to call anger, and how that part has since transformed from a black dog into a grey wolf who watches over me from the hillside.I reflect on some of the fairy tales you shared with me - Rapunzel, The Happy Prince, Parsifal, the Magic Porridge Pot and more - and what might be sitting underneath each one.And I share a little about the Weekend of No-Requirements, the retreat I'm running with Adam Lind this October - a space where nothing is required of you at all.Henny xResources & Ways of ConnectingDiscover the Weekend of No-Requirements... with Adam Lind, 16-19 October On animal parts work... if this resonates, Charlie Mackesy's The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse and Richard Schwartz's Internal Family Systems (IFS) are both beautiful places to go deeperExplore Paul Smith's sculptures  Missed the fairy tale question... listen to last week's episode S21E1Share the Animal Parts who show up for you... by email, on YouTube, or through the contact form ★ Support this podcast ★

After our pause, I'm returning to a new season - literal and metaphorical. It's lovely to be back and to feel into what is asking to be shared. As I opened the channel for today's conversation, two themes began flowing through this episode. I reflect on connection - between writer and reader, speaker and listener, self and self - and I ask a question I'd love you to sit with: what fairy tale from your childhood has stayed with you, and what might it be reflecting back? I also share a new way I've been thinking about voice notes: the way they allow us to communicate - to connect - even more freely with each other. Inspired by a friend... who was in her turn inspired by another beautiful human. Lastly I share a little about Season Two of The Field. If you're curious about intentional change, grounded in compassionate self-enquiry, then perhaps it's a space that calls to something within you. You would be so welcome there.Henny xResources & Ways of ConnectingOn voice memos... from Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley - Can I send you a voice memo - with gratitude for the inspirationTo discover more about The Field... the gate closes for Season Two on 9 SeptemberShare the fairytale that speaks to you... I would love to share the reflections that might arise ★ Support this podcast ★