everyday compassion with Henny Flynn

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There is a growing understanding that every woman’s menopause is different - and that what supports each woman is different too.

And yet, we can often hold an unconscious bias around what menopause is like for others. Our unconscious bias is part of how we make sense of the world - and once we know it's there, we have the opportunity to change.

A while ago a friend commented that menopause always seems to be addressed from the perspective of mothers. She called out that it’s an unconscious bias in language and attitude that can be totally unintentional - and can create deep discomfort.

It’s an observation that’s stuck with me and - in a desire to help change it - I’ve since talked with many women who’ve not had children (whether by choice or chance) to see if that’s their experience too. 

One of those people was Debbie Lindsay… my guest today.

Debbie and I have known each other for many years and she’s kindly agreed to come and share her perspective and her story.

This episode explores menopause and fertility - it’s a thread that runs through the biological and psychological heart of what it means to be in menopause. And through Debbie’s story you'll hear us explore some of the often unsaid aspects of how it is to go through this deep change.

If you’re a man, and you’ve read this far, then thank you for understanding that this is not just a woman’s issue - just as feminism isn’t just for women either. Menopause directly affects every genetic female in the world - and indirectly affects us all. The more we can normalise - and de-stigmatise how we talk about it - the better for us all.

And. On a day that's almost universally seen as a day of love (it's February 14th), I think this conversation is even more important. It's a story that highlights the importance of holding ourselves with love, through all the challenges we face.

Henny x

REFERENCES

Christiane Northrup - Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (this is a book I lent Debbie, that she then bought - we don’t actually discuss it on the podcast but you may find it useful too)

Menopause Support

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Self-compassion is part of what builds our bed-rock of self-care - and what helps us develop self-awareness, which in turn is what helps us make and manage change. 

This episode is adapted from a recent micro retreat I ran, all about how we can develop this important quality of self-compassion. It includes: 

• Thoughts on the science of self-compassion, and why it's so important for our well-being
• A self-reflection exercise to explore your own inner critic - who may be getting in the way of your own sense of self-compassion
• A short technique to help you access the feeling of self-compassion in your own body
• A reading all about the importance of being kind to ourselves, from the poet Mark Nepo

As with every episode of the podcast - this is an invitation for exploration. If it raises things for you that feel like they’d benefit from some support, then please reach out… to me, to a good friend, to a therapist. Trust your own sense of the best support route for you.

REFERENCES

Mark Nepo - The Book of Awakening

Dr Kristin Neff - self-compassion.org

The School of Life - The Book of Self-Knowledge

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Inspired by a conversation with my own coach. This episode asks what’s truly important to you - for your whole self - and what is it you’re no longer willing to compromise on…

There's an important caveat to this idea of 'non-negotiables' - that they don't then lead us into a fixed mindset. It's about identifying what's truly in our best service and then creating the environment for us to put that into place.

Here are some of the core points I cover...

• An exploration of my own patterns and the ‘rules’ I used to live by - and how have they changed… Leading into a question about what are yours? How are they changing? How would you like them to change?
• When does something shift for you from being a nice-to-have and into a non-negotiable? And what are the boundaries you need to put into place to support that?
• The things we hold to be ‘true’ are different for each of us - and they change / grow with us as we change and grow. 
• And honouring these things is critical both for ourselves and in how we allow space for others. And how others allow our space.
• It can be useful to understand where these things we see as fundamental to our existence are born out of - and then see whether they’re truly being met right now. And if not, what could you put into place to better support them. 
• When we sense we’re acting out of alignment with these ‘non-negotiables’ it can indicate something about how our values are being honoured; leading to deep discomfort. 
• Noticing when something isn’t being allowed expression, can help us to reframe or reposition our perspective of what’s impacting us.
• Conversely, making something non-negotiable can help us take the struggle out of a change we want to make. Enabling us to use more emphatic language - as a statement of intention*, that creates our new non-negotiable. 

*An intention is a positive statement in the present tense

GRATITUDE

Thank you as always to Angus at changomusic.com for his music and production.

WELCOME

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This episode was recorded in December 2020 with embodied movement specialist, Susan McCulley.

While the conversation begins with menopause it swiftly moves into the realms of how it is to care deeply for ourselves - from a multi-faced approach. These topics are relevant for us all - whatever gender you identify with, or life stage you find yourself in.

Susan McCulley has been a teacher, movement coach and writer since 2000. She is the creator of The Age of Becoming: Embodied Practices Empowering Women over 50 community, which offers free movement practices & workshops, connection, community and more.

Susan began by sharing she had recently been asked... "Has anything happened to you recently that made no sense at all - and yet made all the sense in the world?" It was a wonderful way to begin...

• What can support us during menopause - from accepting and trusting external and internal support to connecting intellectual knowing with embodied experience and engaging differently with food
• How everything shifts and changes in mid-life - and the importance of the both/and of trusting an expert… leading to trusting yourself. With the importance of the question: “are you willing to make a change?”
• Next we cover habitual thinking, comfort in the discomfort leading into the distinction between awkwardness & pain. And how, for some of us, it’s like physical movement has been trained out of us.
• The power of being endlessly tender. We can see fear as birds fluttering until we sit with them with compassion - and then they settle. Which led Susan to share how instead of telling the fear voice (her ‘Pointy Girl’) to shut up, instead hold Pointy Girl with tenderness.
• This led to reflections on the acts of aggression we can direct to tender parts of us - and an exploration of the differences between feminine power & leadership and masculine
• Susan then share how fascia connective tissue holds everything together - leading to a me trying to remember the word for mycelium (we got there in the end!) and our connection to nature
• We end with the beauty of The Crone and the alchemy of living to come to these qu

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Welcome back to series 3! This idea that began as a little idea nearly a year ago has resulted in 27 episodes and counting. Thank you so much for listening and for your comments, thoughts and reflections. It makes the creation of these episodes such a joy. 

Over this episode we’ll look at a something that often arises at this time of year - but really is relevant at any time of year, at any time of our life.

I explore something I see as a key principle to how we change - the willingness to invest in ourselves. At the end of the episode, I pose three questions for self-reflection:

• What does an investment in time spent with yourself mean to you?
• What does investing your own money in yourself meant to you?
• What does investing your energy in yourself meant to you?

To explore how it would be to work with me, one-to-one, to support you in your own change journey, email me and we’ll get a time in for a virtual coffee. 

Henny x

[email protected]

Order your copy of MY DARLING GIRL, love letters to all the girls and women we have ever been https://www.shookbop.com/products/my-darling-girl-by-henny-flynn 

GRATITUDE

Thank you as always to Angus at changomusic.com for his music and production.

WELCOME TO THE COMMUNITY 

THE REGROUP HOUR on FACEBOOK - a place for further exploration. Everyone welcome! 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/thereegrouphour

THE POSITIVE MENOPAUSE - for all women experiencing menopause (from peri to post)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/thepositivemenopause

REFERENCES

Michael Singer - The Untethered Soul

KEY POINTS I COVER...

• As usual we begin this year, not knowing what the months ahead will hold - and all we can do is face into the

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We all inherit stories from others. Whether that’s from our family lines, society or powerful others who’ve imprinted their own stories upon our beliefs and behaviours.

As ever, with all of this work, the opportunity is to see what we have inherited and bring our compassion and non-judgemental observation to it… in  order to see what we wish to continue to carry with us, and what we wish to respectfully release and return to those from whom we inherited it.

As with all episodes of The Regroup Hour, this is about creating the opportunity to come closer into connection with ourselves. And seeing who we really are beneath the stories that we carry.

| 4’46” | The generations of our family line stretch back behind us and each generation influences the one that follows - and passes on stories and narratives to future generations
| 7’40” | Noticing what we’ve inherited is not about blaming the source
| 12’05” | Our cultural heritage also transfers stories that can deeply influence our beliefs
| 13’55” | This is not about landing on the ‘source’ and ‘having the answers’ - rather it’s about allowing this idea to percolate and seeing what it reveals to us over time
| 16’25” | Money is often riven with complexity and can be a place of tension - where conflicting inherited narratives collide, especially when we have different stories being handed down to us from the two parental lines
| 22’46” | What are stories about our sense of masculinity and femininity that we’ve learnt - and how do they influence us throughout our life?
| 23’40” | Inherited stories can be like the cuckoo in our nest of thoughts - so that as it grows it dominates our thoughts, to such an extent that it engulfs the thoughts we’ve created for ourselves. What are the cuckoos in your nest of thoughts?
| 25’55” | It is critical we honour the source of our thoughts - we can take a beautiful stance here, where we thank the source (even when it’s complex or challenging) and acknowledge that we are choosing to take what we need and leave what no longer serves us.
| 30’40” | There can be a generational healing aspect to this process of seeing our inherited narrative

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We’ve gone a bit off piste this week. But! There is a reason.

If you’re a regular listener to the podcast, you’ll know that over the past few years I’ve taken myself on a journey of change. There’s little in my life that’s been unaffected. It’s what’s led to the work I do - and it’s led to this podcast… and, specifically, this episode.

Through that time journaling has been my saviour and my guide (in fact, it's the topic of the very first episode https://www.reegroup.co.uk/the-reegroup-hour-gratitude-journaling). 

Anyway.

Along the way I’ve written love letters to myself... 

Over time, they’ve gathered in number and, braving my vulnerability, I’ve shared them with others too. Releasing each one at the time felt like the cutting of an invisible umbilical chord - but it also felt right to let them go.

By chance I then met up with a wonderful man (you can hear him speak in the episode 'From Grief to Growth' https://www.reegroup.co.uk/s2-02-from-grief-to-growth-with-carl-mynott). I asked him for some guidance on what to do with them… and, well, his reply wasn't quite what I was expecting, and he chose to publish them. 

And so, now, that’s what’s happening. 

The book My Darling Girl will be published on the 15th December and is now available for pre-order. 

It feels bizarre and glorious in equal measure. 

So, this episode includes a reading from the book, accompanied by music from Angus (who creates all the music on the podcast and the Insight Timer meditations). He wrote it for this particular piece as a form of mindful meditation. I think it’s beautiful and I hope you love it too.

The invitation is to find a place to sit or walk, headphones on, and just enjoy wherever it is you go.

If you're curious for yourself and the darling girls in your life, see...  https://www.shookbop.com/products/my-darling-girl-by-henny-flynn-pre-order

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Today it’s all about Disruption - and how the fear of change can often be the thing that stops us moving forward.

You’ll hear I recorded this before the election result in America. Perhaps that sense of disruption was more present then - and for some, of course, it will feel more present now.

Sometimes (often?) even the things we seek to change can hold elements that spark our fear response. And sometimes (often?) we can find ourselves switching the focus of our fearful attention from one thing to another, as soon as that first thing has been dealt with.

What we're seeing around us now feels like a beautiful opportunity to bring our curiosity to how we're seeing this change play out.

The invitation is to join me on a exploration of how we can make Disruption into something Beautiful… 

This episode includes some practical opportunities for self-reflection that come from the Beautiful Disruption retreat (part four of the ChangeFlow series), that we held last weekend. You may want a pen & paper handy or simply to be somewhere you can reflect on your own thoughts and experiences.

I close this episode with a moment of embodied mindfulness - an opportunity to connect with how it feels to allow ourselves to feel what we feel, and to see how it is to bring comfort to that experience.

 | 3’30” | We’re all feeling disruption in our own way…
 | 5’50” | What comes up for you when you think of Beautiful Disruption?
 | 7’30” | The fear of change can often be our greatest obstacle to making it happen - but it can be exciting, inspiring and invigorating.
 | 10’30” | When we’re willing to see ourselves and our situation with curiosity and compassion then we’re far more able to see the breadth of choices we have - and help us manage a tendency towards imagining we only have binary solutions (22’23”)
 | 14’00” | What are the things that stop you from changing - do they fill your field of vision?
 | 27’23” | What do you currently do regularly, where you could introduce small changes, that could help you practice the art of disruption?
 | 34’48” | Staying in our heads to deal with fear is possible but it can take

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This week it’s all about change from within - and how the emotional experience of being triggered can both benefit from our willingness to change AND be a beautiful tool in enabling it.

 | 6'15” | Even the things that trigger us offer an opportunity for growth and learning. The key is always about how we bring our conscious observation to the fore - and what we take from that.
 | 7’45” | When you face into behaviour from partners, children, colleagues, family members that makes you unhappy, it’s an opportunity to look at what it triggers within you.
 | 11’25” | If we don’t learn how to recognise and respond differently to our triggers, the danger is that you’ll keep getting ambushed on your journey through change. You’ll respond in the same way you always have, rather than navigating the trigger and responding in the way you want to.
 | 13’07”  | The need for safety often underpins our emotional response when we are triggered
 | 15’40” | When you know what triggers you, you can take steps to avoid them. Of course, we can’t always control things, something may happen that ambushes us - a trigger out of the blue - and that’s where doing the Work to create a more conscious, measured response is so useful.
 | 19’35” | The only thing we can control fully is ourselves, and our response to the stimulus around us
 | 21’45” | This quote helped short-circuit my own triggered responses to stimulus. Viktor Frankl “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”
 | 25’00” | Without a willingness to change, very little can change
 | 26’03” | It’s through learning how to accept and love ourselves that we are better able to love others, with mutual respect
 | 31’28” | Your response to what triggers you is your response, and doesn’t belong to anyone else.
 | 32’45” | “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself”. As usual, Rumi puts his finger on the heart of the matter.
 | 33’33” | Naming what triggers us gives us the opportunity to create the space within us that allows the physica

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This week is a musing on how something that we think is serving us can actually be masking a deeper need.

And that something is… LIST MAKING!

I know, in the grand scheme of things it may not feel like one of the major things to face into - but sometimes it’s the little habits that mask other behaviours. And there may be a resonance here with other habits you continue to practice simply because that’s ‘what you do’ and not because they truly serve you.

Are you a list disciple? A list anarchist?

Whichever camp you find yourself in, I hope this week's reflections help spark new thoughts for you

Henny x

*****

There’s a part of me here that wants to hold up my hand and say I used to be addicted to lists. And yet, another part of me says ‘That’s ridiculous. How can someone be addicted to lists?’ 

Of course, any behaviour can hold addictive aspects - especially when it helps us mask a inner turmoil, we get a sense of reward from it and feel discomfort without it. (For more on that, see Gabor Mate’s incredible book In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts)

And lists for me gave me a sense of control in a time when I feared chaos was going to overwhelm everything. I also felt deep discomfort until everything was neatly listed.

I was also proud of my list-making - I wore it as a badge of honour. 

Yet, despite my former pride in my ability to make and manage endless, complex lists - and pitying non-list makers - I appear to have now transitioned to the other side. I am no longer surrounded by neat columns of post-it notes, featuring agile flows. And in fact I don’t have a list on the go. At all.

This a reflection on why we make lists, how they can hinder as well as help - and how our self-awareness, as always, is our greatest tool in seeing what our behaviour is telling us about what’s really going on.

A few of the reflections include:

• Lists can become the end in themselves - where our sense of achievement is triggered by adding the thing to the list, rather than getting the thing done
• They can also become a source of guilt - filled with shoulds, musts and wants rather than what

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Explore the power of Flow Journaling, self-compassion and gentle change in a supportive space.
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Visit the library

Free 20-minute Call
Explore whether coaching could support what’s calling for change.
...