the Henny Flynn podcast

Breaking Unwritten Rules: Embracing Beautiful Disruption and Creative Freedom (S15E4)

• Henny Flynn • Season 15 • Episode 3

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Have you ever wondered how much of our lives are governed by unwritten rules we've imposed on ourselves? 

Today's episode is a meander through some of the self-imposed constraints that often originate from societal expectations or beliefs we've inherited. We look at...

  • Some of my own once unshakeable ideas - for example, that for work to be meaningful, it must always feel hard (spoiler alert... it's not true)
  • How we can question and dismantle limiting constraints and the 'rules' we place around ourselves - to embrace flexibility and creative freedom
  • How the concept of 'beautiful disruption' can help us create small, intentional changes in routine that help build adaptability, resilience and creativity. 

Like many of these reflective episodes, this has sparked a personal response for me too. And so, I'm now breaking one of the rules I'd inadvertently created for myself. I'm shifting from publishing the podcast weekly to fortnightly. It's an experiment and we'll see how it goes... after all, there are no rules! 

I would LOVE to hear what you think about this. Depending on where you're listening you may see a little link to message me your reflections - or you can always email. 

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Speaker 1:

One of my favourite phrases, particularly in relation to this work, this inner work, is that there are no rules, perhaps, and particularly so in the places where we've been constrained by certain beliefs, certain behaviours, certain ways of being, where a rule has somehow or other become lodged within us. 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. And often we inherit these rules, or we are taught them, either overtly or covertly or unwittingly, or we pick them up through loyalty, as a way of making our place within the family system feel a little bit more secure, or we adapt them from what we see others doing or others believing, or the rules we see others following, and these can become these, yeah, these very sort of tight constraints in our lives. So, for example, we might have a belief or a rule around how we work, what a good worker looks like and a good employee or a good leader, and my finding is, both personally and through working with others, that often, actually, these rules might have served us at some point in our life, and that's why they're there, that's why they got lodged, that's why we've been following them, and then we can find ourselves at another time, at another place in our life, in another job, in another environment, and that same rule no longer quite fits the bill. The challenge is is that when we see it as a rule, it can feel very, very hard to break it, and so it's why I like to play with this phrase there are no rules because it can help us see oh, there can be another way of doing something. Now I've been sharing a little bit about this on Instagram and also sort of talking about it. It's been coming up in quite a few client conversations recently and just talking with friends as well, about how we can make choices, particularly around the way that we work. Let's focus on that for now.

Speaker 1:

So in the past, I definitely held a belief, which had become a bit of a rule, that for something to be important or for something to be done well, it needed to feel hard, it needed to feel difficult, I needed to have exerted effort on it, otherwise I wasn't really doing my job properly, and that can lead to any number of really unhealthy and unhelpful behaviours. So, rather than taking a break and allowing my brain time to reset, to percolate, to think a problem through, I might just sit at my desk, tapping away at my keyboard, trying to force an idea to emerge or trying to force a solution to a problem to appear before me, not recognizing, not remembering and not recognizing that actually the brain needs space in order to think creatively. And and so, for that reason, these days, when I'm working on something which requires some expansive thinking, I will deliberately take myself into an environment like just being outside, going for a walk, perhaps even just being in a different room in the house, where I can think more openly, rather than the very focused thinking that I tend to do when I'm sitting at my computer. Obviously, it's not always like that. Sometimes when I'm sitting at my computer, I can be very expansive, and you know that can be when I'm doing writing or something like that. But if I find stuck a bit trapped up in my head, um, feeling as though something is constraining, pressing in, I'm trying to force against something, it's a marker for me that actually what I need to do is sit back and, even as I was saying that I could feel my body like folding in toward the mic and my shoulders like crowding around, because that's that, that feeling of tension and constraint and contraction. And really what I'm looking for is expansion and a way to open up my thinking and allow myself a bit of freedom of thought and and so you know that's just capabilities or how well, how would I say that can really limit my ability to um, to to solve a problem or to um, find another way forward, um, and, and so I kind of, I really I think this is such a valuable thing to explore and to reflect on personally, to look across your own day, I mean just today look across your own day and just see where have some of those like unwritten rules, those subliminal rules, crept in and maybe constrained you in some way or felt like they've limited your ability to see where some of the options might be.

Speaker 1:

Now I did a whole series of episodes I think it might have been in series 12, where I looked at some of the phrases that we might be carrying from childhood. So things like pride comes before a fall, or too big for your boots, or phrases like that. They can be the precursor to setting up some rules inside us as well, and I am very alert to when I notice that that's happening inside me now, and so I'm very, very careful about the ways in which I approach the work that I do, and this podcast is no exception. So one of the things that I am about to experiment with is breaking one of the rules that I had realized I'd created somewhere along the line. I think I first did an episode of the podcast around about April, may 2020, something like that and and I decided it needed to be once a week, because that's how podcasts are they're either once a week or more often for some producers and I've stuck with that broadly.

Speaker 1:

And then I created another rule for myself which was like oh OK, I can't do it once a week all the time. I need a break, because I recognize I need time for reflective thinking and creative juices to flow. So I'll do each episode is, each season is 10 episodes, and then I'll have a break and I'll be fairly loose about how long that break is. And then I'll have a break and I'll be fairly loose about how long that break is, and then I'll do another season and that will be 10 episodes every week. No, a weekly episode over 10 weeks, and then it's been dawning on me recently that I've just been following a rule established by myself, not determined by anybody else, and that it had started to feel like a constraint, and the last thing that I ever, ever wanted was for this podcast to ever feel like a constraint.

Speaker 1:

But I also recognize that for me to produce these kinds of episodes, particularly the ones where I'm speaking really, really from the heart to you and doing that deep, deep, deep reflection, they take a lot of time, they take a lot of energy, they take a lot of effort, and maybe, maybe, it would serve me to do them in a different way, because there are no rules. And so my proposal to myself is that for the next few weeks, few months, forever, who knows, maybe I'm going to change the really honour my own needs and to honour the needs of my creative output, and fundamentally, that's actually honouring you, because what I don't want to do is ever get to a point where I feel I don't want to do, is ever get to a point where I feel, oh, I can't do an episode and then force myself to do one. That, to me, is anathema. That, to me, is the absolute antithesis of why I'm sitting here speaking with you right now, and so I wanted to share this. I wanted to share the thinking behind this, because all of my instinct says you'll understand, and I just wonder whether it sparks any thoughts for you, whether it helps you, guides, invites you to look at something that you're doing, something maybe that you really, really love, but that is also taking more from you than you currently have available, available to give it, and whether there is something, some small step that you could take that could change that rule, maybe in a tiny, tiny way, or maybe in a in a more significant way, maybe rewriting it entirely, maybe releasing yourself from it entirely, maybe simply loosening some of the strands of where it's got caught in your system. And I really love this. I really I love it when we are able to look at something with a completely fresh pair of eyes and go, oh, hang on a minute, it actually doesn't have to be that way, and for me to change it has no adverse impact on anybody else. This is just a rule that I've created around myself, and I could establish a whole load of beliefs around that, and, believe me, I have, because I've told myself at various points. You know, just still talking about the podcast, oh, I need to get an episode out. You know, I've I've made a commitment, um, and I've brought myself back up into the stable late at night on a Friday, you know, and it's been delicious and I've recorded a really intimate conversation. It's one way, but it always feels like a conversation with you and you know, and then I've set it to go live and I have a sense of achievement and it's, you know, it's all very nice and and was it really? Well, I don't know. I don't know until I play.

Speaker 1:

And I think, if we're not willing to play with the things, that we actually have this kind of control over, that sense of discernment and willingness to change when it's something that feels a little bit more tricky. So I kind of see this willingness to break our own rules as part of beautiful disruption, which is something that you may have heard me speak about before. I think it's a really powerful part of how we learn, how to embrace and accept change in our lives, and beautiful disruption is where we disrupt something that has no negative impact on anybody else. Um, it simply disrupts a pattern or a rule that we have created. So a lovely example of beautiful disruption is when you know if you, if you um always go to the same coffee shop, um, when you go into town, um, and you always walk the same way and you always go to the same part of the counter and you always order the same coffee in the same way and you always go and sit in the same seat. Now, beautiful disruption would mean take a detour on your way there, maybe even just walking on the other side of the street, choose a different counter, maybe try a different coffee although quite honestly, I wouldn't do that, but you know, maybe Then go and sit at a different seat in the coffee shop. You know, doing those things help our system understand that it is safe to change, and that's really what this whole episode is about. It's about teaching ourselves that it is okay to break our own rules, that it is okay to break our own rules and it is okay to push against the boundaries, the barriers better word that we might have built up around ourselves or feel, believe that others have built around us, and it is okay to disrupt the patterns that we habitually follow. And so that's what I'm doing I'm going to publish this episode this weekend it's now Friday afternoon, I'll send it live and I'm going to publish the next one in two weeks time and I'm going to, as part of this play, as part of this experiment, I'm going to really focus on these solo episodes more, which doesn't mean I won't also be speaking to some of the amazing guests.

Speaker 1:

I've had some gorgeous, wonderful guests, you know. It doesn't mean I won't be speaking with people. I won't be speaking with people, but I often find that it's the solo episodes which seem to really, really resonate with people. So if that's not true, tell me. You know, I'd really love to hear your reflections about this. I'm kind of being guided you most like to listen to on this particular podcast and maybe, maybe it will inform how things continue to develop. Um, so for now I'm going to say toodlepip and I will see you in two weeks time.

Speaker 1:

Can I just tell you how nervous I feel right now saying this? So I am not saying I mean, isn't it hilarious? What I'm talking about is I'm not going to do a podcast for a week and then I'm going to do a podcast episode. Like, I mean, it is such a zero risk and yet, and yet I notice inside my system, a part of me that goes oh, I don't know if that's okay. So I am telling that part of me of course, my darling, of course it is okay and we are safe and everyone will understand.

Speaker 1:

All right, my loves, I am sending you so much love and I really can't wait to do the next episode. That's so interesting as well. Gosh, I just really felt like there's something about when we create a bit of spaciousness around something that might have even just had an inkling of feeling a little bit like, oh gosh, that might start feeling quite a lot. When we create a bit of space around it, suddenly our energy flows, our creativity flows, our awareness raises and things just feel a little bit lighter, a little bit more spacious, more expansive, and it definitely feels that way. So let's see how it goes, and you never know, we might continue with the experiment, we might not, because there are no rules, of course. All right, my love, I send you a hug and a wave. Thank you, thank you.