Embracing Wintering: A Journey of Self-Reflection and Creating a Heart's Sanctuary (S15E8)

Have you ever felt the urge to retreat inward, seeking solace in the quiet corners of your own mind?

Over the past six months, I've found myself embracing a period of 'wintering'. A transformative journey of introspection shaped by both personal and global influences.

My own reflection on this, and listening to the experiences of others has inspired this episode - an invitation to explore the natural rhythm of energy that guides us between vibrant creativity and peaceful quietude. Regardless of the natural rhythms of the seasons, there's profound wisdom in accepting silence and stillness as part of our internal landscape.

I also share a Flow Journal entry, written several years ago - long before we came to this geographic space - which lays out the vision I held in my heart for creating a sanctuary, where love and self-discovery could flourish in a nurturing, healing space. I feel this piece of writing captures part of this essence of Wintering.

Overall, my feeling is that we can all benefit at times from a physical space that enables us to step into our own inner realm.

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And it's this inner realm that truly is the space where stuck memories and limiting beliefs can be gently shifted, allowing you to embrace your true essence and desires. Here, we parent ourselves with compassion, trusting our inner wisdom while welcoming the transformation that occurs amidst laughter, tears, and growth. 

Whether you seek this sanctuary in solitude or through guided presence, it offers a personal refuge of rest and rejuvenation. A space for wisdom and sharing, a loving environment that holds and releases us, always ready to welcome us back into its embrace.

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Chapters

• 0:03 Exploring Self-Reflection and Wintering
• 14:59 Creating a Heart's Sanctuary

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

I've been noticing a lot of people talk about wintering recently and it's been inspiring my own reflection. 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. Episode takes you, and one of those reflections has been the realization that I think I've been dipping in and out of winter for quite a lot of the last maybe six months of this year. It's something that I'm very mindful of and if you've been listening to the podcast and some of the episodes that I shared on grief at the beginning of the autumn, then you'll have some sense of why Perhaps I have been dipping in and out of this feeling. But it's also something I'm noticing from many others, from clients, from friends, from loved ones, and I'm mindful that maybe there's something astrological going on. Maybe there's something astrological going on. Maybe it's the result of macro political conditions or some of the news that we are surrounded by, and even if we don't watch or listen to the news, we still are influenced by the energy of what happens around us. That's something I'm very aware of as someone who doesn't consume news, and yet somehow I still seem to know what's happening, so somehow it reaches me and and so this concept of wintering feels like maybe it's something that not only we can pay attention to at this time of year um, as I record this, it's the very end of November. But also, I think I might have shared before my own sense that I go through a cycle every few weeks, maybe following the patterns of the moon, maybe not. Who knows where my energy lifts and I am energized and creative and outward facing, and where my energy softens and drops, and I feel more inclined to be inward facing, self-reflective, maybe feel more comfortable doing organizational kind of admin type tasks rather than, you know, the kind of like the energy sort of flowing outward. Um, and you know, and I'm sure this is the same for all of us to some degree and maybe one of the things that we notice as we become more and more self-aware is the impact of these patterns or the shape of these patterns. And and so this week, um, I'm recording this on the day that the episode normally goes live. It normally goes live on a saturday, and then I send out my email to all of the incredibly beautiful souls who are part of my community, my email community. If that includes you, how delicious. If that doesn't yet include you, you are so welcome. So I send, I send the email out on a Sunday and share a little bit about what the episode is on.

Speaker 1: 4:27

And I think perhaps maybe part of my own wintering was this sort of soft, like a deep sort of bed of snow, this soft feeling of I don't know what to speak about this week. Ordinarily I'll have a fairly clear plan. I'll understand there's a theme that's really rising up within me and and this time that wasn't there. And and actually this time that was okay. And I actually just thought, well, maybe there isn't a podcast episode this weekend, maybe maybe that's okay. And again, if you've been part of this journey, this uh, this beautiful journey, for some time, then you'll know that that is a uh, softly one, uh frame of mind for me. You know I have a story about the show must go on and and it felt very releasing, very comforting to trust that it was okay if, if there's nothing to say, there's nothing to say, we don't have to make noise just because we have some rule, unwritten rule inside us that says oh, now is the moment for making noise, and yet here I am. And yet here I am making some noise of some kind.

Speaker 1: 5:59

But as I was sitting down in the house earlier today and I just really had this urge to come and connect with you, to come and speak with you, maybe not about something specific, maybe simply just a point of human contact, a point of human connection, a place to say it's okay if we don't know what to say, um, and and with that, as I was waiting for my um, oh, slightly, uh, slightly sleepy computer to to wake up and, um, uh, open up all the, the programs that are needed in order for me to do this recording and do the editing and make it go live, I idly pulled one of my journals off the shelf that's next to me I have them all gathered there and flicked through some pages, and there were a couple that I thought, oh, maybe that would be interesting to share, maybe there's something there.

Speaker 1: 7:10

And then I came to a page which seems to actually relate to this concept of wintering, but not in a seasonal sense, the concept of wintering whatever the weather is outside, and I think I can remember writing this and yet the words in it are feel very new to me and it's I realized as I was reading it through that it is something I wrote before we moved here, before we moved here to to the farm, and it's really a piece of visioning about the space that we held in our hearts, that we knew it was in our gift to create, about the solo retreats that we offer here, this space of deep rest, deep calm, reflection, reconnection, um, in our, our beautiful little um, we call it the summer house now, not because it's again nothing to do with seasons, but because it's light and is filled with that warmth, of some of that internal warmth that seems that when people leave here, that's the energy they carry with them. And yet also there is something of the sense of wintering when someone comes here, because it is a sense of folding in and being still and being safe within themselves, held in this land and in our care. Well, I'm looking forward to listening back to that that. I'm not really sure quite what those words were, but hopefully they made sense. As I said them um, and and I seem to recall there was um a friend who who suggested that I journal. I think I was talking to him about what it is that I had in my heart, that um I really wanted to move towards, and he said he said, oh, it said that sounds like something to journal on, and and so I did, and I remember sharing these words with him afterwards and uh, and it was a very moving, uh, very moving, uh, experience of sharing that with him, and I was very grateful to him for helping me see the way to articulate how to write and, of course, of course, the place to turn to was my journal and, and so I'd really love to to read these to you, and so I'd really love to read these to you.

Speaker 1: 10:22

I think you know, in one way, maybe they help explain what it is that we're doing here, what it is that people who come here for a solo retreat can experience, can envision when they come, envision when they come, um, and and I'm reading it because I also sense that this is something that we all hold within us and and our, our challenge, our opportunity, is to each find the pathway or the support, the guides who can help us find this place within us. And, of course, if, if this resonates with you and if, if you feel that maybe, um, I am sort of part of that for you, or we here, anton and I, are part of that for you, then please do reach out and and I can share more about what it is to come here and to do this, this deep, inner, reflective work. I'll include a link in the show notes for you as well. If you would like to have an understanding of how to come here or what here even is, um, then, yeah, then, uh, take a moment to to explore that as well. And and if there is somewhere else that you sense, oh, that you know following the, the ways of the, the trees and the plants and the animals, and, and you know, hunkering down and you know losing some of that, that outward display, the leaves of our trees, that we are, um, and and focusing on, you know, the, the deep roots that we have in the earth, and really focusing on how we nourish ourselves during this time of wintering, whether that is, you know, november, december, january, february, you know, during those months, or whether that for you, is in the height of the summer season If we feel the need to retreat, and I say that in the most glorious sense of that word to turn inward, then I think one of the most beautiful things we can do is to honor that. So, so I'd like to to share this, this journal entry, with you and just let it wash over, you see if it resonates. And I send you so much, and for whatever season you are experiencing within you right now spring, summer, autumn, winter, whatever it is that you are sensing, whether the energy is rising or it is falling back. Okay, my darlings, I'm going to send you a hug and a wave so that when I get to the end of the reading, you'll know that that is the close. All right, my loves. Oh, just before starting, I also realized that I think at some point I've really lost my way with the numbering of my days on my journal, because this is day 457. And I'm sure that in my most last journal I've stopped writing the number of the days in my journaling now I don't record anything like that anymore, but I'm fairly sure I was only up to day four, six, eight, and I'm many, many books further on. So somewhere along the line my numbering has got a little bit distracted. But I know that this was written sometime in sort of early 2021. So maybe nearly kind of four years ago.

Speaker 1: 14:59

So the reading, or the writing, begins the heart space, our place. A place where people come to feel their own inner healer. A place where people come to feel their own inner healer, a place of love and compassion, a place of nurturing and movement. A place to shift stuck memories, behaviours and beliefs. A place to pay the most delicate and attentive mind to yourself. A place to feel what it is to be your own parent. A place to turn toward what matters, what hurts, what feels uncomfortable, to turn toward the things you have distracted yourself from in the past. A place to feel whole and expansive. A place to see those little parts of you that are asking to be loved.

Speaker 1: 15:52

A place to do nothing, a place to be everything, a place for silence, a place for laughter, a place for tears, a place for talk, a place for stillness, a place to release energy, a place that is all that you need it to be. A place to trust you will receive whatever you most desire in this moment, right now. A place where, when you return, the colours seem different, the trees a fresh shade, the sounds a little clearer, where you sense your own need and trust that it may have changed and trust that it may have changed. A place to feel welcomed, a place to be alone, a place to be guided, a place to work out your own path, a place for all and nothing at all. A place, a simple, kind, clear space, just for you, here and now, as you are. A place that holds you and releases you entirely yours. A place that expands the space inside you to make room for all that you are. A place that you create. A place not reliant on anyone or anything to be entirely what your heart most desires or anything to be entirely what your heart most desires.

Speaker 1: 17:14

A place of rest, a place of peace, a place to feel restored, a place to leave refreshed, a place to remember with fondness, a place to return to whenever it is time, a place of love, a place of knowledge, a place of sharing. This place we are creating, this place is in my heart. This is my heart's space. I feel it through my whole body. The green expanse that surrounds it, the light that fills it, the earth that grounds it, the love that surrounds it. It, the love that surrounds it, the sky that adorns it, the peace that suffuses it, the presence that abides with it. Oh, I love this place and I share it gladly with you. This place is here, this place is now, this place is within and without. This place is love. Thank you, thank you.