the Henny Flynn podcast

Knowing What Is Enough: Balancing Joy, Pain and Connection (S16E1)

• Henny Flynn • Season 16 • Episode 1

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In this episode, I dive into the tender and transformative topic of 'knowing what is enough.'

Inspired by personal experiences, reflections on love, and the wisdom of the body, I explore how we can hold space for both joy and pain, embrace the impressions left by connection, and recognise when to say, “Enough, enough now.”

This conversation touches on themes of vulnerability, gratitude, and self-compassion, offering insights into how we navigate the balance between striving and contentment. I hope it resonates with you as deeply as it does with me.

REFERENCES:
Letters of Love - a journaling practice for wisdom & connection
Henny Flynn, pub. 6 Feb 2025, Inner Work Project

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Speaker 1:

Hey, my darlings. So here we are, beginning of a new season and we are diving headfirst into quite a big topic how do we know what is enough? 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.

Speaker 1:

When I was thinking about this topic, this topic of how do we know what is enough, there was a line from Love Actually which kept resonating through me that I'm not sure if you remember it, but there's a point where one of the male protagonists who is in love with one of the female protagonists, who is married to his best friend, declares to her that he loves her and it's something that he's been hiding for a very long time and she graciously accepts that he loves her without anything happening. They don't run off into the sunset together and as he walks away he says enough, enough now. And that moment has always struck me as very poignant, even though I mean, you know, it's kind of slightly odd the way that he declares his love to her. But, you know, let's let that go. But that realization, that moment of enough, enough. Now. I think there's something really powerful about that and you know, I often return to this idea of how do we know when enough is enough, how do we know what is enough?

Speaker 1:

And obviously, of course, so many of us hold stories about ourselves not being enough or, in my case, and I know in the case of very many of us, a sense that our enough is a bit too much. So these kinds of stories, they all tie in to, I think, what can be an inability to really recognize what is enough. And I'm sure you know, psychologically, psychologically, there'll be lots of reasons for that, because while we keep striving, we keep moving forward, we keep improving, we keep thriving and we stay alive. So there will be a fundamental core human desire to not be settled with what we have but to always be looking for something more. However, with the state of the world as it is and the development of humankind as it is, my feeling is that this kind of constant striving, the constant hustle forward, is not that healthy often, and it can play out in lots of different ways in our lives, ways that we might not necessarily always see, and so I wanted to explore this idea a little bit today.

Speaker 1:

Now, we can often find ourselves feeling or thinking we want a little more or a little less, or a lot of something, or a lot more or a lot less. You know of something and and, like I said, it can seem like it's part of human nature to never be quite fully satisfied, because we may think that it's that dissatisfaction that keeps us striving forward. But my sense when I was reflecting on this is that it could also be the thing that keeps us from contentment. And you know, there are wiser people than me that have written a lot and thought a lot about this concept of contentment, particularly contentment versus happiness. So, staying really focused on this concept of enough, how do we know when to accept what is and when to move toward something different? And I think that's one of those spaces the spaces of the grey, the spaces of the liminal, the space in the in-between where really we need to tap deeply into our discernment and not just have a mindless urge to constantly be moving forward and also not to have maybe an unhealthy passivity where we don't do things that would actually really, really benefit us, you know and and maybe be what actually makes us safer. So, as ever with these things, it was a personal experience that really brought this to life for me.

Speaker 1:

So we've just been away for a few weeks in Vietnam and we met up with our son. It was beautiful. He's been travelling, he's away for a long time, which is the reason why we took the leap, the plunge, to go and see him that you know, so far away, and it was wonderful, and we spent a few days. He came and stayed at the hotel that we were staying at and it was beautiful. And then, when we said goodbye, it broke my heart. It's the only phrase that works. As I walked away from him, I felt like my heart was breaking and I sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. I'm just going to let Ronnie down. He's sitting on my lap and wants to get down and it felt like that moment, as as we walked away, was actually the moment that my son left the nest, even though he's been living away from home for years. Something about it struck me deep inside and it felt like that umbilical cord, you know know, was stretched to breaking point. It was horribly painful. I'm not sure if I've got this across. I'm sure I have actually, but it was horribly painful and Ronnie's shaking, if you can hear that, and of course you know that cord, that connection will always be there, but it was hard.

Speaker 1:

We happened to bump into him, um, in another part of Vietnam, completely by chance. They were there too, and it was so easy, breezy, um, so inconsequential. They arrived hi, they left bye. It was super chilled out and that second goodbye felt really beautiful to me, it felt like a joyous gift. And I journaled afterwards because then I could feel myself yearning, you know, leaning forward into wanting more.

Speaker 1:

And through that piece of writing I realized that I had a choice. Of course you know we always have choices and my choice was to make that experience that I just had, the easy, breezy experience, not enough, or I could allow it to be exactly what it was. And then something rather beautiful came to me and I realized that I also had the choice to make my body like temper. You know the stuff that mattresses are made of, that stuff that NASA developed for the space missions it's. I had this sort of this choice to make my body like temper, so that it could hold the impression of that most recent hug, so that my body could hold the impression of him with love. And then I thought about all the hugs I've ever had with him. And then I thought about all the hugs I've ever had with him, each tiny version of him, each version of him as he grew, and each hug since he became the man he is at six foot three. And and then what came to me is that the body holds the score.

Speaker 1:

If you know that book by Bessel van der Kolk and you'll know what I'm referring to and I'm going to talk a bit more about this concept actually across this season, about the body holding the score. There's something around pain banks and self-care savings that I really want to share with you, and often, when we talk about this idea of the body holds the score, we're talking about the hidden wounds and the scars that we all carry to some degree, some of us, you know, with really incredibly challenging wounds. You know what we might call PTSD, and but all of us, all of us hold wounds from you know, different experiences that we've had in life. You know wounds that salves and ointments can't reach, and, it strikes me, we also carry all the hugs filled with love, with laughter and joy that we've ever felt too, whether those hugs have come from family or friends or brief acquaintances. You know those moments where you might be on a dance floor and you end up having a dance with somebody and it's just so brilliant that you can't help yourself but hug at the end of it and then you never see them again.

Speaker 1:

So what started emerging for me is that I think sometimes, often, maybe always, we have a choice in the moments when we're feeling we haven't had enough of someone which is such a desperately our attention to a moment of connection, maybe even recalling a physical connection, a hug, a handhold, sitting close by each other and allow our body to feel the impression of theirs. And if we can't quite conjure that feeling, that memory of that experience, then we can invite ourselves to imagine that we can. Our imagination is vast and boundless and so powerful that if we release enough and allow it to do its work, then maybe it can help us here too. I think with this we can perhaps know that we can choose to keep feeling that feeling if and it is an if if it helps us navigate what we're experiencing in the time without them.

Speaker 1:

And of course we do the inner work to heal the inner wounds. And, yes, it's important that we really notice these and we don't try to cover them up or conceal them in some way, because they will continue to ache and pain us until we bathe them in our most loving attention and tend to them as we wished to have been tended to at the time that they were formed. And so, with this inner work, we learn how to gently apply our own metaphorical selves and ointments to heal ourselves, perhaps through working with a guide, someone like me, or through the wisdom of a book, or through the learning of new wisdom. And and with this inner work, with this the significance, the power, the importance of this inner work, this inner work to heal these inner wounds, it's really important. It's so vital that we don't rush over or brush over the joyful connections that we've had to, as though the pain is more important than the pleasure. And I think that was such a significant learning for me to recognize that, yes, my heart was breaking because, of course, he's a loved one and we love to be with our loved ones.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes it can be challenging, but, you know, let's sort of, let's just sort of stay. Stay with the idea that we love to be with them. We love to be with our loved ones and so, in a way, by amplifying that or by only feeling that, I was saying that the pain was more, more important than the pleasure that I had of that sensation, of that hug and all those hugs that I've ever had with him, and it really helped me rebalance and hold space for both, for both the joy and the pain, and I've talked about this before on the podcast, you know, in this, this idea that the pain is more important than the pleasure. It's such an easy habit to slip into and you know and I say that without judgment of myself or or anybody um, I'm really really vital that to to say this isn't about having rose-tinted glasses. You know what's that phrase that is very commonly used these days. You know, like spiritual bypassing, you know, almost like compassionate bypassing of you know what we're really feeling. It's not about that. It's about being with all that we've experienced, without wishing it to be more or less than it was. It's about saying enough, enough now, I think.

Speaker 1:

I think, as a final thought about that, that there's something so powerful about the concept of gratitude here too, but I think that's for another episode, so I hope that that sparked something for you, and I'm also really, really mindful that you know, as I talk about my relationship with my son, you know this isn't obviously anything to do with being a parent. This is about loving somebody and, whether that person is geographically absent or spiritually absent, it is maybe resonant, relevant for you to consider, well, what is enough for you and where are those moments where you can make your body like temper and feel the indentation of the loving connection, um, and hold yourself safely with love, um, um, so gosh, I did say it was going to be quite a big one as we started, um, and I'd really love to hear your reflections. You know I'm so mindful every time I share something here. It is, uh, it is an act of vulnerability, um, because these, these thoughts, these experiences, you know they're, they're explorations for me as much as something that I invite you to explore. So your reflections are always incredibly valuable to me to to help me continue to explore an idea or a thought and um, and, of course, nothing is set in stone. You know we grow and things shift and ebb and flow, and that's all part of this incredibly beautiful journey that we are all on. So, um, what else is there that I need to share with you?

Speaker 1:

I think the biggest thing thing is my latest book, letters of love, a journaling practice for wisdom and connection, is out now. Hooray, hooray. I'm not I. It's the probably possibly the first time you've heard about it, if, um, unless you're, uh, connected with me on instagram, which which would be lovely, by the way, if you want to come and find me on there at Henny underscore Flynn. This book is a really beautiful practice in how to connect in with deeper parts of ourselves and of the world around us. These are letters that are unsent and it is a journaling practice, and within the book, I give lots of guidance and also prompts and also share some of my own letters that I've written in their full vulnerability. So the book is out for pre-orders and is officially published on the 6th of February this year, 2025. And once it goes out into the world, it will be available at all booksellers, so you can buy it online. You can get it from bookshops. You might need to order it from the bookshop, but you will be. You can get it from bookshops. You might need to order it from the bookshop, but you will be able to get it from there and and I can't wait to hear how it is for you to start writing these letters.

Speaker 1:

For me, it's an incredibly powerful practice to connect in um and to. It's almost like these letters are um. It's like a container. Each letter is a container for writing our deepest thoughts, feelings, wisdom, and it's always fascinating to see what comes through. So I hope you're going to really enjoy it and I'm going to put a link and I ask you to to take a look.

Speaker 1:

And the last thing as well is I get so many messages from people saying how much they love the podcast, and I am asking everybody listening now, as a personal favor to me, to leave a review on Apple podcasts or on Spotify. I think you can leave reviews on Spotify as well, wherever you love to listen. Basically to leave a review, because it is reviews that really help spread the word. And also, if you love this episode, please share it with somebody else. Again. You know the world has got a lot of really challenging stuff going on right now, and I think that one of the most beautiful, powerful, courageous things that we can do is to spread joy and love, not with rose-tinted spectacles, but holding the pain and the joy simultaneously. They can coexist. All right, my darlings, I love you. I didn't know I was going to say that, but I do, and I am sending a hug and a wave. So much love, thank you, thank you.