the Henny Flynn podcast

Power & Fear: Reclaiming What Is Ours (S16E4)

• Henny Flynn • Season 16 • Episode 4

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So, you might remember that I'd decided to publish the podcast every two weeks - but here we are, just a week after the last episode. Because sometimes, there are no rules. Sometimes, something asks to be shared.

This is one of those episodes.

We're talking about power and fear - two forces that shape so much of how we move through the world. What happens when we hand over our power? And are we, in fact, handing it to fear itself?

These questions have been weaving through my own journaling and client conversations lately, and as I sat with them, I found myself reflecting on how easy it is to get swept up in the fears of others - fears that may never have been ours to carry. In this episode, I share my journal’s response to this question, a passage that speaks to the importance of recognising what is truly ours, reclaiming our choices, and stepping out of the currents of fear that do not belong to us.

And, as if by perfect synchronicity, I also came across a poem by Mary Oliver that captures this theme in the most resonant way. I read it towards the end of the episode (and share it below), and I suspect it may stay with you, just as it has stayed with me.

Settle in and listen. I'd love to know how this lands with you.

Henny x


I Worried
Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

***

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Speaker 1:

So you might remember, a little while ago, I decided that I was going to publish the podcast every two weeks. Well, here we are. We've only had a week's gap since the last episode. But you know, my darlings, there are no rules, and this was asking to be shared. And so here I am. We're talking about power and fear.

Speaker 1:

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. I just listened back to that brief intro to today's episode and I just thought, and I just thought blimey, power and fear. They're pretty big topics, aren't they? And they feel very resonant for me, certainly, and I suspect for many of us, what with everything that is happening in the world right now. As ever, when I am with something, when I can't quite make sense of how I'm feeling or what I'm noticing about how I'm feeling, or what I'm noticing about the way that I'm responding to, what I'm noticing about how others are feeling or what I think I'm noticing. You know, you get the picture, I turn to my journal, and so I wanted to share today's writings with you, and, you know, with the intention that maybe there is something here that benefits you too or sparks your own thinking, because, of course, that's all any of this work can ever do is invite in a self reflection and maybe give ourselves a little bit of insight into something that we've been trying to untangle within us.

Speaker 1:

I also was prompted. I wasn't going to be recording this episode. I wasn't going to be recording an episode this week because you know, like I said in the intro, we tend to publish these every two weeks now. We tend to publish these every two weeks now. But then I came across a poem from Mary Oliver and it spoke so strongly to this theme that I've been watching wash through me this theme of how do we hold space for our fears. It's a, it's a common theme for me and it relates directly to the other common theme I have, which is about safety, and and I just really felt that Mary spoke the words that so many of us can benefit from listening to, absorbing, sitting within, and so I would love to share her poem as well after this reading from the journal. So I said in the intro, this is about power and fear, and this writing really I was, I had this.

Speaker 1:

There's been a theme coming up with in a lot of client conversations over the last week, couple of weeks, of what happens when we hand over our power. And this morning it struck me that maybe what we're actually doing in those situations where we can see that we're somehow in some way handing our power over to an other group of individuals or a system or, you know, a political concept or a social concept, a cultural concept, that actually maybe what we're doing is we're handing our power over to fear. And I took this question to the pages of my journal and I'd love to share with you what she wrote, what I wrote. And then what she wrote as you might know, I think, of my journal in feminine terms or not that anything is actually binary, but you know what I mean. So here we go Gosh, that whole binary thing that just opens up so many thoughts. I mean, yeah, now I'm going into, do I call her they? Because actually she is everything, but she she sits well, so I'm going to trust, trust that, um, okay, so this is what I wrote what happens when we hand our power over to fear.

Speaker 1:

I don't mean, or do I, the parts of us that are fearful. I mean the external raging forces of fear it feels. That is how it can be at times that powerful others seek to control with fear. I see that is their fear, that is their fearful parts seeking to create order and control in their own worlds, to abate their own fears in their own worlds, to abate their own fears. And I see the dangerous contagion of fear that comes when we forget the fears we are embracing are not our own. And what happens when we forget and begin to believe, to feel, to act as though these fears are ours, because, of course, we have no control over others' fears. We can only tend to our own. Can you help me?

Speaker 1:

You are already unravelling this tangled knot. You see, the fears you have been carrying have been picked up along the way, taken on from others who took them, from others who you see the way of it. So sit with what you're feeling and ask yourself the truth of things. It doesn't mean everything in the world is rosy at all times. There will always be challenges, but it does mean not all things are yours to carry. Be clear about what is yours. Begin there, seek your evidence and take your actions. And this question of handing over power? It feels this may be the essence of how that happens, or at least part of the essence.

Speaker 1:

Yes, this comes to the heart of disabling your own ability to make your own choices. When you are reacting to something that truly belongs to another, you are standing in their wake, getting washed along with their stories, their history, their interpretation of the world, of the world. Step out of the waters of their river and into the cooling depths of your own and look back to where their stream first emerged. What can you see of how their life's river began, as it first emerged from the centre of all things? What influences, experiences, happenings made them the person that they are, with the joys, fears and views that shape them. And, of course, what came before they emerged, when their waters ran below the ground, fed by the streams, beneath the streams that made them, allow them to be themselves. But there is no need to pour yourself into the riverbed. They are carving. Make your own way, choose your own way, this choice to blend so seamlessly with another and adopt their stories, their narratives, their fears and beliefs as if they were always you. What made you, too, that is self-abandonment and the ultimate release of your power.

Speaker 1:

So that last line really struck me when I wrote it this idea that when we get washed along with the fears that others are pouring out into the world, we are in some way abandoning ourself. In some way abandoning ourself, we are believing someone else's beliefs rather than paying deep, profound, compassionate attention to what we, in our hearts, really know is true. And so I found this writing very helpful for me today. It helped me make sense of something that I had noticed I had been picking up. Actually, of this season of the podcast, have have held, um, this thread of how do we navigate the world in fearful times, or how do we navigate our fears, uh, within the world, um, and you know, that says to me that maybe this is speaking to many of us, and I would love to hear whether there is something within these words that has resonated with you too. And and this poem, this poem, this poem from Mary Oliver, it arrived, you know, in order to understand your own relationship with this concept of power and fear, and how we retain our own empowered state and cease handing our power over to the depths of others, fears, where our power just gets absorbed and washed away and we feel we have no choice but to follow along in the wake of others. Um, so I would love to read this mary poem, and it is called I Worried. I mean it's very resonant.

Speaker 1:

I worried, I worried a lot. Will the garden grow? Will the rivers flow in the right direction? Will the earth turn as it was taught? And if not, how shall I correct it? Was I right? Was I wrong? Will I be forgiven? Can I do better? Will I ever be able to sing? Even the sparrows can do it, and I am well hopeless. Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it? Am I going to get rheumatism, locked jaw, dementia? Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing and gave it up and took my old body and went out into the morning and sang. I mean, as ever, mary Oliver has nailed it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, you know this profound, beautiful message that is in here, the recognition that the most important thing we can do is take our bodies out into the morning and sing no-transcript too, but it does mean being really aware of where we're placing our attention and being mindful of the actions that we are taking. So if this theme is also resonating with you, if you're noticing that you have slipped into handing your power over, or it's a theme that you have seen recurring through your life in some way, or it's something that you would really love to explore more deeply for whatever reason, or if this theme of how to manage the things that activate you, that activate these parts that can hold our fears, if you're curious about how you can care more deeply for those parts of you and tend and attend to those parts more fully in order that they don't feel so overwhelming at times, then please do reach out. The one-to-one work that I do with people is truly so beautiful, it is heart-centered and and it really helps us move forward. I see it again and again and again where clients you know, even people who are extremely self-aware have done this really deep inner work, can bring, can help them make sense of or understand or accept things that they've been experiencing and and have felt challenged by, and this work really does bring fresh insight and and a forward momentum. You know, it's really important to say you know, I describe myself as a therapeutic coach because I sit between that space or in that space between therapy and coaching and it means that we can do this really deep inner reflective work and have an understanding of what might be driving our behaviors, what stories we might be carrying, the patterns that we might have adopted through our life, that might be informing the way that we're experiencing the world right now, and we also have the benefit of this forward momentum from the coaching work so that we're looking to see.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now that we have this understanding, where does it take us? What do we do with this understanding? How does it inform what comes next? How does it inform what comes next? And really creating a much clearer perspective, much clearer vision of what we're moving toward, whilst also being able to hold ourselves safely in the present moment. It is beautiful work and if you're curious about how it might be to work together, then please do reach out, and if you'd just like me to share with you about how it could look, then I'd be really, really honoured to have a conversation with you and just to see how working together might really support you. Okay, my darlings, I send you a hug and a wave. Thank you.