Grief And Belief: The Temple Within

A quiet, meandering and emotional reflection on the intertwined nature of grief and belief.
In this stream-of-consciousness episode of the Henny Flynn podcast, I explore:
- The many ways grief can show up — from loss of loved ones to the living grief of change or unrealised dreams
- Stillness as a doorway into the temple — whether we see that as stepping into our grief or allowing it to enter within
- Belief as a gentle trust in our deep interconnection
- The comfort that comes when we remember we’re not alone but part of something vast and whole
- The love that sits quietly inside it all
An invitation to sit with what is — the ache, the beauty, and our capacity to hold it all with tenderness.
With love.

Transcript

I'd love to talk today about grief and belief and clearly there's something about the alliteration of those two words which is deeply pleasing and they feel deeply interconnected for me and this is going to be one of those stream of consciousness sessions and just to really see what gets revealed.

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 there's something for me about this way of allowing the words to form themselves without really engaging my brain too much.

I've now got my eyes closed,

I'm taking my glasses off and you know let's go in,

Let's really go in and I've often thought that these kinds of episodes they feel to me a bit like verbal flow journaling where you know a theme can arise and we can sink in,

I can sink in,

Own it Henny and just see what emerges.

So these two words grief and belief.

Grief is feeling,

Present,

It's something that I've been noticing in this beautiful community.

I had somebody reference their community as a village and I thought oh I really love that.

Do you think we can become a village?

Is that what we are?

These interconnecting threads that hold us just as we have a sense that within a village community there is this interconnecting thread where people know and recognize and understand each other.

Doesn't mean you know everything is always rosy but it can mean that there is a place of belonging there and you know with these interconnecting threads within our village I've noticed there's been the strum or the hum of grief has been appearing in loss,

The physical loss of a loved human,

In the navigation of the path within grief.

I'm very mindful not to say through grief because I don't think we ever really come through it.

I don't think it's something that has an end point.

I think it's something that comes to us and we find our best way of accommodating it in whatever way we can and sometimes our self-defense mechanism is to resist it,

To push it away somehow,

To brightly get on,

To sink away from it.

You know all of these different mechanisms and strategies that are so well-worn because they work and then maybe there comes a moment where we're able to open the door to it a little more widely and welcome it,

Welcome it in.

You know grief is an expression of love and oh gosh even as I say that my little heart,

She hurts.

Oh it's gonna make me wanna cry.

Yeah welcoming in grief.

I saw a poem from the astonishing Mary Oliver recently and the last line I think the poem is called Today and the last line of it is stillness is one of the doors into the temple and that resonates for me here.

You know when we come into a place of stillness we are more able perhaps to open that door to the temple maybe depending on sort of how your imagination takes that imagery,

That thought.

For me it feels a sort of two-way thing you know one a kind of stepping into the temple of grief and simultaneously and maybe paradoxically opening the door to the temple within me and allowing grief in and I think one of our most wonderful marvellous and deeply moving aspects of our humanity is that we are able to hold both of those images simultaneously and for them both to feel true and that really connects into that word belief.

You know what does belief mean to each of us?

What does the word grief mean?

What You know a non-denominational concept of belief,

Something which simply connects us with something other.

Maybe for some of us here that means nature,

That means earth,

That means feeling grounded and rooted and deeply deeply connected with the energy of the earth.

This the absolute material nature of the hummus beneath our feet you know the rich deep nourishing alive earth and maybe for some of us it means something that is up above us you know in some way formed of energy that flows up and around and for some of us it is something that flows through us.

I think that's really for me that's what belief relates most to is this sense of trust and faith that I have that there is something other a connection with the everything the all as I I've often written in the My Darling Girl poems this falling into the arms of the all really really speaks to me here and this comfort that it brings when we have a sense of something other than us other than this individual you know physical carapace that we inhabit this physical body that we inhabit when we are able when we allow or when we receive whatever wisdom it is that connects us then I think it brings a deep amount of comfort that we are not alone and I saw recently I'm doing a really amazing course at the moment on somatic trauma therapy and one of the tutors was saying and it's a something I've never really considered before but how the word individual the roots of it they literally mean that it's impossible to divide it's it's indivisible indivisible individual I can't even say it and you know I think we many of us deeply deeply recognize that we are made of many parts that within us there is this whole system of parts and so therefore of course we are divisible in that sense and and that also means that each of these parts is is part of the wholeness of us just as we are part of the wholeness of all humanity and humanity is part of the wholeness of all nature and nature is part of the wholeness of the universe and our universe is part of the wholeness of whatever is going on out wider and beyond us and and for me that's that's almost that almost is the definition of belief you know belief in something other than us is a recognition that we are not indivisible and isolated and alone in ourselves we are all deeply interconnected and I think in many ways that can bring comfort in times of grief and and maybe even makes us feel our grief more keenly in some way because we sense as I once said when a dear friend of ours died that a tree had fallen in our forest you know we collectively we all noticed this space where this beautiful much-loved human was no longer standing and that sense of the interconnectivity made that feeling even more keen within us and of course all the other layers and layers and layers of grief and loss and the stories that we have carried with us about what it means for us when someone goes and the stories we carry about ourselves when someone goes these are all deeply moving and and are all worthy of our attention but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's our our mental attention our our head sort of analyzing I mean I love I love the analytical part of me she's astonishing and wonderful and oh she's terribly clever but what I really mean by attention is this felt sense of attention this willingness to sit with the aching heart oh gosh that's you know saying that again makes me wish to cry I can actually feel a tear on my cheek just speaking because when we really feel into what our body is telling us in a way that's an act of belief it's an act of deep connection and and a belief in ourselves as part of this great vast wholeness that we are also part of I believe and as I'm saying all this I'm wondering you know how is this resonating within you are there parts of you saying oh yes I feel that too or are there parts of you saying no that's not how it is for me for me it feels like this um and whatever the responses are within you I mean that's that's right isn't it it's your it's your truth and only you know what your truth is so coming back to I feel like I'm sort of slowly returning into this space again now I'm curious to to listen back and and hear what I've just been sharing um but returning returning to this space I can feel my feet on the floor I can feel my my hands in my lap I can feel that tear on my cheek it's cool as it slowly dries and you know there isn't a a magic wand here is there there's no oh and here's the answer here's the answer if you're holding grief right now here's the answer that's going to make everything feel okay because of course there is no answer there is only this expression of love um that you are feeling or that I am feeling that we are feeling and I'm really mindful as well of course that we've been witnessing so much grief around us you know through the news and everything that even if we've been mindfully not consuming we still know it's there and so also honoring that feeling within us this is a shared sense of grief that we are collectively holding and some of us may be pushing it away getting on brightly sinking in because it's too hard to hold but it's still there and so I suppose really what comes up for me now is about honoring honoring that honoring that grief that we see and feel has been and still is happening all around us honoring the grief that we hold because we all hold grief in some way it may not be a loved one who's actually died it may be the loss of something else within our lives maybe even a sense of losing someone that we thought we used to be and not yet knowing who it is that we're becoming it may be the loss of a much-loved animal that has been with us for you know many years or even a brief time but made an enormous impact in our hearts and you know living grief as well a sense of maybe a dream or a hope that hasn't maybe yet or maybe will never be realized you know these are all griefs and and I suppose this sense of belief that I talked about at you know at the beginning the correlation between these two words is you know is belief in our ability to hold it belief in our endless capacity to hold it to hold the whole of us with the most profound and loving care and that feels that feels like a point of closure I'm opening my eyes I'm coming back into the room gosh gosh that was a journey and if there's anything there that I shared that resonates deeply within you um that you'd like to share with me please do I will always answer you know I will always reply okay my darlings I also just want to say the in and around all of this is the love within and the love without you know the love that surrounds us and whether we simply tap into it in this moment in this connection here I feeling I am feeling it deeply right now and I'd like to extend that to you so so much love and of course I send you a hug and a wave you

Reviews

In the midst of deep, unrelenting grief for the loss of my husband and soulmate for 30 years. Also, I have experienced many difficult losses including financial: loss of my home, my job and career as a psychotherapist. My friends and even my family having barely acknowledged these losses, which adds to the pain and isolation. This is the very first time I have heard someone express the depth of feelings associated with losses other than death of a loved one or for a pet. I carry the sadness of a lot of pain from these losses, even though I have "moved"on, demonstrated resilience, found the joy & love and the need to change, it has been very hard. Your words were extremely healing for me today. Amen

Im so glad to have found you here on insight timer Henny. What a gift you have, and what a gift you are to all who seek to expand. Thank you so much for sharing your verbal flow on grief and belief. This has helped enormously, for so many reasons, as I bavigate divorce and also trauma recovery. I look forward to more of your offerings.