Spring Equinox Special | ep105
It can be so easy to get caught up in our dream destination that we forget that the present moment, where we are today is just as beautiful and perfect.
I love the spring season. The weather gets warmer. The days get longer. Flowers are blooming and birds are chirping! But, the Spring Equinox really holds such a special place in my heart because it is also the Iranian New Year.
Now, Nowruz (the Iranian/Persian New Year) is like Christmas and New Years COMBINED. There’s so, so, so much food and, as a child, I absolutely loved it. I got gifts, we would celebrate, eat, and dance. As an adult, I love Nowruz for a lot of the same reasons, but as I’ve gotten older, it’s become an incredibly symbolic time of year.
Iranians will spend a lot of time preparing to step into the New Year by cleaning out their homes, getting rid of things they no longer need, and even having some very brave conversations with people in their life. We truly believe this allows us to step into a new year with so much bright and positive energy. And as we sit with one another at the Nowruz table, it’s filled with tons of symbols. Symbols of prosperity, rebirth, renewal. One of those symbols is flowers.
Today’s Mindset Monday reads:
The seedling does not know that one day it will blossom into the flower.
And so in each stage of its growth it relishes in its beauty because it believes itself to be fully realized.
You, my love, are the same.
When we only hold on to the vision of our future selves we forget the beauty of our present selves.
Remember- seedling, bud or blossom- regardless of where you are, what is most important is where you are now.
I almost didn’t record a new podcast episode for this Spring Equinox. Honestly, I was going to replay last year’s episode because it is such a great one to listen to! In it, I dig deep into the metaphor of flowers being nurtured and nourished by soil, by dirt, by compost and manure. It’s one of my favorite reminders that some of our greatest beauty and growth is a result of difficulty and challenges.
Seriously, it is such a great episode, so if you haven’t listened to it, head over to episode 68 | Spring Equinox Special and tell me what you think.
But, back to it — this past weekend was such a phenomenal, awakening experience that I just had to give you a new episode and share the huge a-ha moment I had.
So, this past weekend, I gathered for the first time in years with the beautiful women of Wholehearted Woman - my intimate, group coaching program - for an entire three day retreat. Now, I absolutely love hosting in-person retreats and I haven’t since before Covid. So, being able to finally bring together these women and commune and grow and unpack and release… it was the most beautiful three days for me.
After it ended, on Sunday night, I returned home, to my beautiful home. My husband had cleaned our house and made me the most delicious dinner. So, we sit down and he asks me all about my weekend. I tell him how incredible it was and in that very moment, I paused. It hit me how absolutely beautiful this entire moment was. I can’t tell you how many times I’d journaled about wanting to host retreats for women, about wanting a supportive and loving partner, about wanting to live in this beautiful, warm home.
It hit me that I am in my dream.
Right here. Right now.
And although all of this was absolutely beautifully and all I’d dreamt of, I’d forgotten that because I was so fixated and focused on that future version of me. The future vision I had for myself. I was so focused on the dream destination that I couldn’t see how this very present moment is exactly what I had always envisioned and wanted.
This a-ha moment reminded me of the flower.
The flower doesn’t know when it’s a seedling that it’s going to be this exquisite beautiful flower. It just knows it’s a seedling. Then, when it’s a bud, it knows that it’s a bud. Then, one day, when it’s a beautiful blossoming flower, it knows that it’s a beautiful, blossoming flower.
But at every point in its journey, it sees its beauty. It sees the perfection of where it is in the present moment.
The same goes for us, love.
We can get so caught up in that future dream, which is a beautiful thing. I'm all about dreams, gettin shit done, and going after those things that make our hearts light up. But, I also know that getting caught up in that future “you” can lead you to forget how beautiful, perfect, wonderful the moment is right now.
So, as we step into the spring season and the world around you comes alive as Mother Nature gifts us with all of this beauty right now, I want you to remember that the flower doesn’t think any less of itself when it’s a seedling, or a bud, or a flower. It just is.
We’re constantly going to be unfolding. Every time we set a new dream in motion, we will be a seedling. A bud. A blossom. That will happen over and over and over again in our lives. I hope it does because it means you are dreaming and setting dreams in motion. But don’t forget where you are right now and how perfectly beautiful this very moment is. How perfectly full you are. How perfectly beautiful it all truly is.
In full transparency, this week’s Mindset Monday is inspired by a Mark Nepo quote from his book, Book of Awakening, which I highly recommend to anyone.
The Pain of Becoming
For the flower, it is fully open at each step of its blossoming. We do ourselves a great disservice by judging where we are in comparison to some final destination.
This is one of the pains of aspiring to become something: the stage of development we are in is always seen against the imagined landscape of what we are striving for.
So where we are—though closer all the time—is never quite enough.
The simple rose, at each moment of its slow blossoming, is as open as it can be.
The same is true of our lives.
In each stage of our unfolding, we are as stretched as possible for the human heart is quite slow to blossom and is only seen as lacking when compared to the lover or father or mother we’d like to become.
It helps to see ourselves as flowers.
If a flower were to push itself to open faster, which it can’t, it would tear.
Yet we humans can and often do push ourselves. Often, we tear in places no one can see.
When we push ourselves to unfold faster or more deeply than is natural, we thwart ourselves. For nature takes time and most of our problems of will stem from impatience.
Perhaps one of the hardest remedies to accept for our pain of becoming is that wherever we are in our path, no matter how flawed or incomplete, is a blossoming unto itself.
However much we’ve done, at the end of the day, is more than enough. It is dream becoming truth.
A quote to take with you:
“The flower doesn’t think any less of itself when it’s a seedling. A bud. It just is.”
After listening, you’re going to love these episodes!
58 | Spring Equinox Special (2021)
The Spring teaches us so much about growth and beauty. Oftentimes we forget that some of our most difficult moments create the soil for our greatest growth. Listen to this episode to learn how nature can teach us what growth truly is and how to do it.
Dreams are essential to reaching our biggest goals but probably not for the reason you’re thinking of. Listen to this episode to find out the purpose of our dreams and why they are so important. Learning how to dream bigger is one of the most transformative tools you can develop.
Did you know that each episode comes with free guided journal prompts?
If you want to be in the know and get each Mindset Monday straight to your inbox complete with journal prompts to take you even further, get on my email list.
About your host, Shirin Eskandani
Hi, love! I’m Shirin.
Coach, speaker, writer, and life alchemist.
I teach you how to trust your intuition again, tune out all the BS, and let your heart lead the way.
Because once you strengthen your inner GPS, decisions become easier, boundaries become clearer, and belly laughs become a daily thing.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME:
I’m a certified life coach (accredited through the International Coach Federation)
My husband and I met on Instagram and we live in Brooklyn, NY with our plant babies
I have a masters degree in Music and was a professional opera singer for twelve years. I worked all over the world singing on stage at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera (more on that later…).
I believe in the woo just as much as I do the work (internal and external). No amount of crystals and affirmations will make up for a lack of a healthy mindset and aligned action.
I love all the Real Housewives franchises. Don’t make me choose one… seriously, don’t.
+ Read the episode transcript here
[00:00:00] Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. If you're looking for more purpose, more passion, more joy in your life than you have come to the right place. I am your host, coach and life Alchemist, Shirin Eskandani. And I have worked with thousands of people showing them how to create their dream lives while also living their dream lives.
[00:00:27] This podcast is where mindset, mindfulness and manifestation meet together. We're gonna release limiting beliefs. Put your dreams into motion all while prioritizing your ease, rest and joy. Let's do this love high love. Welcome to Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast. This is where we take a deeper dive into my Mindset Monday post, which you can read on Instagram at @wholeheartedcoaching.
[00:00:55] Or if you wanna go even deeper into this week's episode and get my free weekly journal prompts, sign up for my email list and you'll be able to explore the topics we're talking about in this episode. Even further, you can do that in the show notes or by heading to my website. Wholehearted-coaching.com.
[00:01:16] And if you're interested in working with me, whether that's one on one, in one of my group programs or one of my transformational courses, you can head to my website, wholehearted-coaching.com/offerings to find out more. And of course you can also head to the show and all of this information will be waiting for you there.
[00:01:37] All right, love. Welcome to this week's episode.
[00:01:41] Today's episode is a really special one for me. If you're listening to this episode live, then yesterday was the very first day of spring, March 20th, marked the spring Equinox. And we are finally into the spring season. We are one day into spring. Now I love the spring for all of the obvious reasons.
[00:02:06] The weather gets warmer. The days get longer. There are flowers, the birds are chirping, but the spring Equinox really holds a special place in my heart because it's also the Iranian new year. So. Iranians celebrate the very first day of our calendar year on the Spring Equinox, we call it Nowruz which means new day. Nowruz is like Christmas and New year's combined with even more food that you can ever imagine. I mean, it is the best. Listen, if you have an Iranian friend, ask them, please ask them to take you to a Nowruz lunch or dinner. I'm telling you. It's incredible. And as a child, I love Nowruz, right? Because I got gifts. We would celebrate, we would eat, we would dance.
[00:02:58] And as an adult, I love Nowruz for a lot of the same reasons, but also because it's an incredibly symbolic time of year for us. So before the new year, Iranians will spend a lot of their time cleaning out their homes because we have a deep belief that however you step into the new year. Is how that next year will be.
[00:03:21] So we try to tidy up the home. We try to get rid of things we don't need. We try to, you know, have brave conversations with people and do all the things. So we can really step into the new year with a bright and positive energy. And on the day of the new year, we spend a lot of time in reflection. We sit around the Nowruz table and we talk about the last year we set intentions for the next year.
[00:03:47] And we are surrounded at the Nowruz table with lots of symbols, symbols of prosperity, of rebirth, of renewal. And one of the symbols that surrounds us that we fill our homes with during this time are flowers, especially hyacinths. Oh, my goodness. If I smell a hyacinth I'm taken straight back to my childhood. This symbol of the flower for me, holds so many reminders about growth and beauty and progress.
[00:04:18] And actually, honestly, I wasn't going to record a new podcast today. I was gonna do a replay of last year's episode because it's such a great episode. In that episode, I talk about how the flower always reminds me that, that beautiful flower, that thing of beauty is nurtured in soil is nourished by soil, by dirt, by compost, which is a reminder to all of us, that some of the greatest beauty and growth in our lives.
[00:04:52] Is a result of difficulty and challenges, right? The quote unquote, soil of our lives. So listen to last year's podcast episode, it's a short one, just like this one. And it has some really great questions that will allow you to reflect on your growth and the challenges that you've had to face. But something happened over this weekend that really made me think of the flower in a different way.
[00:05:20] And I had to share it with you. I had to share it because it really was a huge aha moment for me. And I have a feeling it's going to probably be an aha moment for you. So this week's mindset Monday reads "The seedling does not know that one day it will blossom into the flower. And so in each stage of its growth, it relies and beauty because it believes itself to be fully realized you, my love are the same.
[00:05:50] When we only hold on to the vision of our future selves, we tend to forget the beauty of our present selves. Remember seedling, bud or blossom, regardless of where you are. What is most important is where you are now in full transparency." This mindset Monday is heavily influenced by a Mark Nepo quote.
[00:06:17] Which I'm going to share with you. At the end of this episode, I had read it a long time ago and this weekend something happened that really made me understand what this quote meant. So right now I am in the midst of a vision, a dream that has come to me and really taken root in my heart. And this is a really big thing.
[00:06:42] Like. This is the next step for Wholehearted Coaching. It's the next step for me? When I think about this dream, this vision, I get super excited, but I also get really overwhelmed. It's big. It's so big y'all and it scares me and thrills me and I spend most is thinking about it and sometimes getting a little bit caught up in how I'm gonna do this thing.
[00:07:10] We talk about this often on the podcast, right? When we have a dream, we have that moment of absolute excitement. And then all of a sudden we get a case of the, how, how am I gonna do this? How am I gonna make this happen? And if I'm being honest, I'm getting really caught up in that. How I'm also getting really caught up in that future of my life, that future vision I have for my life, what I'm doing, then who I am, then the things that I have in my life then.
[00:07:43] And this weekend, I got a huge wake up call that reminded me to remember the now. So let me tell you what happened this weekend, right? I keep saying this weekend, this weekend. Okay. This weekend was amazing. So this weekend I spent an entire three days with my beautiful Wholehearted Women. So I haven't had an in-person retreat.
[00:08:12] In forever since before COVID and this weekend, I was finally able to bring together the women in my small group coaching program, Wholehearted Woman. And we spent three days together, communing and growing and unpacking and releasing. And, and it was the most beautiful three days. You know, I'm recording this podcast and I know I should be exhausted.
[00:08:41] I know I should be exhausted cuz I held space this entire weekend and I was doing work this weekend. But I'm not exhausted because this weekend totally reminded me of who I am and why I do what I do. And the beauty of being in community with other women and the beauty of getting to do the work that I do.
[00:09:03] And it reminded me of my magic and it reminded me of the magic of community. And it was the almost incredible weekend of all time. It was so amazing. And if any of those women in Wholehearted Woman are listening, I love you. It was, it was just so amazing. So this weekend happened and then on Sunday night, you know, everyone leaves, the retreat is over and I head home and I'm just like on cloud nine, of course, a little exhausted.
[00:09:38] And I get home to my beautiful home and my husband has cleaned the house and made me the most delicious dinner. And so we sit down at a dining room table and I start telling my husband about how incredible the weekend was. And he's asking me questions about it and I'm eating us amazing dinner and it hits me.
[00:10:03] It hits me of how beautiful this moment is of how. I had dreamed of this moment for so long. I can't tell you how many times I had written in my journal years ago about how I wanted to be having retreats for women, how I wanted to have a partner who was so supportive and loving of how I wanted to live in this home.
[00:10:27] That was beautiful and warm. And there I was sitting there in that moment and it hit me that I'm in that dream. That I'm in that beauty. And I had forgotten about all of that because I was so fixated and focused on that future version of me, that future vision that I had for myself. I couldn't see how this present vision is exactly what I had always wanted and so beautiful and so perfect.
[00:11:02] And it reminded me of the flower. Of how the flower doesn't know when it's a seedling that it's going to be this exquisite beautiful flower. No, it just knows it's a seedling. And then it knows that it's a bud. And then it knows that it's then a beautiful bloom, a blossom, a flower. And at every point. It sees the beauty.
[00:11:29] It sees its beauty. It sees the perfection of where it's at, because that is it for the flower at that moment. That is it. And we can get so caught up in that future for ourselves, which is a beautiful thing. Y'all, you know, if you are part of the wholehearted community, you know, I'm about dreams, you know, I'm about getting sh shit done.
[00:11:50] You know, I'm about going for those things that make our hearts light up. But I also know if you're part of this community. We can sometimes get so caught up in that future that we forget how beautiful and perfect and wonderful this present moment is like the flower. So love as we step into the spring, as you are reminded of the beauty of growth all around you, right?
[00:12:18] As. The world comes alive as mother nature gifts us with all of this beauty right now, remember that the flower doesn't think any less of itself when it's a seedling or when it is a bud or when it is a flower, it just is. So I want to air. The mark NPO quote, that really got me thinking about this image.
[00:12:47] And it's gonna be a long quote. I'm gonna share the whole thing because it's just really damn good. So this comes from Mark Nepo's "Book of Awakening," which I recommend to everyone. It's a daily reflection book. So every day of the calendar year has a daily reflection. And this one comes from August 1st.
[00:13:09] And it's titled "The Pain of Becoming." For the flower. It is fully open at each step of its blossoming. We do ourselves a great disservice by judging where we are in comparison to some final destination. This is one of the pains of aspiring to become something. The stage of development we are in is always seen against the imagined landscape of what we are striving for.
[00:13:38] So where we are though closer all, all the time is never quite enough. The simple rows at each moment of its slow. Blossoming is as open as it can be. The same is true of our lives. In each stage of our unfolding, we are as stretched as possible for the human heart is quite slow to blossom. And as only seen as lacking when compared to the lover or father or mother we'd like to become, it helps to see ourselves as flowers.
[00:14:14] If a flower were to push itself to open faster, which it can't, it would tear yet. We humans can and often do push ourselves. Often we tear in places. No one can see when we push ourselves to unfold faster or more deeply than as natural. We thwart ourselves. For nature takes time. And most of our problems of will stem from impatience.
[00:14:42] Perhaps one of the hardest remedies to accept for our pain of becoming is that wherever we are in our path, no matter how flawed or incomplete is a blossoming unto itself, however should we've done at the end of the day is more than enough. It is dream becoming truth. So love today, reflect on the perfectness, the fullness, the beauty of this moment of your unfolding.
[00:15:16] We're constantly going to be unfolding. Every time we set a new dream in motion, a new vision in motion, we will be a seeding, a bud and a blast. Some. And that will continue to happen over and over again in our lives. And I hope it does because that means you are dreaming. You are setting dreams in motion, but as we set those dreams in motion, let us not forget where we are and how perfectly beautiful that moment is of how perfectly full we are, of how perfectly beautiful it all is.
[00:15:53] Love happy spring. So as we end, I want you to reflect on one thing, that's resonating with you from this episode, and we're gonna take a deep breath in and out as you reflect on that thing. So breathing in and out.
[00:16:16] Until next week. Love I'll talk to you then.
[00:16:20] Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend subscribe or follow where you love listening most. And if you haven't yet leave a review, you can do this on apple podcast, cast box podcaster, or, or podcast addict until next week.
[00:16:39] Love.