Spring Equinox Special: Growth | ep58
About this episode:
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. At the time of this episode, we marked the Spring Equinox, and more importantly for me, the Iranian New Year!
Iranians celebrate the new year on the first day of spring. We call it Norooz- which literally means new day. For Iranians, this time of year is all about new beginnings-physically and spiritually. We believe that how you ring in the New Year sets the tone for the coming year.
So in the weeks leading up to the equinox there are many traditions that we follow to start fresh in the New Year.
We clean out the junk and negativity from our lives.
We declutter and sage our homes.
We always take a moment to reflect on the past year and set new intentions for the year ahead.
As a young girl, I focused more on the future. I loved setting new goals and intentions. I saw it as a redo from the western New Year in January. But now I understand why we were encouraged to also look to the past during Norooz, because it’s our past that forms the foundation of our growth.
One of the main symbols we use during Norooz is flowers. We place them all over our homes. They are a literal sign of beauty, growth, and rebirth. But flowers also remind us that growth and beauty are nourished by dirt- the mess, the pain, the sorrow, the heartbreak.
Without the mess, the flower could not exist. And without my own mess so much of my own beauty could not exist. Yes, the Spring Equinox is about beauty, rebirth and growth, but it’s also about acknowledging the “dirt” that has allowed for you to be here. It’s about recognizing that growth would not be possible without the mess.
Because usually our biggest messes offer us the most fertile areas of growth.
Love, as we usher in the spring, as we witness all the beauty blooming around us, recognize that beauty is nothing without soil. Recognize that Mother Nature nourishes each and every thing in the natural world with remnants of its past. Isn’t it the fallen decomposing leaves that create mulch for the coming spring?
This spring, I encourage you fully embrace the person you’re becoming and honor the experiences that are allowing for this blossoming. We’re all blossoms rooted in soil, love.
Tune in to this episode to learn how nature can teach us what growth truly is and how to do it.
A quote to take with you:
“Usually our biggest messes offer us the most fertile areas of growth.”
This week, I invite you to…
Ask yourself:
If I were a flower, what would my soil be made of this year?
How is this soil making me stronger or allowing for my growth to happen?
Want to dive deeper through 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
Welcome to wholehearted coaching the podcast. If you're looking for more purpose, more passion, more joy in your life and you have come to the right place. Let's create your dream life while living your dream life. Okay love. Hi 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 or you can get the full post plus journal prompts. When you sign up for my email list, you can do that in the show notes. Or you can head to my website wholehearted dash coaching.com if you're listening to this podcast live, then two days ago on March 20, we marked the spring equinox the first day of spring now this is I think a big day for all of us because winter can be a really heavy time, you know, it's just dark outside it's cold. And the coming of spring means the coming of more sunshine, of warmth, of growth right of of flowers and trees and all of that beautiful stuff. But for me especially, it's a really significant day because it is the Iranian New Year, Iranian celebrate the first day of the new year on the spring equinox. And we call this norouz which literally means new day. And I always loved nodos I loved the Iranian new year as a young girl because it really made sense to me. And as an adult. It makes so much sense to me to mark the beginning of the year when the outside world when Mother Nature is also coming alive right this time of so much dynamic and beautiful, literal growth in the outside world right being the first day of the new year. Now listen, December 31 is great, but there's something so special about ushering a new day beginnings, rebirth renewal when the natural world is also coming to life. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about growth. And we're going to be looking to spring to nature for its lessons for its cues on what growth is and how we grow. Because I say this often on the podcast, Mother Nature has got it all figured out when it comes to growth and beauty and sustainability and resilience. She knows what she is doing. And if we can look to her for guidance for cues, I think that we can learn so much incredible wisdom as to how we can live our lives because we are not disconnected from nature. We are part of nature part of its rhythms and its cycles, and IT systems and processes and I feel so wholeheartedly The more we can use its natural wisdom, then the more easeful and joyful our own lives become. So this week's Mindset Monday reads, flowers remind us that beauty isn't just about love and light. It's also about the dirt and the mess. Your beauty wasn't created only through your joy. It's also rooted in your pain, sorrow and heartbreak. Your growth is fertilized by all of it. We are all blossoms rooted in soil. One of the symbols that we use in norouz is flowers. We fill our homes with flowers, particularly hyacinth flowers, which have this beautiful, beautiful fragrance. And flowers can be kind of tricksters because they're so gorgeous and beautiful that we forget the flowers are not just the bud the blossom that flowers have so many parts. And one of the most important parts of a flower is its roots. And if we work our way down from the beautiful, beautiful blossom down to the roots, we see that the flower is rooted in soil. It's rooted in dirt and the mess and that is what nourishes its growth. My husband has really gotten into gardening over the pandemic and we live in a pretty small Brooklyn apartment. So when I say gardening, I mean it's potted plants, okay, we have this huge, huge bag of soil that we bought from a like specialty Nursery in the city. And it's like this incredible, expensive soil that has been you know, I don't know scientifically like pH I don't know but I do know that the soil of course has like dirt in it and other stuff in it. I don't know what's in soil, but one of the things That is in the soil that makes it so incredibly nourishing, and enriching and why the plants in our home are doing so incredibly well. Besides the fact that my husband is amazing at taking care of them, okay? is that it's got bat guano in it. It's got bat poop. Okay, this soil is expensive, and it works really damn well, because it's got shit in it. Y'all, this soil is a metaphor for our lives, that how the most shittiest moments of our lives, the most challenging moments of our lives create the most enriching, nourishing soil for our growth, there is a really incredible quote that I want to share with you by Mark niebo. And he talks about buffalo. So I guess that buffalo again, oh, gosh, I wish I knew more about ecology and botany and stuff, because I referenced it a whole lot. But I, but I don't know the exact science behind things. But I'm pretty sure that buffalo kind of come back to the same area in order to feed like, it's just a cyclical process that they have that they come back to certain areas to feed on the grass. And so the buffalo will come back to this area of grass to feed in which they have pooped. And this grass is really wonderful, because of their droppings. And Mark niebo puts it like this, the ever humbling cycle of growing strong roots comes from eating what grows from our own shit, we grow from the soil of our mistakes. So when we talk about growth, we can't just focus on the beauty of all of it, we also have to honor where that growth comes from. And a lot of the times, and now not all of the time. But a lot of the times that growth comes from some of the most painful, difficult, heartbreaking moments in our lives. You know, that Sheryl Crow song, favorite mistake? Yeah, we all have a favorite mistake, a person an opportunity, a thing that we did that was a quote unquote, mistake, but was a catalyst for some of the most greatest growth transformation in our lives. It was the catalyst for a mindset shift, it was a catalyst for something truly changing within us, it was a lesson that completely altered the course of our lives for the better, our soil is full of those, quote, unquote, mistakes and challenges and heartbreaks. And that is what creates our beauty. So during this time of spring, becoming aware of right, these trees, these flowers, these bushes, are literally being nourished by soil, by dirt, by the composting leaves that fell during the fall. This is what is nourishing our growth. And so now the second thing I want us to think of is this idea of our seasons, right? Because I think what often ends up happening is that we do have a challenging a heartbreaking moment in our lives. And when we're someone who is invested in self growth and self development, which I know you are, because you're here and part of this community, what we end up doing is instead of taking the time to process the heartbreak and the pain to process what just happened, we jumped to the silver lining, we jumped to the lesson, we jump to the growth instead of taking our time to come to that lesson instead of taking our time to process the pain. And so what does nature do? Well, in the fall, right, we have these fall leaves that fall, they decomposed. But during the winter time, nothing is happening. While we think nothing is happening, we can't see it happening. But it's happening internally, those fall leaves are being decomposed, and they're becoming nourishing material for the growth in the spring. And so what this teaches us is it teaches us that we need to take our time, with the growth with the insight and the wisdom. Don't jump to it love. Take your time with all of this. And it may take four months, it may take four years, it may take 40 years. But every challenge, every heartbreak, it takes time for us to get to the lesson. And so just as we see a nature having those moments of winter, where we just sit with that thing, not jumping to the growth, allowing for the growth to naturally just happen. So as we think of growth, we really need to think of these two things right? That growth is not just about The beauty, the positive, the joy, the love the light, the sunshine, but that growth is also rooted in the dirt in the mess, and that the foundation for some of our greatest growth, the fertilization, the fertilizer, some of our greatest transformation is those messages. And so our growth needs both things, right? If you look at a flower, it needs the love and the light and the TLC. But it also needs those tricky moments, the decomposing material, it needs all of it. And that also recognizing that growth takes time, that the wisdom that the lessons all have that come on their own timeline, and we can't force it. Right? Mother Nature does not force growth, it allows it to happen on its own timeline. So I want us to do a spring exercise that I do every year, I want you to imagine yourself as a flower, any flower, and you could literally make this flower out for yourself. And I want you to imagine that this flower is just the beginning of when it's about to bloom and blossom, really create this flower for yourself in your mind's eye. What does it look like? What does it smell like envisioning yourself as this flower? And I want you to just take in its beauty, taken its potential taken its possibility. And now work your way down down the stem of this beautiful flower to the soil. And I want you to ask yourself, what is in this soil? What experiences what lessons, what pain, what heartbreak, what challenges are in the soil and I know love this past year. It's given you some really good soil. It's given you some incredible material to work with. Right? You have amazing soil this year love, like my husband's incredible expensive soil this year, has offered you the most rich, Enriching, nourishing soil. So thinking of that soil What's in there? What is the bat guano? What is the decomposing material in there, that is nourishing your growth now, that is strengthening your roots that is facilitating this transformation, this blossoming, this blooming that you are in now and honoring that. Recognizing the beauty of this flower and honoring where so much of that beauty is coming from. So love this spring. See yourself as this flower rooted in the mess but you are not the mess, but you are stronger, wiser. You are more resilient, you are blossoming because of this mess. So as you go out into the world this spring, admiring all of the beauty around you really take a moment and see where that beauty comes from. See where that growth comes from. Yes, the cherry blossoms are beautiful. The tulips are incredible. The green leaves on all the trees are just so lovely. But remember, they are nourished by they are grown by the mess, the dirt, the bat guano. Okay? Remember that and remember that that growth took time that beauty that transformation that blossoming took time, I want to end with a quote by Ming Dynasty philosopher Hong Shi Chang, which I am most definitely mispronouncing, and I apologize for that. But in his book, vegetable roots discourse, I mean, what a great title he writes, soil that is dirty grows the countless things water that is clear has no fish. So love Remember, the more dirt the more mass the more growth. Until next week, I will talk to you then. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you liked this week's episode, please share it with a friend. comment and rate this podcast until next week. See you later. Love