Please click here to listen to Episode 117 of the Minutes on Growth Podcast
Hi soul-friends,
It’s Tannaz hosseinpour and welcome back to another short solo episode of the minutes on growth podcast. today’s episode is centred around a personal experience I had preparing for my 32nd birthday last week.
for as long as I can remember I have always been super extra when it comes to my birthdays. My parents would always go all out for me and then when I was older, I kind of just continued doing that. This year however, I was experiencing major internal resistance when it came to celebrating my birthday. I transformed into the bratty child who would say no to everything. My partner asked me if I wanted to travel, and I would immediately blurt out NO. My mom would ask me if I wanted to throw a party at her house, I blurted out no immediately . My friends asked me if I wanted to plan a dinner, again I would without hesitation blurt out no. Honestly it felt frustrating for me to hear no come out of my mouth that many times, let alone for those around me. I’m sure they were so annoyed by my constant no’s. I too was so annoyed by the fact that I didn’t know where this internal resistance was coming from…
So I decided to take drastic measures and locked myself in my closet with a small mirror. I sat in front the mirror, staring into my own eyes, and asked myself “what is your problem? People want to celebrate you and you keep saying no.”
Nothing came out of my mouth. I just had a blank stare in my face and after a couple of minutes, I noticed I started to tear up, still no words were coming out of my mouth… a few more minutes of staring at myself, and I whispered out loud, “it’s just not what I want right now.”
Finally some words, but it still didn’t make sense to me so I had to look at myself again and ask “well what do you want?”. I don’t know what happened but the moment I asked this question, I started to cry hysterically… I know this was happening between myself and I, but I was really confused at how my inner child was responding. When the crying subsided, I just remember repeating these words over and over again, “I’m not the same person anymore”
I know I’ve mentioned this multiple times but last year was a very emotionally challenging year for me, and as a result many changes look place in terms of my lifestyle and habits – I noticed myself taking a step back from drinking, partying, and entertaining small talk. At first I thought it was a trauma response and perhaps trauma did play a role in it, but over the past couple of months I’ve noticed that as I’m healing and processing the pain, I still don’t want to drink and I still don’t want to entertain conversations that are surface level
And that’s where my resistance to throwing a big party was coming from. I didn’t want to create a space, where I would be pressured into drinking heavily, or with music so loud that you can’t really communicate with each other. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean that I can’t socialize without alcohol or don’t love music … in fact, a few weeks prior, I was my friends birthday and even though I was sober, I had a lot of fun talking to everyone and catching up with them, but a part of me feels like, people are still expecting the older version of me to show up at my own birthday, and at this moment in time she doesn’t exist anymore… I don’t know what the future will hold but right now, the old me is nonexistent, and I don’t want my birthday to be centred around me having to explain that.
and I also didn’t wanna go away because I AM a social person, and my community and my tribe are important to me and I do appreciate the opportunity to celebrate my birthday with them, and going away felt like I was running away from the resistance which I didn’t want to do -I just wanted to have an experience that looks and feels different, resembling a different version of me, the most current version of me that exists today.
btw we really don’t talk enough about the grief that we feel when we let go of a certain version of ourselves. Personal growth and evolvement are so celebrated that we just assume all the emotions that come with it are uplifting and happy. But there is a part of me that feels sad or even scared that I’m letting that old version of me go. I know she doesn’t serve me anymore but she was with me for so long that there still is attachment there. It’s like letting go of a friendship that has served its time – you know its the right thing to do, but it doesn’t mean you won’t miss them… But I also trust that change is the only constant in life, and as we grow and evolve, the parts of us that no longer resonate must be released, so we can create space for new habits and traits to flourish.
so after deep reflection in my closet room, I decided to host an afternoon brunch with just my girlfriends on my birthday, inviting a wonderful facilitator to conduct a healing sound bath for us all. This was more aligned with where I am in my life today – honouring the divine feminine, honouring deep conversations, honouring silence, nourishing my soul, honouring sisterhood – The moment I visualized what it would look like, my body got so excited, I immediately came out of the room and went on my phone to order the party supplies and to design my invitation card. the excitement and desire to celebrate my birthday with my loved ones was back in my body and all I needed to do to let go of that initial resistance was to get curious with it, to talk to myself to see where my concerns and my resistance were stemming from.
& btw the party was a blast – everyone’s inner child came out to play and we all had the opportunity to deepen our connections to each other and our selves.
It served as a reminder for me that we have extremely smart bodies, so everything we feel and experience has a message for us, if we’re only willing to become silent so that we’re actually able to hear it.
so soul friends this is my message for you today, if you are feeling any form of confusion, resistance, internal unrest, I urge you to create a safe and silent space for yourself to get curious with those sensations, so that you can hear what your mind body and soul are trying to communicate with you. This is actually how we strengthen our intuition… This is how we master understanding our “gut feeling”
Thank you all for listening, speak soon
Minutes on Growth 