There's this imprint. There's this somatic felt body sense imprint of love in me that it will never go away. And, you know, the patterns come and the world, you know, just everything can it happens all around me. And I forget myself, but I have access to come back to this deep imprint of self love. Welcome everybody. My name is Drew Horning, and this podcast is called Love's Everyday Radius.
It's brought to you by the Hoffman Institute and its stories and anecdotes and people we interview about their life post process and how it lives in the world radiating love. Please be aware that this episode references reproductive grief. Please use your discretion. Shedin or AZ. Nice to have you on the Hoffman podcast. Thank you for having me, Drew. I'm super excited to be here. I was just asking how to pronounce your name, and you said Oresi like crazy.
That's right. So when I was a kid in elementary school, I went to elementary school here in The US, and the kids would call me Crazy Areze. The harshness of elementary school kids. That's right. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about who you are and why you took the process. Absolutely. So, Shirin and Namaki is a addition that I'll introduce post process, and we can talk a little bit about that. I was, born in Iran, and we immigrated.
I was seven years old when we immigrated to The US, and I spent elementary school in The US, went back to Iran for middle and high school, and then came back again to The US for college and have been here ever since. So a lot of back and forth kinda traversing to very, very different countries. I also have traversed very different careers. So I, initially started off off as an electrical engineer because that's what a good girl does.
And then I went on to start my own agency, and, I've been doing that for about twenty years. We do research and marketing and, at a bit of a transition point post Hoffman, you know, really discovering what's next for me career wise. What's it like to be in that space of transitioning from old to new and yet not even aware of what the new is. I can tell you that there's the distinct difference before Hoffman versus post Hoffman.
So I'll tell you that before I took Hoffman, as I was kinda early on into navigating this transition phase, there was so much of my old patterning around whatever is next, it better be successful. And I better know exactly what I'm doing. And as a result, this kinda sphere of imagining was so tight because imagine if your vision for what's next has to be done right and perfectly, you can't possibly dream. You can't possibly take risk.
And how I am being with this transition post Hoffman is just in a state of wonder, in a state of experiment. Actually, I find a lot of talking to myself as if I'm a little kid. I scare myself. Like, for example, we're, you know, hopping on this conversation today, and I have a thought that, like, maybe this is part of my career path next to, you know, get into coaching and helping bring other people home.
And I noticed all this energy was building up, and I was like, oh, I'm am I do I have all the right stories, and where is this gonna go? And I just sat myself down on the couch right before, and I was like, okay, little one. Let's just talk to you. You're gonna be okay. This podcast is gonna go how it's gonna go. And as long as you come back to me, we're all gonna be okay. And sometimes I go into the world and do that, and it feels awkward and weird, and I don't
feel okay. And then I just sit with with myself on the couch and we're like, oh, how did that feel? Ouch. That hurt or something different. And I'm just being with myself. And this idea, as long as you come back to me, and the me is this spiritual self that is deeply loving and kind and unconditional in its support of you. That's right. Yeah. Absolutely. I think one of the things that's really beautiful about the Hoffman experience and I'm sort of a I don't know.
I love this sort of stuff, so I've been doing variations of this for, like, a good ten years. Yeah. I've done a lot of you can say I'm a little bit addicted to this stuff. But I think what I really love about Hoffman specifically was that there's this imprint. There's this somatic felt body sense imprint of love in me that it will never go away. And, you know, the patterns come and the world, you know, just everything can it happens all around me, and I forget myself.
But I have access to come back to this deep imprint of self love. Shouldn't when you talk, you talked about the somatic imprint, and you can come back to that. You won't forget it because it's a somatic imprint. And when you did that, your voice cracked, and there's emotion. Are those two connected, the somatic imprint and the emotion that emerges as you talk about it? Yes. It goes here we go again.
How it's connected, I come back into love and all the masks that I've learned to wear as an Enneagram three, they go away. And so when the masks go away, I'm I'm in the presence of love, and there's this vulnerability. It's almost like being naked in a way. Right? You're you're that vulnerable. And, yeah, I just notice when I get in touch with it, I I I either start crying or I crack up or just I don't know. I don't know why it happens, but it happens.
You have such good access to your emotional landscape. Tell us a little bit about why you signed up for the process and your journey towards Hoffman and in Hoffman. Yeah. So I'll tell you first why I didn't sign up. Because it took a good five years that I was like, I knew about so I I'm part of this group, Conscious Leadership Group. You actually interviewed Diana Chapman, who's been my coach for the past six years. And it, you know, was part of this
group with lots of people doing Hoffman. Like, I think I was maybe one of the last holdouts in in our group. And what was really interesting is that I resisted it at one part because I was like, well, I think Hoffman's for people that have, like, a lot of trauma around their parents, and I don't think I really have trauma. It turns out I had to go to Hoffman to realize that I actually have a minimizing pattern where I minimize any, like, trauma or pain.
And then the other thing that was stopping me from going was I was like, okay. I see people going to Hoffman. They come back. They're, like, glowing, and there's it's amazing. And then eventually, over time, I see their patterns coming back. And, like, I'm like, what's the point of going if you can't be perfect? So my perfectionist pattern coming into play. And it really took, you know, going to Hoffman to see these patterns at play. But what ended up being the reason that I went, it wasn't
an epiphany. It wasn't a single moment. It was actually a gradual build up. For those five years that I was resisting going to Hoffman, in parallel, I was resisting going to Hoffman, in parallel, I was, doing IVF treatments, because my husband and I were planning on having children. And for five years, seven rounds of IVF, hundreds of needles in my body, four miscarriages, three girls, one boy. I was so certain that we can make this work, and I was seeing physicians all over the country.
And nobody was certain, like, what what in the world is going on. And I was so certain that we can make this work that I started reducing my time at my agency in preparation for having a family. After five years in our last miscarriage, I found myself with a complete vision lost of having a family and, a lot of time on my hand because I'd reduced my time at the agency.
And I kept struggling to vision what's next because this perfectionist pattern was driving me that I must be successful in what's next, and I thought Hoffman could help. So that journey of all those needles, all those years, and the striving, if only I try harder or find the right doctor shit in? What what was that like to go through that?
You know, in hindsight, I can see how little compassion I had for myself because there was this almost bully driving me harder, do it more, you know, and it was as if it was running my body, running my existence with this notion of you got this. You you this is no big deal. There's no trauma. There's no pain. Like, this my minimizing pattern was also at play here of you're gonna get to the other side, and it's only, like, one more implantation. It's just around the corner.
I think in hindsight, what I realized is that not only this IVF journey, but a lot of my path and career wise has been the same thing. You know? Like, I wanna grow the agent. I wanna I wanna make it bigger. I mean, it's it's this constant chasing of a vision somewhere out there and having it never be good enough. It wasn't until, like, early, I think within our first day or two of Hoffman that they give you this list of core shame messages. So not good enough, and I'm like, oh, shit. Oh my god.
This has been running me. You know, my whole life has been this chase of if this happens, like, I will be finally good enough. You remember the work we did around shame at your process. Shame is not an easy feeling to welcome in. There's so much shame around shame. We've interviewed some experts on shame over the previous seasons here on the podcast.
But for you, what was it like to make the connection between so much of what has been driving you and this notion that it is shame and it is, in particular, you are not good enough? Heartbreaking? Like, how mean? Like, wow. Like, I could be so mean to this, like, beautiful, beautiful being, you know, to tell her this message, to push her and push so many needles in her body and just this constant, yeah, bullying of her.
Shouldn't, whereas you talk, I'm just aware of this contrast between innocence and bullying, the way in which you talk about bullying yourself through the shame messages and in contrast, this beautiful, innocent little being. I imagine at your process, you really connected with that innocent little girl. Yeah. I'll tell you. The first moment that I connected was, you know, in Hoffman, you get these little binders for your work for the week. And literally on the binder, it's spelled Namaki,
which is my childhood nickname. And I swear to god, I saw the word Namaki, and something just lit up in me. Like, oh, I remember her. And this essence of just me. Me. And I'll tell you a fun story. So Shirin in in Farsi means sweet. And Namaki, which is my childhood nickname, means sort of salty, like, but spicy, like, in in a fun loving way. Like, somebody that's, like, spicy. And something went off where
I'm like, oh my god. There's this kind of parallel universe of this innocent spicy child, Namaki, that's been with me all along. But Shereen, the sweet layer, has come way on top with the bully and has been driving sort of the operating system. It was just so delightful. Like, people, like, as they would call me Namiki because nobody knows your real name. So I had one whole week where I was nothing but Namiki to people and to myself.
And that just kind of reinforced that this path back home, which was just delightful. The path back home through being called by your childhood name. One of the many things that happened that week, but one of them was just that all week long, you weren't shit in. You were Namaki, spicy, feisty Namaki. Yeah. So one of my earliest childhood memories, and this is before we immigrated to The US, was that Namaki, you know, this five or six year old, very young, my parents would have dinner parties
all the time. And I would literally have 40 grown adults sitting in a circle formation. I would get up in the middle of the circle. I would take a cucumber and make it my microphone, and I would put on shows. I would make fun of people. I would do all of that. And that was that is the spirit of Namiki. She is so such a courageous, confident, fun, loving little girl.
And then through the Hoffman process, I was able to see how when we immigrated to The US and my first day of school as I distinctly remember holding my mom's hand and we got lost on our way to school. And I remember there was this massive green field, grassy green field, and the feeling of the water from the grass and holding my mom's hand and then thinking, my mom has no idea how to get to me to school. We are so, so lost.
And this fear of just knowing that we're immigrants, we don't know our way around this country. I didn't know a single word of English. I'd they've just told me emergency, and I would use it when I wanted to go to the bathroom because it was an emergency. But this felt sense of fear that came over Namaki. And then within a few weeks of being in school, I have another memory of, you know, we had a homework assignment, and the teacher put a check mark.
And I went to the only other Persian kid in class, and I was like, what does this check mark mean? Because I had no idea. And he's like, that means you did good. And I swear to god, Drew, it's as if the light bulb went off. It's like, Okay. This is how we secure ourselves. And so, literally, Shereen went on this journey of, okay. The only way I can secure myself in this new environment is if I succeed and I achieve.
And so I would get straight a's, and straight a's turned into, okay, now I'm gonna go to engineering school. I do all the things that a, quote, unquote, successful kid would do with me chasing this sense of safety and leaving them behind. You know, I love that story of the field and the wet grass. Do you think that that came to you during your Hoffman week? So on some level, that feeling of, oh, shit. My mom, she can't be trusted. I'm kind of on my own.
Do you think that the trauma of that moment got rewritten on some level during your week? In other words, you almost allowed yourself to regress to that younger age as a way of healing that little girl who, still lived inside you on some level. Yeah. I and I think part of that was to discover that I have this minimizing pattern. It's what kept me from Hoffman. It's like and there's this whole theme of I minimize
anything. There's no problem. And it wasn't until I was able to see that I have this pattern and welcome it that I were able to see all the places in my childhood where I had some sense of trauma, lack of safety, something's not okay. And instead of just being with it, which which I and this is me. Just being with it's not okay. Just sitting with it, it's not okay. I had never done that.
Yeah. So, yeah, it's almost like I, was able to go back in adult form, get Namaki, and then find all the things that happened to Namaki that were not okay along the way, to start this healing process. You know, this is in part an immigrant story that there's our common themes that immigrants face when they come to The US. They come to a new country. They don't know the language. All you can say is emergency as your first word. I mean, think about that.
And, that the process helped you sorta continue the immigration process and settle in here as a rightfully claimed citizen, and this is your country. You are home here. I'm home everywhere. I love The US because I've learned so much, and I've grown so much here. And I obviously love Iran because it's my country of origin. But I think it was through my IVF journey and this, like, massive, massive blow of, you know, not being successful that I got to experience.
I don't know how to say it, but it's this notion of falling back into trust with my place in the world that I don't get to control all these things that I've been trying to control. And there might be a bigger way, way, way bigger arc for my life story than the one that my bully or Shireen is trying to carve out. I kinda rested in this I don't know what's next, but I'm gonna rest and trust that it's part of my life story.
And so it's this connection, I think, with with a way, way bigger sense of self that then doesn't need a country to belong to. Yeah. There's a transcendent piece. Namaki, let me ask you a question. So you come out of the process and you take this IVF journey. You feel the transcendent nature of the process. How does the process help you move forward? What happens next in this chapter post process?
Yeah. So I've been a an engineer and a scientist, and I've seen this kind of gradual transformation to the woo woo land. But I've started to, like, believe that, you know, it's a fun game to play that maybe things aren't a coincidence. And so, literally, on my first night coming out of Hoffman where, you know, you're kinda in this period by yourself, I went and took myself to dinner, and I'm sitting at dinner.
And out of the blue, this woman who's a documentary filmmaker that actually created a documentary called thought inspired by our IVF journey, she walks up to the same restaurant. I was part of the documentary that she created. And I was like, oh, woah. Well, that's a really interesting coincidence here. And so I started just paying attention to these different moments that are not you know, but what if there's a serendipity in
it? And one of the things that has happened post Hoffman is I noticed that I'm gravitating much more to a place of wanting to share my true journey, which includes my suffering and my heartbreak through this IVF journey and just being a human as opposed to my success.
It's a really interesting turn because all of my life was around look at me and how successful I can be versus no. I wanna deeply connect with other humans from the fact that I am an imperfect human going through an imperfect process. Yeah. So that was, like, a fun little twist right out of Hoffman.
Yeah. So you were in her documentary, and then there she shows up, And you take it in part as a message that keep pursuing this story, this journey that you went through of IVF and not being able to have children. And so how has that progressed in the time since you left Hoffman? I'm actually helping just promote and create more awareness around the documentary.
So we're, you know, just bringing it to different women's groups, especially entrepreneur groups or, like, instances where, you know, women might be holding off on having children until later in their life, and I definitely have a passion for it. But I'm also noticing that there's just a deep felt passion not only about IVF, but just people going through some nature of transition slash suffering. So I'm now supporting friends that are going through divorce.
And even though it's some not something that I have a direct experience of, but I feel like because I've had this felt experience of going through a really difficult transition period in my life and having lots of learnings from it that I wanna kinda be in in that space and hold that space for other people, going through difficult transitions in their life.
You know, we can talk about pivoting and that everybody goes through transitions, but this isn't easy stuff to have a vision for a child or a vision for a marriage and then to have those things end and die. And to be in the space of grief and loss and to help people rebuild something after that, after divorce, after the dream of having children, That's not easy stuff. Shenan, what do people need in that space that you work with?
So this actually comes from, some of the work that I've done on the research side, which I'm also really passionate about, like, just the research around psychology, positive psychology, behavioral science. And there's actually research that's come out of out of, like, a couple years ago that shows that if you actually view your life as a hero's journey, then you're gonna actually end up having a lot more both patience, but also life satisfaction. And so think of a arc of a hero's journey.
We you know, going around our way, we have this big obstacle. It could be this transition. It could be divorce. It could be IVF, etcetera. But embedded in it is such a pregnant space for learning. I think what I see is a lot of times, whether it's trauma, suffering, pain in our lives, we might have a tendency to wanna walk around it and not go through it. And it's the going through it like a hero does where all of the beautiful learnings come in.
So I wanna be a sidekick to the hero, which is, you know, my friend going through a divorce or other people to walk alongside them in this change, in this transformation. And I think there's something deeply beautiful that gets imprinted in you when you have gone through that. My husband and I love doing adventures, nature adventures, and we have a vision of visiting all the national parks before we die. We're about 28 parks in. But one of my
favorite parks is Denali National Park. So one of the things that's beautiful about Denali, it's one of the only national parks in our country that there are no paved paths. You have no hiking route. So, like, literally, you go in, you get a backcountry permit, and they give you, like, a, you know, square footage mile by mile, and you're like, go hike here. So you literally are paving your own path as you go. And I still have this memory
of we had a simple river crossing. And had there been a bridge across the river, we would have literally crossed this little river in, like, two minutes, maybe. It took us, like, an hour and forty five minutes of us trying to figure out how in the world are we gonna traverse this river without a bridge. And there's something that gets imprinted in you when you've had to traverse life without a clear path, but being willing to go through the river.
My experience of Denali National Park is forever transformed relative to somebody that might be seeing it on a tour bus because I got to experience the humbling, humbling experience of crossing a river that took an hour and forty five minutes. And so I think that's part of what makes life beautiful.
You know, when you talk about that, you're I'm imagining the swift moving water and the need to find solid footing on the rocks underneath and then the temperature of the water, the fact that it is so cold, it just was snow maybe a few hours ago, and the depth of it. And it's coming up to your knees and maybe above your knees, and then it's to your waist. And the visceral experience of crossing a river is so much a part of your being that from the tour bus, you would have no idea.
And this idea of inner landscape and outer landscape and how that outer landscape of the river is also this inner landscape, Namaki, that you're talking about of crossing and transitioning to new areas and new ways of being in your life. Wow. What do you notice in that matching of those two? It sounds cliche, but it's this deep appreciation for the journey of it all.
And this realization that, you know, is the journey of crossing the rivers, the journey of overcoming these obstacles with myself, with my husband, etcetera, that makes my life so unique and beautiful and just embracing it. One of my favorite quotes is Teddy Roosevelt. The credit belongs to the man in the rain. Time and time again, goes in and is bloodied and bludgeoned, but, like, keeps going. And I think that's the beauty of life.
And I sit and wonder thinking, why is it that we have such a, I don't know, weird relationship with suffering where we don't want to experience suffering. It's not easy, but it's beautiful. Like, it's profoundly beautiful part of the human experience. It redefines perfectionism, doesn't it, from this antiseptic kind of purification, whitewashing of the human experience to the messy, beautiful, deep, and the river crossing that is perilous and fantastic at the same time.
Yeah. And I'll say, I think another beautiful realization that's gonna come out for me is, you know, having struggled so much to bring life, I have this sort of deep felt appreciation for life. It's, they say I was an accident, which kinda makes sense logically. My two sisters are nine and 12 years older than me. And Your parents said you were an accident? Well, they haven't said it, but it's kinda I'm pretty sure I was. I mean, my two siblings are nine and 12 years older. My mom was in college.
Like, I don't think there was any planning of me coming along. You know, one way to look at it is like, ah, it was an accident. I wasn't meant to be. And another way to look at it is like, hot dang. Life wanted to happen, and life wanted to happen in this beautiful way. And just like this wow. Despite all the ads, when I connect to that part, there is this connection of going back to, you know, earlier where we're talking about, like like, visioning and
okay. So if life meant to happen through me, then what do I wanna do with it? How do I wanna move life through? Yeah. I think, to me, it's the biggest gift is to walk by people's side as they cross that river. Sharin, what's it been like to tell your story here to reflect on life before, during, and after your process to share this? What do you notice? Mhmm. I just had a vision of my grandfather pop up. I'm the last grandchild. So on my mom's side, I'm the I'm the very last intro.
And, you know, there was a period before all of this Hoffman and everything where I felt like, oh, I'm not extending his lineage, by not having a child. And I feel like I've I've reconnected through Hoffman, and a lot of it has been just reconnecting with my roots. I reconnected with his spirit and how it runs through me. And it is a spirit of adventure, and it is a spirit of being in service to people.
And I think had I had children, I would probably be pretty focused on one life or maybe two lives. And in a beautiful way, I get to now be in service to many lives. And so I kinda had this vision of almost my grandfather just setting me free into the world to be of service to many lives. So grateful for this conversation. Thank you, Drew. Likewise. Thank you, Shiden, and thank you, Namaki. Mhmm. Thank you. Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and president of Hoffman Institute Foundation. And I'm Razi Ingrassi, Hoffman teacher and founder of the Hoffman Institute Foundation. Our mission is to provide people greater access to the wisdom and power of love. In themselves, in each other and in the world. To find out more, please go to hoffmaninstitute.org.