Healer Q&A: Authentic self-expression as an art of healing with Tannaz Hosseinpour

The following interview is a transcript excerpt from The Heallist Podcast episode. Listen to the full audio version below and subscribe to get notified of new episodes.

Join us on a journey of spiritual awakening with our esteemed guest, Tannaz Hosseinpour, the remarkable founder of the Minutes on Growth Community Podcast. With a unique background in conflict resolution, law, and psychotherapy, Tannaz shares her personal transformation and profound insights into the Universe, inspired by luminaries like Dr. Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra. Throughout our conversation, she reveals her belief in the Universe as a shattered mirror, each of us a vital piece, and discusses her spiritual practices that promote peace and connection, whether through meditation or finding solace in sacred spaces.

Explore the harmonious blend of feminine and masculine energies, where Tannaz introduces the concept of "soft discipline" — a compassionate approach to personal growth. Hear how collaboration has been a transformative force in her journey, fostering accountability and inspiring action. Together, we underscore the power of creating supportive communities that nurture diverse perspectives, enabling individuals to thrive and achieve more than they could alone. This episode promises not only to enlighten but to empower, as we navigate the profound journey of spiritual growth and transformation.
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Journey to Spiritual Awakening

Tannaz Hosseinpour: I see the Universe as a mirror that's been shattered into a million pieces and we're all, each one of us, is one piece of that, and when we all come together, that community, that connection creates the full image. We are all parts of each other. That which you see in me exists within you, that which I see in you exists within me. And I love how Ram Dass would say, we're all just walking each other home. It's something big that we're part of, but we're also something big ourselves. The Universe is within me and I'm within the Universe.

I started spiritual work when I was in my early 20s, and slowly building a much, much better relationship with the Universe as the day goes by and just trusting. It's the most important relationship one needs to spend time on, and the best cheerleader, the best “best friend” you can have. And if you can cultivate that relationship, it trickles into every other relationship and it's a great foundation to have.

The relationship started with a lifequake, with an event that changed my whole life overnight. That was outside my scope of control, and Rumi has a beautiful poem and he says the wound is where the light enters you. And I think for me it was breaking open, and my mom walked in with a book by Dr. Wayne Dyer and she said I think this is going to make you feel better and it really did. It opened my heart to Dr. Wayne Dyer, to Deepak Chopra, Dr. Joe Dispenza and all of them after that bless their souls for being on this realm to share all of that with us. And then over the years, it’s figuring out how I wanted to feel when I thought of the Universe.

My undergraduate degree was in religion. I've always been so amazed at how religion impacts human beings and how it influences our behaviors and our belief systems. But I always saw it from a very analytical perspective, from a very logical perspective, and when my heart and soul shattered it opened that space for all this new information to come in, it was all about how I felt–how did I feel when I was meditating? How did I feel when I was sitting in front of a mirror, crying and like having make-believe conversations to this entity called God, but looking into my own eyes?

My spiritual practice is going to spaces where I feel inner peace and safety and security in my body. Sometimes that's a Buddhist temple, sometimes that's the trail by my house, sometimes that's sitting with someone I love, and sometimes that's sitting in my closet under my clothes and just taking slow, deep breaths. Coming back to the body, and the safety of the body for me is my spiritual practice.

Navigating Spiritual Growth While Expressing the Self‍

Tannaz Hosseinpour: My first major clients came from the book club. One of the girls that I have was like, “It'd be great. I work for this corporation; I would love for you to speak.” Through that talk came a client, through that client came other clients, and it became a referral of people, telling the other person. That was one stream of clients that came to me.

And when I started the podcast, I started an Instagram page, and I would just share whatever I would read. One day I just had this intuition, “I need to connect with more women. So I went to a meetup, and I found the first group for women. I went there and I connected with one of the wonderful, wonderful women who was there. She was the leader. We had a conversation, and she said, “I've been wanting to do a retreat.” That's how the retreat came. While we were preparing, one of my co-facilitators said it's time for you to do videos. People came to me and said, “why don't we do this?” “Why don't we do that?” I started with my videos and then started growing a community on social media and now there's like some clients that come through there and then some through referrals, but it was just suggestions by others that I didn't just see as a coincidence. This is how you know God speaks to us–light source creation. However, whatever you want to phrase it, my job is to just show up and to take inspired action. So that's how the marketing worked.

When you hear yourself, you're like, why do I sound like that? Only now am I becoming comfortable. So it's okay if you're not comfortable with that which you're uncomfortable with overnight. Sometimes it takes up many, many, many years, but it's just still showing up and doing it and, honestly, imposter syndrome is real. I had so much fear of judgment because in my community you know you're either a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer and these are really the only respectable quote, unquote respectable fields that you're in. At first, my parents thought this was a joke, this was a hobby. I don't want to embarrass my family's name, I don't want to embarrass my parents, I don't want all their sacrifices to go.

I had guilt. It was a lot of guilt, there was a lot of fear, but I just kept remembering that no one's journey was really smooth. I started studying Kabbalah, and part of the teachings of Kabbalah is everything comes from the light and you chose this life. That was also a very empowering thought for me. I'm here, I have to show up, I have to honor what is exciting me, and if all these opportunities are showing up, it's not a coincidence. It's coming from the light as proof of I'm on the right path. So suck it up. It's not about you, I kept telling me, “It's not about you. It's about the change that your work will do. It's about bigger than you. Don't let the ego make you think.” So I had to keep reminding myself of that over and over and over again.

Balancing Feminine and Masculine Energies‍

Tannaz Hosseinpour: There's a lot of content out there on women should only be in their feminine and men should only be in their masculine. In my opinion, that creates an unhealthy experience of self. And if we want to look into the feminine and masculine energy, we want to go to the root of it. You know we come to yin and yang energy and the whole point of the yin and yang is there are two parts of one whole. It's creating that balance.

When we're too much into our masculine energy, that's when we lead to burnout. And when we're too much in our feminine energy, sometimes we lack the follow through to bring the vision to life. When I first became familiar with these two topics, I had to do a lot. I'm always studying and I love to understand that, resonating more with science-backed topics and so really diving into.

The feminine energy is about intuition, it's about flow, it's about surrender. It's the playfulness. What's the masculine energy about? It's all about drive, taking inspired action. It's about discipline. Too much of one–not great. Too much discipline is very rigid. What about soft discipline? I show up, I fall down, but instead of being self-critical, I understand that this is part of the journey and I get up and I say I'm going to try again. More compassion, more self-forgiveness. So it's not that we're not going to just pick one, we're going to integrate the two. Sometimes I see someone too much in their feminine and it's an underdeveloped masculine. They have a million and one beautiful ideas, but they just keep it at that level, at that realm. If we're using our seven chakras, the vision comes through the crown. You see it through your eyes, you speak about it, you feel it and when we get to the belly part. That's the yang energy of activating it, action. It gets stuck there and they don't allow that vision to be birthed through them.

With a little bit of drive, with a little bit of discipline, cultivating those traits, we can bring it into the realm. We can use our creative force and we can ground with it on this earth and we can become that medium. What I teach my clients all the time is don't look over one thing. You can take that flowy energy, take that intuition into the most male-oriented industries and you can take that discipline into the most fluid and creative industries. You get to choose and it has to be a play that feels grounded to you, ease to you. You don't need to go through life in a fight or flight mode. We can choose better for ourselves. We need to change. This narrative of success is hard, it's challenging, but with the right tools we can navigate through it with more ease and grace. How can we live life through ease and grace? So that's the balancing of the two.

Power of Collaboration in Action

Tannaz Hosseinpour: When a vision comes through and if I feel I need help, I reach out to someone that I know has similar visions and I pitch it, “Do you want to do this together?” And just bringing someone else's energy into it. A–accountability and B–two insights are more powerful than one in my opinion, and so a lot of the things that I took inspired action on were as a result of collaboration.

Sometimes we need to partner up with someone else and birth it together as a team. And repetition, like neuroplasticity, repetition helps us build new neural pathways. So as you use the beauty of collaboration to build that pathway of taking action, it becomes easier to take action as a solo person later on. Reach out to people who are doing similar things and hold each other accountable and rise together, and then you'll be getting into the habit of doing it on your own.

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