Begin Anywhere: Less Script, More Presence
Begin Anywhere: Less Script, More Presence is a podcast about showing up as you are—without waiting for the “perfect moment.”
I’m Irina Pashina—coach, mentor, supervisor, facilitator, and speaker—inviting you into conversations and reflections that are recorded in one take, imperfect by design, and rooted in presence.
Each episode explores themes of authenticity, courage, leadership, transitions, and human connection, offering space to pause and notice what is unfolding in your own life.
This podcast isn’t about scripts or polish—it’s about what becomes possible when we trust ourselves and begin anywhere.
🎧 Join me to reflect, connect, and take the next intentional step on your own path.
Begin Anywhere: Less Script, More Presence
Episode 20: Life in a Cup of Coffee
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This episode was inspired by my cup of coffee… When I looked at it this morning, I saw so much:
- the beauty of ritual
- the energy of a gentle and powerful momentum
- the scratches of a table experienced thousands of dinners and board games
- a cup with a history and lineage, persevering
- moments of togetherness and aloneness
- the appreciation of being alive
- the imperfection of showing up
- the felt sense of being connected to humanity (my own and other people’s)
I saw my life. And the richness of being in and with the moment, truly.
How was your cup of coffee or tea today?
I’d love to hear from you. Reach out at irina@irinapashina.com, on LinkedIn, or visit irinapashina.com to learn more about my work as a coach, mentor, supervisor, facilitator, and speaker.
Thank you for joining me on this journey of reflection and connection.
Hello and welcome. Welcome to Begin Anywhere. My name is Irina Pashina. And I'm here to hold space. To hold space for all of us where we can begin anywhere. With less script and more presence. Thank you for joining me. Hello and welcome to episode 20 of Begin Anywhere. I have a big smile on my face mainly because of an awareness I stepped into earlier today, and I really felt the urge to share it with you. It was when I was making my second cup of coffee, like I do in most of my days, and it was a very mundane, everyday moment, and I am very selective and take a lot of joy in choosing the coffee beans of light roast and sustainable coffee, and just making a cup of wonderful coffee with oat milk and attempting to create the shape of a heart on top of it, which hardly ever happens, and still is part of my own ritual. And as I put the cup on our kitchen table, I looked at it and I stayed for a moment. And in this very moment, somehow in a parallel process, I saw my life in this picture, in this cup, and I realized how much of my experience and my expression of life is in there. How much of who I have been, who I'm becoming, how much of our home, and how much of me is in there. And I love this moment of awareness, of seeing the beauty, the imperfection, the scars, the scratches, the scratches on the table, stickers on the table, the missing handle of the cup, the red roses on it, the fine lines on the cup, and yet the rough patches it has gone through. And so much of where I come from was in there, and also of my path, and I felt a second of stillness, a time of appreciation of where I'm at in this very moment. I struggle to put this in words, and I still want to do it as an invitation to cherish these moments of meeting ourselves where we are at, of seeing more of our lives as they unfold, be it in a cup of coffee or in something else, whatever it would be or could be, or whatever shape and form it emerges through, to open our eyes and our hearts to what our lives are like and feel like. This is my path, and the beauty and and the ugly moments and sides of it, and all of it is me and I've found it so refreshing and surprising and connecting to be with all of it I wonder this what this could be for each of you what could be representing your life today? What could open some new perspectives that you haven't seen maybe or you can see differently? I am in search of the truth, always have been and I'm realizing that the deeper I go the more complex rich and puzzling the picture can become and I so much appreciate the level of acceptance I could have today. I think in many different ways it has been part of my path and it continues to be. So my invitation today is to look at everyday things with the curiosity of what they could mean in the very specific moment of your life that you're in at the moment What could they show you? What could they point you to? And I don't know if we can ever prepare for moments of awareness. They quite often come and become themselves known to us. And sometimes it's something that we have heard or seen or listened to. And maybe for you it would be this question, or it would be a word or a perspective you have heard from someone. I wish you the rest of your day with more wonder and acceptance of what's unfolding. And this is what I wish for me as well. Thank you for listening.