May 15, 2025 • 32 mins
Lee Klinger Lesser is our guest today. A graduate of the Hoffman Process, Lee has led Sensory Awareness somatic workshops worldwide for many decades. She teaches workshops to diverse groups, including veterans and wildland firefighters.
Lee led and co-founded a non-profit organization to work with military veterans: Veteran’s PATH. While she no longer leads this organization, Lee still works with Veterans, many of whom have graduated from the Hoffman Process.
As a Hoffman grad, Lee is familiar with the "Left Road, Right Road" tool, a choice point that occurs many times each day of our lives. Lee speaks to how crucial presence is in choosing the steps of our lives and the direction our lives take. The question she often holds is, What does this moment ask of me? In each moment, we can ask ourselves this powerful question. It's a way to slow down and realize that everything that exists is here and only here. Each moment asks us to stop and sense our next step, or in Hoffman terms, whether or not we will go down the Left Road or Right Road.
The capacity Lee has to express the power of an embodied life in words is extraordinary. Listen in as she offers an articulated path to conscious choice in each moment of our lives. She says, "If we keep offering what we can offer, and we have confidence in our own possibility to have impact and our capacity to respond, then we're not going to have regret. We may not be able to change things, maybe we're not going to be able to change what we want, but the way we're living and what we offer is coming from our own love and our own vitality and our own ability to respond."
We hope you enjoy this deep and rich conversation with Lee and Drew.
Content warning: This episode references suicide. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, you can call the US National Suicide Prevention Program at 800-273-8255 (or simply 988), or message the crisis text hotline at 741741.
More about Lee Klinger Lesser:
Lee studied Sensory Awareness for 33 years in the United States with Charlotte Selver, the founder of this practice. Through Return to Our Senses, she's been leading workshops since 1976, in English and Spanish. Lee sees over and over again the gift that this practice brings into the lives of so many people and into our world, which is in such great need of people living with awareness, resilience, and presence. She has reached into communities facing significant challenges to offer the resource and refuge of this practice.
Lee led and co-founded a non-profit organization to work with military veterans: Veteran’s PATH —Peace, Acceptance, Transformation, Honor. She led this work for 12 years, stepping away from a formal role in the organization in Fall 2019. Under new leadership, the organization dissolved in 2023. Lee still facilitates programs for veterans and honors this work as some of the most meaningful and life-changing work she has had the privilege to do. She witnessed veterans open to devastating experiences, face, and transform pain into new possibilities. Lee continues to be inspired by the profound commitment to service and the loving dedication to community that she experienced in her work with veterans.
Lee's work and the Climate Crisis:
Over the past six years, Lee has been helping to develop programs for Wildland firefighters on the front lines of the Climate Crisis. These firefighters are seeking support to meet the overwhelming challenges they are facing.
Whether we realize it or not, we are all on the frontlines of the Climate Crisis. This has led Lee to develop programs to integrate the practice of Sensory Awareness with responding to the Climate Crisis. She is dedicated to bringing forward the core lesson she has learned from her years of practice: “There is no place to run, there is no escape from being with what is.” This is especially poignant and true as we realize that this Earth is the only home we have. We cannot run from what is happening.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
We can trust in our own vitality and
energy because when you're coming in touch with
your own nature,
there's a natural vitality and there's a natural
energy. I I think one of the most
fundamental things is seeing people begin to trust
in their own experience,
and that guides you the rest of your
life.
Welcome everybody. My name is Drew Horning, and
(00:24):
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.
This podcast contains discussion of sensitive topics, including
(00:47):
suicide.
If you or someone you know is suicidal,
please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline
at +1 80273
1 8
2 7 3 8 2 5 5, or
message the crisis text line at 741741.
(01:16):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast,
Lee Lesser. Welcome. It's great to have you.
Thank you so much. I'm really looking forward
to this conversation and the work you do
in the world and who you are in
the world. Can you share a little bit
about the work you do? Yeah. Sure.
Since I was 19 years old,
(01:37):
I was introduced to a practice called sensory
awareness.
It's a very simple practice. It's a mindfulness
practice in which
you connect with your own sensory experience.
You connect with breathing, with whatever sensations you're
feeling in your own body
as a way of being present and as
a way of feeling,
(01:58):
how to respond to whatever is happening.
I was introduced to my teacher, whose name
was Charlotte Selver, because my mother
came to me when I was 19,
and I was trying very hard to, figure
out who I was and how to separate
from my family and
disentangle
the patterns, which is quite familiar, I think,
(02:20):
in the Hoffman process. But I was really
immersed in it, and I came home for
college vacation,
mostly hiding in my room.
And my mother came into my room and
she,
handed me a brochure.
And she said, you should meet this woman.
She can change your life.
And then my mother turned and walked out
(02:40):
the door.
And if she hadn't done that, we wouldn't
be having this conversation now because
not only if she hadn't shared that brochure
with me, but if she had tried to
convince me or say anything more about it,
I would never have gone. I would have
resisted.
But she didn't, and I was really curious
in spite of myself.
And it turns out this woman, who I
(03:01):
knew nothing about, was gonna be doing some
two workshops in Mexico.
During the month, I had to do an
off campus project at college.
So it was somehow
kismet in some way.
And Charlotte really did change my life.
I had no idea I was disconnected from
my body. I had no idea
(03:21):
how much was stored here in our own,
in my own body and in all of
our bodies, and that our whole life is
right here, our whole history is here, and
our whole capacity is here.
And I had these very simple experiences,
we're talking fifty five years ago,
that have
continued to guide my life
and that I've been able to share with
(03:42):
other people. And I
spent many years working with military veterans,
many of whom have participated in the Hoffman
process.
I am doing work right now with wildland
firefighters,
and I also teach workshops to people, in
many different places,
helping
us return to our senses,
which to me
(04:03):
is really urgent and urgent at this time.
So that's a teeny taste.
Well, we'll put some links in the show
notes for the organizations you speak about, the
work you do, if people wanna check it
out. But sounds like you took that brochure
from your mom.
You took that workshop
from
(04:23):
Charlotte.
Charlotte Silver.
And then you took all of that learning
that you were
integrating in college, and you made it your
life's work.
It's true. It has been my life work,
and
it's what really sustains me. And it really
is coming to enough quiet and connection so
(04:44):
that we can respond to what's needed. There's
a very simple question
that guides me all the time, which is,
what does this moment ask of me?
And it's not an intellectual question.
It's really dropping in and pausing
so that I can feel what's actually needed.
You know, and in the Huffman process, when
you're looking at different paths that we can
(05:06):
take and you come to crossroads,
we can get caught in following habit and
patterns and
not being conscious.
Or we can come back into our own
connection in the present moment
and really feel what is needed
and allow the natural response to happen.
That to me is a tremendous guide and
(05:26):
is very healing when we can allow that
and also to stay present
so that we can feel what in our
lives is shutting us down. And we can
feel it. You can feel it in your
own body. You can feel when your body
tenses. You can feel when you're constricting,
when you start to pay attention.
And if you pause to stay present there,
you can connect with what's stored up there
(05:49):
and what needs our own care. It's interesting
because part of what you're saying is to
ask the body,
pause,
and say,
what is needed of me in this moment?
Mhmm. Yeah. And it's not just the body
you're asking. You know, you're asking yourself because
there's not a separation,
but it's connecting through your senses and then
(06:09):
your whole being responds.
I see. I see. But part of what
you're saying is in the moment, the part
of the answer might be a sense of
the constriction, the contraction,
the tightness, the struggle
of that moment.
What are we to do when we ask
the question, and what we get in return
is some sort of negative
(06:31):
experience?
If there's tightness there, then that's rich territory.
So if I'm pausing to feel, and it
could be anything, right? It could be, what
do I wanna eat in this moment? If
I pause and feel what's calling me, what
what I wanna eat, if I'm in an
argument with somebody
and I'm feeling something tightening,
if I pause to feel,
(06:53):
what does this moment ask of me?
And I feel what's happening in my body.
If I'm tightening and shutting down,
then maybe what's needed in that moment is
for me to say, you know, I have
to go to the bathroom. I'll be back.
So that I can reconnect and listen to
what's actually happening so that I can be
more clear about maybe I have to say
(07:13):
no to a request this person's making.
Maybe I have to say, you know, there's
something really bothering me that I need to
tell you about.
But if I land in my body, the
tightness in my body, if I pay attention
to it and listen to what is it
asking, and I approach it with kindness and
not judgment and not ignoring it,
(07:33):
then there's information here.
So there's information
there. It may not feel
so positive to do it, but the information
is still there nonetheless.
And it helps us feel what's needed.
So here's an example. This happened in the
this class fifty five years ago, and I
remember it so clearly
(07:53):
because I was there in this workshop. I
knew nothing about what Charlotte did. You know,
my mom had handed me this brochure. I
had nothing better to do. And I was
intrigued in spite of myself,
but I didn't know anything about it.
And in one of the classes,
we call them experiments or explorations. They're not
exercises
because you're you're just really experiencing and coming
(08:15):
in touch with your own experience.
So we had been doing something,
and then there was a time of sharing.
And what I remember is a woman talking
about her experience.
And then she said,
I feel so
caught in my throat. I just feel so
choked here, and it's like I'm having trouble
breathing in my throat. I just feel so
(08:36):
uncomfortable.
And Charlotte asked someone to go get a
pitcher of water in a glass,
And she asked the woman to pour the
water into the glass. And as it started
coming up to the top, the woman
paused. She stopped. And Charlotte said, keep pouring.
So she kept pouring, and the water started
spilling all over the floor. And she started
(08:58):
weeping and weeping and weeping.
And what Charlotte said to her was one
of the things that changed my life.
Charlotte said to her, Can you bow to
it?
Can you bow to what's here?
Because you're beginning to feel it.
And if it wasn't here, you wouldn't be
feeling it. But the fact that you can
(09:18):
feel it, now something new can begin.
That changed my life because I had would
never think of bowing to something painful or
uncomfortable.
And I was raised, you know, get away
from it, stuff it,
ignore it. And Charlotte's invitation was, can you
bow to it? And that's really what I've
learned over all these years. You know, there's
(09:40):
nowhere else to go. And when we connect
with what we're feeling,
a door can open.
And it's not about whether it feels good
or bad. It's about how we meet it
and how we stay present and we listen
to what is it asking of us. You
know, it may be that it's asking us
just to bring our hands and be present
there and hold ourselves with tenderness
(10:01):
so we can feel grief.
Military veterans I worked with, there's tremendous trauma
and things that people had never even shared
or touched
because it was so difficult.
And just even by starting to come in
touch with their own bodies and finding the
ground to be there,
new things could open and they could meet
it with a kindness,
(10:21):
not judgment and not avoidance.
What do you notice as you lead people
through
this? Is this the kind of thing where
you lead a full class or you lead
one to one?
What happens as you engage in this
experiment, as you say? I love that word.
I do. I lead classes, and I also
lead one to one. I think people begin
(10:43):
to trust and have confidence in their own
experience.
And that's what to me is one of
the things that's most moving because
there's not a right and wrong and there's
no experience that people are supposed to have.
It's helping people come in touch with what's
there to be met.
When we allow that, and that's why for
me returning to our senses,
when we return to this connection with our
(11:04):
body, everything is here. And if we just
stay present with it,
we can feel what's being asked of us,
and we can have that confidence
to be able to respond and to pause
and not just get hooked by what frightens
us or hooked by what disturbs us.
If we stay present with it, we can
(11:25):
meet it. And also, we can trust in
our own vitality and energy
because when you're coming in touch with your
own nature,
there's a natural vitality and there's a natural
energy.
I think one of the most fundamental things
is seeing people begin to trust in their
own experience,
and that guides you the rest of your
(11:46):
life.
Yeah.
It seems like
with
younger people in particular in the phone
epidemic that
moving away from our experience
is more the norm. Getting out of discomfort
seems to be
the water we swim in. Does it feel
like you're speaking of swimming, does it feel
(12:08):
like you're swimming upstream as you try and
deliver this message? Or maybe now is the
time we need to hear it more than
ever.
I'm so curious about the connection between the
work you're doing
and the world we're in today. You know,
I was just giving a class this morning
online to a group of people in Spanish,
(12:29):
And one of the things I was sharing
was a quote by the Dalai Lama that
moves me a lot and feels so important
to these times
because we're living in a time of so
much harm and chaos
and
uncertainty. You know, life is always uncertain, but
this is a very turbulent
and unsettling time.
I think it's easy to be caught in
(12:50):
despair and powerlessness
and even hopelessness.
The Dalai Lama said,
despair is never a solution.
It is the ultimate failure.
In Tibetan, we say,
if the rope breaks nine times,
we must splice it together a tenth time.
Even if we ultimately do fail,
(13:13):
at least we will have no feelings of
regret.
And when we combine this insight
with a clear appreciation
of our potential to benefit others,
we can begin to restore our hope and
confidence.
This is very encouraging to me. One of
my favorite poems is a poem called lost
by David Wagner.
(13:34):
You know, we'll all get lost. There'll be
moments of despair.
But if we
keep offering what we can offer, and we
have confidence
in our
own possibility to have impact and our own
capacity to respond,
then we're not gonna have regret. We may
not be able to change things. Maybe we're
not gonna be able to change what we
(13:54):
want. But the way we're living and what
we offer is coming from our own love
and our own vitality and our own ability
to respond.
You know, people come to the process.
One of the things they seek as a
goal is confidence.
And when I hear you describe
this process,
(14:15):
the thing that seems like the reward on
the other side is confidence
because you're unafraid
of whatever the world might offer you
because you know that you can
be with the experience of it.
I feel like that's exactly right. That is
what I feel like is fundamental
because we belong to nature. You know, we
(14:36):
are this living creature, this living organism that
is being breathed.
We are connected intimately
to natural functioning. Our heart beats, you know,
blood is circulating. We're not creating
that. We're not creating breath either.
And when we land in this connection to
nature,
and we
learn that we can show up for whatever's
(14:57):
here. It's not about having a good experience
or a bad experience. It's how we show
up.
For me, that gives great confidence.
Something else that has inspired me so much
is that my teacher's teacher, my teacher, Charlotte
Selver came from Germany. She came to The
United States in 1938
when the Nazis took over. Her teacher's name
was Elsa Gindler,
(15:17):
and she stayed in Berlin the whole time
during the war.
And she gave classes in this practice all
through the war, And she also was hiding
Jews under her studio and helping them escape
all during the war.
And somebody who had been in one of
her classes
talked about something that helped save her life
and helped her survive the war, which is
(15:39):
that Elsa Gindler asked everybody
to make a fist
and to hold the fist really tight. And
people, if they're listening, could try this right
now. Just hold a fist and hold it
really tight,
really
tight, and keep holding it.
And notice how this fist is affecting you.
Notice if there's any other part of you
(16:01):
that's tightening or constricting.
And just really stay with it. So are
you noticing anything?
Yep. My right fist is tight, and then
my left fist wants to tighten up as
well. So as I feel it, you know,
I can feel my wrist tight. I can
feel my elbow tight, my shoulders tight, my
belly's tight. And she had people stay in
this fist for a long time. We're not
(16:23):
gonna do that right now, but she had
people really stay with it and then gradually
give up the fist.
And what this woman whose name was Johanna
Kulbach, who talked about this experience,
she said that Gindler had them stay with
this
till they could feel how this fist was
affecting them all through them and affecting their
functioning.
(16:44):
And she said she realized,
you know, she couldn't stop her own fear.
She couldn't stop the fear of the bombings,
the fear of the Nazis.
Those were conditions she had to live with,
but she didn't have to meet it in
a fist.
That helped her survive the war and stay
as healthy as she could.
To feel the difference between meeting what's here
(17:04):
in a fist when we're fighting against it,
we're resisting
what's here. It's not that you don't use
your energy to resist what needs change, but
to say no to things when you need
to say no.
But if you're tightening and fighting against something,
living in a fist, that constricts you and
shuts down your own aliveness.
And when we don't do that, even if
(17:25):
you're meeting horrendous things,
there's an energy that has more freedom
and more ability to be present.
That gives sustenance.
Yeah.
I'm so curious about the rest of my
day.
Like, what's what's going to happen
that I can ask,
what is needed of me in this moment?
(17:47):
The word presence comes to mind.
This is part of what presence is. Is
that right?
It is for me. And I what I
love about what does this moment ask of
me
is it invites me to pause
and just
discover not to know. I don't have to
know the answer.
It's just to feel and connect.
(18:08):
The more we get afraid or the more
we're dis distracted, we lose connection.
And this is an invitation to connect
and to connect with breath, to connect with
the support that's holding us.
Literally, you know, we can't be on this
planet without being supported,
and gravity brings us down.
And so if we connect to
(18:30):
whatever's here, because if I pause to feel
what does this moment ask of me,
and then I notice, oh, you know, even
if it's I'm typing on the computer. We
spend so much time, you know, at our
computers or whatever, you know, machine we're using.
If I pause,
I may notice, oh, my shoulders are almost
touching my ears, and I didn't realize it
because it's just my habit.
(18:52):
But if I pause, my shoulders can come
down, and I can have more spaciousness.
Or I can feel where I'm bracing
and feel like I was just reading this
story in the news, and I constricted and
shut down.
And if I feel that, you know, maybe
I come with my hands, which I often
do,
just to hold my chest
and just bring tenderness to myself because I'm
(19:14):
in pain, because it breaks my heart. You
know, I could cry right now, things that
are happening in our world and the children
that are being killed and the terrible things
that are happening.
So I need comfort.
And when I feel that,
I can come with my hands and I
can hold myself.
It changes how I continue to meet whatever
(19:34):
is next.
Part of it feels so counterintuitive.
We're just not supported in doing that.
It seems like
the water we swim in says
go away from that.
Move away from the feeling. Yeah. But, you
know, I think that's true. I think that
what you know, we're distracted by everything. You
know, it's social media, everything fast, fast, fast.
(19:55):
You know, message this, message that. You know,
our commercials
on television that are
buy this, do this, take this medicine.
But if we drop in to connect with
ourselves,
we can know what's really helping us open
and when we're shutting down.
And shutting down
doesn't serve us very well.
Yeah. So,
(20:16):
Lee, how does Hoffman get woven into this
story? Can you bring us into
the ways in which Hoffman got integrated
into your work?
The organization
doesn't exist now, but I helped run Veterans
Path for, I think it was twelve years.
It wasn't really my work to run an
organization even though I had helped to create
(20:37):
the organization.
And I left in a few years after
that. I still did work with veterans, but
the organization disbanded, which I was very sad
about. But somebody who was on our board
was also on the board of the Hoffman
process. And she introduced me to Hoffman.
And she felt like it would be something
really useful for veterans. And Hoffman wanted to
offer scholarships to veterans.
(20:58):
But I felt like it was such a
deep and potent commitment and experience. I felt
like I had to experience it myself before
I would
recommend it to veterans.
So that's what brought me to go to
the Hoffman process.
And I found it personally very valuable. I
felt like there was a lot that I
learned about my own family dynamics and things
that I could come in touch with.
(21:19):
And then there were many veterans who I
referred to Hoffman who are still connected to
Hoffman and come to other,
you know, new sessions, and
it's been
really helpful.
The sense of wholeness and the different parts
of ourselves
is very
connected to what is most essential for me
(21:40):
because
my pathway is through the sensations and being
present in the moment, but all parts of
us are here. And so to be able
to have access to that and to know
that the choices we make matter, and they
lead to different outcomes in our lives. And
the simple moments that we have choice all
the time, which road we're gonna take.
You know, again, are we being present and
(22:02):
listening to what's needed, or are we being
driven by
defensive habits or patterns or things we've learned?
And whichever path we take is gonna affect
our lives.
So for me, it's very connected.
We interviewed Megan Lowry,
season 10 episode two,
and she talks about veterans path and Hoffman
(22:23):
and
the work and the healing she did as
a result
of the work she did with you and
at Hoffman. It's a beautiful episode.
I'm thinking about the people who've done work
with you. Do you hear from them later?
I imagine, occasionally, they'll pop up
with gratitude over the healing you helped them
through.
(22:44):
Yeah. No. I but that's part of the
joy of my life, actually. I mean, it's
really part of the joy of my life.
And Veterans Path and the work with, you
know, people who are so dedicated to service,
how their path of service has been different
than my path of service.
And even though we think that, you know,
we would be
in different worlds, but not. There's so much
connection and how moved I've been by,
(23:05):
so many veterans. And,
you know, they put their lives on the
line and their whole bodies out of a
commitment to service.
But to see people change and to see
how they connect, and, yeah, I'm in touch
with lots of people who I've worked with
over the years, and people will show up
at different times and reach out.
I've really had the honor of
(23:27):
seeing people have the courage to
touch what is so painful
and to
find their own joy and their own capacity.
When Megan first came to Veterans Paths, the
first retreat she came to, she came after
three suicide attempts.
She was filled with despair and had so
(23:47):
many things that she was carrying.
And
then she had the courage to keep dropping
in and dropping in and dropping in and,
you know, came to many retreats,
went through different iterations of how she was
gonna function in the world. She be she
was a chef and went through culinary school,
but then she decided she was gonna be
a social worker. So after all good number
(24:08):
of years, she was graduating from social work
school, and a bunch of us went to
her graduation, you know, other veterans that had
been part of Veterans Path with her. And
it was such an amazing
thing to see Meg towering over most of
the people there on this huge stadium.
Meg was there in so much of her
power and dignity.
Being true to her own
(24:29):
gifts,
which I feel like that's the invitation for
all of us,
is how to drop in to feel what
needs healing, what needs our care, and honor
our own gifts.
Let me ask you a question.
If sensory awareness is the thing that helped
you
individuate
at 19 years old,
how does
(24:50):
this work
of coming home to your body, coming home
to what's present in the moment,
how is it
supporting you in your own life
at this stage?
So
I don't know how many years I'm gonna
be alive. I'm 74.
And what's alive for me now is how
do I best use my time and my
(25:11):
energy and my life experience, and how do
I contribute? What is it that I can
offer while I'm still here?
Again, it's what does this moment ask of
me? What do these times ask of me?
And that really lives in me
to guide me to what work I offer,
where can I be useful? I'm working on
a book to try and share what I
(25:34):
feel can be invitations to support people.
Again, it's trust.
You know, and also as, you know, as
we get older, our bodies change, and it's
having to adapt to
the changes in my body and what I
can do and what I can't do and
how to meet it with freedom.
One of my
closest friends who's also a sensory awareness teacher
(25:55):
was skydiving champion of Mexico.
And her parachute collapsed
and she went crashing to the ground from
90 feet.
And so has been quadriplegic for about forty
years.
And she finds so much freedom
and aliveness, but she has to meet all
of the constrictions and limitations
(26:16):
that her body
of what she can and can't do.
But how we find freedom to show up
for what we can do
and be present and appreciate these moments that
we have.
For me, it's ongoing. And I hope that,
you know, my teacher died when she was
102 years old, she was still savoring the
moments.
(26:36):
It seems like
how one experiences
the world
might fundamentally change as a result of this
orientation,
these practices holding these questions.
Do you find that
people experience life
and themselves
differently
in doing this work?
(26:57):
Yeah. When we can be present
and when we can really listen and connect
to our own hearts calling in a way
to what brings us alive.
That changes how we live in the world.
And when we're not trying
to force something, when we're not jumping ahead
of ourselves, when we're not shutting down out
(27:17):
of our own anxiety
or fear, but we're present in the moment.
That gives us room
to show up and it gives us room
to live with a different sense of relationship
to what's happening, even when what's happening is
really disturbing.
I was listening to a talk by the
Dalai Lama and Greta Thunberg, and they were
showing also videos about passing all these tipping
(27:39):
points and
talking about what's happening with the climate crisis.
There were very important things, and there were
different scientists that were part of it. And
there were very important things that people were
saying.
But what I came away with that struck
me that still is influencing me is the
Dalai Lama saying,
I sleep nine hours every night and I
(28:00):
sleep very peacefully.
It really struck me because, you know, you're
talking about all of these urgent things and
things that need our attention.
And just the way he said that, and
I realized, you know, I didn't have that
sense of equanimity and peace that I can
just
sleep very peacefully nine hours a night and
not be consumed
by all the angst that's around us and
(28:22):
the suffering and the urgency.
And it's not that he's not responding because,
of course, he is.
But so I'm a you know, I feel
like we're all a work in progress, and
I'm a work in progress.
But when I come back to
being here in this moment and attending to
what's here, it gives me more freedom
and helps me be more responsive, and it
helps me be more open to to joy
(28:43):
and to love
without denying anything.
Beautiful.
Lee, what's it like to to reflect on
your work out loud and your
connection to Hoffman
and sort of all of this over the
last thirty minutes or so? What do you
notice in the sharing of it? I guess,
(29:05):
in a way,
what does this moment
need from you as a result of talking
about it? What's alive inside you in the
sharing of it?
Surprisingly, there's a lot of joy.
I feel a lot of joy, and I
feel a lot of love
because that's such a deep motivation. And it
actually brings me to tears
(29:27):
because because of what I've been gifted to
work with so many people
and as a basis of of love and
love of life. And
in the midst of all of the suffering
and pain,
that we can return
to what is most essential.
So just reflecting on what I've been given
from my mother
(29:47):
that opened up this pathway,
And, you know, all the work I had
to do in relation to my mom, but
all the gratitude
that she did completely change my life by
opening this door to me, and that
how much I learned from Charlotte. And just
thinking about the legacy of each one of
us being true to ourselves and what we
can pass on.
(30:08):
Elsa Gindler, what she faced in her life
and how she led her work and how
that was passed to Charlotte.
Just thinking about how I've been able to
touch other people's lives and then they're touching
other people's lives.
So reflecting on it, it does bring me
joy, and I'm and I'm moved. And I'm
moved also by the commitment of the Hoffman
(30:28):
process,
not to wake us up, which is to
me the work that I'm dedicated to. It's
just different we have different avenues of how
we all wake up.
Well,
I'm grateful
for this conversation and for the work you've
done in the world and
for, in a way, our shared work as
Hoffman and the work you do and the
(30:50):
importance of waking up.
Yeah. And I think just but something that
occurs to me
because it's also so present for me is
the work with wildland firefighters
who are on the edge of what we're
doing to this planet and what's happening and
how much
they're working to protect nature and also
feeling how to take care of them, and
(31:12):
how much we all need to depend on
each other.
Keep showing up.
Thank you, Lee.
Thank you. It's a pleasure to speak with
you.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and
(31:34):
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 hompaninstitute.org.
We can trust in our own vitality and
energy because when you're coming in touch with
your own nature,
there's a natural vitality and there's a natural
energy. I I think one of the most
fundamental things is seeing people begin to trust
in their own experience,
and that guides you the rest of your
life.
Welcome everybody. My name is Drew Horning, and
(00:24):
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.
This podcast contains discussion of sensitive topics, including
(00:47):
suicide.
If you or someone you know is suicidal,
please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline
at +1 80273
1 8
2 7 3 8 2 5 5, or
message the crisis text line at 741741.
(01:16):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast,
Lee Lesser. Welcome. It's great to have you.
Thank you so much. I'm really looking forward
to this conversation and the work you do
in the world and who you are in
the world. Can you share a little bit
about the work you do? Yeah. Sure.
Since I was 19 years old,
(01:37):
I was introduced to a practice called sensory
awareness.
It's a very simple practice. It's a mindfulness
practice in which
you connect with your own sensory experience.
You connect with breathing, with whatever sensations you're
feeling in your own body
as a way of being present and as
a way of feeling,
(01:58):
how to respond to whatever is happening.
I was introduced to my teacher, whose name
was Charlotte Selver, because my mother
came to me when I was 19,
and I was trying very hard to, figure
out who I was and how to separate
from my family and
disentangle
the patterns, which is quite familiar, I think,
(02:20):
in the Hoffman process. But I was really
immersed in it, and I came home for
college vacation,
mostly hiding in my room.
And my mother came into my room and
she,
handed me a brochure.
And she said, you should meet this woman.
She can change your life.
And then my mother turned and walked out
(02:40):
the door.
And if she hadn't done that, we wouldn't
be having this conversation now because
not only if she hadn't shared that brochure
with me, but if she had tried to
convince me or say anything more about it,
I would never have gone. I would have
resisted.
But she didn't, and I was really curious
in spite of myself.
And it turns out this woman, who I
(03:01):
knew nothing about, was gonna be doing some
two workshops in Mexico.
During the month, I had to do an
off campus project at college.
So it was somehow
kismet in some way.
And Charlotte really did change my life.
I had no idea I was disconnected from
my body. I had no idea
(03:21):
how much was stored here in our own,
in my own body and in all of
our bodies, and that our whole life is
right here, our whole history is here, and
our whole capacity is here.
And I had these very simple experiences,
we're talking fifty five years ago,
that have
continued to guide my life
and that I've been able to share with
(03:42):
other people. And I
spent many years working with military veterans,
many of whom have participated in the Hoffman
process.
I am doing work right now with wildland
firefighters,
and I also teach workshops to people, in
many different places,
helping
us return to our senses,
which to me
(04:03):
is really urgent and urgent at this time.
So that's a teeny taste.
Well, we'll put some links in the show
notes for the organizations you speak about, the
work you do, if people wanna check it
out. But sounds like you took that brochure
from your mom.
You took that workshop
from
(04:23):
Charlotte.
Charlotte Silver.
And then you took all of that learning
that you were
integrating in college, and you made it your
life's work.
It's true. It has been my life work,
and
it's what really sustains me. And it really
is coming to enough quiet and connection so
(04:44):
that we can respond to what's needed. There's
a very simple question
that guides me all the time, which is,
what does this moment ask of me?
And it's not an intellectual question.
It's really dropping in and pausing
so that I can feel what's actually needed.
You know, and in the Huffman process, when
you're looking at different paths that we can
(05:06):
take and you come to crossroads,
we can get caught in following habit and
patterns and
not being conscious.
Or we can come back into our own
connection in the present moment
and really feel what is needed
and allow the natural response to happen.
That to me is a tremendous guide and
(05:26):
is very healing when we can allow that
and also to stay present
so that we can feel what in our
lives is shutting us down. And we can
feel it. You can feel it in your
own body. You can feel when your body
tenses. You can feel when you're constricting,
when you start to pay attention.
And if you pause to stay present there,
you can connect with what's stored up there
(05:49):
and what needs our own care. It's interesting
because part of what you're saying is to
ask the body,
pause,
and say,
what is needed of me in this moment?
Mhmm. Yeah. And it's not just the body
you're asking. You know, you're asking yourself because
there's not a separation,
but it's connecting through your senses and then
(06:09):
your whole being responds.
I see. I see. But part of what
you're saying is in the moment, the part
of the answer might be a sense of
the constriction, the contraction,
the tightness, the struggle
of that moment.
What are we to do when we ask
the question, and what we get in return
is some sort of negative
(06:31):
experience?
If there's tightness there, then that's rich territory.
So if I'm pausing to feel, and it
could be anything, right? It could be, what
do I wanna eat in this moment? If
I pause and feel what's calling me, what
what I wanna eat, if I'm in an
argument with somebody
and I'm feeling something tightening,
if I pause to feel,
(06:53):
what does this moment ask of me?
And I feel what's happening in my body.
If I'm tightening and shutting down,
then maybe what's needed in that moment is
for me to say, you know, I have
to go to the bathroom. I'll be back.
So that I can reconnect and listen to
what's actually happening so that I can be
more clear about maybe I have to say
(07:13):
no to a request this person's making.
Maybe I have to say, you know, there's
something really bothering me that I need to
tell you about.
But if I land in my body, the
tightness in my body, if I pay attention
to it and listen to what is it
asking, and I approach it with kindness and
not judgment and not ignoring it,
(07:33):
then there's information here.
So there's information
there. It may not feel
so positive to do it, but the information
is still there nonetheless.
And it helps us feel what's needed.
So here's an example. This happened in the
this class fifty five years ago, and I
remember it so clearly
(07:53):
because I was there in this workshop. I
knew nothing about what Charlotte did. You know,
my mom had handed me this brochure. I
had nothing better to do. And I was
intrigued in spite of myself,
but I didn't know anything about it.
And in one of the classes,
we call them experiments or explorations. They're not
exercises
because you're you're just really experiencing and coming
(08:15):
in touch with your own experience.
So we had been doing something,
and then there was a time of sharing.
And what I remember is a woman talking
about her experience.
And then she said,
I feel so
caught in my throat. I just feel so
choked here, and it's like I'm having trouble
breathing in my throat. I just feel so
(08:36):
uncomfortable.
And Charlotte asked someone to go get a
pitcher of water in a glass,
And she asked the woman to pour the
water into the glass. And as it started
coming up to the top, the woman
paused. She stopped. And Charlotte said, keep pouring.
So she kept pouring, and the water started
spilling all over the floor. And she started
(08:58):
weeping and weeping and weeping.
And what Charlotte said to her was one
of the things that changed my life.
Charlotte said to her, Can you bow to
it?
Can you bow to what's here?
Because you're beginning to feel it.
And if it wasn't here, you wouldn't be
feeling it. But the fact that you can
(09:18):
feel it, now something new can begin.
That changed my life because I had would
never think of bowing to something painful or
uncomfortable.
And I was raised, you know, get away
from it, stuff it,
ignore it. And Charlotte's invitation was, can you
bow to it? And that's really what I've
learned over all these years. You know, there's
(09:40):
nowhere else to go. And when we connect
with what we're feeling,
a door can open.
And it's not about whether it feels good
or bad. It's about how we meet it
and how we stay present and we listen
to what is it asking of us. You
know, it may be that it's asking us
just to bring our hands and be present
there and hold ourselves with tenderness
(10:01):
so we can feel grief.
Military veterans I worked with, there's tremendous trauma
and things that people had never even shared
or touched
because it was so difficult.
And just even by starting to come in
touch with their own bodies and finding the
ground to be there,
new things could open and they could meet
it with a kindness,
(10:21):
not judgment and not avoidance.
What do you notice as you lead people
through
this? Is this the kind of thing where
you lead a full class or you lead
one to one?
What happens as you engage in this
experiment, as you say? I love that word.
I do. I lead classes, and I also
lead one to one. I think people begin
(10:43):
to trust and have confidence in their own
experience.
And that's what to me is one of
the things that's most moving because
there's not a right and wrong and there's
no experience that people are supposed to have.
It's helping people come in touch with what's
there to be met.
When we allow that, and that's why for
me returning to our senses,
when we return to this connection with our
(11:04):
body, everything is here. And if we just
stay present with it,
we can feel what's being asked of us,
and we can have that confidence
to be able to respond and to pause
and not just get hooked by what frightens
us or hooked by what disturbs us.
If we stay present with it, we can
(11:25):
meet it. And also, we can trust in
our own vitality and energy
because when you're coming in touch with your
own nature,
there's a natural vitality and there's a natural
energy.
I think one of the most fundamental things
is seeing people begin to trust in their
own experience,
and that guides you the rest of your
(11:46):
life.
Yeah.
It seems like
with
younger people in particular in the phone
epidemic that
moving away from our experience
is more the norm. Getting out of discomfort
seems to be
the water we swim in. Does it feel
like you're speaking of swimming, does it feel
(12:08):
like you're swimming upstream as you try and
deliver this message? Or maybe now is the
time we need to hear it more than
ever.
I'm so curious about the connection between the
work you're doing
and the world we're in today. You know,
I was just giving a class this morning
online to a group of people in Spanish,
(12:29):
And one of the things I was sharing
was a quote by the Dalai Lama that
moves me a lot and feels so important
to these times
because we're living in a time of so
much harm and chaos
and
uncertainty. You know, life is always uncertain, but
this is a very turbulent
and unsettling time.
I think it's easy to be caught in
(12:50):
despair and powerlessness
and even hopelessness.
The Dalai Lama said,
despair is never a solution.
It is the ultimate failure.
In Tibetan, we say,
if the rope breaks nine times,
we must splice it together a tenth time.
Even if we ultimately do fail,
(13:13):
at least we will have no feelings of
regret.
And when we combine this insight
with a clear appreciation
of our potential to benefit others,
we can begin to restore our hope and
confidence.
This is very encouraging to me. One of
my favorite poems is a poem called lost
by David Wagner.
(13:34):
You know, we'll all get lost. There'll be
moments of despair.
But if we
keep offering what we can offer, and we
have confidence
in our
own possibility to have impact and our own
capacity to respond,
then we're not gonna have regret. We may
not be able to change things. Maybe we're
not gonna be able to change what we
(13:54):
want. But the way we're living and what
we offer is coming from our own love
and our own vitality and our own ability
to respond.
You know, people come to the process.
One of the things they seek as a
goal is confidence.
And when I hear you describe
this process,
(14:15):
the thing that seems like the reward on
the other side is confidence
because you're unafraid
of whatever the world might offer you
because you know that you can
be with the experience of it.
I feel like that's exactly right. That is
what I feel like is fundamental
because we belong to nature. You know, we
(14:36):
are this living creature, this living organism that
is being breathed.
We are connected intimately
to natural functioning. Our heart beats, you know,
blood is circulating. We're not creating
that. We're not creating breath either.
And when we land in this connection to
nature,
and we
learn that we can show up for whatever's
(14:57):
here. It's not about having a good experience
or a bad experience. It's how we show
up.
For me, that gives great confidence.
Something else that has inspired me so much
is that my teacher's teacher, my teacher, Charlotte
Selver came from Germany. She came to The
United States in 1938
when the Nazis took over. Her teacher's name
was Elsa Gindler,
(15:17):
and she stayed in Berlin the whole time
during the war.
And she gave classes in this practice all
through the war, And she also was hiding
Jews under her studio and helping them escape
all during the war.
And somebody who had been in one of
her classes
talked about something that helped save her life
and helped her survive the war, which is
(15:39):
that Elsa Gindler asked everybody
to make a fist
and to hold the fist really tight. And
people, if they're listening, could try this right
now. Just hold a fist and hold it
really tight,
really
tight, and keep holding it.
And notice how this fist is affecting you.
Notice if there's any other part of you
(16:01):
that's tightening or constricting.
And just really stay with it. So are
you noticing anything?
Yep. My right fist is tight, and then
my left fist wants to tighten up as
well. So as I feel it, you know,
I can feel my wrist tight. I can
feel my elbow tight, my shoulders tight, my
belly's tight. And she had people stay in
this fist for a long time. We're not
(16:23):
gonna do that right now, but she had
people really stay with it and then gradually
give up the fist.
And what this woman whose name was Johanna
Kulbach, who talked about this experience,
she said that Gindler had them stay with
this
till they could feel how this fist was
affecting them all through them and affecting their
functioning.
(16:44):
And she said she realized,
you know, she couldn't stop her own fear.
She couldn't stop the fear of the bombings,
the fear of the Nazis.
Those were conditions she had to live with,
but she didn't have to meet it in
a fist.
That helped her survive the war and stay
as healthy as she could.
To feel the difference between meeting what's here
(17:04):
in a fist when we're fighting against it,
we're resisting
what's here. It's not that you don't use
your energy to resist what needs change, but
to say no to things when you need
to say no.
But if you're tightening and fighting against something,
living in a fist, that constricts you and
shuts down your own aliveness.
And when we don't do that, even if
(17:25):
you're meeting horrendous things,
there's an energy that has more freedom
and more ability to be present.
That gives sustenance.
Yeah.
I'm so curious about the rest of my
day.
Like, what's what's going to happen
that I can ask,
what is needed of me in this moment?
(17:47):
The word presence comes to mind.
This is part of what presence is. Is
that right?
It is for me. And I what I
love about what does this moment ask of
me
is it invites me to pause
and just
discover not to know. I don't have to
know the answer.
It's just to feel and connect.
(18:08):
The more we get afraid or the more
we're dis distracted, we lose connection.
And this is an invitation to connect
and to connect with breath, to connect with
the support that's holding us.
Literally, you know, we can't be on this
planet without being supported,
and gravity brings us down.
And so if we connect to
(18:30):
whatever's here, because if I pause to feel
what does this moment ask of me,
and then I notice, oh, you know, even
if it's I'm typing on the computer. We
spend so much time, you know, at our
computers or whatever, you know, machine we're using.
If I pause,
I may notice, oh, my shoulders are almost
touching my ears, and I didn't realize it
because it's just my habit.
(18:52):
But if I pause, my shoulders can come
down, and I can have more spaciousness.
Or I can feel where I'm bracing
and feel like I was just reading this
story in the news, and I constricted and
shut down.
And if I feel that, you know, maybe
I come with my hands, which I often
do,
just to hold my chest
and just bring tenderness to myself because I'm
(19:14):
in pain, because it breaks my heart. You
know, I could cry right now, things that
are happening in our world and the children
that are being killed and the terrible things
that are happening.
So I need comfort.
And when I feel that,
I can come with my hands and I
can hold myself.
It changes how I continue to meet whatever
(19:34):
is next.
Part of it feels so counterintuitive.
We're just not supported in doing that.
It seems like
the water we swim in says
go away from that.
Move away from the feeling. Yeah. But, you
know, I think that's true. I think that
what you know, we're distracted by everything. You
know, it's social media, everything fast, fast, fast.
(19:55):
You know, message this, message that. You know,
our commercials
on television that are
buy this, do this, take this medicine.
But if we drop in to connect with
ourselves,
we can know what's really helping us open
and when we're shutting down.
And shutting down
doesn't serve us very well.
Yeah. So,
(20:16):
Lee, how does Hoffman get woven into this
story? Can you bring us into
the ways in which Hoffman got integrated
into your work?
The organization
doesn't exist now, but I helped run Veterans
Path for, I think it was twelve years.
It wasn't really my work to run an
organization even though I had helped to create
(20:37):
the organization.
And I left in a few years after
that. I still did work with veterans, but
the organization disbanded, which I was very sad
about. But somebody who was on our board
was also on the board of the Hoffman
process. And she introduced me to Hoffman.
And she felt like it would be something
really useful for veterans. And Hoffman wanted to
offer scholarships to veterans.
(20:58):
But I felt like it was such a
deep and potent commitment and experience. I felt
like I had to experience it myself before
I would
recommend it to veterans.
So that's what brought me to go to
the Hoffman process.
And I found it personally very valuable. I
felt like there was a lot that I
learned about my own family dynamics and things
that I could come in touch with.
(21:19):
And then there were many veterans who I
referred to Hoffman who are still connected to
Hoffman and come to other,
you know, new sessions, and
it's been
really helpful.
The sense of wholeness and the different parts
of ourselves
is very
connected to what is most essential for me
(21:40):
because
my pathway is through the sensations and being
present in the moment, but all parts of
us are here. And so to be able
to have access to that and to know
that the choices we make matter, and they
lead to different outcomes in our lives. And
the simple moments that we have choice all
the time, which road we're gonna take.
You know, again, are we being present and
(22:02):
listening to what's needed, or are we being
driven by
defensive habits or patterns or things we've learned?
And whichever path we take is gonna affect
our lives.
So for me, it's very connected.
We interviewed Megan Lowry,
season 10 episode two,
and she talks about veterans path and Hoffman
(22:23):
and
the work and the healing she did as
a result
of the work she did with you and
at Hoffman. It's a beautiful episode.
I'm thinking about the people who've done work
with you. Do you hear from them later?
I imagine, occasionally, they'll pop up
with gratitude over the healing you helped them
through.
(22:44):
Yeah. No. I but that's part of the
joy of my life, actually. I mean, it's
really part of the joy of my life.
And Veterans Path and the work with, you
know, people who are so dedicated to service,
how their path of service has been different
than my path of service.
And even though we think that, you know,
we would be
in different worlds, but not. There's so much
connection and how moved I've been by,
(23:05):
so many veterans. And,
you know, they put their lives on the
line and their whole bodies out of a
commitment to service.
But to see people change and to see
how they connect, and, yeah, I'm in touch
with lots of people who I've worked with
over the years, and people will show up
at different times and reach out.
I've really had the honor of
(23:27):
seeing people have the courage to
touch what is so painful
and to
find their own joy and their own capacity.
When Megan first came to Veterans Paths, the
first retreat she came to, she came after
three suicide attempts.
She was filled with despair and had so
(23:47):
many things that she was carrying.
And
then she had the courage to keep dropping
in and dropping in and dropping in and,
you know, came to many retreats,
went through different iterations of how she was
gonna function in the world. She be she
was a chef and went through culinary school,
but then she decided she was gonna be
a social worker. So after all good number
(24:08):
of years, she was graduating from social work
school, and a bunch of us went to
her graduation, you know, other veterans that had
been part of Veterans Path with her. And
it was such an amazing
thing to see Meg towering over most of
the people there on this huge stadium.
Meg was there in so much of her
power and dignity.
Being true to her own
(24:29):
gifts,
which I feel like that's the invitation for
all of us,
is how to drop in to feel what
needs healing, what needs our care, and honor
our own gifts.
Let me ask you a question.
If sensory awareness is the thing that helped
you
individuate
at 19 years old,
how does
(24:50):
this work
of coming home to your body, coming home
to what's present in the moment,
how is it
supporting you in your own life
at this stage?
So
I don't know how many years I'm gonna
be alive. I'm 74.
And what's alive for me now is how
do I best use my time and my
(25:11):
energy and my life experience, and how do
I contribute? What is it that I can
offer while I'm still here?
Again, it's what does this moment ask of
me? What do these times ask of me?
And that really lives in me
to guide me to what work I offer,
where can I be useful? I'm working on
a book to try and share what I
(25:34):
feel can be invitations to support people.
Again, it's trust.
You know, and also as, you know, as
we get older, our bodies change, and it's
having to adapt to
the changes in my body and what I
can do and what I can't do and
how to meet it with freedom.
One of my
closest friends who's also a sensory awareness teacher
(25:55):
was skydiving champion of Mexico.
And her parachute collapsed
and she went crashing to the ground from
90 feet.
And so has been quadriplegic for about forty
years.
And she finds so much freedom
and aliveness, but she has to meet all
of the constrictions and limitations
(26:16):
that her body
of what she can and can't do.
But how we find freedom to show up
for what we can do
and be present and appreciate these moments that
we have.
For me, it's ongoing. And I hope that,
you know, my teacher died when she was
102 years old, she was still savoring the
moments.
(26:36):
It seems like
how one experiences
the world
might fundamentally change as a result of this
orientation,
these practices holding these questions.
Do you find that
people experience life
and themselves
differently
in doing this work?
(26:57):
Yeah. When we can be present
and when we can really listen and connect
to our own hearts calling in a way
to what brings us alive.
That changes how we live in the world.
And when we're not trying
to force something, when we're not jumping ahead
of ourselves, when we're not shutting down out
(27:17):
of our own anxiety
or fear, but we're present in the moment.
That gives us room
to show up and it gives us room
to live with a different sense of relationship
to what's happening, even when what's happening is
really disturbing.
I was listening to a talk by the
Dalai Lama and Greta Thunberg, and they were
showing also videos about passing all these tipping
(27:39):
points and
talking about what's happening with the climate crisis.
There were very important things, and there were
different scientists that were part of it. And
there were very important things that people were
saying.
But what I came away with that struck
me that still is influencing me is the
Dalai Lama saying,
I sleep nine hours every night and I
(28:00):
sleep very peacefully.
It really struck me because, you know, you're
talking about all of these urgent things and
things that need our attention.
And just the way he said that, and
I realized, you know, I didn't have that
sense of equanimity and peace that I can
just
sleep very peacefully nine hours a night and
not be consumed
by all the angst that's around us and
(28:22):
the suffering and the urgency.
And it's not that he's not responding because,
of course, he is.
But so I'm a you know, I feel
like we're all a work in progress, and
I'm a work in progress.
But when I come back to
being here in this moment and attending to
what's here, it gives me more freedom
and helps me be more responsive, and it
helps me be more open to to joy
(28:43):
and to love
without denying anything.
Beautiful.
Lee, what's it like to to reflect on
your work out loud and your
connection to Hoffman
and sort of all of this over the
last thirty minutes or so? What do you
notice in the sharing of it? I guess,
(29:05):
in a way,
what does this moment
need from you as a result of talking
about it? What's alive inside you in the
sharing of it?
Surprisingly, there's a lot of joy.
I feel a lot of joy, and I
feel a lot of love
because that's such a deep motivation. And it
actually brings me to tears
(29:27):
because because of what I've been gifted to
work with so many people
and as a basis of of love and
love of life. And
in the midst of all of the suffering
and pain,
that we can return
to what is most essential.
So just reflecting on what I've been given
from my mother
(29:47):
that opened up this pathway,
And, you know, all the work I had
to do in relation to my mom, but
all the gratitude
that she did completely change my life by
opening this door to me, and that
how much I learned from Charlotte. And just
thinking about the legacy of each one of
us being true to ourselves and what we
can pass on.
(30:08):
Elsa Gindler, what she faced in her life
and how she led her work and how
that was passed to Charlotte.
Just thinking about how I've been able to
touch other people's lives and then they're touching
other people's lives.
So reflecting on it, it does bring me
joy, and I'm and I'm moved. And I'm
moved also by the commitment of the Hoffman
(30:28):
process,
not to wake us up, which is to
me the work that I'm dedicated to. It's
just different we have different avenues of how
we all wake up.
Well,
I'm grateful
for this conversation and for the work you've
done in the world and
for, in a way, our shared work as
Hoffman and the work you do and the
(30:50):
importance of waking up.
Yeah. And I think just but something that
occurs to me
because it's also so present for me is
the work with wildland firefighters
who are on the edge of what we're
doing to this planet and what's happening and
how much
they're working to protect nature and also
feeling how to take care of them, and
(31:12):
how much we all need to depend on
each other.
Keep showing up.
Thank you, Lee.
Thank you. It's a pleasure to speak with
you.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and
(31:34):
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 hompaninstitute.org.
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