October 30, 2025 • 42 mins
"I can only describe the Process in poetry, because it's that spiritual for me." Jessica Harjo
In July 2022, Jessica Harjo came to the Hoffman Process to learn how to parent after realizing the coping mechanisms she'd developed to help her manage the weight of motherhood and career no longer worked for her. And of course, she came for so much more than she could imagine.
As a Native woman with a complex multicultural ancestry - Indigenous, San Carlos Apache, Indigenous, Chicana, Mexican, Filipina, Japanese, and European - Jessica found the Process to be deeply spiritual. She shares that she likens her Process experience to a sweat lodge.
"Finding that moment where you're in it and you're closing your eyes, and you hear the songs, you can hear the prayers, and then you start to connect. You start to remember; you start to heal. And then when the flaps of that sweat lodge open, you crawl out on your knees, and when you come out into the life, you feel like you're born again into the world. That was the experience of my Process. It reconnected me to my spirit in that way. It lit my inner fire."
Before the Process, Jessica realized that stress had caused her to forget her past and past self. Coming out of the Process, feeling born again, she realized she now had "new eyes." Going home, Jessica saw each member of her family as a spiritual being. She saw the light in nature. She'd found herself. A little over two years later, Jessica attended the inaugural BIPOC Q2, a weekend retreat. She worked to heal ancestral wounds. Over this powerful Q2 weekend, Jessica says she came home.
We hope you enjoy this powerful conversation with Jessica and Sadie.
More about Jessica Harjo:
Jessica, daughter Rulan, and husband Tim.
Jessica Harjo is a soul embodied human being and lifelong learner. She’s a proud homemaker and mother of three daughters, three stepchildren, and four grandchildren. For the past eighteen years, Jessica has worked in the nonprofit sector as the Director of Operations for the Tribal Law and Policy Institute. Her multicultural ancestry (Indigenous/San Carlos Apache, Indigenous/Chicana/Mexican, Filipina, Japanese, and European) has been a source of strength in her life and is reflected in her work to recognize and uplift multicultural and Indigenous knowledge.
As a nonprofit leader, Jessica specializes in policy development, administrative infrastructure and team development, project management, HR implementation, business, and financial operations management. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Film, Media, and Social Justice and a minor in Business Administration. Jessica also holds an MBA from Mount Saint Mary's University. Mount Saint Mary's is the only women's university in Los Angeles, and is known for their annual report on the Status of Women and Girls in California.
Jessica has volunteered on numerous nonprofit boards that serve Indigenous communities. She’s an active volunteer for the Hoffman Inner Work for Indigenous Leaders Advisory Circle and the Indigenous outreach team. She provides support for other Indigenous Process fellows and graduates.
A student of Yoga philosophy, Nichiren Buddhism, and Indigenous Mindfulness, Jessica is currently working on her RYT500 Yoga Teacher Training. She regularly uses her Hoffman tools to continue healing, visualizing, and growing. This has been the journey of her lifetime. The Process brought her to herself, and the BIPOC Q2 brought her home.
Jessica and her husband, Tim Harjo, live in Oklahoma, where they balance their careers, family life, and running Sovereign Ranch, a first-generation, Native owned bison ranch.
Follow Jessica on Instagram.
Listen on Apple Podcasts
As mentioned in this episode:
Tim Harjo, Jessica's husband. Listen to Tim on the Hoffman Podcast: Amplifying Native Voices
Asanas and The Eight Limbs of Yoga
The Conscious Parent, by Dr. Shefali Tsabary
Be-Do-Have vs. Do-Have-Be:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Finding that moment where you're in it and
you're closing your eyes
and you can hear the songs, you can
hear the prayers,
and then you start to connect. You start
to remember. You start to heal.
And then when the flaps of that sweat
lodge open,
you crawl out on your knees.
And when you come out into the light,
(00:22):
you feel like you're born again into the
world.
That was
the experience of my process.
Hello, and welcome to Love's Everyday Radius, a
podcast brought to you by the Hoffman Institute.
My name is Sadie Hanna, and in this
podcast, you'll hear real conversations and stories
with graduates about their courageous journey inward and
(00:44):
how their love and light are living in
the world around them. Love's everyday radius.
Thank you for being here and welcome.
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Hoffman podcast.
I'm Sadie and I am a Hoffman teacher
and your host. And I am here with
(01:05):
Jessica Harjo. Hello, Jessica. Welcome.
Hi, Sadie.
So honored to be here. Thank you for
being here. So let me tell you all
a little bit about Jessica.
And the thing I love most
about what you sent over, like, the first
line is you're a soul
and a human
(01:26):
and a learner
and a mother.
You've also done some amazing things in terms
of your professional life, director of operations for
the Tribal Law and Policy
Institute
for many years,
volunteering on multiple boards,
working with indigenous populations.
(01:46):
You have
an educational background that includes
film and media, social justice,
Master's in Business
from Mount Saint Mary's,
the only women's university
in LA.
You also are directly involved with the Hoffman
(02:06):
Inner Work for Indigenous Leaders Advisory
Circle.
There's so many
places that we could begin.
Maybe we begin with what is the inner
work for indigenous leaders advisory circle. Let's start
with that because I think lots of people
might have no idea what that is.
Yes. So, thankfully,
(02:28):
my husband had done the process back in
2006.
And him and Raz,
they came together,
and
they dreamt up an indigenous
killing initiative at Hoffman
called the inner work for indigenous leaders.
The aim is to really acknowledge
(02:49):
the past harm
inflicted on indigenous peoples and
the deep ancestral wounds
that need to be healed for all people.
And so
through this fellowship program,
I have the privilege
of doing the process
in July
2022.
(03:11):
And since then, we're almost at 20 indigenous
fellows,
and it has just sparked a light in
indigenous communities all across the country.
So I'm just so honored
to be part
of this program at Hoffman and,
so much gratitude
(03:31):
for for RAS and the Hoffman Institute and
everybody involved
for taking a risk and really
acknowledging the importance
of this healing work.
Really, this idea of
ancestral
hurt
that is passed along
as part of the human condition, but particularly
in this case,
(03:51):
acknowledging
that there's real healing that needs to happen.
And it sounds like through this program,
there's a pathway
for indigenous leaders who they themselves have quite
a ripple.
Let's speak a bit more about you because
I'd really love to get to know you
and your personal journey.
(04:14):
This is so much fun. I'm I'm so
excited. Like my feelings right now, I'm just
like bubbling
and I'm just I'm so thankful to you
and Drew for this opportunity to actually have
a voice and to share my story and
my experience.
I think up until my thirties,
I was feeling golden.
(04:34):
I grew up in a loving family.
I had the privilege of being raised by
both of my parents.
I grew up in the Bay Area, so
there was diversity all around me.
I got to travel all across The US
and the world as a dancer and performer.
I was living in LA and met the
love of my life, my husband, Tim, and
(04:56):
hey, life was good. I was coasting along
in what I call my ignorant bliss.
And then
motherhood hit,
being a wife hit,
the weight of that full time career and
the responsibilities,
the pressure. I mean, I was in LA,
(05:16):
I was commuting two hours one way, two
hours back,
and I couldn't just worry about myself.
I had children counting on me.
So, you know, I dug in deep.
My my intellect
took over and
I went into full blown caregiving mode and
(05:38):
put myself on autopilot.
And
this is what I felt like for over
a decade.
And yes, while I'm very proud of myself
for the different things that I was able
to achieve in these different labels I was
able to earn,
I got to the point in my life
(05:58):
where I couldn't remember
things that happened in my life.
And my husband actually pointed this out to
me one day and was like,
you know, I've told you so many stories
about my life,
but you've shared very little
about your past.
(06:18):
And I sort of looked at him blankly
and realized that I
had almost completely
shut off my past self.
And even my ambitions
and the visions for myself
have been to that point and
I'd
really come to the point in my
(06:39):
early 40s where I didn't recognize myself in
the mirror.
I had stopped dancing.
I was ashamed
for letting myself go.
And
then comes my third child,
and she's a fireside and incredibly intense,
and she's so cute. So it makes it
(07:01):
real hard sometimes. But,
you know, her
emotional dysregulation
would just like explode my nervous system and
bring out this temper in me and
patterns that I was not proud of.
And as I mentioned earlier, my husband thankfully
had done the process back in 2006.
(07:21):
And
up until that point, he was like, you're
the one person
that I've ever met that I don't think
you actually need the Hoffman process. Like you
have a loving family, like
you don't need this.
No, something
cracked in me and I was so desperate
for change.
And
this is when the inner work for indigenous
(07:44):
leaders program had just launched and I was
like, Oh my God, please sign me up.
I really need help. I need help getting
unstuck. I need help to learn
how to be a parent.
That's sort of the quick
storyline for what brought me to the Hoffman
process.
(08:05):
So you learned about it originally through him,
but it sounds like the process of
feeling the weight of motherhood and your career,
and maybe even a bit of loss of
who you are
really brought you there.
And what you just described really sounds kind
of like a slow moving
into certain roles, expectations, responsibilities,
(08:28):
and one day waking up and realizing I
don't remember.
I don't remember.
What was that like for you? That moment
of realizing
how far away you had had gone?
I would sit there
almost in a state of amnesia.
I would try so hard to think back,
like, what was it like to be on
(08:49):
tour with a Broadway show? Like, I couldn't
even remember all those years.
It was locked away somewhere.
Thanks for reminding me about this Sadie, because
I purposefully
will put that I am a soul and
a spirit first
and a human being
(09:10):
before my work, because that was something that
I definitely
reclaimed
with the process
is the right order.
And you're gonna have to help me with
this expression, but it's, you know, there was
the be, do you have? It's this interesting
way that we move about the world, which
is the belief that we have to do
(09:30):
things
through worthiness or love or connection or success.
So what did you learn differently
in that? Well, with this whole story up
until the process, it was absolutely in reverse.
I was doing and doing and doing,
and then hoping that I'd have,
and then
(09:51):
somewhere along the lines I was being.
And post process
for me, it's so important to remind myself
every day
to be
and to anchor in my spirit,
anchor in who I am,
ground myself.
And I'm really at this incredible place of
(10:12):
visioning
where
I want to be spirit and aligned
with what I'm doing in my life.
That's what's gonna guide me
into
the future. And
it's such an incredible shift
in just perspective and approach that is so
powerful.
(10:33):
I wonder if you'd be willing to speak
a little bit more about this concept of
spirit
embodied.
And I'd love to hear about it if
you have
something to share from your
indigenous lens
about what it means to be both of
the spirit world
and
incredibly human,
(10:54):
vulnerable
at the same time.
I reconnected
with a dream that I had in my
twenties to do my yoga teacher training.
And for this whole time,
I didn't do it. I neglected to do
it. And when I reconnected with my
spirit and the visioning for myself and being
(11:15):
spirit aligned,
that was something that just called out to
me. You know what? You need to do
this for yourself. This is what your spirit
needs. This is what your body needs.
And I said, heck yeah, I'm ready. I'm
gonna do it. And so here I am
almost three years later after the process and
I'm now
finding what that is and finding what that
(11:35):
means to align with my spirit
and do the things that
nourish
my being.
And in learning about
yoga philosophy,
it was mind blowing to learn that
the asanas that we know in Western yoga,
the positions and the postures,
like that's just one
(11:55):
step.
And what is really like eight different branches,
eight different limbs
of yoga and
the asanas, the postures,
it's all aimed
to get us ready to sit
so that we can finally
meditate and finally be aligned.
(12:16):
And this was really revolutionary for me and
I bring this up because
this deep, deep work
that
we've done
through the Hoffman process,
that's the asanas, that's the work that needs
to be done so that we can find
our spirit
and really align ourselves
(12:37):
and find
the
way to be
do and have
that's part of my journey.
Home
is discovering this for myself.
That's beautifully said.
And maybe
somewhat revolutionary in the world of self help.
(13:00):
Fix, fix, fix, do more, do more, learn
more podcasts, podcasts, like books, books, workshops, workshops,
workshops, and it's like,
is actually
on the other side of this deep work,
the opportunity
to simply
sit
and be and know
that you're guided by that.
(13:22):
And from there,
come what may.
Maybe you can take us to a moment
where you felt this connection
or that was a really relevant place for
you in the process.
So I did the process July 2022. So
for me, it's like seems like a long
time ago.
And I really I had no idea what
(13:42):
to expect. My husband told me very little
about it.
I remember the first couple of days I
was cursing him out because I was like,
okay, I had no idea I was going
to dive in this deep. And it was
the best gift
I've ever received or done for myself.
And I'm trying to
(14:02):
find a way to
communicate
what my experience was from like an indigenous
perspective. So
I grew up
going to indigenous ceremonies and
my process experience
was absolutely ceremony.
It was
(14:22):
akin to
a sweat lodge ceremony,
feeling like I'm going into this lodge,
feeling the heat turned all the way up
to the point where you just you wanna
give up.
And then
finding that moment where you're in it, and
you're closing your eyes,
(14:43):
and you can hear the songs, you can
hear the prayers,
and then you start to connect, you start
to remember, you start to heal.
And then when the flaps of that sweat
lodge open,
you crawl out on your knees.
And when you come out into the light,
you feel like you're born again into the
world.
(15:04):
That was
the experience of my process.
It reconnected me to my spirit in that
way, it lit my inner fire, it invigorated
me,
it gave me that hope
back in human beings
that I still desperately needed at that time.
And it gave me consciousness,
(15:25):
awareness
to carry this work forward in my life
so that I can, again,
be, do, have, so I could come back
to myself so I could come back to
home.
I can only describe the process in poetry
because that's spiritual for me, but I hope
that conveys a little bit of
my experience with the process.
(15:47):
Did you have an experience of right when
it felt like it was difficult,
you called upon some focus
or tenacity.
Absolutely. I mean, I remember the first couple
of days, like walking into
the room and looking around and you kind
of see the tissue boxes on the floor.
And I'm thinking, I can't possibly cry anymore.
(16:09):
I can't do this. Like, oh my gosh,
you know, and
there's different people. It's like
it was so intense for all of us.
And I remember my inner child was so
scared, Sadie. Oh, my gosh. I had to
really deal with
holding space
for other people's pain. Like it scared me.
And that was such an exercise
(16:32):
for me to find courage, to find strength,
even though
that heat was turned all the way up
and in not a
hurtful way or scary way, just like, you
know, sweat lodges for indigenous people. It was
like, no, we're in this to heal. We've
come in here to purify
(16:52):
and it's just hot. It's okay to go
through this pain.
And on the other side of it, oh,
freedom,
peace.
There's part of me that is actually cheering
for that little girl. The one that you
said coming in, you felt like you were
in a very intellectual
(17:13):
space and a very caregiving
space,
and almost that you didn't remember
her. So for you to say that you
could feel her scared
at times and
not sure that she could handle
tears anymore.
Even you knowing that means you were you
were right there with her. And that in
(17:35):
itself
is change.
That has been
so empowering for my spirit to
be able
to, like my whole being,
my spirit, my intellect, my body, be able
to bring love to my inner child. And
so even now, when there's moments where
I'm feeling really emotional, my feelings are giving
(17:57):
me that information,
I'm able to really
visualize myself
hugging
that little girl when she is feeling that
way, letting her cry,
giving her a hug,
that has brought me so much strength. Oh
my goodness, so much
strength in so many different
scenarios since I did the process.
(18:18):
I'm just so thankful that I was given
those tools and that
awareness of how all these parts of myself
fit together.
So you described your work in the process
as
finding
yourself,
and I love the image of you crawling
out of a sweat lodge on your knees.
Like,
here I am
(18:40):
and meeting the world.
Can you tell us a bit about
going home to meet your life?
So probably the most beautiful moment
that I experienced
was
just nature,
all of a sudden flowing
and being so vibrant. I mean, the colors
that I experienced after the process were just
(19:02):
incredible.
I was clear.
I described to someone that
I received, like, new eyes when I came
home to my daughter who's
just given me hell before.
All of a sudden, I I went down
to her level and I, I looked at
her in her eyes and I could see
(19:23):
her as a spiritual being.
I came home to my husband and I
could see him as a spiritual being. And
I had so much
admiration for his courage to do the process.
I just remember the shift
in seeing everybody
as
(19:43):
spiritual beings first and foremost.
And that was beautiful.
I wonder how much of that reflects
you knowing yourself first, that way you're
a soul first and then a human. I
really love that.
What do you think is happening
in your daughter's world when you come and
(20:04):
look into her eyes and see her?
It's really inspired me to
become a learner again, to grow,
to search out
information if I don't have it. So
I started reading this incredible book called The
Conscious Parent, and
it makes so much sense now. It makes
(20:24):
so much sense to just
shed
all these
labels and this idea of how parenting should
even look
and be able to just first and foremost
come back to
who's in front of me as a spiritual
being. And I just, I always love coming
back to that place of grounding,
that place of home.
(20:47):
As much as I can go on and
on about the process, I will tell you
that two years after the process,
I did feel a noticeable slowdown
because
I do so much
going and going, the waves kept crashing.
And so
I
stopped tending to my inner fire and tapping
(21:08):
into those regular practices and my
Hoffman tools as much as I wanted to.
I noticed that whenever I encountered stress, especially
triggered by my kids, I would find myself
reverting back
to some of my old patterns that I
thought I addressed
during the process. I thought I got rid
of those. Where are you back?
(21:31):
In 2024,
I lost my younger brother to cancer and
the grief, oh, it took me out, Sadie.
It was like nothing I've ever felt before.
And around the same time,
the Hoffman
Institute had launched the first ever Black Indigenous
(21:51):
People of Color BIPOC Q2 program. And
I rolled immediately
with the hope that I could work through
my grief and refresh
my Hoffman tools. And I bring this up
because
as much as the process
is this incredible
experience and I gained so much
(22:14):
from it,
and I connected to spirit,
the reality is that it's a practice and
it's something that for myself, I have to
tap into
all the time regularly
as different
things get thrown my way.
I did the BIPOC Q2 February 2025. I
(22:34):
was part of the inaugural
BIPOC q two class. And,
I mean, I just thought, hey, I'm gonna
go here and I'm gonna work on my
on my grief. I'm I'm gonna get a
tool refresher.
I am still in shock
with what I excavated
with the help of the BIPOC q two
and the
(22:55):
fierce community
that came together.
I'm
from a multicultural
ancestral lineage.
I'm part indigenous San Carlos Apache, Chicana,
Mexican,
Filipina,
Japanese, and European.
And my whole life,
I always felt like my cultures
were
(23:16):
a source of strengths
in my life and I was very proud
to be mixed, especially living in the Bay
Area.
There were not a lot of people like
me or my family growing up.
So I often
did feel like I was on the margins
and always having to explain myself.
And so
you can imagine
(23:38):
when I walk into the Hoffman Retreat site
and I look around
and there's
every beautiful shade of human being
I could have ever wished for all in
one room.
I mean, we had to all sort of
take a collective
moment
to gather ourselves and what that meant,
because
(23:59):
it might seem normal or insignificant,
but knowing what we know
about the Hoffman work
and seeing all these courageous human beings
with
incredible stories and these ancestral
roots doing this deep work,
breaking cycles of intergenerational
(24:19):
trauma
and pain,
it it was truly breathtaking.
And I
will have to say for the past six
months since doing the BIPOC YouTube,
I have been lit up like a Christmas
tree. I mean, it has set me all
the way free and I would love to
just share some of my
(24:40):
revelations from that because I think there's so
much to
reflect on
from what I experienced.
Yes. And what a wonderful beginning, this moment
of just walking in and taking a collective
moment of what it took for each one
of them to be there.
So what did you
(25:00):
find? What were some of your big
takeaways,
insights,
experiences?
So there were two exercises in
elevator exercise.
And
in this exercise,
I had asked the question,
why am I
(25:20):
still not taking care of my health?
So again, you know, go back two years
to when I did the process,
feeling great and I thought I had it
all figured out,
but I'm still thirty pounds overweight, I'm not
exercising, I'm not dancing, I'm not taking care
of myself, like what is going on?
And so I asked the question, why am
I not taking care of my health?
(25:42):
And so I closed my eyes, and
here I go one level,
then two levels.
Then the third level,
the doors open,
and it's an empty basement.
And I I look around
and there's concrete,
there's some hidden areas over there off in
(26:02):
the distance, and I'm like, nope. I'm not
getting out of this elevator.
And
what happens next is I I look down
and I lift my two hands up
in front of my face,
and then poof, we're done with the exercise.
And and, of course, I'm puzzled because I'm
(26:23):
like, what in the hell was that about?
Like, what what does this mean?
For those that might be listening and not
know what an elevator is, it's a guided
visualization that goes with a particular question in
your case around taking care of your health
and finding
enlightening
information about what's standing in your way or
what hurts or patterns there. So take us
(26:45):
to the next.
So the next exercise was a transference exercise.
We were doing one
on the colonizer,
and I'm coming up with all these words
to to describe
my feelings and what I thought about the
colonizer, and I'm yelling out,
please
(27:06):
murderer,
taker.
You know, I was really getting into it
at this point.
Then
the coach proceeds to remind us that
if you spot it,
you got it.
I'm gonna take a deep breath right there.
So, you know, at this point, I'm, like,
real upset because
(27:27):
I'm like, what in the gaslight is this?
How dare you do this to people of
color?
I'm not these things. I'm not the colonizer.
I mean, I was really upset, and we
went to eat.
And I'm still trying to figure this out.
Why would they do that?
Thank goodness for the people that were there
with me during the BIPOC Q2.
(27:47):
Every single person
was a reflection that really helped me.
So I asked my sister
about what she thought about this exercise.
And you know what? She didn't even flinch.
She was like, oh, yeah,
I've acted like the colonizer.
Woah.
(28:08):
I had to really take that in. And
it was
this honest
recognition
and awareness
that she had, and it suddenly put me
in check, and it pulled it all together.
And I'm gonna share something that's very vulnerable
for me. It made me acknowledge,
(28:30):
wait a minute, Jessica,
you're part white, English to be specific,
you're part Japanese.
I do have colonizer
ancestors
that I need to acknowledge and I also
need to acknowledge some of the colonizing behavior
that is present in my life.
Woah.
What's interesting is my whole life,
(28:52):
my family,
and even myself would play being part white
real small.
It was a,
we don't talk about Bruno from Encanto type
of situation.
And so this was a
huge
moment for me.
Going back to that elevator exercise,
what I discovered
(29:13):
was that basement,
it symbolized a lot of those suppressed emotions,
untapped,
unknown,
unacknowledged
aspects of my subconscious
that was deep down there.
And so going back to my process, that
first layer of healing for me was my
(29:34):
parental pattern work.
But what the BIPOC Q2
revealed was that there was a deeper layer
that I needed to address, and there were
aspects that I needed to heal that were
buried down deep. They were ancestral,
they were cultural, they were subconsciously
and energetically
holding me back.
(29:55):
This was the first time
in my life
where
I'm acknowledging
that
you really are a part European, you're part
white, that's part of your lineage.
And what that showed me was that I
had some suppressed
self hate
hidden that I needed to release.
(30:15):
What happened for you as you acknowledged
and moved through?
Tell us about
how you integrated
that realization.
So you can imagine
the generational
ancestral conflict, someone like me and my family
(30:35):
has endured
by not being brown enough, not being white
enough, not being indigenous enough and so on.
Each
side hating on the other side and worse
yet,
us hating on each other
and the controversial
realization
that
even as people of color, yeah, we carry
(30:55):
these patterns from our colonizers and that also
culture
brings with it patterns that can cause damage.
So like for me,
food has always been this incredible
connection with culture. Oh, I love food so
much. I love to cook food. I love
to eat food.
But guess what? Too much of it
(31:16):
was hurting my health. I was going overboard
because culturally,
here, eat, eat, eat.
Come sit down.
Culturally food always meant comfort and meant safety.
And so I had to grapple with some
of that, those cultural patterns and those ancestral
patterns that were still bringing damage. And
(31:36):
it wasn't until like I could really resolve
that energetic tension for myself that I could
input love on all of my ancestors
and really
imagine what their experience was,
what their stories were,
even the colonizer ancestors.
And that exercise
(31:58):
brought me whole
because it brought me belonging
and truth and authenticity
that I wasn't denying
a part of myself anymore. I wasn't ashamed
of that particular part of meaning.
I just brought love to it.
And that love is what's been so important
(32:18):
in integrating and coming back to wholeness
is that
incredible
energy
of love and knowing that
somehow
my ancestors
found each other
and I'm gonna hope it was through love
and that
I'm here because of love. And I had
to come back to that.
(32:40):
Giving a little context on the transference
experience that you shared,
it's really about recognizing where our buttons
might be pushed, that that's actually a spotlight
on something to be healed.
One of the things I love the most
about your story is you didn't even know
you went there for that.
(33:01):
On some level, you trust it. This is
where you said, like, it's it's out of
love. Like love brought you to exactly what
you needed. And I'm just wondering what happens
next for you. You said you've spent six
months feeling lit up.
What happens in your life from this place
of belonging
and wholeness?
(33:21):
Before I answer that question, I think I
just want to go back to the grief
work that brought me to the BIPOC Q2.
One of the other
realizations that I had
was that
there was some deep rooted
feelings
of grief
over the cultural
theft, the loss,
(33:42):
the not knowing
on both sides of my ancestral lineage,
and that
I had to somehow use my own two
hands to figure this out for me.
And so day in and day out,
that's what I'm challenging myself to do
is figure it out. I'm no longer a
(34:03):
victim.
In this generation, I have been given the
privilege, I have shed
what my ancestors
couldn't.
So I have the privilege now
to figure this out for myself. I can
learn a language, I can return
to ceremonies that were taken away.
(34:24):
I can
go
travel,
taste food, embrace my cultures.
There's a show, I don't know if you've
seen it, it's called Finding Your Roots on
PBS.
They take a whole team to uncover people's
ancestral lineage and it's always so cool to
find like who your great, great, great ancestor
(34:44):
was and their story. And like, I wish
we could all get this type of information
because
it would really help
in clearing out some of this ancestral
pattern works that we need to do for
ourselves.
But unfortunately
we don't always have that privilege of information.
(35:05):
Even our own parents,
my parents,
there's certain aspects
of ancestral lineage where it's like,
Nope, we don't go there.
And so it's those blind spots
that I've had to say, No, I get
to figure this out now as
a privileged
person in this life,
(35:27):
I have the power to search this information.
I have the power
to learn about my cultures and I also
have the responsibility
now to share this with my children.
I can do this. I have this sense
of belonging that that no one can take
away from me now.
I'm thinking back to your words around ceremony.
And as I sit here, I'm looking at
(35:49):
this photo
with you and your husband and your daughter
between you
in a beautiful
ceremony.
Thank you so much for recognizing
that picture.
It represents
a visioning milestone
for my family.
The picture was taken last October during my
(36:09):
daughter's Apache
coming of age ceremony.
This is a
monumental
ceremony for Apache women,
our family
and all of the community, really. It's
a ceremony that ties Apache people back to
our creation story
and connects us with everything around us
(36:32):
to bring healing forward.
There was a time when these ceremonies were
taken away.
It's been
generations
since
our family was able to bring the ceremony
back.
Getting to that point
to take that picture
was fourteen years in the making and
(36:54):
really an illustration of
my family's
tenacity to break the cycles and to
reclaim culture,
even when the odds are against us
and to honor the best parts
of our culture
and our ancestors.
So I'm really glad that you acknowledge that
(37:15):
and I can share that with you today.
Bringing that light forward,
my
multi generational,
multicultural
ancestry,
it makes up my soil,
my foundation.
And as you've heard, it's complex, it's multi
layered. And
ever since that elevator exercise,
(37:36):
it's been a journey for me to work
through my blind spots
and to
uncover
the seen and the unseen blocks I was
carrying
quite literally
weight.
And this deeper pain was the root of
what was keeping me stuck.
(37:57):
So
I feel so proud of myself.
I'm so proud of
the courage to sit with my feelings
and really be curious about them. It's been
magic for me to follow my curiosity
straight to these realizations.
It's been my courage that activated my voice
(38:19):
and my inner child found her voice.
My body has a voice
and my spirit has a voice
and I can finally give my intellect
permission
to rest.
What this is all translated
to
is me being able to be in my
full embodied
(38:40):
self.
And after ten years,
I'm finally
losing weight. I've lost 10 pounds
since the bike caught Q2 in February,
and that's huge for me. And I was
just realizing that I was carrying all of
this weight
that I thought was keeping me safe
and
(39:00):
giving myself permission to let it go and
let go of what's no longer safe for
me.
I'm at a point where I've taken agency
over myself and
exercising,
I'm remembering
again.
I'm reading and learning, and
I'm just in this very tender
transition
while I rediscover
(39:21):
myself.
I'm truly loving this new way of being
and and feeling the love for myself finally.
Thank you for sharing. Is there any last
thing you'd like to share? Anything I haven't
asked you about that you think
would be
something you'd like to share?
As I think about
(39:42):
the process and this ancestral work through the
BIPOC Q2,
I'm just so,
so thankful and filled with gratitude
and
coming
and finding home
and belonging
and
truly
feeling that we are the living legacies
of our ancestors
(40:03):
and
replacing all that hate with love is really
what
I have found to bring healing to myself
and my family. And
the Hoffman
process in this practice has been like the
journey of a lifetime.
I'm so grateful to you and Drew
(40:23):
and so thankful to Raz and Liza
and to
Regina and Ian and Inejna and Alyssa, all
the BIPOC Q2
teachers
that
are doing the light work day in and
day out.
And I'm also
so thankful for anybody who's ever contributed to
Hoffman Scholarship Fund.
(40:44):
I think
it's important to recognize
that
those donations
are absolutely
making a difference in people's lives and
we're paying it forward
each and every day. I know I am.
And so with that, I'm just, I'm so
grateful
and appreciative
(41:06):
to to everyone. And
thank you so much for letting me share
my story with you.
It's been such an honor.
Really thank you so much for being with
us and for sharing.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
(41:28):
name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and
president of Hoffman Institute Foundation.
And I'm Razzi Grassi,
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.
Finding that moment where you're in it and
you're closing your eyes
and you can hear the songs, you can
hear the prayers,
and then you start to connect. You start
to remember. You start to heal.
And then when the flaps of that sweat
lodge open,
you crawl out on your knees.
And when you come out into the light,
(00:22):
you feel like you're born again into the
world.
That was
the experience of my process.
Hello, and welcome to Love's Everyday Radius, a
podcast brought to you by the Hoffman Institute.
My name is Sadie Hanna, and in this
podcast, you'll hear real conversations and stories
with graduates about their courageous journey inward and
(00:44):
how their love and light are living in
the world around them. Love's everyday radius.
Thank you for being here and welcome.
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Hoffman podcast.
I'm Sadie and I am a Hoffman teacher
and your host. And I am here with
(01:05):
Jessica Harjo. Hello, Jessica. Welcome.
Hi, Sadie.
So honored to be here. Thank you for
being here. So let me tell you all
a little bit about Jessica.
And the thing I love most
about what you sent over, like, the first
line is you're a soul
and a human
(01:26):
and a learner
and a mother.
You've also done some amazing things in terms
of your professional life, director of operations for
the Tribal Law and Policy
Institute
for many years,
volunteering on multiple boards,
working with indigenous populations.
(01:46):
You have
an educational background that includes
film and media, social justice,
Master's in Business
from Mount Saint Mary's,
the only women's university
in LA.
You also are directly involved with the Hoffman
(02:06):
Inner Work for Indigenous Leaders Advisory
Circle.
There's so many
places that we could begin.
Maybe we begin with what is the inner
work for indigenous leaders advisory circle. Let's start
with that because I think lots of people
might have no idea what that is.
Yes. So, thankfully,
(02:28):
my husband had done the process back in
2006.
And him and Raz,
they came together,
and
they dreamt up an indigenous
killing initiative at Hoffman
called the inner work for indigenous leaders.
The aim is to really acknowledge
(02:49):
the past harm
inflicted on indigenous peoples and
the deep ancestral wounds
that need to be healed for all people.
And so
through this fellowship program,
I have the privilege
of doing the process
in July
2022.
(03:11):
And since then, we're almost at 20 indigenous
fellows,
and it has just sparked a light in
indigenous communities all across the country.
So I'm just so honored
to be part
of this program at Hoffman and,
so much gratitude
(03:31):
for for RAS and the Hoffman Institute and
everybody involved
for taking a risk and really
acknowledging the importance
of this healing work.
Really, this idea of
ancestral
hurt
that is passed along
as part of the human condition, but particularly
in this case,
(03:51):
acknowledging
that there's real healing that needs to happen.
And it sounds like through this program,
there's a pathway
for indigenous leaders who they themselves have quite
a ripple.
Let's speak a bit more about you because
I'd really love to get to know you
and your personal journey.
(04:14):
This is so much fun. I'm I'm so
excited. Like my feelings right now, I'm just
like bubbling
and I'm just I'm so thankful to you
and Drew for this opportunity to actually have
a voice and to share my story and
my experience.
I think up until my thirties,
I was feeling golden.
(04:34):
I grew up in a loving family.
I had the privilege of being raised by
both of my parents.
I grew up in the Bay Area, so
there was diversity all around me.
I got to travel all across The US
and the world as a dancer and performer.
I was living in LA and met the
love of my life, my husband, Tim, and
(04:56):
hey, life was good. I was coasting along
in what I call my ignorant bliss.
And then
motherhood hit,
being a wife hit,
the weight of that full time career and
the responsibilities,
the pressure. I mean, I was in LA,
(05:16):
I was commuting two hours one way, two
hours back,
and I couldn't just worry about myself.
I had children counting on me.
So, you know, I dug in deep.
My my intellect
took over and
I went into full blown caregiving mode and
(05:38):
put myself on autopilot.
And
this is what I felt like for over
a decade.
And yes, while I'm very proud of myself
for the different things that I was able
to achieve in these different labels I was
able to earn,
I got to the point in my life
(05:58):
where I couldn't remember
things that happened in my life.
And my husband actually pointed this out to
me one day and was like,
you know, I've told you so many stories
about my life,
but you've shared very little
about your past.
(06:18):
And I sort of looked at him blankly
and realized that I
had almost completely
shut off my past self.
And even my ambitions
and the visions for myself
have been to that point and
I'd
really come to the point in my
(06:39):
early 40s where I didn't recognize myself in
the mirror.
I had stopped dancing.
I was ashamed
for letting myself go.
And
then comes my third child,
and she's a fireside and incredibly intense,
and she's so cute. So it makes it
(07:01):
real hard sometimes. But,
you know, her
emotional dysregulation
would just like explode my nervous system and
bring out this temper in me and
patterns that I was not proud of.
And as I mentioned earlier, my husband thankfully
had done the process back in 2006.
(07:21):
And
up until that point, he was like, you're
the one person
that I've ever met that I don't think
you actually need the Hoffman process. Like you
have a loving family, like
you don't need this.
No, something
cracked in me and I was so desperate
for change.
And
this is when the inner work for indigenous
(07:44):
leaders program had just launched and I was
like, Oh my God, please sign me up.
I really need help. I need help getting
unstuck. I need help to learn
how to be a parent.
That's sort of the quick
storyline for what brought me to the Hoffman
process.
(08:05):
So you learned about it originally through him,
but it sounds like the process of
feeling the weight of motherhood and your career,
and maybe even a bit of loss of
who you are
really brought you there.
And what you just described really sounds kind
of like a slow moving
into certain roles, expectations, responsibilities,
(08:28):
and one day waking up and realizing I
don't remember.
I don't remember.
What was that like for you? That moment
of realizing
how far away you had had gone?
I would sit there
almost in a state of amnesia.
I would try so hard to think back,
like, what was it like to be on
(08:49):
tour with a Broadway show? Like, I couldn't
even remember all those years.
It was locked away somewhere.
Thanks for reminding me about this Sadie, because
I purposefully
will put that I am a soul and
a spirit first
and a human being
(09:10):
before my work, because that was something that
I definitely
reclaimed
with the process
is the right order.
And you're gonna have to help me with
this expression, but it's, you know, there was
the be, do you have? It's this interesting
way that we move about the world, which
is the belief that we have to do
(09:30):
things
through worthiness or love or connection or success.
So what did you learn differently
in that? Well, with this whole story up
until the process, it was absolutely in reverse.
I was doing and doing and doing,
and then hoping that I'd have,
and then
(09:51):
somewhere along the lines I was being.
And post process
for me, it's so important to remind myself
every day
to be
and to anchor in my spirit,
anchor in who I am,
ground myself.
And I'm really at this incredible place of
(10:12):
visioning
where
I want to be spirit and aligned
with what I'm doing in my life.
That's what's gonna guide me
into
the future. And
it's such an incredible shift
in just perspective and approach that is so
powerful.
(10:33):
I wonder if you'd be willing to speak
a little bit more about this concept of
spirit
embodied.
And I'd love to hear about it if
you have
something to share from your
indigenous lens
about what it means to be both of
the spirit world
and
incredibly human,
(10:54):
vulnerable
at the same time.
I reconnected
with a dream that I had in my
twenties to do my yoga teacher training.
And for this whole time,
I didn't do it. I neglected to do
it. And when I reconnected with my
spirit and the visioning for myself and being
(11:15):
spirit aligned,
that was something that just called out to
me. You know what? You need to do
this for yourself. This is what your spirit
needs. This is what your body needs.
And I said, heck yeah, I'm ready. I'm
gonna do it. And so here I am
almost three years later after the process and
I'm now
finding what that is and finding what that
(11:35):
means to align with my spirit
and do the things that
nourish
my being.
And in learning about
yoga philosophy,
it was mind blowing to learn that
the asanas that we know in Western yoga,
the positions and the postures,
like that's just one
(11:55):
step.
And what is really like eight different branches,
eight different limbs
of yoga and
the asanas, the postures,
it's all aimed
to get us ready to sit
so that we can finally
meditate and finally be aligned.
(12:16):
And this was really revolutionary for me and
I bring this up because
this deep, deep work
that
we've done
through the Hoffman process,
that's the asanas, that's the work that needs
to be done so that we can find
our spirit
and really align ourselves
(12:37):
and find
the
way to be
do and have
that's part of my journey.
Home
is discovering this for myself.
That's beautifully said.
And maybe
somewhat revolutionary in the world of self help.
(13:00):
Fix, fix, fix, do more, do more, learn
more podcasts, podcasts, like books, books, workshops, workshops,
workshops, and it's like,
is actually
on the other side of this deep work,
the opportunity
to simply
sit
and be and know
that you're guided by that.
(13:22):
And from there,
come what may.
Maybe you can take us to a moment
where you felt this connection
or that was a really relevant place for
you in the process.
So I did the process July 2022. So
for me, it's like seems like a long
time ago.
And I really I had no idea what
(13:42):
to expect. My husband told me very little
about it.
I remember the first couple of days I
was cursing him out because I was like,
okay, I had no idea I was going
to dive in this deep. And it was
the best gift
I've ever received or done for myself.
And I'm trying to
(14:02):
find a way to
communicate
what my experience was from like an indigenous
perspective. So
I grew up
going to indigenous ceremonies and
my process experience
was absolutely ceremony.
It was
(14:22):
akin to
a sweat lodge ceremony,
feeling like I'm going into this lodge,
feeling the heat turned all the way up
to the point where you just you wanna
give up.
And then
finding that moment where you're in it, and
you're closing your eyes,
(14:43):
and you can hear the songs, you can
hear the prayers,
and then you start to connect, you start
to remember, you start to heal.
And then when the flaps of that sweat
lodge open,
you crawl out on your knees.
And when you come out into the light,
you feel like you're born again into the
world.
(15:04):
That was
the experience of my process.
It reconnected me to my spirit in that
way, it lit my inner fire, it invigorated
me,
it gave me that hope
back in human beings
that I still desperately needed at that time.
And it gave me consciousness,
(15:25):
awareness
to carry this work forward in my life
so that I can, again,
be, do, have, so I could come back
to myself so I could come back to
home.
I can only describe the process in poetry
because that's spiritual for me, but I hope
that conveys a little bit of
my experience with the process.
(15:47):
Did you have an experience of right when
it felt like it was difficult,
you called upon some focus
or tenacity.
Absolutely. I mean, I remember the first couple
of days, like walking into
the room and looking around and you kind
of see the tissue boxes on the floor.
And I'm thinking, I can't possibly cry anymore.
(16:09):
I can't do this. Like, oh my gosh,
you know, and
there's different people. It's like
it was so intense for all of us.
And I remember my inner child was so
scared, Sadie. Oh, my gosh. I had to
really deal with
holding space
for other people's pain. Like it scared me.
And that was such an exercise
(16:32):
for me to find courage, to find strength,
even though
that heat was turned all the way up
and in not a
hurtful way or scary way, just like, you
know, sweat lodges for indigenous people. It was
like, no, we're in this to heal. We've
come in here to purify
(16:52):
and it's just hot. It's okay to go
through this pain.
And on the other side of it, oh,
freedom,
peace.
There's part of me that is actually cheering
for that little girl. The one that you
said coming in, you felt like you were
in a very intellectual
(17:13):
space and a very caregiving
space,
and almost that you didn't remember
her. So for you to say that you
could feel her scared
at times and
not sure that she could handle
tears anymore.
Even you knowing that means you were you
were right there with her. And that in
(17:35):
itself
is change.
That has been
so empowering for my spirit to
be able
to, like my whole being,
my spirit, my intellect, my body, be able
to bring love to my inner child. And
so even now, when there's moments where
I'm feeling really emotional, my feelings are giving
(17:57):
me that information,
I'm able to really
visualize myself
hugging
that little girl when she is feeling that
way, letting her cry,
giving her a hug,
that has brought me so much strength. Oh
my goodness, so much
strength in so many different
scenarios since I did the process.
(18:18):
I'm just so thankful that I was given
those tools and that
awareness of how all these parts of myself
fit together.
So you described your work in the process
as
finding
yourself,
and I love the image of you crawling
out of a sweat lodge on your knees.
Like,
here I am
(18:40):
and meeting the world.
Can you tell us a bit about
going home to meet your life?
So probably the most beautiful moment
that I experienced
was
just nature,
all of a sudden flowing
and being so vibrant. I mean, the colors
that I experienced after the process were just
(19:02):
incredible.
I was clear.
I described to someone that
I received, like, new eyes when I came
home to my daughter who's
just given me hell before.
All of a sudden, I I went down
to her level and I, I looked at
her in her eyes and I could see
(19:23):
her as a spiritual being.
I came home to my husband and I
could see him as a spiritual being. And
I had so much
admiration for his courage to do the process.
I just remember the shift
in seeing everybody
as
(19:43):
spiritual beings first and foremost.
And that was beautiful.
I wonder how much of that reflects
you knowing yourself first, that way you're
a soul first and then a human. I
really love that.
What do you think is happening
in your daughter's world when you come and
(20:04):
look into her eyes and see her?
It's really inspired me to
become a learner again, to grow,
to search out
information if I don't have it. So
I started reading this incredible book called The
Conscious Parent, and
it makes so much sense now. It makes
(20:24):
so much sense to just
shed
all these
labels and this idea of how parenting should
even look
and be able to just first and foremost
come back to
who's in front of me as a spiritual
being. And I just, I always love coming
back to that place of grounding,
that place of home.
(20:47):
As much as I can go on and
on about the process, I will tell you
that two years after the process,
I did feel a noticeable slowdown
because
I do so much
going and going, the waves kept crashing.
And so
I
stopped tending to my inner fire and tapping
(21:08):
into those regular practices and my
Hoffman tools as much as I wanted to.
I noticed that whenever I encountered stress, especially
triggered by my kids, I would find myself
reverting back
to some of my old patterns that I
thought I addressed
during the process. I thought I got rid
of those. Where are you back?
(21:31):
In 2024,
I lost my younger brother to cancer and
the grief, oh, it took me out, Sadie.
It was like nothing I've ever felt before.
And around the same time,
the Hoffman
Institute had launched the first ever Black Indigenous
(21:51):
People of Color BIPOC Q2 program. And
I rolled immediately
with the hope that I could work through
my grief and refresh
my Hoffman tools. And I bring this up
because
as much as the process
is this incredible
experience and I gained so much
(22:14):
from it,
and I connected to spirit,
the reality is that it's a practice and
it's something that for myself, I have to
tap into
all the time regularly
as different
things get thrown my way.
I did the BIPOC Q2 February 2025. I
(22:34):
was part of the inaugural
BIPOC q two class. And,
I mean, I just thought, hey, I'm gonna
go here and I'm gonna work on my
on my grief. I'm I'm gonna get a
tool refresher.
I am still in shock
with what I excavated
with the help of the BIPOC q two
and the
(22:55):
fierce community
that came together.
I'm
from a multicultural
ancestral lineage.
I'm part indigenous San Carlos Apache, Chicana,
Mexican,
Filipina,
Japanese, and European.
And my whole life,
I always felt like my cultures
were
(23:16):
a source of strengths
in my life and I was very proud
to be mixed, especially living in the Bay
Area.
There were not a lot of people like
me or my family growing up.
So I often
did feel like I was on the margins
and always having to explain myself.
And so
you can imagine
(23:38):
when I walk into the Hoffman Retreat site
and I look around
and there's
every beautiful shade of human being
I could have ever wished for all in
one room.
I mean, we had to all sort of
take a collective
moment
to gather ourselves and what that meant,
because
(23:59):
it might seem normal or insignificant,
but knowing what we know
about the Hoffman work
and seeing all these courageous human beings
with
incredible stories and these ancestral
roots doing this deep work,
breaking cycles of intergenerational
(24:19):
trauma
and pain,
it it was truly breathtaking.
And I
will have to say for the past six
months since doing the BIPOC YouTube,
I have been lit up like a Christmas
tree. I mean, it has set me all
the way free and I would love to
just share some of my
(24:40):
revelations from that because I think there's so
much to
reflect on
from what I experienced.
Yes. And what a wonderful beginning, this moment
of just walking in and taking a collective
moment of what it took for each one
of them to be there.
So what did you
(25:00):
find? What were some of your big
takeaways,
insights,
experiences?
So there were two exercises in
elevator exercise.
And
in this exercise,
I had asked the question,
why am I
(25:20):
still not taking care of my health?
So again, you know, go back two years
to when I did the process,
feeling great and I thought I had it
all figured out,
but I'm still thirty pounds overweight, I'm not
exercising, I'm not dancing, I'm not taking care
of myself, like what is going on?
And so I asked the question, why am
I not taking care of my health?
(25:42):
And so I closed my eyes, and
here I go one level,
then two levels.
Then the third level,
the doors open,
and it's an empty basement.
And I I look around
and there's concrete,
there's some hidden areas over there off in
(26:02):
the distance, and I'm like, nope. I'm not
getting out of this elevator.
And
what happens next is I I look down
and I lift my two hands up
in front of my face,
and then poof, we're done with the exercise.
And and, of course, I'm puzzled because I'm
(26:23):
like, what in the hell was that about?
Like, what what does this mean?
For those that might be listening and not
know what an elevator is, it's a guided
visualization that goes with a particular question in
your case around taking care of your health
and finding
enlightening
information about what's standing in your way or
what hurts or patterns there. So take us
(26:45):
to the next.
So the next exercise was a transference exercise.
We were doing one
on the colonizer,
and I'm coming up with all these words
to to describe
my feelings and what I thought about the
colonizer, and I'm yelling out,
please
(27:06):
murderer,
taker.
You know, I was really getting into it
at this point.
Then
the coach proceeds to remind us that
if you spot it,
you got it.
I'm gonna take a deep breath right there.
So, you know, at this point, I'm, like,
real upset because
(27:27):
I'm like, what in the gaslight is this?
How dare you do this to people of
color?
I'm not these things. I'm not the colonizer.
I mean, I was really upset, and we
went to eat.
And I'm still trying to figure this out.
Why would they do that?
Thank goodness for the people that were there
with me during the BIPOC Q2.
(27:47):
Every single person
was a reflection that really helped me.
So I asked my sister
about what she thought about this exercise.
And you know what? She didn't even flinch.
She was like, oh, yeah,
I've acted like the colonizer.
Woah.
(28:08):
I had to really take that in. And
it was
this honest
recognition
and awareness
that she had, and it suddenly put me
in check, and it pulled it all together.
And I'm gonna share something that's very vulnerable
for me. It made me acknowledge,
(28:30):
wait a minute, Jessica,
you're part white, English to be specific,
you're part Japanese.
I do have colonizer
ancestors
that I need to acknowledge and I also
need to acknowledge some of the colonizing behavior
that is present in my life.
Woah.
What's interesting is my whole life,
(28:52):
my family,
and even myself would play being part white
real small.
It was a,
we don't talk about Bruno from Encanto type
of situation.
And so this was a
huge
moment for me.
Going back to that elevator exercise,
what I discovered
(29:13):
was that basement,
it symbolized a lot of those suppressed emotions,
untapped,
unknown,
unacknowledged
aspects of my subconscious
that was deep down there.
And so going back to my process, that
first layer of healing for me was my
(29:34):
parental pattern work.
But what the BIPOC Q2
revealed was that there was a deeper layer
that I needed to address, and there were
aspects that I needed to heal that were
buried down deep. They were ancestral,
they were cultural, they were subconsciously
and energetically
holding me back.
(29:55):
This was the first time
in my life
where
I'm acknowledging
that
you really are a part European, you're part
white, that's part of your lineage.
And what that showed me was that I
had some suppressed
self hate
hidden that I needed to release.
(30:15):
What happened for you as you acknowledged
and moved through?
Tell us about
how you integrated
that realization.
So you can imagine
the generational
ancestral conflict, someone like me and my family
(30:35):
has endured
by not being brown enough, not being white
enough, not being indigenous enough and so on.
Each
side hating on the other side and worse
yet,
us hating on each other
and the controversial
realization
that
even as people of color, yeah, we carry
(30:55):
these patterns from our colonizers and that also
culture
brings with it patterns that can cause damage.
So like for me,
food has always been this incredible
connection with culture. Oh, I love food so
much. I love to cook food. I love
to eat food.
But guess what? Too much of it
(31:16):
was hurting my health. I was going overboard
because culturally,
here, eat, eat, eat.
Come sit down.
Culturally food always meant comfort and meant safety.
And so I had to grapple with some
of that, those cultural patterns and those ancestral
patterns that were still bringing damage. And
(31:36):
it wasn't until like I could really resolve
that energetic tension for myself that I could
input love on all of my ancestors
and really
imagine what their experience was,
what their stories were,
even the colonizer ancestors.
And that exercise
(31:58):
brought me whole
because it brought me belonging
and truth and authenticity
that I wasn't denying
a part of myself anymore. I wasn't ashamed
of that particular part of meaning.
I just brought love to it.
And that love is what's been so important
(32:18):
in integrating and coming back to wholeness
is that
incredible
energy
of love and knowing that
somehow
my ancestors
found each other
and I'm gonna hope it was through love
and that
I'm here because of love. And I had
to come back to that.
(32:40):
Giving a little context on the transference
experience that you shared,
it's really about recognizing where our buttons
might be pushed, that that's actually a spotlight
on something to be healed.
One of the things I love the most
about your story is you didn't even know
you went there for that.
(33:01):
On some level, you trust it. This is
where you said, like, it's it's out of
love. Like love brought you to exactly what
you needed. And I'm just wondering what happens
next for you. You said you've spent six
months feeling lit up.
What happens in your life from this place
of belonging
and wholeness?
(33:21):
Before I answer that question, I think I
just want to go back to the grief
work that brought me to the BIPOC Q2.
One of the other
realizations that I had
was that
there was some deep rooted
feelings
of grief
over the cultural
theft, the loss,
(33:42):
the not knowing
on both sides of my ancestral lineage,
and that
I had to somehow use my own two
hands to figure this out for me.
And so day in and day out,
that's what I'm challenging myself to do
is figure it out. I'm no longer a
(34:03):
victim.
In this generation, I have been given the
privilege, I have shed
what my ancestors
couldn't.
So I have the privilege now
to figure this out for myself. I can
learn a language, I can return
to ceremonies that were taken away.
(34:24):
I can
go
travel,
taste food, embrace my cultures.
There's a show, I don't know if you've
seen it, it's called Finding Your Roots on
PBS.
They take a whole team to uncover people's
ancestral lineage and it's always so cool to
find like who your great, great, great ancestor
(34:44):
was and their story. And like, I wish
we could all get this type of information
because
it would really help
in clearing out some of this ancestral
pattern works that we need to do for
ourselves.
But unfortunately
we don't always have that privilege of information.
(35:05):
Even our own parents,
my parents,
there's certain aspects
of ancestral lineage where it's like,
Nope, we don't go there.
And so it's those blind spots
that I've had to say, No, I get
to figure this out now as
a privileged
person in this life,
(35:27):
I have the power to search this information.
I have the power
to learn about my cultures and I also
have the responsibility
now to share this with my children.
I can do this. I have this sense
of belonging that that no one can take
away from me now.
I'm thinking back to your words around ceremony.
And as I sit here, I'm looking at
(35:49):
this photo
with you and your husband and your daughter
between you
in a beautiful
ceremony.
Thank you so much for recognizing
that picture.
It represents
a visioning milestone
for my family.
The picture was taken last October during my
(36:09):
daughter's Apache
coming of age ceremony.
This is a
monumental
ceremony for Apache women,
our family
and all of the community, really. It's
a ceremony that ties Apache people back to
our creation story
and connects us with everything around us
(36:32):
to bring healing forward.
There was a time when these ceremonies were
taken away.
It's been
generations
since
our family was able to bring the ceremony
back.
Getting to that point
to take that picture
was fourteen years in the making and
(36:54):
really an illustration of
my family's
tenacity to break the cycles and to
reclaim culture,
even when the odds are against us
and to honor the best parts
of our culture
and our ancestors.
So I'm really glad that you acknowledge that
(37:15):
and I can share that with you today.
Bringing that light forward,
my
multi generational,
multicultural
ancestry,
it makes up my soil,
my foundation.
And as you've heard, it's complex, it's multi
layered. And
ever since that elevator exercise,
(37:36):
it's been a journey for me to work
through my blind spots
and to
uncover
the seen and the unseen blocks I was
carrying
quite literally
weight.
And this deeper pain was the root of
what was keeping me stuck.
(37:57):
So
I feel so proud of myself.
I'm so proud of
the courage to sit with my feelings
and really be curious about them. It's been
magic for me to follow my curiosity
straight to these realizations.
It's been my courage that activated my voice
(38:19):
and my inner child found her voice.
My body has a voice
and my spirit has a voice
and I can finally give my intellect
permission
to rest.
What this is all translated
to
is me being able to be in my
full embodied
(38:40):
self.
And after ten years,
I'm finally
losing weight. I've lost 10 pounds
since the bike caught Q2 in February,
and that's huge for me. And I was
just realizing that I was carrying all of
this weight
that I thought was keeping me safe
and
(39:00):
giving myself permission to let it go and
let go of what's no longer safe for
me.
I'm at a point where I've taken agency
over myself and
exercising,
I'm remembering
again.
I'm reading and learning, and
I'm just in this very tender
transition
while I rediscover
(39:21):
myself.
I'm truly loving this new way of being
and and feeling the love for myself finally.
Thank you for sharing. Is there any last
thing you'd like to share? Anything I haven't
asked you about that you think
would be
something you'd like to share?
As I think about
(39:42):
the process and this ancestral work through the
BIPOC Q2,
I'm just so,
so thankful and filled with gratitude
and
coming
and finding home
and belonging
and
truly
feeling that we are the living legacies
of our ancestors
(40:03):
and
replacing all that hate with love is really
what
I have found to bring healing to myself
and my family. And
the Hoffman
process in this practice has been like the
journey of a lifetime.
I'm so grateful to you and Drew
(40:23):
and so thankful to Raz and Liza
and to
Regina and Ian and Inejna and Alyssa, all
the BIPOC Q2
teachers
that
are doing the light work day in and
day out.
And I'm also
so thankful for anybody who's ever contributed to
Hoffman Scholarship Fund.
(40:44):
I think
it's important to recognize
that
those donations
are absolutely
making a difference in people's lives and
we're paying it forward
each and every day. I know I am.
And so with that, I'm just, I'm so
grateful
and appreciative
(41:06):
to to everyone. And
thank you so much for letting me share
my story with you.
It's been such an honor.
Really thank you so much for being with
us and for sharing.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
(41:28):
name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and
president of Hoffman Institute Foundation.
And I'm Razzi Grassi,
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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