S11e9: Drew Horning – What It Means to Be Human - The Hoffman Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
I was so immersed in the experience of
what I was doing, what I was called
to do, asked to do by the teachers,
that I scared myself. I was like, wow.
So I popped out of it for a
second because I was like, that's dark.
That's scary.
I touched this

(00:21):
part, this base part of being human
that I think caused me to recoil.
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

(00:41):
about their courageous journey inward and 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. I'm Sadie Hanna. I'm
a Hoffman process teacher, and I'm here with

(01:04):
Drew Horning who is also a podcast host
and a Hoffman process teacher. Welcome, Drew. Thank
you. And who's psyched to be here with
you for this conversation?
Yes. And so we were just starting about,
like,
where do we begin? Your
experience with the process
has spanned many, many years. Mhmm. How many?

(01:25):
I got trained in four
fifteen,
fourteen. So ten,
eleven years.
Yeah.
So I came to know you first because
you were teaching one of the programs that
I did, like a graduate program before I
became a teacher. Uh-huh. So I knew you
first as a teacher. Yeah. And then I
knew you as

(01:46):
a colleague, but really more of a mentor
when I was training to be a teacher,
and now a colleague.
But
really as a friend, I've come to know
you in a personal way. Yeah. And so
this is an opportunity for our graduates and
for those
that may not know
Drew, like, the real you in a personal
way.

(02:06):
Yeah. And you are just
finishing a process. I'm heading into a process.
Mhmm. And this is the space where Hoffman
teachers, if they're not teaching together,
experience what connection looks like in the
thirty seconds between a hello and a goodbye.
Ships in the night? Ships in the night.
Yes. And coming in with, like, very different

(02:28):
at least my incoming energy and then my
outgoing energy is different.
Friday brain. Mhmm. Post processed brain. Yeah.
Also, my heart is so open
after being with I bet. Through that. I
bet, Sadie, you've just been with these students
going through this experience,
and they're probably still inside you right now.

(02:50):
Yeah. So where would you like to be?
And we can talk about
your personal
journey to the process if you wanna start
with that. Sure. Let's do that. Yeah. Part
of the reason I went
was because,
I'm in a men's group.
And in the men's group, I shared some
of the struggles that

(03:10):
my wife and I were having as a
married couple. We met, got married,
had kids,
all very quickly,
very quickly. We were later in life, and
when you know, you know. And I think
we woke up probably
four or five years into all of that,
And we're like, wait a minute. I don't
know if I like you. I don't know

(03:31):
if I
wanna be with you. I don't know what
it means to be married. And so
I was looking for help.
And
somebody in the men's group said, you know,
one of my friends went through this thing
called Hoffman.
I don't know much about it, but you
may wanna give it a try. I looked
at it, checked it out, signed up, didn't

(03:52):
talk to the enrollment office. It looks good.
Got the time off
and showed up here
and probably had one of the best weeks
of my life, one of the most profound
experiences of my life.
Raz Ingresi was my teacher,
the founder of the Hoffman Institute,
and the husband of Liza, who's our CEO

(04:14):
and president.
And he for me, he was the perfect
teacher.
The process was incredible. I mean, I could
I don't know where to go. Yeah. Well,
we'll go into your process, but there is
something that you just said about Yeah. Leading
into it Yeah. Which is that your relationship
Yeah. Was the spotlight
on something for you. And I think that's

(04:36):
not an uncommon
experience. Yeah. I agree. I agree. That tends
to be the pain point that often gets
expressed
and why people come to the process is
because
the primary relationship is problematic. Sometimes it's parents.
Sometimes it's friends. Sometimes it's work. Sometimes it's
an overall sense
of sadness, unwellness.

(04:57):
Yeah. But many times, it's
partnership.
Yeah. Would you mind going in a little
personal with this? Sure. Like, around
Well,
I'm just thinking about what happens in a
relationship. Yeah. And it's like
a real genuine desire for love and connection.
Yeah. And when that's not met, how painful

(05:19):
that is. Oh, yeah.
How did you know that was hap like,
what did you experience?
Sadie, it's interesting. Like,
it's it wasn't for a lack of trying.
You know? It's not like one of us
was bailing or one of us was like,
I'm not doing this.
It was like we were trying.
We were trying to create connection. We were

(05:40):
trying to understand each other. The stresses of
kids,
the stresses of early marriage.
I think we were still getting to know
each other.
Like, as I look back now, I'm like,
oh my god.
I did it in 02/2013,
so
we had been married
you know, I forget how many years at

(06:00):
the time, but,
yeah, patterns had been kind of woven in.
And when you keep trying,
when I when we kept trying
and we kept kinda
wearing
the same groove
towards a dead end of disconnection,
we were
trying to connect

(06:20):
and, like all roads were leading to disconnection.
Mhmm. Sometimes that was through fighting or yelling.
I remember one time thinking, oh my god.
I think our kids
are traumatized
by
this one argument we had, and so that
was a sobering
moment.
But, also, sometimes not an argument, just straight

(06:41):
up disconnection.
And it just felt like there was
discouragement.
You know? Like, this is not working.
This is not good.
And so I think we both felt that.
And,
that's what led me, like, I gotta
I gotta do something. It was yeah. The
the marriage needed help, but I also was

(07:04):
losing my own agency
and excitement. I was feeling kinda bummed out
about it. So
when I brought it up that day in
group, I was
wanting something for me to navigate
it all much better. Yeah. So discouragement of
we're trying getting more disconnected. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

(07:26):
So you decided to go? Yeah. Signed up
for the process. Raz is your teacher. Raz
is my teacher. And take us to your
process.
Yeah. So,
there's a moment
where
a teacher moves close to
me in a ritual

(07:46):
that was
a very personal
display of love
from a teacher to a student.
And
I remember thinking,
what the heck is going on here? It's
like, wow. This is intimate. This is
not traditional.
And I think that I had that experience

(08:08):
so many times. It was like, alright. This
is different.
This is an unusual.
I mean, I was a therapist. Right? So
I'd been a therapist in private practice for,
at that point, like, almost fifteen years.
And I remember thinking, we would you know,
the therapeutic relationship and boundaries and all these
important

(08:28):
ways in which we hold
therapist and patient dynamic,
that was, like, blown away the first day.
And
through these displays
of love and support and connection
in just beautiful ways
that, like, opened my heart and surprised me.
And I'll say this, I was also, at

(08:50):
the same time, Sadie,
super inspired by,
the formality of it and the ritual nature
of it and the container.
I remember at one point
worrying that
not worrying, but in the signing up to
the process thinking, oh, is this gonna be
like group therapy where because I had gone

(09:10):
to workshops before where it's like we're listening
to Sarah talk about her childhood for
ad nauseam, and then
the facilitator is feeling drawn because Sarah's vulnerable.
And then Bobby jumps in and comments on
Sarah
and is like, you know, what what happened
to the agenda of where we were going?
Yeah. But

(09:31):
that did not happen in the process, and
it's held very powerfully.
So I remember feeling relieved,
safe,
like these people have it. They're in charge.
They're holding this container.
That made me feel great.
So a couple of things that you're saying
are resonating. One is this experience of, like,

(09:53):
I've tried the same things in my relationship
Yeah. Feeling more disconnected. I know what I
know about psychology
and therapy Yeah. And
then coming in, like, experiencing something totally
different.
And that's an interesting place to be because
it's, like, maybe what you what might feel
like stuck. What I hear a lot of

(10:13):
students say is I felt like I was
in this, like, stuck place before I came.
Yeah. So when you came in, it was
something totally new.
How did you feel? Did you feel
Great. You felt great. Loved it. Leaned into
it. Yes. Loved it. Do you think that's
an important part of the process?
I do.
I mean but I think you you brought

(10:35):
up a point which is interesting, which is
I feel like
the more I've taught, especially recently,
it's not students' first rodeo. They've done therapy
before. They've done some sort of coaching,
and they've read maybe the books, and yet
they haven't been able to create the change
that they want. And so
in my experience, people feel more disillusioned,

(10:59):
more discouraged,
more hopeless,
when they come to the process
because they've tried other things. Yeah. You agree
with that? Yes. Yes. And
what is the difference? Like, where does that
knowing something and how it should be, but
it's not working out that way Yeah. Turn
into
an actual change.

(11:20):
So coming back to that experience where you
where you said there's, like, this moment
of closeness
with the teacher. Yeah.
I know this moment you're speaking about. Yeah.
Because we do it every week. Mhmm. It's
mostly silent. There's a few words. That's right.
There's almost nothing said. So what's happening in
that moment, or what happened for you in
that moment?

(11:46):
Eye contact,
intimacy,
you know, to be seen,
to let yourself be seen,
to let yourself be held, to let myself
be held.
You know, as I think back, it's like
there's a
a human connection.
There's nobody hiding behind

(12:08):
a position,
nobody hiding behind authority,
not some
separateness
between
teacher and student in that moment. There's a
human to human
connection,
and it's like, man,
that's gold. Mhmm. That was gold for me.
You know, I'll just reference

(12:28):
the teacher student relationship
because it's really unique in the sense that
if you added up the amount of time,
teachers are one to one with their students,
it wouldn't be a high number. But those
moments we are connected to our students and
those moments I was connected to Raz
were powerful.

(12:49):
There was another moment heading into a in
a morning check-in,
heading into an experience
where Raz looked at me again
in the eye,
paused for a second, and said,
this is a big one you're about to
head into.
You can do this. You can do this,
but you're gonna have to lean in. You

(13:10):
know? And that kind of like challenge
slash love,
I've been an athlete a lot in my
life. So the avenue in which I experienced
him relating to me was very much like
coach,
mentor,
you know, somebody who's got my back.
Yes. And I'm I'm heading into the game,

(13:33):
and he'll see me at halftime,
greet me as I come off the field.
So he's seeing you,
and he's seeing something in you and saying
I believe in you. Yes.
Did you believe in yourself?
In that moment, yeah. Yeah.
And I think at the end of the
week,

(13:53):
I got more belief in myself, more connection
to myself, a more
deeper, profound
understanding of who I was.
There was another moment
that I referenced.
And later I would come to find out,
I
don't know about for you, but for me,
I was like, Was that Wednesday, Thursday? Wait,

(14:15):
what day was that?
What experience was that? I don't even know
what the what the subject was about, what
we were doing.
You know, I got it all confused.
And the timeline and the sequencing
all wrong, I didn't even know. But over
the course of years of teaching,
parts of my process have come back to

(14:36):
me and I've been like, oh,
that was this experience right now. Oh, that's
right. So I've sort of slowly pieced my
process
back together again.
And I don't think it's important to
have it pieced together. Year. It doesn't Chronologically.
Sequencing, chronologically,
doesn't matter. But

(14:57):
in hindsight, what I knew was this experience
happened on Wednesday, and I was heading into
an experience which addressed
the underbelly of being human, part of what
it means to be vindictive.
And this part of us that hates
and judges
and is mean spirited
and critical

(15:18):
to ourselves, to others.
And the process goes into the light, but
it also goes right at
some of the harder things of being human.
Yes. And they set the experience up. I
had the experience.
And I remember one moment
in the cathartic,
expressive nature of it

(15:40):
where
I lost,
like, all sense of space and time, and
I was so immersed
in the experience of what I was doing,
what I was called to do, asked to
do by the teachers
that I scared myself.
So I popped out of it for a
second because I was like, that's dark. That's

(16:03):
scary.
And it like, I touched
this part, this base part of being human
that I think caused me to recoil.
And then, again, this is the post process
brain
understanding what happened. So I can say it
to you now, but
for months and years, I didn't fully understand

(16:26):
what had happened.
But then next,
as is the beautiful cycle of transformation,
they led us into compassion.
And one of the beautiful things I think
of the process is music.
And then there was a piece of music
that came on.
After all of that cathartic work, this music

(16:46):
came on and,
I just started bawling
and I couldn't stop.
So it was like it was a
body cry
of just sobbing.
It wasn't like tears streaming down.
It was
like aching sobbing.
My analyzing

(17:07):
of it was
later
was that I was
relieved
and
surrendering
and held in love.
Every time I hear it, I still go
back to the body sensation
of having that come on and tearing and

(17:30):
crying
because I was like, after all of that
darkness,
I'm still loved.
I'm still okay.
I'm still human.
I can still be with myself.
There's still light there.
Even
minutes earlier, I'm at this darkest place of

(17:50):
what I've been. And the
whiplash nature of that
is wild. And for me, those two experiences
which engage the second and third part of
the cycle of transformation,
yeah, the first one is important. Yeah, the
fourth one's important. But if you don't engage
the second and the third,
the body and the heart

(18:12):
expression
and compassion,
that's what makes it move.
I don't
know if this is something
that
you would agree with or not. It's not
something that I've necessarily
heard from everyone else, but I do I
think about the cycle of transformation. And for
those who don't know, it's like a circle.
Right? It starts with awareness and then it

(18:32):
goes to expression Genius. Compassion, forgiveness Yeah. New
ways of being and goes back to awareness.
So it's like this circle.
And somewhere in that circle, change
really happens.
And as I've really
learned more and embodied the teachings more, it's
like I think it's between
expression

(18:53):
and compassion.
Like, that's truly
this moment where it's like deepest,
darkest, most primal,
like fuck you. Yeah. Don't hurt me. Get
away from me. Yeah. Like this really human
Yeah. Darkness
Yeah. Is transformed into love, into like this
beautiful
love. And you can read any book. You

(19:16):
can hear about it but until you have
experienced
that
you don't really know. Yeah.
You're speaking to the importance
of embodied work, of cellular work,
of
expressive
and
you know, engaging work where we're not just
engaging our intellect and analyzing it all because

(19:36):
that's an epidemic. Analyzing problems
is an epidemic. It's an addiction.
We we do it ad nauseam.
And I love the saying in the process,
you can
act yourself into a new way of thinking,
but you cannot think yourself
into a new way of acting.
And it it doesn't stop us from trying.

(19:57):
But for me,
the immersive nature of this work, the cellular
experiential nature of the work
is what makes it go, is what gives
its legs.
It makes it real. It makes it real.
For you. Yeah. Right? Because you were there
for that. The body keeps the score, Bessel
van der Kolk's seminal work is

(20:19):
important here because trauma, struggle lives in the
body. But what's also lives in the body
is our essence, our goodness, our light. And
so for me to have that experience
like that was a
cellular
epiphany of sorts that was involuntary.
So touching into this

(20:40):
darkness that scared you maybe, disoriented you Disoriented
is a good word.
And then this
experience of love and light, it's just right
there. Yeah. And then, like so much in
the process,
they have us go outside.
I can remember all of this.
I think this is what I tell students

(21:01):
is
like, grads, it's like you may forget some
of the teachings, you may forget
a lot,
but your body will always remember experiences.
Always. It's in you. It's in your cells.
And so all you have to do is
breathe
and come home to the wisdom in your
body, and those cellular memories of your experiences

(21:23):
will be right there. And that's true for
me. I can remember
walking out of the classroom,
you know, stepping into the sunlight.
I can remember White Sulphur Springs.
Like, it's all right there.
It's all right there. Yeah.
There's two things that
I'm feeling into feeling into. One is, Dan

(21:44):
Siegel talks about feeling felt. Yeah. And this
experience of of love,
we want to feel
felt.
And I think embodiment work is
really an act of self love, right, of
feeling yourself. And so the way you just
described, I will not forget walking out into
the sun because I felt that. The way

(22:05):
you describe that moment of looking into Raz's
eyes and feeling
seen.
How does that now play out in your
experience of connection
post process?
I remember,
you know, taking the weekend,
which I think, you know, we gotta give
a shout out to the integration weekend here.

(22:26):
Thank you, integration weekend.
And may everybody
take an integration weekend because
the process moves so quickly.
There's some fatigue.
There's some confusion.
Like I As I said, I couldn't piece
together what happened when or
why or what it all meant. I was

(22:46):
beginning to have some understanding, but I think
in life, we lead with our intellect,
and I think our body, our emotional self,
and our spirit kinda tag along. And our
intellect can act as an interpreter of sorts.
Like,
this is an experience. Yep. That's it. Spiritual
self. This is, you know and so the
intellect is like the gatekeeper to it all.
In the process, that's reversed. Yeah. So the

(23:08):
body leads first
because there's so many experiences
that engage our bodies. The emotional self is
next.
The spiritual self is right there, and then
the intellect is, like, tagging along
and being, like, okay. Trying to catch up.
I think I'm understanding.
Wait, everybody.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait for me. Mhmm.
And it's a really beautifully humbling experience for

(23:31):
the intellect
to play cleanup,
to tag along,
to realize that these other three aspects
are having incredible experiences
that the intellect honestly
doesn't know. It's like, woah. Woah. Woah. This
you know, I think it's a little confused.
It's a little overwhelmed.
And so the integration weekend

(23:51):
is in part
for the intellect to go,
wow. Thank you guys for stopping and slowing
down. Can you share a little bit with
me what happened? And I think the intellect
interviews
the rest of the quadrinity
on the integration weekend
to sort of begin to piece together
and make sense of this experience. Yes. What

(24:13):
do you think? Absolutely. And it's actually bringing
to mind
part of the ceremony of integration. So the
last day we have sort of an intentional
experience around integrating
and it's where
the intellect gets to feel some emotional tenderness
and where the emotional
adult
gets to have some sense of

(24:35):
the structure that comes. So these they kind
of come together
in a way. Beautiful. Yeah. And I think
you're right to reference the integration we've weekend
and the ceremony of integration.
You know, I was thinking about
voice,
Sadie, and, you know, the you and I
are cohosts of the podcast and just the

(24:55):
power of the human voice.
And one of the reasons
that experience was so powerful me for me
around compassion
was
Ed's voice. And later, I realized it was
Ed. But in a visualization
where you're being guided
through the human voice,
There's something that gets transmitted

(25:18):
in
the human voice
coming across those speakers
when I'm in the experience. And
just the texture
of the human voice, I think, is fascinating.
And only later, I would would realize, oh,
that was Ed. It was Ed that led
it. Oh my god. That is a beautiful

(25:39):
visualization.
He has a beautiful voice.
And, you know,
Chat GBT
is now more and more, I hear students
referencing
how they engage Chat GBT
to help them solve problems.
And I get that it's helpful. Like, it's
not a judgment on that, but I will
say, how embodied is that? You know, we

(26:02):
talk about awareness hell
in the process
for a reason.
Because students
have information.
Chat GBT is just more information.
The lack of information
is not the problem.
We have enough information.
We need to integrate,
engage,

(26:22):
wrestle with that information.
So you were mentioning
realizing
that
Ed's voice
stayed with you in like a resonant way.
Yes.
And it has me considering
voice
and how people tend to talk or or
want to talk talk talk
talk about things talk about things rather than

(26:43):
actually moving into a place of either experience
or
feeling,
connect like being in their body. Right?
So
is there a difference between hearing a voice
and feeling a voice?
Like hearing
someone's voice
versus feeling.

(27:05):
Well, I think when you say that, one
of the things that
comes to mind is part of the reason
we use microphones
is because
if I'm speaking to a room of 40
people without a microphone,
I have
to enunciate and speak up and out.
And in that,
there's a loss of the texture. Whereas if

(27:27):
I have a microphone, I'm mic'd up,
I
can share and speak in a way that
is softer,
tender, more complex.
That certainly was the case for me as
a student
where it was like, okay. This voice,
I will follow it. I will surrender to
it. There is love in it. There is

(27:49):
kindness.
There is
strength.
There is trust.
Mhmm. And all of that in the voice
was like, I'm yours. I
am yours.
Can I tell you something?
It's actually not so different than
the voice we came to know

(28:09):
when we're in our mother's Wow. Womb. Beautiful.
Right? Here in no idea the concept of
the words. The intellect is not there,
but feeling that resonance of voice. Nice pickup,
Sadie. Nice pickup. Absolutely. Like,
the baby in the womb
hears mama's voice, hears voices.

(28:31):
Mhmm.
And, of course,
the baby is hearing those and
digesting those and being with those. So it's
calling back to that early experience.
Nice.
So eyes closed
through some of this experience maybe
lets us not over rely on what's happening

(28:51):
outside. Well, I mean, I think there's research
around this. We are visual creatures. Other creatures
are smelt. Like my dog, when it gets
in the car, it either wants to put
its nose out the window or in the
vent.
It doesn't wanna look out the window. It
wants to put his nose in the vent
or its nose outside. Mhmm. We're visual creatures.
Our brain is wired for us to see.

(29:12):
Even though Paul Gauguin, the artist, said, I
close my eyes
so that I may see.
And I think it's an important piece to
close our eyes
to stop trying to
visually see and instead to be with the
experience inside of us. The experience of feeling

(29:32):
seen,
the experience of feeling the voice,
and we spoke about
connection.
You were gonna share post process. How did
your experience of connection change? Oh, right. Yeah.
So,
there's something that we teach in the process
that I brought to my kids around connection.

(29:53):
A practice
I brought to my wife
is just a beautiful form of presence
that I didn't know anything about, and my
kids liked it. It was a little awkward
at times, but, you know, it's a beautiful
practice of presence. Yeah. Like, what does it
mean to be present Mhmm. With ourselves, with
others?
Well, Hoffman has a couple rituals, couple practices

(30:15):
that you can engage in post process. And
so those have been a part of
our lives
post process. But, you know, it wasn't perfect.
It was still bumpy. But I, you know,
I remember Liza the last day said,
this will grow inside you.
And I just remember those words. And I

(30:36):
remember wanting to believe them, not knowing if
I could believe them. And now years later,
it's like, wow. Absolutely.
This has grown inside me.
And I'm so grateful
that the process has been
the stalwart,
the steadfast
presence in my life, not just as a
teacher, but as a student

(30:57):
engaging in the practices, doing
recycling
to,
have it be a part of our family,
our marriage, and to give me the resiliency
to yes. Problems still happen. Struggles still happen.
But I have the ability to bounce back
a little quicker, to be kinder to myself.
I mean, it is one of the things
that I was blown away by and I

(31:18):
continue to share with students,
which is this,
surprising power of self compassion.
And Dan Siegel calls it inner compassion.
I love that we've referenced him twice. Mhmm.
He's got a great podcast episode. Mhmm. And
he's a proud grad of the process, this
neuroscientist.
I think we have been sold a bill

(31:39):
of goods. We've been
lied to essentially,
which is the lie we've all maybe tried
to believe that doesn't work, which is that
if you're struggling in your life,
what you need to do is
grin and bear it and
go after, dislike the part of you that
is struggling.

(32:00):
Almost like jettison the part of you that
you don't like.
Judge it, critique it, find fault with it.
And that is so habituated
in the students I see. Like self loathing
as almost a way of being
is natural. It's in the water we swim
in. And to tell those people

(32:20):
that, oh, all you have to do is
be kinder to yourself.
People look at you, you know, like, you
gotta be kidding me.
That's the way forward, to be kinder to
myself. It's like, yeah. Yeah.
Practice compassion.
Be kind to yourself.
Hold loving space for yourself. See your humanity.

(32:41):
Practice your humanity
and watch.
Watch. Be surprised.
Yes. In some ways, it's like, you know,
where you might say
self love is something that I have,
but at your worst,
when you feel you're the least deserving of
it to be kind to yourself. I think
you bring up a good point because a

(33:02):
lot of people think, oh, well, I'm not
feeling loving towards myself. That's why I don't
do the practices. It's like, well, no.
Even when you feel worst about yourself
and when you have all the evidence
for why you should feel bad about yourself.
It's in those moment
that we need to be kind to ourselves.

(33:22):
I mean, it's actually
a bigger version of what you described in
in that cathartic expression of like the deepest
dark and then here's love.
And to bring those two side by side
in a day to day Watch out. Practice.
Watch out. Yeah. Incredible.
Incredible. Not easy.
Confusing. I mean, I think it speaks to

(33:42):
the paradox.
Like, Carl Jung talks about the importance of
paradox
as human beings. And I think he's on
to something when it comes to light and
dark,
spirit and patterns.
Yes.
This might be a nice segue into
what let's talk a little bit about what
we love about the process. Can we do

(34:03):
that? Yeah. We've done a little bit about
the experiential nature of it, the cycle of
transformation.
Mhmm. What do you love about it? Self
compassion we've spoken about. So what we're alluding
to now
and I think
what really hit home for me this week
in teaching Having just taught. Yes,
is how
the process

(34:24):
really holds
you are
powerful and divine
and wise and
the light itself within you. You are divine
and you're also human.
This idea of left road right road, left
road being patterns and
right road being authentic,

(34:44):
and you can't stay always on the right
road. No one can
because you're
a spirit,
but you're also a human.
It's truly spirit embodied. I think that's the
essence of what I really love about it.
You get to be both amazing and human,
unskilled.
You can embarrass yourself at times. You're still

(35:05):
worthy of love. Yeah. Yeah. I I love
that, Sadie. I love that. We're a 100%
divine and a 100% human. Human.
And it's in that shared
common
connection between the two of those that real
magic happens.
Yeah, I love that.
You know, someone asked me the other day,

(35:26):
like, do you ever get tired of teaching?
I think I'm coming up on
90 processes
having taught
and here's what I would say is hell
no,
hell no.
Two reasons. One is humans are
fascinating. Yes. It's the same process,
but it's a different group of people. Wouldn't
you agree? Like, classes have energies.

(35:48):
So sometimes there's this kind of group identity,
but also
each of your students is different.
And so, yeah, there's some common themes,
but their stories, their the where they came
from, where they're headed, what they're working with
is often different. And so I think humans
are amazing. They're fascinating.

(36:09):
And I've come to really love and appreciate
what it means to be human. I was
thinking about taglines
and how the process's tagline is,
Hoffman process, when you're serious about change.
And I think that's great because a lot
of students reference that when they come and
they realize, okay. I need it now. I
mean, me having just now step stepping into

(36:32):
a process, having just had eight precalls,
I'm totally inspired by the precalls.
Like, I'm thinking to myself,
these students are so ready. They're so committed.
They spent a lot of time on their
paperwork. Like,
they are gonna have I can just predict
they're gonna have amazing
weeks
in part because they're serious about change.

(36:55):
But I would say this, one of the
other taglines that could be and I know
we've talked in the past about
what one word would you call the process,
and we posted a bunch of stuff. But
I have
a couple phrases, and one would be
the Hoffman process, what it means to be
human.
And it's like I love how you looked
at the I know. Awesome. What it means.

(37:16):
Maybe that'll get on Instagram, what it means
to be human. I mean, honestly, I think
we're born into this body, into this being.
We step out into the world. And I
think part of the tragedy,
part of the heartbreak
is that we're not fully sure
what it means to be human. And so
when our humanity
shows up, because it inevitably will,

(37:39):
we judge it. We critique it. We try
and shun it. And so if we only
understood
what it actually means to be human,
we would treat our humanity
differently.
And so the process
is a discovery
of nothing else than what it means to
be human.

(38:00):
What it means to be human and the
part of being human that you've tried so
hard to not feel or not know to
the point that it could even disorient
you.
Disorient's a good word. Yeah.
And
so it's like to be not special
and to be so special. That's right. Another
paradox of the process. By it. Yes. Yeah.

(38:22):
You are special. Mhmm. You are divine.
You are unique.
You are worthy. You belong.
Mhmm. Like, cellularly,
these are felt senses. And
you're human,
and you're not that special.
So all of what you're struggling with is
not that unique.
People tend to come to the process

(38:43):
thinking they're u f
u, uniquely fucked up. Mhmm. And they're not.
You know, they may have a unique story,
but their struggle is part of what it
means to be human.
They're just trying to make it abnormal
when in
fact they're very normal. Yes.
Could we talk about something else? Yeah.
The paradox of individual work in the process,

(39:06):
your inner experience,
and
they're in a group.
This piece about we spoke about resonance where
it's like resonating with the group versus what's
real for me. Mhmm. You speak about that.
You like that paradox?
Both the process has individual
work where you're on your own doing your
work.
It's not about other people,

(39:28):
and there's very much a group dynamic
that has interactions
and intentionality
and experiences
that are group experiences.
And the fact that it has both fully
is its part of its genius. That they
can both happen at the same time
becomes a bit of a current that

(39:49):
is healing for everyone. Yeah. I think I
wanna bring in something really specific right now,
and it's a guideline
around no crosstalk.
I realize I'm revealing a little bit about
the process, but it feels important
to bring in here because I think when
that current happens and people engage in this
group experience,

(40:10):
it can get messy. And we do a
couple things. One is around transference,
the idea of transference and how it's alive
inside of you in reaction to
other people.
But the other one is no
crosstalk,
And it helps people, it helps students
stay in their lane.

(40:31):
Because I think, you know, when you're in
this kind of group experience,
it's easy to
and I think it happens a lot to
cross boundaries, to
give advice, to
comment on someone else's experience.
And we
hold it it's one of the things that
impressed the hell out of me in my
process was like,

(40:51):
oh, these people,
they're in charge.
Oh, they're in charge. And I was like,
oh, that's great.
Because when you go through healing,
it can be wonky at times. It's a
residential
experience.
I remember thinking midweek,
holy shit. If I had to drive out
of here right now, I'd crash. Like, I

(41:12):
don't know. You know, the fact that I
knew that I could I didn't have to
cook meals
and do dishes,
meal plan, take care of the kids,
you know, even do laundry. I didn't have
to worry about any of that. I could
just engage in my own healing.
I was grateful for,
and I'm always grateful for the guidelines

(41:32):
that help students
show up to their own work and not
cross boundaries.
So that lack of crosstalk and that it
being held
in a way that was so clear to
you
allowed
you to
feel safe.
Be able to be me
without fear of someone, like, interpreting,

(41:54):
judging,
commenting on.
I mean, I think
students go through the process,
and one will have a powerful experience while
the other is still shut down. And then
that person has a powerful experience while this
person is deeply in pattern. And so
the fact that it's not everybody
rising up at the same time having the

(42:16):
same experience, heck no. And so how do
you hold those differences
in the midst of a group experience
is you hold it through guidelines
and that, you know, let people have their
experience and don't comment on it.
Don't interpret it. Don't
judge
it. Don't make it a part of,

(42:36):
somehow your experience.
Right? You're in your experience, they're in theirs.
And, of course, they're patterns, but
the guidelines help students show up better.
Yes. I do think it there can be
patterns that come up, but it does prevent
holding court or trying to say something to
sound wise.

(42:58):
I had a student
mention something
today about witnessing in the beginning of the
week when you asked me what I felt,
I wanted to sound
wise.
And I realized because I didn't know
how I felt. Wow. And now I do.
And then just tears and this beautiful moment
of, like, that was all a cover because
I didn't know how I felt. It was

(43:19):
a beautiful moment. That's so good.
That's so good. You know, and
the the intellect
loves to jump in and interpret on behalf
of the emotional self. And, you know, we
want the emotional self to speak for itself.
I love this idea that
everybody wants to feel better,

(43:40):
but what we really need to do is
get better at feeling.
We've got to get better at feeling. We're
not good feelers.
We're good interpreters of feeling.
We're good meaning makers of feelings,
But we're not really great
feelers.
We either get stuck in it or we

(44:00):
judge it or we're trying to run from
the feeling.
But I love the podcast I did about
the ninety second rule with Jill Bolte Taylor
and her work around emotion and the brain.
And, just this idea that
feelings are wonderful.
Just don't judge them. Be with them and

(44:21):
you'll move through them a lot quicker.
You move on to the next feeling there.
Mhmm. And the irony, the paradox that if
you try and judge a feeling or resist
a feeling,
you've now attached yourself to that feeling and
you're stuck in the very feeling
that you're trying to resist.
Why is that? Why is that happen? Well,
because the feeling is like, hello. Like, I'm

(44:43):
a normal part of your day to day
experience, and now you're shunning me. I have
no place to go, so I'm just gonna
hang out with you and trail you around.
And I think, are we really humans
with all these
submersed
denied feelings
trailing us around in life?
And if we just turn towards them and

(45:04):
be like, oh, hi. Oh,
you feel this.
How better lighter we could feel.
Yeah. The energy that it takes to
intentionally
hold it down.
Yeah. What is another thing for someone who
wanted to develop more connection to feeling
but hadn't done the process with something that
Well, I think that we have a feeling

(45:25):
list we put on Instagram, we put on
out in the public. You know, I've heard
students come to the process and say,
wow. I I downloaded this list
years ago. My wife and I use it.
And
so it's out there. But to look at
the list, you know, when we don't understand
something, we don't have words for it. And
so part of what we need to get

(45:46):
better at is understanding the vocabulary
of feeling.
And
that word list of the vocabulary of feelings
and the body sensations
related to feelings is a great place to
start. There's so much
rich, textured,
layered,
nuanced emotions
and words that reflect that,

(46:07):
that spend some time with it. We live
in this binary world of good,
bad, pretty good, not so bad.
And that becomes our orientation
to our experience of ourselves and our experience
of life,
and that's not that interesting.
Yeah. There's so much it's like a black
and white painting as opposed to colors, textures.

(46:30):
Yes. I think one of the things I
mentioned with students
on the pre call sometimes or certainly in
that first day is, like,
your feelings are welcome. All of them
are welcome
because they apologize.
People apologize. You see people have shame for
feeling emotional.
Yeah. That is often the first word out

(46:51):
of people's mouths when they start to get
emotional. They apologize
impulsively,
compulsively.
Oh, I'm sorry. And that's tragic, isn't that?
Their essence is beginning to emerge and immediately
an apology.
One of the things that I've done as
a supervisor recently of processes
is said to teachers,
okay take something in your life that needs

(47:12):
some care
and just think about it, Hold it.
Name it to yourself.
Don't share it with anybody.
Just name it to yourself
as you step into teaching a process.
And I'll say to them before the process
starts, do you got it? Everybody got theirs?
Great. Now just let the process work on

(47:34):
it. Don't consciously let it work on it.
Don't intentionally try and make the connections.
Just hold this
part of your life
with care
and
notice what happens.
And then I'll check back on Friday.
And then
every time I do it and every time
I check back Friday, I'll say, what do
you notice? People are like, oh my god.

(47:56):
Like, it totally I got so much insight.
I got some new reflections.
I have deeper compassion
for what I won't even ask what was
it. Keep it to yourself. That's just personal
stuff.
But I share that because I think to
be a teacher
is quite a privilege not just in supporting
students in their journey.

(48:17):
It's also a privilege because we get to
have an experience
of healing as well. Yeah. So that's what
I was gonna ask you is what what's
your best guess at what's happening?
Well, there's insight. There's care. There's love. There's
space being held,
something's being metabolized, something's being moved,

(48:39):
something's
having some,
like, a washing effect over whatever it is.
And so,
you know, the problem is still there. As
we say to students, you know,
sometimes you can wish other people would do
the process
or that the situation is what it is.
And so what can you do by taking

(49:00):
the process? And we say to students, really,
the only person you can change is yourself.
And at White Sulphur Springs, there used to
be this saying on the
fountain right there in the courtyard, all things
change
when we do. You remember that? Yes. And
and I was actually thinking what you're describing
reminds me of questions I often hear from

(49:21):
students
towards the end of their process week. And
it's like, how do I go home and
and deal with this problem? What do I
do about this problem? Yeah. And it's like
our desire to fix Yeah. Situations.
And problems happen,
but there is this
amazing
thing where
the problem looks differently

(49:44):
when you're there
in a different way, when you're present in
a different way. Yeah. I'm glad you brought
this up because we're circling back to one
of my favorite things to the process which
is essentially be, do, have.
It is an embodiment
of who you are at your core and
an understanding of the patterns that float around
that block that
and trusting that from an being place. And

(50:08):
then
you'll know what to do. You'll know what
to say. You'll know how to show up,
and then you'll have the life you want.
But students resist that. It is one of
the hardest things. They wanna strategize.
They wanna fix.
They sometimes want a quick fix.
You know, they they think that their situation
is the piece of feedback that you need

(50:30):
to comment on, and therefore, they have the
answer.
And in fact, the answer comes from within.
It is not about the gurus
at the
front of the classroom dropping mics so that
students have to write it down
or that somehow without the teacher,
their wisdom
isn't available to them.

(50:50):
It's all of the stuff they found internally
inside them.
And that's the stuff that lasts.
And the work of the process is embodiment,
which is the foundation of be, do, have
and not
what we've also been sold as a lie
in society,
which is do,
have,

(51:11):
be. And that's the drumbeat we live by.
You gotta do something. Don't just sit there,
do something.
Then you'll have the
status, the cars, the job, the girlfriend, the
boyfriend,
whatever it is.
And then coming in last place,
you'll be happy. People come to the process.
Like, I've had moments where we teach that,

(51:33):
where that's embodied.
And students are like,
oh, my God.
I have been living my life
from do have be, and I didn't even
know it.
Do you think
shame is under do have be?
Well, one of the things that I got
out of my process I was raised Catholic.

(51:54):
You know, I have, I got that I
have an incredible family.
I could never quite square
that there was so much love in my
family
and so many patterns.
And so, yeah, I think that lives
inside me. I am pattern
and I am love and spirit and I
can hold both

(52:15):
without splintering and I can hold the paradox
of my humanity
and hold the tension
in that paradox.
And without that,
it's like I have to do something to
fix
the problem that I am or the problem
that that I'm not enough. I have to
do or achieve. Right? Yeah. It's like a
this compulsive drive. Yeah. And so part of

(52:37):
that shame in part, for me, anyway, I'll
speak for me,
but of original sin.
I remember saying in mass
every Sunday, Lord, I'm not worthy to receive
thee. Only say the word and I shall
be healed. And as a Catholic being raised
Catholic, it felt like original sin was kind
of a part. I didn't understand it conceptually.

(52:58):
I still remember saying those words and being
like, man, that doesn't seem cool.
I'm not worthy to receive thee.
But, when I got to the process, I
realized,
oh shit, this is a story of original
love. This is not original sin. This is
blowing
original sin out of the water. Shame.
This is original

(53:19):
love.
And it's one of my favorite pieces of
the process, and I do think it relates
to the shame of do, have, be. Back
to taglines.
Yeah. Callback.
Yeah. I am love, loving, and lovable. Yeah.
The Hoffman process. I am love, loving, and
lovable. Yeah. Another one could be the Hoffman
process.
What it means to heal.

(53:40):
Because I think people don't understand healing. They
want a quick fix. They want a hack.
They want a
strategy. Mhmm. They want you to step into
a specific situation and offer us some advice.
It's like, that's not healing.
The Hoffman process, what it means to heal.
Mhmm. What healing looks like. And then another
one is love, the Hoffman process, an exploration

(54:03):
of love.
I mean, love is truly at the core.
What what is love? That heart, you know,
that beautiful heart that's like
the symbol that we see all over the
place. Small and the negative love back.
Huge at the end of the week in
the poster on the back of the wall.
That is the Hoffman process, an exploration of
love. So to tie it all back because

(54:24):
I love to try to make things as
linear when it works out, it doesn't always.
Love it. You spoke about your doorway into
the work was misconnections
with your wife. And I I think about
this negative love map, which is a small
little heart,
the purity of who we are, the love
of who we are, covered up by all
of the things we learned
to try to be enough

(54:47):
or be loved.
And it's just like a shell
around the heart, and I sometimes think about
two hearts trying to meet through all of
this. A student today has called it a
force field, like this force field and they
can't. It gets frustrating.
Wow.
So
connection
post process, did it was it easier to
connect?

(55:08):
Absolutely.
A pattern still emerged and I think at
times we were a little confused.
Like, oh,
one of the things I reassure I do
a lot of work with couples. I think
it's the most dynamic
coaching out there, so I do lots of
intensives. But I just reassure couples, and I
know for me,
we felt this, which is that, wait, we're
fighting.

(55:29):
Oh, no. Shit. We're fighting. You know, and
we both would get
fight, try and understand each other, not, and
then be discouraged by the fact that we
were fighting. And as we've matured as a
couple, as we've grown in our love and
our understanding
of what love is,
we treat disagreement
much differently.
We treat tension

(55:50):
between ourselves much differently.
We don't make meaning of it. That's not
true. It's just, oh,
patterns.
Oh, these are patterns.
Oh, okay. There can be patterns
and love. Right there together. Oh. And so
we're a lot more resilient to the patterns
that do
show up in ourselves and

(56:12):
in the other person
and with each other. Wonderful. Drew, thank you
so much. This has been a a really
exciting fun Yeah. Live video. I feel totally
energized. Conversation. Oh my god. Yeah.
And,
I'll take the baton from you of Hoffman
teacher. Mhmm. You just finished. Yeah. I'll take
it in and bring the love that you

(56:34):
and your students and the work and the
courage
that you guys
brought to the week here on the Hoffman
Retreat site. Yes. I hope you have a
great week. Thank you. Mhmm. Sadie, great to
be with you. Yeah.
High five.

(57:01):
Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and
president of Hoffman Institute Foundation.
And I'm 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.

(57:22):
To find out more, please go to hompaninstitute.org.

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S11e9: Drew Horning – What It Means to Be Human

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S11e9: Drew Horning – What It Means to Be Human