October 17, 2024 • 41 mins
Leila Day, journalist, co-creator/co-host of The Stoop, and freelance podcast show-runner, is our guest this week. She and Drew sat down for an in-depth conversation about story, belonging, and the Hoffman Process.
Always a lover of story and storytelling, Leila shares that she fell in love with podcasting as a creative way to format personal storytelling. She says podcasting keeps her curious; when she's not curious, she knows something is off. Leila realized a lack of curiosity was a lack of interest in others and life. With this realization, she knew the light within her was dimming. This is what brought her to the Hoffman Process.
At the beginning of her Process, Leila kept to herself and her teachers noticed. Being there felt like she often felt in her childhood - the only Black kid surrounded by white kids. She found herself observing rather than engaging. Her teacher encouraged her to take control of this pattern and actively deconstruct her pattern of disengaging under these circumstances. Leila did and what happened in response was powerful. She realized she was stunting her growth in a place built for her to grow. Her curiosity and light were reignited in her remaining days at the Process because she chose to do it differently. She reclaimed the wholeness and fullness of who she truly is.
We hope you enjoy this intimate, honest, loving conversation with Leila and Drew.
More about Leila Day:
Leila Day is a journalist and co-creator and co-host of The Stoop. An award-winning podcast, The Stoop focuses on Black stories. She won the Gracie Award for an episode on The Stoop titled, Inside These Walls. Leila received her Gracie at The Alliance For Women In Media Foundation's 48th Annual Gracie Awards Gala.
She’s also a freelance podcast show-runner who has hosted and edited podcasts for Marvel, CBS Universal, NPR, Netflix, and many others. As a former NPR station reporter, she’s often speaking on unique ways to combine journalism and storytelling.
Follow Leila on Instagram and Twitter/X. Follow The Stoop on Instagram.
As mentioned in this episode:
The Stoop:
A podcast about stories from the Black Diaspora.
Higher Ground Media:
Podcasts for the Obama's production network.
Winning the Gracie Award:
Image of Leila receiving her Gracie award wearing her fabulous dress. Taken at The Alliance For Women In Media Foundation's 48th Annual Gracie Awards Gala.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
After the process, being able to self regulate
was extremely helpful for me,
extremely helpful. I still ask myself every morning,
like, what do you need today, Leila? What
do you need? What does your spirit need?
What does your body need? A radical
daily question, isn't it? Mhmm. And it's so
simple
if you know how to ask the question
(00:22):
and you know that there can be an
answer.
Welcome, everybody. My name is Drew Horning, and
this podcast is called Love's Everyday Radius.
It's brought to you by the Hoffman Institute
and its stories and anecdotes
and people we interview
about their life post process and how it
(00:42):
lives in the world radiating love.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast.
Leila Day is our guest today. Welcome, Leila.
Hello. Thank you for having me. Oh, man.
We are excited for this conversation. I am
(01:04):
excited for this conversation. Leila,
this is your field. You're a podcaster. Right?
I am a podcaster,
so I feel very much in my element
talking to you.
I've been doing podcasting
for the past 15 years, so
I'm pretty deep in it. Yeah. You have
worked for public radio before,
(01:24):
and you're a founder, cofounder of a podcast
called The Stoop.
You're the producer of it, the founder. And
talk a little bit about The Stoop and
what you do there.
Yeah. So
The Stoop is a podcast
about stories from the black diaspora. So I'm
African American. My co host is African.
We talk about similarities and differences between our
(01:45):
culture.
We talk about
just black stories,
all of their diversity. We like to talk
about black joy.
We were both journalists from this radio station
in San Francisco, me and my cohosts. And
we didn't wanna focus on such negative stories
around
blackness and black people. And
(02:06):
we just found a way to create this
podcast so we could really show, like, the
diversity
of what it means to be black. We
can talk we'd have stories about, like, what
it means to be a black introvert.
We have an episode called Don't Call Me
Auntie about that's about me, actually. Right? Issues
with being called auntie and ageism and all
that kind of thing. But we also combine,
(02:27):
like, journalism and storytelling,
and we've been
going for we have over a 100 episodes
now.
So it's been ongoing. It's been like an
outlet for both of us. You know? It's
like our our baby, our passion project. I
love it. And you're involved in another podcast
creating and kinda streamlining
podcasts for production. Right? And then you're also
(02:50):
involved in this new project. Can you talk
a little bit about that? Yeah. So my
background in journalism
has led me to be
working with a lot of different production companies
as an editor.
So
I help produce
and craft the story of larger projects, maybe
like 8 episode series,
(03:11):
something that has a narrative arc, something that
has a lot of storytelling in it. So
I'm working right now with a production company,
Higher Ground, which is the Obamas production network.
And we're working on something extremely
exciting
with a lot of incredible,
talented guests. And,
yeah, there's not so much I can say
(03:32):
about it, but it's definitely,
it'll be released in about a year.
It's a big challenge, and it's
extremely exciting project to work on. What is
it about
podcasting?
It seems like it gives the chance to
go a little deeper, to slow it down
a little, to use this medium,
to really explore
(03:54):
the nuances of being human, of being in
this world? What do you love about it?
I have always
loved story
and storytelling.
And I think when I discovered
that podcasting was a way to tell story
and personal
story, I just fell in love with the
(04:15):
format. I love reporting. I love getting information.
I love interviewing people. I love listening.
And so for me, podcasting and this type
of storytelling, it just really fit into
who I am and what I enjoy doing.
I just think also I'm a little bit
of an introvert in a sense, you know,
so it's it's kind of nice to be
(04:35):
behind, you know.
No one can see me. You can hear
my voice. I can say something in a
different way if I didn't like how it
sounded.
I love writing
and podcasting. The type of, storytelling and podcasting
that we do involves a lot of writing.
It might sound like we're just talking off
the cuff, but we aren't. It's very kind
(04:55):
of scripted and it's very thought through.
And, yeah, I think that
it keeps me curious.
You know, all these stories, they just keep
me curious. That's one thing I kept saying
as I age, like, I just want to
remain
curious. If I can remain curious,
I'm happy.
Because that word gets thrown around so often,
what what do you mean by curious when
(05:17):
you say that? I want to still be
able to
listen to people,
engage with them,
be able to
be excited about their stories and their experiences.
I don't wanna just become numb to people's
experiences.
I love I feel for me, I kept
saying what like I said, like, once
(05:40):
I lose that curiosity side of me, I
think it's a problem. Like, I really would
need to do some soul searching in terms
of what is missing here.
You know, something has to be off
if you're just not interested anymore. And I've
gotten to that point and really had to
reset.
I'm just kinda curious about that right there.
Wasn't the lack of curiosity that
(06:02):
you realized was happening,
it's what you did with it. And you
took that awareness around your lack of curiosity,
and it sounds like you
asked why, and that why created a reset.
Yes. Exactly.
It was like the lack of curiosity
was
a reaction
(06:22):
to, like, a symptom. You know what I'm
saying? Like, it wasn't just like it was
just gone. It was a reaction because it
wasn't me. It was not me. Like, when
I woke up and I was like, I'm
not interested in what anyone has to say.
I don't wanna create anything. I don't wanna
hear anyone's story.
I wanna sit and stare at the sky.
You know, I just don't wanna think about
(06:42):
anything anymore.
People were telling me very kind of emotional
experiences
that I should have been excited about, and
I just had no reaction to it. Not
excited about their emotional experience, but excited about
how do I tell their story
in a way that could create some change
or inspire someone else. You know? When I
started losing the interest in someone's story, I
(07:04):
realized, like, something was really, really off. The
story I'm making up in this moment is
that that led to a a great new
project. Was that what led to the stoop?
When I started
losing
interest in break when I started having that
shift, it was after the stoop. I've been
doing the stoop for many years.
I kept thinking, you know, am I gonna
(07:25):
get bored with this? Am I gonna you
know, when is it gonna get exhausting? When
am I gonna feel like I've we've already
told this story before? And I wasn't really
feeling it, but something
something was kind of just fizzling away
in me slowly.
And it was during the stoop, and it
was during production that I started thinking, like,
wow. Something's missing. Like, something is off.
(07:46):
And that's actually what led me
to Hoffman.
Oh, I was just gonna ask about Hoffman,
and you gave a beautiful segue. So take
us there. You're you're waking up. It's not
working. You're not feeling the aliveness that you
want.
How did that lead to Hoffman? I've been
asking people about this because other artists have
(08:08):
been saying, like, have you ever
felt
you've lost your art? Like, you've lost your
ability to create,
that you're just not good at it anymore.
And maybe I kept thinking, is it age?
Like, is it is this what aging means?
Does it mean that I'm not gonna be
interested in my art? I'm not gonna be
interested in my craft? I was so confused.
(08:28):
You know? So I was doing all the
things. I was exercising. I was, you know,
trying to do all the things to make
me excited or feel different again.
I just felt, like, little by little, like,
I felt like this light that I had
just extinguished.
I felt so very lost.
I was feeling, like, just very disconnected.
(08:49):
I had a story that I knew was
in me, and I knew I really wanted
to make.
And I was sitting on it for months,
you know, not able to create it. And
I knew it was there, and I just
put it off and put it off. And
I just felt like I don't wanna make
anymore. I don't wanna make the stories anymore.
I have no interest
in this anymore.
(09:09):
I think I'm done. I was telling my
cohost, you know, I'm I'm not sure I'm
not sure if I I can do this
anymore.
She, you know, she was devastated, you know.
I was like, what what how can I
get we get you inspired again? Like, what
can we do? Maybe you need to take
a break.
I was working multiple jobs at the same
time, you know. I was going going going
going going.
(09:29):
It was like a pressure cooker, and I
just stopped. Just stopped.
And I was also going through some personal
things too. It was the end of a
a relationship.
It was also
a lot of emotions that were coming up
for me all at the same time
about my father passing away, who had passed
away
4 years prior, but it took like it
(09:51):
seemed like at that time, it was all
coming up. I think with the end of
a relationship
of not understanding
if I'm good at what I do or
if I care anymore,
knowing that I'm
pushing 50, what does that mean? My body's
changing. I'm not I have no appetite. Like,
all these different things, I was just like,
this is what it means to just, like,
(10:12):
have, like, a a midlife crisis or something.
I said, this this is must be what
it feels like because I just felt like
this is the new me, and I I'm
scared. I was so scared. I was so
scared that this was gonna be, like, this
feeling of of darkness was gonna be my
new new.
I start reaching out to friends. I told
them, I said, I can't explain it, but
(10:32):
but my mind
and my body and my soul feel like
they're completely disconnected.
I can't even hear myself think. I I
I can't even understand, like, how to put
things together.
I'm not sure what I'm needing. And a
friend of mine
went to Twitter, went to the socials,
and I said, I just wanna go somewhere
for, like,
(10:52):
a month or so or just, like, reset.
Like, maybe I just need a reset. Like,
I kept asking for that. And she's she
reached out on social media. Does anyone know
of any sort of program that can help
people feel in sync?
And someone responded,
the Hoffman process.
So I started reading about it.
I contacted Hoffman right away. I literally read
(11:14):
about it for, like, 15 minutes. I was
like, I need to do this. This sounds
amazing. You know? I contacted Hoffman right away.
And within a couple days, I was on
the phone with someone who was just, like,
walking me through what was to be expected.
So then you show up,
and what happens? Take us into your process,
Leila. You went in California?
(11:34):
I did. I went in California.
I was blank, a complete shell of myself.
I don't even recognize who I was when
I was at Hoffman.
I was just a shell. Like, I was
like a zombie walking.
I went to the process not knowing anything
about it because I didn't wanna read anything.
And I actually to be honest, Drew, it
(11:56):
wasn't that I didn't wanna read. I actually
didn't even have the desire to read anything
really
to go into depth about it. I was
just like, I need something. I need it.
I go to Hoffman,
and
I didn't know what to expect. You know,
I did the materials beforehand, and I was
thinking, oh, this is very interesting. Like, listening
about my mother's patterns, my father's, my stepfather.
(12:16):
And I was seeing, like, some connections there
beforehand, but I said, let me just go
to the process and feel what this is
all about.
I was very, very to myself in the
process.
I was very,
kind of isolated
in the beginning.
I didn't wanna really engage with people.
When they said there there's no talking through
(12:37):
breakfast or no talking through certain activities, I
was like, fine. I'm fine with that. I
I do not need to engage with anyone.
And there was a lot that I started
started recognizing
about myself, like right in the beginning.
I think that for me personally,
I immediately went into this
(12:58):
very, very
reclusive quiet space
when I was at Hoffman in the beginning
because
I was associating it with my past
experiences growing up of being, like, the only
black kid
in white spaces.
So
I was became this observer
(13:19):
as I have in the past. I think
when I was younger, when I, you know,
I went to, like, a a lot of
the kids in my school were white,
I've often felt kind of isolated, and I
tried not to make myself too loud, too
seen, or anything like that. I was more
of the observer, and I felt myself reverting
back into that mode again.
And I really had to think about that
(13:39):
because I was moving through some of the
experiences,
but not like some of my other Hoffman
brothers and sisters were. You know?
I was moving through them as an observer
and
not participating
fully.
I I was just felt so insecure and
so, like, in this bubble.
(14:00):
And I remember my instructor
pulling me to the side
during the experience and saying, Leila, you know,
I see I'm witnessing, like, your reactions to
things, and I want you to talk me
through it.
And I explained to him, like, I am
realizing that when I'm in these situations, I
just become when I feel like I'm the
(14:20):
only person there, I feel like maybe other
people realize I'm the only person. I become
very, very insular
and very observant.
And he was saying, well, that's that's wonderful
that you are an observer. That's part of
your beautiful character. You know, everything's like, well,
that's okay. You know? But
also, you're missing out on the opportunity
(14:41):
to engage
and and to really take away from this
experience because you're using your past pattern of
withdrawing
and observing.
And that is a pattern that you've used
your whole entire life in these situations when
you're the only.
And imagine if you if you actually, Leila,
like, took control of that and deconstructed that
(15:03):
pattern, and you became
involved and engaged and felt like your true
self
and not the observer because you're the only,
don't let, like, that pattern
take away from your experience here. And don't
associate people
with that
negative pattern, you know, because everyone here is
(15:24):
is trying to do the same thing as
you, but you're associating it with this negative
pattern, and you're you're gonna have to try
to kind of look at that.
And that for me, Drew was one of,
like, the biggest breakthroughs for me. It was
pretty amazing. Because imagine everyone's dancing, everyone's laughing,
everyone's telling jokes, and I'm just like on
the outskirts kind of just observing, you know.
(15:47):
And I started thinking about, like, how many
times have I gone through life
not engaging fully
for that very reason? Because I felt like
the only the outsider that that I needed
to mute, silence myself, that I didn't wanna
be seen too much, I didn't wanna be
heard too much, I didn't wanna be the
center of attention.
How many times did I do that my
whole life? You know? And that's why I
(16:08):
started the stoop, was because I wanted to
voice my opinion.
I wanted to talk about what I felt
in those situations. I wanted to be vulnerable
just like this conversation that we're having right
now is something I would be talking about
in the stoop. And I was like, wait.
I broke that mold years ago when I
started the stoop and I started to let
this out. Why am I reverting to it
now And this place that was built for
(16:28):
me
to grow.
I am stunting my growth. I am the
reason why I won't grow in this moment.
And it was in that moment that I
just decided, like, that is no longer going
to be, like, my narrative.
As you look back at her
in
your process,
how do you feel talking about her in
(16:49):
that moment? When I look back at the
Leila in that process,
I mean, I'm proud of her,
but my initial feeling is I feel sorry
for
her. I felt sorry for her that she
had had made herself so small, and she's
not a small person.
She's not a small person at all. She's
a big personality.
(17:09):
She has a lot to say. She's has
she wants to engage. You know? She can
turn on and turn off. You know? She
she's also
always been a light. Like, I've always been
that. My mom used to say, when you
were a baby, you used to walk up
to strangers and just say hello. And I'd
always be afraid that you'd be kidnapped because
you were just so nice and you would
just go out to everybody. And I used
(17:30):
to think about her telling me that and
think like, well, when did that change?
Why did that change with me?
When did I start becoming this like this
person that was like on the outskirts?
And I did that to myself.
I do look back and I I don't
blame her,
but
I can look at her and say,
(17:51):
you
were
reacting
to insecurities.
You were reacting
to trying to protect yourself.
You were reacting
to
trying to move through this world in a
way
that would make you feel safe.
I don't blame her for, you know, living
that way for so long
(18:13):
because there's a lot that's come out of
that. I think part of the things that
I do on the stoop, it's almost like
an acknowledgment of a pattern and then questioning
it. But I never even realized that's what
I was doing on the stoop. But that
is what we're what we're doing. We're acknowledging
something. We're not saying we have the answer
to it, but we're questioning it. We're acknowledging
a behavior. We're starting to question it. And
it all has to do with, you know,
(18:35):
blackness.
But, yeah, I do feel proud of her
still.
I'm just so appreciative of how you're reflecting.
If listeners could see you at your faces
deeply in the experience of reflection,
You also have a great voice now, I
know why podcasting is
so
your thing. So you get that feedback.
(18:57):
It resonates with you.
And you make a commitment
in that moment, it sounds like, to approach
the week differently. That is not gonna be
me, that's not gonna
be my future, and it's not gonna be
how I show up
the rest of this week.
So what happens
then?
It was interesting because right away, I had
(19:20):
noticed that people had formed connections with people
right away, you know, at Hoffman.
And I was still
just drifting,
like, loner, like, very kind of isolated.
When I decided that I was not going
to allow that to happen, I started voicing
my opinion. I started
speaking up in the group sessions. I started
(19:41):
pushing back
on things about myself, you know? Like, wait,
why are you doing that? Why are you
even thinking that way? You know, you've just
had this amazing experience where you wrote an
essay
about, you know,
all the beautiful qualities about yourself. Like, why
are you so negative? Like, I was I
could be very hard on myself, like, very
hard. And so one of the first things
(20:03):
I started doing, I would say to myself
over and over again, this is quite in
the beginning, like, you're encouraged to think of
what you would say to yourself to calm
yourself. And I would just remember I kept
saying to myself over and over again with
my hands on my heart, like, I am
love, I am light, I am loving.
I just kept saying it to just reassure
myself because I was so negative about myself.
(20:26):
So negative. I you know, it didn't matter
how many awards you win, how many lists
you're on, how many people talk about your
podcast, or how many, you know, accomplishments
that you can have throughout your life. It
was just like, I was still so negative.
And so one of the things that I
started doing right away was just saying, no,
wait Leila, you did that. You did that.
You are good at what you do. You
are a good listener. You are capable.
(20:48):
Where did And the question like, how did
you get to this low? Like, how did
you
get to this place where you were so
hard on yourself?
That was the first thing I started doing.
I needed my self esteem
to be lifted.
And I think that
when you're in a very deep,
dark place, you reach sometimes I I started
(21:09):
to reach out to people around me, before
Hoffman to kind of get that
help. I don't know what I'm doing. I
don't know who I am. I don't know
what I'm good at anymore.
As much as they could call me at
all hours and check on me, are you
okay? We'll let you know. You can do
this. You you are good at this. You
are good at talking to people. You are
good at your job. You are loving.
(21:29):
You are caring. You are a good partner.
Like as much as people would say those
things to me, I would revert right back
to the negative. And I think what Hoffman
did in the beginning for me after I
started realizing my pattern of of withdrawing and
observing and not engaging was I started to
say to myself all of the encouraging and
positive things that that I needed to hear.
(21:49):
Because I started realizing it's actually it's actually
me
that needs to build myself up. Like I
can't reach out to anyone else anymore about
it. I mean, their friends are always there
and they're always incredible.
But no matter what they were saying, it
wasn't getting through. It was me.
So it was those walks and
lying outside under the trees and writing letters
(22:10):
to my mom and my dad, things that
I've never said to them before.
Writing letters to myself.
I journaled until my hands were achy.
I was just
squeezing every ounce of it out. I just
wanted every driplet of information. I started going
to other people's groups and their instructors and
talking to them about things. Like, I just
opened up. I just really, really opened up.
(22:32):
And I started realizing,
damn, these people have been opening up for,
like, couple days few days before me, and
I'm just getting into it. So by the
time the process was over, I was like,
can we do can we stay for another
week? I was really wanting to just to
keep going.
When it ends,
you're kind of just wondering, like, is what
what am I gonna do? How am I
gonna carry this on with me? How am
(22:53):
I gonna keep this going, this feeling? Because
I feel
changed.
It really,
really set
the foundation for me moving forward to where
I am right now.
I'm curious about
that process
moving forward
and what happened over your weekend
and in the weeks following, Leila.
(23:14):
What was that like? You didn't stay a
second week. So
what happened?
Is that an option?
I have to say
the 2 days after the process were extremely
difficult for me.
I read
over everything that I was doing. I I
just kept
(23:36):
journaling, writing.
I stayed in a hotel for a couple
days. I felt a little bit like, you
know, how am I gonna continue
this feeling?
Right when I left, I I started feeling
not like just just worried that I was
gonna revert into
where I was before I came.
When I returned home,
(23:57):
I feel like that was the time for
me,
maybe 2 to 3 months after the process,
that it really, really started becoming like a
part of my life.
I wrote every day.
It's for me. It's for me
to get out there on the page. I
had this moment too where I started feeling,
(24:18):
I love my friends and family. They are
they were my foundation.
They really lift me up and and are
amazing people.
But there's some things that I need to
work through on my own at this point.
And as much as they wanna check-in on
me and as much as I wanna, like,
workshop things with them, there was a lot
that I needed to figure out. I do
remember
(24:38):
this is right after the process, about a
week after I got back.
And again, I was very emotional, and you
can feel it from, like, your the pit
of your stomach up into your chest and
just, like,
the tightness in your chest and the and
the, you know, your head starts to feel
heated, and it just feels like you're up
kinda started boiling.
I was crying. I was driving.
(24:59):
When I've had this feeling before, it happened
a few times before,
I thought I needed medical attention. Like, I
thought, you know, I might have a heart
attack. What's going on? And in that moment,
the busy LA freeway, I pulled off the
side of the road, and I put my
hands on my heart
and I was just breathing deep, as deep
as I could.
(25:20):
And I kept saying to myself, I am
love.
I am light.
I am
loving. I am love. I am light. I
am loving.
And I kept saying to myself, things that
I learned in the process. You know? What
do you need right now, Leila? What do
you need? What do you need? You know?
I answered that question for myself.
(25:43):
I remembered something that really stick out for
me in the process too,
which is but really puts things into perspective
when I'm going through those moments, which is,
you know, I'm suffering,
everybody suffers,
and this will pass.
For me that self regulation, that ability to
calm myself down, to ask myself, what do
(26:04):
you need, Leila? What do you need? And
it might just be simply like, Leila, you
need to just stop and breathe. Just stop
and breathe.
You need to go for a walk. You
need to call your mom. You know?
But when you're in it, when you're working
all these jobs and you're doing all these
things and you're just going going going, you
you just become disconnected. And like I said,
my spirit was here. My body was here.
(26:26):
They were all just like nothing was connected.
I just felt like I was just, you
know,
discombobulated.
So that for me after the process of
being able to self regulate was
extremely helpful for me.
Extremely helpful.
I still ask myself every morning, like, what
do you need today, Leila? What do you
need? What does your spirit need? What does
(26:46):
your body need?
A radical
daily question, isn't it?
Mhmm. And it's so simple.
If you know
how to ask the question and you know
that there can be an answer, there's something
about TikTok therapy or those kind of self
help routines that you can find online or
in a book that just they weren't resonating
(27:09):
with me.
I just thought it was fluff, but it
was until, like, I really started to get
connected to who I am
and to rebuild that confidence about who I
am that it started making sense to me
what those questions really mean and what gratitude
journaling really means.
I started showing up. I wanted to be
a better friend. I wanted to be a
better daughter.
(27:30):
I just wanted to be a better everything,
but I also wanted to be, like, a
better
caregiver of myself. I tell people about that
I did the process and a little bit
about what it is, but
I honestly feel like it's so hard to
explain to people
what I went through and what it meant
for me.
But when I do explain
just the simple thing that I learned about
(27:52):
putting my hands on my heart. And and
sometimes I ask people to do this with
me
that are having a really hard time,
and they feel better afterwards.
And so I know that it's something too
that that pause is is just it can
be really helpful for people.
Do you have people you know do the
process after you?
(28:13):
After I did the process,
I came back. I had a conversation with
my mom and my sister.
They could see a a huge change in
me.
I'm not saying everything was perfect afterwards. I
went through my moments, my peaks and valleys,
but I did have ways to
to understand what I was going through.
I told my sister, and a couple months
(28:34):
later,
she was at the same
process that I was at. I worked with
Ian. He was in my group, and she
worked with Regina, who I deeply love. I
actually did a podcast episode about Regina because
her her story is so incredible.
But my sister ended up going to Hoffman.
Transformative
(28:55):
for her.
She, as a parent and a business owner,
was looking at ways to just
really live life to its fullest and understand
herself better. And it was for her an
incredible experience.
Then my mom
who also was just so intrigued by everything
we did, she ended up doing the online
(29:17):
version of it. My mom was 78 when
she did it,
and she did it. This is the 2
day course called Hoffman Essentials.
She absolutely
loved it.
I mean, I was concerned because, you know,
she's on Zoom. She's got the technology there.
I was like, is she gotta be on
mute when she needs to be on mute?
Is she gonna be but, you know, she
figured it out. Mom was there. She was
(29:38):
engaging in the questions, looking at our patterns,
and sometimes I'll talk to her, like, about
the patterns that we both have, that we
all have.
And, you know, we acknowledge them. It's not
a criticism
to say, oh, you know, that's a pattern.
Normally, that's a criticism in our the way
we would talk in our family. If you're
calling out something that you feel is, like,
negative, but we can all recognize
(30:00):
that
it's something to be talked about and maybe
addressed and maybe shifted.
And so all 3 of us, yeah, have
had half moon in our lives. That's fantastic.
And often we talk about patterns coming from
our parents,
our caregivers.
In your case, your mom, your dad, but
also your stepdad.
(30:21):
Right. Yeah. But there's also
cultural
patterns,
societal
patterns.
As a black woman,
it sounds like you had a chance to
name and identify and work with
some of the systemic cultural patterns
that you experienced growing up? There's resonance there?
(30:42):
Yeah. Definitely.
I mean,
I think that for me,
the tendency
to make myself
quiet and unheard,
not the loudest voice in the room,
you know, not to get too upset.
Don't let them see you get too emotional.
When you
(31:03):
have a very strong opinion,
you are considered an angry black woman,
so, you know, watch your tone.
Those things really came up for me. I
I have to say I
they came up in a way where I
recognize
that
there are spaces where I feel very comfortable
(31:24):
in
being myself and voicing my opinion,
and there are spaces where I feel
just a little bit silenced. You know?
I think what happens when,
you know, as a black woman,
when I am
holding back in life, you know, when I'm
holding back, when I'm not engaging, when I'm
(31:44):
not gonna let them see my expression on
my face, I'm not gonna I'm not even
gonna comment on that, I'm not gonna and
when you keep holding back for that long,
at some point,
you explode.
And that was my pattern. I would hold
back. Wait. I'm gonna bite my tongue on
this. I'm not gonna say anything.
I don't wanna be that person in the
room.
(32:05):
And then at some point,
I would explode.
For me, I felt like I exploded. But
for me, it's just like, I'm gonna voice
my opinion. I'm gonna say what I'm saying.
I'm gonna tell you what I think right
now. It felt like an explosion for me
because I had kept it in for so
long, but I'm actually just, like,
being
emotive and being conversational and being, like, wait,
(32:25):
this is what I really feel about this.
For me, it would come across as a
way that was felt like
a little bit hyper emotional because I would
held hold it in for so
long. I started thinking about like, gosh, how
many black women do this?
When they do express themselves, it's like you
have something to say.
So you're saying it and you're expressing and
you're you know, I haven't said this for
(32:47):
the past year or the past month or
whatever, you know. And all of a sudden,
you know, you hear from someone saying, oh,
you were really,
really angry and upset in that meeting. It's
just like, well,
first of all, I was expressing what I
felt. But also, second of all,
what do you expect
if I've been silent for so long?
What do you expect? Like, of course, I'm
(33:08):
gonna have a reaction.
So I think for me personally, it's like
the cultural side of it is like, I'm
not going to kind of explain myself
any longer.
I'm going to express what I'm feeling. And
another thing that I'm just trying to do
is
in the moment when I'm feeling a certain
way, I'm going to express it then. Because
(33:28):
what happens with this pattern of mine was
that I'll go through meeting after meeting after
meeting after meeting or whatever and not say
anything.
And then all of a sudden, I'm just
I've had it. I feel like I've had
it. At the same time,
it's okay if I've had it.
It's okay.
You know?
So those were some cultural things I started,
(33:50):
like, being hyper aware of in Hoffman.
And it'd be interesting to see, like,
if it was inversed, you know, if Hoffman
if it was more Jordy Black, what would
it be like for for other folks there,
you know, if it was
a different balance. Right?
Right. That's a great question. For you, it
almost simulated
your childhood experience
(34:11):
of being one of the few blacks in
a white dominant world. Right? Yeah. It definitely
did. And I think, like, to be completely
honest, when I first walked in, I thought,
did I make the right decision to come
here? Like, is is this space for me?
I don't think this space is for me.
And it made me withdraw. And I could
see that my instructors
were noticing that.
(34:32):
And
they let me work through those things, and
then they addressed it. They asked me to
address it. They asked me to talk about
it. They asked me to express, like, what
was going through my mind and why I
wasn't fully engaged.
Like I said, it was in that moment
where I started realizing,
I'm not going to let,
you know, the way that the system is
(34:54):
set up, where I am the only black
person here
in the group,
to affect how what I get out of
this experience. And that's exactly what my instructor
told me.
Don't let the system
affect your experience.
And that's the same thing within Hoffman
as out of it. Like, I'm gonna not
gonna let the system
affect my experience and how I I move
(35:16):
through this world. Leila,
we have been talking for a while now,
and you're you've been reflecting on your experience
during that week and
in the weeks following the weekend after, but
you also reflected a bunch on how you
felt before you came to the process. And
the friend who posted on social media asking
(35:38):
about any places that are appropriate for somebody
who's looking for a break and someone suggested
Hoffman.
What's it been like for you to
be verbalizing
out loud all of this
about your life and your experience? What do
you notice about that? It's interesting because I
told someone I was gonna be speaking with
you and they were like, what are you
(36:00):
gonna say?
Don't say too much, Leila. That sounds personal.
And I was like, you know what?
I'm okay with talking about this. I just
feel like we all go through
these moments of not having clarity,
and some of us maneuver them
differently than others. And some of us us
really need to talk things through, and think
(36:21):
things through, or walk things through. And I'm
one of those people. Like, I am very,
very
analytical. I I question everything. I'm I'm curious
about, like, why did I think that? And
why did that person say that? And why
did I react that way? So I think
it's if it's for people that are wanting
to question
themselves
and really kind of dig deep,
(36:43):
I think that talking about this is very
helpful.
I think that talking about what you're going
through and those start times,
it's very helpful because we're not always in
those light, happy, you know,
skipping through the daffodil moments. And
and I think that you can hear someone
on a podcast or see them at work
(37:04):
and think, like, oh, they have or see
them on Instagram, like, oh, my gosh. They're
living their best life. Yeah. We're all going
through it. We're all going through it at
some point or another. And I I have
to say, like,
I was in a very confused place at
that time pre Hoffman,
and I can honestly say that
I know that I'll never be there again.
I know that.
(37:25):
I know that because I know
much better who I am now and and
how to handle
those moments,
but I'm also
okay
with explaining
that's where I was at.
I'm okay with it because I I actually
don't want my closest friends or anyone
to feel that they're,
(37:46):
that they're that lost. And the way that
we can we can help each other, I
think, is just by explaining, like,
your truth. Right? For me personally,
I know some people are a little bit
more guarded about it, but
I'm really happy to share my story.
Leila, you and I were about to wrap
up, and then you just shared
something
(38:06):
about a recording you did
2 weeks
after Hoffman
and what happened with that recording. Can you
just share?
Yeah. Well, before I went to Hoffman, I
was having this block. I just couldn't find
any
motivation
to tell story. I was a little bit
lost. I was like, am I good at
this anymore? I don't know what to write.
I don't know what to do. I had
an episode that I've been sitting
(38:28):
on for months, and I just couldn't
bring myself to write it, to interview, to
put the the script together,
to create the piece.
And 2 weeks after when I got back
from Hoffman,
I outlined the piece.
I wrote the script. It was such an
emotional piece for me because it was about
(38:48):
Charleston, South Carolina
and the black hands that built that city
that are sort of invisible
and noticing
all the details like the fingerprints
of former enslaved people and the bricks and
the cast iron gates that are made by,
like,
these beautiful artists that go unrecognized. And it
was like a walk through the streets of
(39:09):
Charleston,
and it I just poured my heart into
this episode.
It came out so easily for me. My
editor was just like, you did it and
you've been sitting on this for months.
And then what happened was that episode ended
up
winning a very prestigious journalism award called a
Gracie Award.
I was
(39:31):
so honored.
I walked a red carpet, you know, wear
my gown, had my makeup on. And it
was almost like the I am back
moment after Hoffman. So that was a highlight
of my year.
Beautiful.
I'll send you that image too because the
dress, I gotta tell you, Drew, it was
(39:52):
quite
quite the sunnah.
We will post a link to that episode,
a link to
the stoop
even if you're open,
image of you in the dress
as walking that red carpet?
Yeah. I'll send it to you. It was,
it was an incredible experience. And when I
told my sister that I got the award,
(40:14):
it was after she had gone to Hoffman.
And I just remember her on the phone.
She was just crying so happy for me.
She was just so happy.
And she's like, you know, you did it.
You did this. And I could tell it
was like that Hoffman energy of just like,
you got this. You know, you got this.
And we're just like 2 sisters on the
phone crying about it. It was really, really
special.
(40:35):
Incredible.
Well, for the second time now, Leila, thank
you for your heart, for your time
for this conversation.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and
(40:56):
president of Hoffman Institute Foundation.
And I'm Raz Ingrassi,
Hoffman teacher and founder of the Hoffman Institute
Foundation.
Our mission is to provide people greater access
to the wisdom and power of love. In
themselves, in each other, and in the world.
To find out more, please go to hompaninstitute.org.
After the process, being able to self regulate
was extremely helpful for me,
extremely helpful. I still ask myself every morning,
like, what do you need today, Leila? What
do you need? What does your spirit need?
What does your body need? A radical
daily question, isn't it? Mhmm. And it's so
simple
if you know how to ask the question
(00:22):
and you know that there can be an
answer.
Welcome, everybody. My name is Drew Horning, and
this podcast is called Love's Everyday Radius.
It's brought to you by the Hoffman Institute
and its stories and anecdotes
and people we interview
about their life post process and how it
(00:42):
lives in the world radiating love.
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast.
Leila Day is our guest today. Welcome, Leila.
Hello. Thank you for having me. Oh, man.
We are excited for this conversation. I am
(01:04):
excited for this conversation. Leila,
this is your field. You're a podcaster. Right?
I am a podcaster,
so I feel very much in my element
talking to you.
I've been doing podcasting
for the past 15 years, so
I'm pretty deep in it. Yeah. You have
worked for public radio before,
(01:24):
and you're a founder, cofounder of a podcast
called The Stoop.
You're the producer of it, the founder. And
talk a little bit about The Stoop and
what you do there.
Yeah. So
The Stoop is a podcast
about stories from the black diaspora. So I'm
African American. My co host is African.
We talk about similarities and differences between our
(01:45):
culture.
We talk about
just black stories,
all of their diversity. We like to talk
about black joy.
We were both journalists from this radio station
in San Francisco, me and my cohosts. And
we didn't wanna focus on such negative stories
around
blackness and black people. And
(02:06):
we just found a way to create this
podcast so we could really show, like, the
diversity
of what it means to be black. We
can talk we'd have stories about, like, what
it means to be a black introvert.
We have an episode called Don't Call Me
Auntie about that's about me, actually. Right? Issues
with being called auntie and ageism and all
that kind of thing. But we also combine,
(02:27):
like, journalism and storytelling,
and we've been
going for we have over a 100 episodes
now.
So it's been ongoing. It's been like an
outlet for both of us. You know? It's
like our our baby, our passion project. I
love it. And you're involved in another podcast
creating and kinda streamlining
podcasts for production. Right? And then you're also
(02:50):
involved in this new project. Can you talk
a little bit about that? Yeah. So my
background in journalism
has led me to be
working with a lot of different production companies
as an editor.
So
I help produce
and craft the story of larger projects, maybe
like 8 episode series,
(03:11):
something that has a narrative arc, something that
has a lot of storytelling in it. So
I'm working right now with a production company,
Higher Ground, which is the Obamas production network.
And we're working on something extremely
exciting
with a lot of incredible,
talented guests. And,
yeah, there's not so much I can say
(03:32):
about it, but it's definitely,
it'll be released in about a year.
It's a big challenge, and it's
extremely exciting project to work on. What is
it about
podcasting?
It seems like it gives the chance to
go a little deeper, to slow it down
a little, to use this medium,
to really explore
(03:54):
the nuances of being human, of being in
this world? What do you love about it?
I have always
loved story
and storytelling.
And I think when I discovered
that podcasting was a way to tell story
and personal
story, I just fell in love with the
(04:15):
format. I love reporting. I love getting information.
I love interviewing people. I love listening.
And so for me, podcasting and this type
of storytelling, it just really fit into
who I am and what I enjoy doing.
I just think also I'm a little bit
of an introvert in a sense, you know,
so it's it's kind of nice to be
(04:35):
behind, you know.
No one can see me. You can hear
my voice. I can say something in a
different way if I didn't like how it
sounded.
I love writing
and podcasting. The type of, storytelling and podcasting
that we do involves a lot of writing.
It might sound like we're just talking off
the cuff, but we aren't. It's very kind
(04:55):
of scripted and it's very thought through.
And, yeah, I think that
it keeps me curious.
You know, all these stories, they just keep
me curious. That's one thing I kept saying
as I age, like, I just want to
remain
curious. If I can remain curious,
I'm happy.
Because that word gets thrown around so often,
what what do you mean by curious when
(05:17):
you say that? I want to still be
able to
listen to people,
engage with them,
be able to
be excited about their stories and their experiences.
I don't wanna just become numb to people's
experiences.
I love I feel for me, I kept
saying what like I said, like, once
(05:40):
I lose that curiosity side of me, I
think it's a problem. Like, I really would
need to do some soul searching in terms
of what is missing here.
You know, something has to be off
if you're just not interested anymore. And I've
gotten to that point and really had to
reset.
I'm just kinda curious about that right there.
Wasn't the lack of curiosity that
(06:02):
you realized was happening,
it's what you did with it. And you
took that awareness around your lack of curiosity,
and it sounds like you
asked why, and that why created a reset.
Yes. Exactly.
It was like the lack of curiosity
was
a reaction
(06:22):
to, like, a symptom. You know what I'm
saying? Like, it wasn't just like it was
just gone. It was a reaction because it
wasn't me. It was not me. Like, when
I woke up and I was like, I'm
not interested in what anyone has to say.
I don't wanna create anything. I don't wanna
hear anyone's story.
I wanna sit and stare at the sky.
You know, I just don't wanna think about
(06:42):
anything anymore.
People were telling me very kind of emotional
experiences
that I should have been excited about, and
I just had no reaction to it. Not
excited about their emotional experience, but excited about
how do I tell their story
in a way that could create some change
or inspire someone else. You know? When I
started losing the interest in someone's story, I
(07:04):
realized, like, something was really, really off. The
story I'm making up in this moment is
that that led to a a great new
project. Was that what led to the stoop?
When I started
losing
interest in break when I started having that
shift, it was after the stoop. I've been
doing the stoop for many years.
I kept thinking, you know, am I gonna
(07:25):
get bored with this? Am I gonna you
know, when is it gonna get exhausting? When
am I gonna feel like I've we've already
told this story before? And I wasn't really
feeling it, but something
something was kind of just fizzling away
in me slowly.
And it was during the stoop, and it
was during production that I started thinking, like,
wow. Something's missing. Like, something is off.
(07:46):
And that's actually what led me
to Hoffman.
Oh, I was just gonna ask about Hoffman,
and you gave a beautiful segue. So take
us there. You're you're waking up. It's not
working. You're not feeling the aliveness that you
want.
How did that lead to Hoffman? I've been
asking people about this because other artists have
(08:08):
been saying, like, have you ever
felt
you've lost your art? Like, you've lost your
ability to create,
that you're just not good at it anymore.
And maybe I kept thinking, is it age?
Like, is it is this what aging means?
Does it mean that I'm not gonna be
interested in my art? I'm not gonna be
interested in my craft? I was so confused.
(08:28):
You know? So I was doing all the
things. I was exercising. I was, you know,
trying to do all the things to make
me excited or feel different again.
I just felt, like, little by little, like,
I felt like this light that I had
just extinguished.
I felt so very lost.
I was feeling, like, just very disconnected.
(08:49):
I had a story that I knew was
in me, and I knew I really wanted
to make.
And I was sitting on it for months,
you know, not able to create it. And
I knew it was there, and I just
put it off and put it off. And
I just felt like I don't wanna make
anymore. I don't wanna make the stories anymore.
I have no interest
in this anymore.
(09:09):
I think I'm done. I was telling my
cohost, you know, I'm I'm not sure I'm
not sure if I I can do this
anymore.
She, you know, she was devastated, you know.
I was like, what what how can I
get we get you inspired again? Like, what
can we do? Maybe you need to take
a break.
I was working multiple jobs at the same
time, you know. I was going going going
going going.
(09:29):
It was like a pressure cooker, and I
just stopped. Just stopped.
And I was also going through some personal
things too. It was the end of a
a relationship.
It was also
a lot of emotions that were coming up
for me all at the same time
about my father passing away, who had passed
away
4 years prior, but it took like it
(09:51):
seemed like at that time, it was all
coming up. I think with the end of
a relationship
of not understanding
if I'm good at what I do or
if I care anymore,
knowing that I'm
pushing 50, what does that mean? My body's
changing. I'm not I have no appetite. Like,
all these different things, I was just like,
this is what it means to just, like,
(10:12):
have, like, a a midlife crisis or something.
I said, this this is must be what
it feels like because I just felt like
this is the new me, and I I'm
scared. I was so scared. I was so
scared that this was gonna be, like, this
feeling of of darkness was gonna be my
new new.
I start reaching out to friends. I told
them, I said, I can't explain it, but
(10:32):
but my mind
and my body and my soul feel like
they're completely disconnected.
I can't even hear myself think. I I
I can't even understand, like, how to put
things together.
I'm not sure what I'm needing. And a
friend of mine
went to Twitter, went to the socials,
and I said, I just wanna go somewhere
for, like,
(10:52):
a month or so or just, like, reset.
Like, maybe I just need a reset. Like,
I kept asking for that. And she's she
reached out on social media. Does anyone know
of any sort of program that can help
people feel in sync?
And someone responded,
the Hoffman process.
So I started reading about it.
I contacted Hoffman right away. I literally read
(11:14):
about it for, like, 15 minutes. I was
like, I need to do this. This sounds
amazing. You know? I contacted Hoffman right away.
And within a couple days, I was on
the phone with someone who was just, like,
walking me through what was to be expected.
So then you show up,
and what happens? Take us into your process,
Leila. You went in California?
(11:34):
I did. I went in California.
I was blank, a complete shell of myself.
I don't even recognize who I was when
I was at Hoffman.
I was just a shell. Like, I was
like a zombie walking.
I went to the process not knowing anything
about it because I didn't wanna read anything.
And I actually to be honest, Drew, it
(11:56):
wasn't that I didn't wanna read. I actually
didn't even have the desire to read anything
really
to go into depth about it. I was
just like, I need something. I need it.
I go to Hoffman,
and
I didn't know what to expect. You know,
I did the materials beforehand, and I was
thinking, oh, this is very interesting. Like, listening
about my mother's patterns, my father's, my stepfather.
(12:16):
And I was seeing, like, some connections there
beforehand, but I said, let me just go
to the process and feel what this is
all about.
I was very, very to myself in the
process.
I was very,
kind of isolated
in the beginning.
I didn't wanna really engage with people.
When they said there there's no talking through
(12:37):
breakfast or no talking through certain activities, I
was like, fine. I'm fine with that. I
I do not need to engage with anyone.
And there was a lot that I started
started recognizing
about myself, like right in the beginning.
I think that for me personally,
I immediately went into this
(12:58):
very, very
reclusive quiet space
when I was at Hoffman in the beginning
because
I was associating it with my past
experiences growing up of being, like, the only
black kid
in white spaces.
So
I was became this observer
(13:19):
as I have in the past. I think
when I was younger, when I, you know,
I went to, like, a a lot of
the kids in my school were white,
I've often felt kind of isolated, and I
tried not to make myself too loud, too
seen, or anything like that. I was more
of the observer, and I felt myself reverting
back into that mode again.
And I really had to think about that
(13:39):
because I was moving through some of the
experiences,
but not like some of my other Hoffman
brothers and sisters were. You know?
I was moving through them as an observer
and
not participating
fully.
I I was just felt so insecure and
so, like, in this bubble.
(14:00):
And I remember my instructor
pulling me to the side
during the experience and saying, Leila, you know,
I see I'm witnessing, like, your reactions to
things, and I want you to talk me
through it.
And I explained to him, like, I am
realizing that when I'm in these situations, I
just become when I feel like I'm the
(14:20):
only person there, I feel like maybe other
people realize I'm the only person. I become
very, very insular
and very observant.
And he was saying, well, that's that's wonderful
that you are an observer. That's part of
your beautiful character. You know, everything's like, well,
that's okay. You know? But
also, you're missing out on the opportunity
(14:41):
to engage
and and to really take away from this
experience because you're using your past pattern of
withdrawing
and observing.
And that is a pattern that you've used
your whole entire life in these situations when
you're the only.
And imagine if you if you actually, Leila,
like, took control of that and deconstructed that
(15:03):
pattern, and you became
involved and engaged and felt like your true
self
and not the observer because you're the only,
don't let, like, that pattern
take away from your experience here. And don't
associate people
with that
negative pattern, you know, because everyone here is
(15:24):
is trying to do the same thing as
you, but you're associating it with this negative
pattern, and you're you're gonna have to try
to kind of look at that.
And that for me, Drew was one of,
like, the biggest breakthroughs for me. It was
pretty amazing. Because imagine everyone's dancing, everyone's laughing,
everyone's telling jokes, and I'm just like on
the outskirts kind of just observing, you know.
(15:47):
And I started thinking about, like, how many
times have I gone through life
not engaging fully
for that very reason? Because I felt like
the only the outsider that that I needed
to mute, silence myself, that I didn't wanna
be seen too much, I didn't wanna be
heard too much, I didn't wanna be the
center of attention.
How many times did I do that my
whole life? You know? And that's why I
(16:08):
started the stoop, was because I wanted to
voice my opinion.
I wanted to talk about what I felt
in those situations. I wanted to be vulnerable
just like this conversation that we're having right
now is something I would be talking about
in the stoop. And I was like, wait.
I broke that mold years ago when I
started the stoop and I started to let
this out. Why am I reverting to it
now And this place that was built for
(16:28):
me
to grow.
I am stunting my growth. I am the
reason why I won't grow in this moment.
And it was in that moment that I
just decided, like, that is no longer going
to be, like, my narrative.
As you look back at her
in
your process,
how do you feel talking about her in
(16:49):
that moment? When I look back at the
Leila in that process,
I mean, I'm proud of her,
but my initial feeling is I feel sorry
for
her. I felt sorry for her that she
had had made herself so small, and she's
not a small person.
She's not a small person at all. She's
a big personality.
(17:09):
She has a lot to say. She's has
she wants to engage. You know? She can
turn on and turn off. You know? She
she's also
always been a light. Like, I've always been
that. My mom used to say, when you
were a baby, you used to walk up
to strangers and just say hello. And I'd
always be afraid that you'd be kidnapped because
you were just so nice and you would
just go out to everybody. And I used
(17:30):
to think about her telling me that and
think like, well, when did that change?
Why did that change with me?
When did I start becoming this like this
person that was like on the outskirts?
And I did that to myself.
I do look back and I I don't
blame her,
but
I can look at her and say,
(17:51):
you
were
reacting
to insecurities.
You were reacting
to trying to protect yourself.
You were reacting
to
trying to move through this world in a
way
that would make you feel safe.
I don't blame her for, you know, living
that way for so long
(18:13):
because there's a lot that's come out of
that. I think part of the things that
I do on the stoop, it's almost like
an acknowledgment of a pattern and then questioning
it. But I never even realized that's what
I was doing on the stoop. But that
is what we're what we're doing. We're acknowledging
something. We're not saying we have the answer
to it, but we're questioning it. We're acknowledging
a behavior. We're starting to question it. And
it all has to do with, you know,
(18:35):
blackness.
But, yeah, I do feel proud of her
still.
I'm just so appreciative of how you're reflecting.
If listeners could see you at your faces
deeply in the experience of reflection,
You also have a great voice now, I
know why podcasting is
so
your thing. So you get that feedback.
(18:57):
It resonates with you.
And you make a commitment
in that moment, it sounds like, to approach
the week differently. That is not gonna be
me, that's not gonna
be my future, and it's not gonna be
how I show up
the rest of this week.
So what happens
then?
It was interesting because right away, I had
(19:20):
noticed that people had formed connections with people
right away, you know, at Hoffman.
And I was still
just drifting,
like, loner, like, very kind of isolated.
When I decided that I was not going
to allow that to happen, I started voicing
my opinion. I started
speaking up in the group sessions. I started
(19:41):
pushing back
on things about myself, you know? Like, wait,
why are you doing that? Why are you
even thinking that way? You know, you've just
had this amazing experience where you wrote an
essay
about, you know,
all the beautiful qualities about yourself. Like, why
are you so negative? Like, I was I
could be very hard on myself, like, very
hard. And so one of the first things
(20:03):
I started doing, I would say to myself
over and over again, this is quite in
the beginning, like, you're encouraged to think of
what you would say to yourself to calm
yourself. And I would just remember I kept
saying to myself over and over again with
my hands on my heart, like, I am
love, I am light, I am loving.
I just kept saying it to just reassure
myself because I was so negative about myself.
(20:26):
So negative. I you know, it didn't matter
how many awards you win, how many lists
you're on, how many people talk about your
podcast, or how many, you know, accomplishments
that you can have throughout your life. It
was just like, I was still so negative.
And so one of the things that I
started doing right away was just saying, no,
wait Leila, you did that. You did that.
You are good at what you do. You
are a good listener. You are capable.
(20:48):
Where did And the question like, how did
you get to this low? Like, how did
you
get to this place where you were so
hard on yourself?
That was the first thing I started doing.
I needed my self esteem
to be lifted.
And I think that
when you're in a very deep,
dark place, you reach sometimes I I started
(21:09):
to reach out to people around me, before
Hoffman to kind of get that
help. I don't know what I'm doing. I
don't know who I am. I don't know
what I'm good at anymore.
As much as they could call me at
all hours and check on me, are you
okay? We'll let you know. You can do
this. You you are good at this. You
are good at talking to people. You are
good at your job. You are loving.
(21:29):
You are caring. You are a good partner.
Like as much as people would say those
things to me, I would revert right back
to the negative. And I think what Hoffman
did in the beginning for me after I
started realizing my pattern of of withdrawing and
observing and not engaging was I started to
say to myself all of the encouraging and
positive things that that I needed to hear.
(21:49):
Because I started realizing it's actually it's actually
me
that needs to build myself up. Like I
can't reach out to anyone else anymore about
it. I mean, their friends are always there
and they're always incredible.
But no matter what they were saying, it
wasn't getting through. It was me.
So it was those walks and
lying outside under the trees and writing letters
(22:10):
to my mom and my dad, things that
I've never said to them before.
Writing letters to myself.
I journaled until my hands were achy.
I was just
squeezing every ounce of it out. I just
wanted every driplet of information. I started going
to other people's groups and their instructors and
talking to them about things. Like, I just
opened up. I just really, really opened up.
(22:32):
And I started realizing,
damn, these people have been opening up for,
like, couple days few days before me, and
I'm just getting into it. So by the
time the process was over, I was like,
can we do can we stay for another
week? I was really wanting to just to
keep going.
When it ends,
you're kind of just wondering, like, is what
what am I gonna do? How am I
gonna carry this on with me? How am
(22:53):
I gonna keep this going, this feeling? Because
I feel
changed.
It really,
really set
the foundation for me moving forward to where
I am right now.
I'm curious about
that process
moving forward
and what happened over your weekend
and in the weeks following, Leila.
(23:14):
What was that like? You didn't stay a
second week. So
what happened?
Is that an option?
I have to say
the 2 days after the process were extremely
difficult for me.
I read
over everything that I was doing. I I
just kept
(23:36):
journaling, writing.
I stayed in a hotel for a couple
days. I felt a little bit like, you
know, how am I gonna continue
this feeling?
Right when I left, I I started feeling
not like just just worried that I was
gonna revert into
where I was before I came.
When I returned home,
(23:57):
I feel like that was the time for
me,
maybe 2 to 3 months after the process,
that it really, really started becoming like a
part of my life.
I wrote every day.
It's for me. It's for me
to get out there on the page. I
had this moment too where I started feeling,
(24:18):
I love my friends and family. They are
they were my foundation.
They really lift me up and and are
amazing people.
But there's some things that I need to
work through on my own at this point.
And as much as they wanna check-in on
me and as much as I wanna, like,
workshop things with them, there was a lot
that I needed to figure out. I do
remember
(24:38):
this is right after the process, about a
week after I got back.
And again, I was very emotional, and you
can feel it from, like, your the pit
of your stomach up into your chest and
just, like,
the tightness in your chest and the and
the, you know, your head starts to feel
heated, and it just feels like you're up
kinda started boiling.
I was crying. I was driving.
(24:59):
When I've had this feeling before, it happened
a few times before,
I thought I needed medical attention. Like, I
thought, you know, I might have a heart
attack. What's going on? And in that moment,
the busy LA freeway, I pulled off the
side of the road, and I put my
hands on my heart
and I was just breathing deep, as deep
as I could.
(25:20):
And I kept saying to myself, I am
love.
I am light.
I am
loving. I am love. I am light. I
am loving.
And I kept saying to myself, things that
I learned in the process. You know? What
do you need right now, Leila? What do
you need? What do you need? You know?
I answered that question for myself.
(25:43):
I remembered something that really stick out for
me in the process too,
which is but really puts things into perspective
when I'm going through those moments, which is,
you know, I'm suffering,
everybody suffers,
and this will pass.
For me that self regulation, that ability to
calm myself down, to ask myself, what do
(26:04):
you need, Leila? What do you need? And
it might just be simply like, Leila, you
need to just stop and breathe. Just stop
and breathe.
You need to go for a walk. You
need to call your mom. You know?
But when you're in it, when you're working
all these jobs and you're doing all these
things and you're just going going going, you
you just become disconnected. And like I said,
my spirit was here. My body was here.
(26:26):
They were all just like nothing was connected.
I just felt like I was just, you
know,
discombobulated.
So that for me after the process of
being able to self regulate was
extremely helpful for me.
Extremely helpful.
I still ask myself every morning, like, what
do you need today, Leila? What do you
need? What does your spirit need? What does
(26:46):
your body need?
A radical
daily question, isn't it?
Mhmm. And it's so simple.
If you know
how to ask the question and you know
that there can be an answer, there's something
about TikTok therapy or those kind of self
help routines that you can find online or
in a book that just they weren't resonating
(27:09):
with me.
I just thought it was fluff, but it
was until, like, I really started to get
connected to who I am
and to rebuild that confidence about who I
am that it started making sense to me
what those questions really mean and what gratitude
journaling really means.
I started showing up. I wanted to be
a better friend. I wanted to be a
better daughter.
(27:30):
I just wanted to be a better everything,
but I also wanted to be, like, a
better
caregiver of myself. I tell people about that
I did the process and a little bit
about what it is, but
I honestly feel like it's so hard to
explain to people
what I went through and what it meant
for me.
But when I do explain
just the simple thing that I learned about
(27:52):
putting my hands on my heart. And and
sometimes I ask people to do this with
me
that are having a really hard time,
and they feel better afterwards.
And so I know that it's something too
that that pause is is just it can
be really helpful for people.
Do you have people you know do the
process after you?
(28:13):
After I did the process,
I came back. I had a conversation with
my mom and my sister.
They could see a a huge change in
me.
I'm not saying everything was perfect afterwards. I
went through my moments, my peaks and valleys,
but I did have ways to
to understand what I was going through.
I told my sister, and a couple months
(28:34):
later,
she was at the same
process that I was at. I worked with
Ian. He was in my group, and she
worked with Regina, who I deeply love. I
actually did a podcast episode about Regina because
her her story is so incredible.
But my sister ended up going to Hoffman.
Transformative
(28:55):
for her.
She, as a parent and a business owner,
was looking at ways to just
really live life to its fullest and understand
herself better. And it was for her an
incredible experience.
Then my mom
who also was just so intrigued by everything
we did, she ended up doing the online
(29:17):
version of it. My mom was 78 when
she did it,
and she did it. This is the 2
day course called Hoffman Essentials.
She absolutely
loved it.
I mean, I was concerned because, you know,
she's on Zoom. She's got the technology there.
I was like, is she gotta be on
mute when she needs to be on mute?
Is she gonna be but, you know, she
figured it out. Mom was there. She was
(29:38):
engaging in the questions, looking at our patterns,
and sometimes I'll talk to her, like, about
the patterns that we both have, that we
all have.
And, you know, we acknowledge them. It's not
a criticism
to say, oh, you know, that's a pattern.
Normally, that's a criticism in our the way
we would talk in our family. If you're
calling out something that you feel is, like,
negative, but we can all recognize
(30:00):
that
it's something to be talked about and maybe
addressed and maybe shifted.
And so all 3 of us, yeah, have
had half moon in our lives. That's fantastic.
And often we talk about patterns coming from
our parents,
our caregivers.
In your case, your mom, your dad, but
also your stepdad.
(30:21):
Right. Yeah. But there's also
cultural
patterns,
societal
patterns.
As a black woman,
it sounds like you had a chance to
name and identify and work with
some of the systemic cultural patterns
that you experienced growing up? There's resonance there?
(30:42):
Yeah. Definitely.
I mean,
I think that for me,
the tendency
to make myself
quiet and unheard,
not the loudest voice in the room,
you know, not to get too upset.
Don't let them see you get too emotional.
When you
(31:03):
have a very strong opinion,
you are considered an angry black woman,
so, you know, watch your tone.
Those things really came up for me. I
I have to say I
they came up in a way where I
recognize
that
there are spaces where I feel very comfortable
(31:24):
in
being myself and voicing my opinion,
and there are spaces where I feel
just a little bit silenced. You know?
I think what happens when,
you know, as a black woman,
when I am
holding back in life, you know, when I'm
holding back, when I'm not engaging, when I'm
(31:44):
not gonna let them see my expression on
my face, I'm not gonna I'm not even
gonna comment on that, I'm not gonna and
when you keep holding back for that long,
at some point,
you explode.
And that was my pattern. I would hold
back. Wait. I'm gonna bite my tongue on
this. I'm not gonna say anything.
I don't wanna be that person in the
room.
(32:05):
And then at some point,
I would explode.
For me, I felt like I exploded. But
for me, it's just like, I'm gonna voice
my opinion. I'm gonna say what I'm saying.
I'm gonna tell you what I think right
now. It felt like an explosion for me
because I had kept it in for so
long, but I'm actually just, like,
being
emotive and being conversational and being, like, wait,
(32:25):
this is what I really feel about this.
For me, it would come across as a
way that was felt like
a little bit hyper emotional because I would
held hold it in for so
long. I started thinking about like, gosh, how
many black women do this?
When they do express themselves, it's like you
have something to say.
So you're saying it and you're expressing and
you're you know, I haven't said this for
(32:47):
the past year or the past month or
whatever, you know. And all of a sudden,
you know, you hear from someone saying, oh,
you were really,
really angry and upset in that meeting. It's
just like, well,
first of all, I was expressing what I
felt. But also, second of all,
what do you expect
if I've been silent for so long?
What do you expect? Like, of course, I'm
(33:08):
gonna have a reaction.
So I think for me personally, it's like
the cultural side of it is like, I'm
not going to kind of explain myself
any longer.
I'm going to express what I'm feeling. And
another thing that I'm just trying to do
is
in the moment when I'm feeling a certain
way, I'm going to express it then. Because
(33:28):
what happens with this pattern of mine was
that I'll go through meeting after meeting after
meeting after meeting or whatever and not say
anything.
And then all of a sudden, I'm just
I've had it. I feel like I've had
it. At the same time,
it's okay if I've had it.
It's okay.
You know?
So those were some cultural things I started,
(33:50):
like, being hyper aware of in Hoffman.
And it'd be interesting to see, like,
if it was inversed, you know, if Hoffman
if it was more Jordy Black, what would
it be like for for other folks there,
you know, if it was
a different balance. Right?
Right. That's a great question. For you, it
almost simulated
your childhood experience
(34:11):
of being one of the few blacks in
a white dominant world. Right? Yeah. It definitely
did. And I think, like, to be completely
honest, when I first walked in, I thought,
did I make the right decision to come
here? Like, is is this space for me?
I don't think this space is for me.
And it made me withdraw. And I could
see that my instructors
were noticing that.
(34:32):
And
they let me work through those things, and
then they addressed it. They asked me to
address it. They asked me to talk about
it. They asked me to express, like, what
was going through my mind and why I
wasn't fully engaged.
Like I said, it was in that moment
where I started realizing,
I'm not going to let,
you know, the way that the system is
(34:54):
set up, where I am the only black
person here
in the group,
to affect how what I get out of
this experience. And that's exactly what my instructor
told me.
Don't let the system
affect your experience.
And that's the same thing within Hoffman
as out of it. Like, I'm gonna not
gonna let the system
affect my experience and how I I move
(35:16):
through this world. Leila,
we have been talking for a while now,
and you're you've been reflecting on your experience
during that week and
in the weeks following the weekend after, but
you also reflected a bunch on how you
felt before you came to the process. And
the friend who posted on social media asking
(35:38):
about any places that are appropriate for somebody
who's looking for a break and someone suggested
Hoffman.
What's it been like for you to
be verbalizing
out loud all of this
about your life and your experience? What do
you notice about that? It's interesting because I
told someone I was gonna be speaking with
you and they were like, what are you
(36:00):
gonna say?
Don't say too much, Leila. That sounds personal.
And I was like, you know what?
I'm okay with talking about this. I just
feel like we all go through
these moments of not having clarity,
and some of us maneuver them
differently than others. And some of us us
really need to talk things through, and think
(36:21):
things through, or walk things through. And I'm
one of those people. Like, I am very,
very
analytical. I I question everything. I'm I'm curious
about, like, why did I think that? And
why did that person say that? And why
did I react that way? So I think
it's if it's for people that are wanting
to question
themselves
and really kind of dig deep,
(36:43):
I think that talking about this is very
helpful.
I think that talking about what you're going
through and those start times,
it's very helpful because we're not always in
those light, happy, you know,
skipping through the daffodil moments. And
and I think that you can hear someone
on a podcast or see them at work
(37:04):
and think, like, oh, they have or see
them on Instagram, like, oh, my gosh. They're
living their best life. Yeah. We're all going
through it. We're all going through it at
some point or another. And I I have
to say, like,
I was in a very confused place at
that time pre Hoffman,
and I can honestly say that
I know that I'll never be there again.
I know that.
(37:25):
I know that because I know
much better who I am now and and
how to handle
those moments,
but I'm also
okay
with explaining
that's where I was at.
I'm okay with it because I I actually
don't want my closest friends or anyone
to feel that they're,
(37:46):
that they're that lost. And the way that
we can we can help each other, I
think, is just by explaining, like,
your truth. Right? For me personally,
I know some people are a little bit
more guarded about it, but
I'm really happy to share my story.
Leila, you and I were about to wrap
up, and then you just shared
something
(38:06):
about a recording you did
2 weeks
after Hoffman
and what happened with that recording. Can you
just share?
Yeah. Well, before I went to Hoffman, I
was having this block. I just couldn't find
any
motivation
to tell story. I was a little bit
lost. I was like, am I good at
this anymore? I don't know what to write.
I don't know what to do. I had
an episode that I've been sitting
(38:28):
on for months, and I just couldn't
bring myself to write it, to interview, to
put the the script together,
to create the piece.
And 2 weeks after when I got back
from Hoffman,
I outlined the piece.
I wrote the script. It was such an
emotional piece for me because it was about
(38:48):
Charleston, South Carolina
and the black hands that built that city
that are sort of invisible
and noticing
all the details like the fingerprints
of former enslaved people and the bricks and
the cast iron gates that are made by,
like,
these beautiful artists that go unrecognized. And it
was like a walk through the streets of
(39:09):
Charleston,
and it I just poured my heart into
this episode.
It came out so easily for me. My
editor was just like, you did it and
you've been sitting on this for months.
And then what happened was that episode ended
up
winning a very prestigious journalism award called a
Gracie Award.
I was
(39:31):
so honored.
I walked a red carpet, you know, wear
my gown, had my makeup on. And it
was almost like the I am back
moment after Hoffman. So that was a highlight
of my year.
Beautiful.
I'll send you that image too because the
dress, I gotta tell you, Drew, it was
(39:52):
quite
quite the sunnah.
We will post a link to that episode,
a link to
the stoop
even if you're open,
image of you in the dress
as walking that red carpet?
Yeah. I'll send it to you. It was,
it was an incredible experience. And when I
told my sister that I got the award,
(40:14):
it was after she had gone to Hoffman.
And I just remember her on the phone.
She was just crying so happy for me.
She was just so happy.
And she's like, you know, you did it.
You did this. And I could tell it
was like that Hoffman energy of just like,
you got this. You know, you got this.
And we're just like 2 sisters on the
phone crying about it. It was really, really
special.
(40:35):
Incredible.
Well, for the second time now, Leila, thank
you for your heart, for your time
for this conversation.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and
(40:56):
president of Hoffman Institute Foundation.
And I'm Raz Ingrassi,
Hoffman teacher and founder of the Hoffman Institute
Foundation.
Our mission is to provide people greater access
to the wisdom and power of love. In
themselves, in each other, and in the world.
To find out more, please go to hompaninstitute.org.
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