I feel like going through my life story, it actually it just makes it makes me smile, and it makes me this is where the emotion comes in. It makes me really proud of staying with my own process inside. 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 lives in the world radiating love.
This episode contains descriptions of child sexual abuse. Please use your discretion. Cindy, welcome to the Hoffman podcast. Hi Drew, thank you. It's I was really excited and looking forward to being here and having a conversation with you today. Oh I mean we are excited to get you on record and interview you. This is a thing we do where we interview teachers about who they are, about how they came to Hoffman. Mhmm. So as you think about you,
where do we begin this story? Where should we start it? Well, I was lucky enough, I feel lucky, to have done the Hoffman process back in 2017, and it had been recommended by somebody who had done the process. And for me, I was at that place in my life where I had had a few traumatic things. One in particular, I had had a really bad car accident in which I suffered a brain injury, a traumatic brain injury. Wow. And when I look back on my years, I had gained what we at the process call patterns.
And so my success was based on my brain working really, really well. And I had accomplished many things in my professional life. And then in a split second, it felt like that was taken away where all of a sudden a brain injury, I couldn't think the way that I was used to. So when when you say brain injury Yeah. What, like, what is that? What does that even mean? What happened? Great question.
So I, unfortunately, was in an auto accident where someone had fallen asleep and hit my car, and myself and my son was in the car. And I woke up about twenty four hours later in trauma ICU, and I had a skull fracture and lots of broken ribs. And I couldn't think and process the way I used to. So when I look at the definition of a brain injury for me, the leftovers for that were, I swapped words a lot. I couldn't process the way that I used to. Kind of a quick phrase might be I
couldn't think straight Mhmm. The way I used to. And because my definition of success and how I navigated in the world depended on my brain functioning, all of a sudden it felt like I had to learn a different way of being. And so following my brain injury, I would say the first couple years, I was just pissed off, if that's a okay word to say. Right? I was just really angry because I'd worked really hard, in my life to get to a certain place that I deemed as, successful.
And when I look back, they were also I grew up Midwestern America, blue collar family, and I was the first one to go to college. And so I really prided myself on my success with education and being in a profession that, academic profession in which I was stoic and really relied on thinking and doing. But what I also learned and what my brain injury helped me to learn was that I also was really walled off from my emotions, from my body.
There's a piece about not being connected to your feelings in part because of that's how you were raised, a more stoic kind of a family Be happy. Atmosphere. Be happy. There's also the, impact of the brain injury. Yeah. But tell us a little bit about your childhood. Like, we all get patterns from childhood. What happened what happened in yours? Yeah. So, as I said right it was a it was a really loving atmosphere growing up, and my parents were very positive.
Everything we needed, they provided for. And at the same time, feelings weren't talked about. We didn't discuss how to move through deeper emotions and hard things. And so when I was younger, unfortunately, I had experienced, sexual abuse as a child. And at one point, my parents had found out about it and called a family meeting. And I remember in that moment that the languaging was, don't do that. It's not right. And then they moved on from it. They just buried it. Don't do what?
You shouldn't have ex you shouldn't be having you shouldn't be sexual in this way. And I was a kid and didn't know what was happening to me. So in a way, it wasn't their intention, but there was a shaming with that. That's not a proper thing to do. We don't do that. We don't do that. And then we just buried it in the sand. And so as a kid, we learned to just bury all emotions. It wasn't okay to talk about hard things. And so here you fast forward to now I'm an adult. Yes.
I had a very strong coping strategy. Don't talk about feelings. Don't talk about hard things that happen. So be very stoic in intellect, and then intellect, you know, gets Offline because of the brain injury. Because of the brain injury. And so moving through my life, and this was I would have been in my moving towards my late forties and was in a place where I had done a lot of work.
I had done therapy with licensed, trained clinicians and done a lot of work on my sexual abuse healing and had worked with licensed professionals regarding my brain injury. But there was a place that I knew I still wasn't able to connect into. I knew there was something that lived deeper within myself, but I didn't quite know how to get there. And so is that when Hoffman came in the pitch? Hoffman came in. Wow. Yeah. Tell us about that. You you step into your week.
Yeah. What begins to happen as you have all this clarity? Because more and more people are coming to the process having done work already. So you have been both done work on your your brain injury, done work on your childhood sexual abuse Yeah. And yet you step into this immersive cellular journey. What happens? Yeah. Well, in in hindsight now, what what I loved is when we were getting ready to do this interview, you had posed the question of why.
And I thought about that the over the last couple days about why the process. And what I realized is that why it's still evolving. It's still revealing itself. And one of those whys was learning who I was, who I really was versus living out what I had been taught and what had been modeled growing up. And I feel like I hit a point in my life where I didn't really have a clear knowing and a connection to myself.
And the process very quickly, I really realized in the process that I had consistently been seeking outside validation from others in love. I mean, my my parents were lifers with each other. I mean, they were this beautiful, loving couple together, married over fifty years before each of them passed away. And for myself, I had been married, and then I had been married about ten years and then fell deeply in love with a woman.
And so all of a sudden, who I thought I was and what I knew, but also realized I had been living this model that my parents had taught to me and modeled beautifully, but inside it wasn't me. It just wasn't me. And so I was in a conundrum within myself. And what I realized is that the process very quickly is about connecting into that authentic you. And through the expressive work and the quieting myself and listening during the process, I was able to peel back a lot of those layers from
the trauma of sexual abuse going up. So putting really strong coping strategies in place for that. And then the head injury adding into that. And then also this, well, who am I? Because what I realized is my whole life I had tried to pattern my life after what my parents modeled, while at the same time having a deep inner knowing that it wasn't who I was. I am not them. I'm not them, but yet I was rigid in holding on to trying to be like them even though
I wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So there's a a soup. The the head injury, the, understanding of you being gay Mhmm. The childhood sexual abuse, all that sort of swims Yeah. In your process, what happens towards the end of the week? How do you begin to make sense of it all? Well, that's where there's a piece during the process that that we call expressive work.
And that's where it felt like I was really able to use my voice and open up parts of me that had felt so walled off and confused within myself. And what I also realized is I had unfairly put expectations and in a way burden on partners that I had been with.
And so to be able to use my voice that week, to be able to write and express and to move what I had really packed down within myself to free that really freed up me getting to know who I was and what my voice was rather than seeking the external validation. That's great insight. You had packed it down. And by using your voice, you were really able to go places that you hadn't previously gone. Yeah. And, you know, some people might say, do I, why expression? Why this cathartic work? Do I really
need to use my voice? Yeah. And for you, like, what was it like to I imagine right out of the gate, you're not like, here's my truth. I'm speaking it. No. Imagine it was a bit of a wrestling match with your internal patterns that had been in existence for a couple decades Yeah. By the time you took the process. Several decades. So how was that struggle? Yeah. For me for me, what I realize is if if if most people describe me as a teenager in my twenties and my thirties,
Even my ex husband had said this. He used to say, you're like a brick wall. And I presented as really angry and closed off. And in the expression work, it wasn't about anger and being angry at what had happened to me and trying to figure, you know, with the brain injury and the abuse. It wasn't about being angry. What I realized is it was about being able to shift that from anger to expansiveness. It let me be expansive rather than pushing
down. I was now able to open up and move through the world that felt much more authentic and real rather than having to stay closed off. So let me ask you a question. If I if somebody had said to you, like, take this anger energy and get the insight is this, the unlock is this, the hack is this, the the new way of framing this is to go from anger to expansiveness to Mhmm. Would that have worked if someone had just told you the insight?
No. No. Because it wasn't until I experienced it and felt that shift within myself. And what I would say also is realizing that that resource actually did live within me. I did have that resource, and it had been there all along. Do do you know when it happened in your cathartic or expressive experience? Did you feel it emerge in your belly, in your
solar plexus? Like, do you have a sense of how it kind of or maybe it's so mysterious we don't really know how these things the wisdom comes from within. Yes. It feels mysterious. What it also felt like is at one point during the process, something shifted within me through the experiences that a student goes through in the process.
There's a shift from having to know things and figure it out to be one step ahead, analyzing, processing, which I was really good at and spent most of the time doing, to all of a sudden, there was an opening, a space that was created where all of a sudden, I realized that I wanted to be more curious and responsive in life, and I had been living from a place of being reactive.
Just react, react, react versus there was all of a sudden this calmness Once some space was cleared, a calmness to say, woah. How can I just sense be in the sensing of my life and the experiences that I have rather than having to wrestle and fight those? And how did that impact the rest of your week? When once you had that insight that just open up, just relax, be a little more curious, stop trying to predict what's gonna happen, Did that impact and affect how the week unfolded for you?
Yes. Yes. And I'm I'm I'm going I'm actually in the middle of going back and re experiencing, and that's what I find that's so yeah. Wow. And that's what I find that's so beautiful about the processes. Even though I did the process while it would be, eight and a half years ago, my body, Right? My I still feel that. There's still a connection to what happened during that week and what continues to evolve even today, eight and a half years later.
And what I would say is how it shifted during that week was there was a softness. There was a softness, and I'll come back to that word, an expansiveness that came in. And I would also say curious curiosity. Wow. What have I been so busy controlling and afraid of experiencing my whole life? And now it's almost like that script flipped where, woah. What do I now get to experience and be part of in my life? And how do I just allow life to happen and need it
versus wrestling and fighting it? That's a great word you used earlier. Right? That wrestling and fighting versus allowing. And do you see that as a Hoffman process teacher now that you're you've been teaching for years do you see that same struggle with your students and how do you support them in letting go and allowing? It's easy words to say but it's a hard place to to live and surrender to. Is it not? Yes. Yes. And I see that.
And and that's what I feel is is one of the blessings and the honor of being a Hoffman teacher is I really believe in being able to walk alongside them and just holding space for what they discover about themselves. And what you said earlier is is a is a is a thought that I have. It's a great phrase of, if somebody would have told me, it doesn't have the same impact as just allowing and holding the space as a teacher for our students to move into what is emerging within themselves.
And that's what I was able to experience, and that's that's what led me to want to be a teacher at the end of the week. I mean, I'm I'm a trained, licensed clinician. I think this And you were a therapist. And I was yeah. Psychotherapist. And I also, I teach at Western Michigan University. I teach graduate and undergraduate students in the social work department at Western Michigan University. And oftentimes, during classes, students who are becoming therapists, they wanna have
the right words. They wanna have, you know, the perfect thing to say to people to help them. And oftentimes my role, it's the same with the Hoffman teacher but also theirs, it's not about having the right thing to say. It's about really being present and holding the space for them to discover that path that they're on. Yeah. I mean, it's a, you're the teacher. You're the professor. You're the one that has the wisdom, the knowledge you impart to these students. That's why they're there.
They're taking notes. Mhmm. And yet part of what you're saying is that you're guiding them to the wisdom that lives within. Yes. And what I would also add on to that, Drew, is I've now not been in relationship for about three years. I've been single. And I and even though I date on occasion, I've been single, and it's it's the first time in my entire life that I've not been in a relationship. And while I still hope to have that and and would like to be, what I realized is I really
like my own company. I like who I am, and I had never felt that way before. It was always about getting that external validation. Oh, if somebody loves me, if somebody wants to be with me, then I'm lovable, then I'm okay. And that's where the process has really helped me also. And what I realize is many people who come to the process, it's a common phrase we hear is, I don't know how to love myself. I don't know
how to give to myself. I don't know how to connect into my deeper knowing and my deeper deeper wisdom and have that love for myself. And so in that place, it's another, just incredible experience to hold that space and presence for people to learn how to love themselves and to go, wow. I'm I'm pretty good company. And what do you mean? Being with myself. This is so good because it's such a simple idea and it's such a an important nuanced journey towards self love.
So what's it like to be a steward of this self love? To be a guide for these students in their week, guiding them back towards their own wisdom, their own love, their own compassion? How is that for you to be on that? Gone from student now to teacher to guide to space holder. The word that comes often is just it's an honor. It's an honor to hold space, and it also feels purposeful is the word that comes.
But I hesitated on that because that purpose also knowing that I'm doing what feels purposeful to me allows me also to stay centered and grounded. Right? So it feels centering. It feels grounding because being able to just really hold the container for students during the week, people come there to do hard work. I came to the process. That's what led me to the process, is I knew I wanted to get to a certain place. I knew there was a place
that lived within me. I just didn't know how to get there and how to be that because I'd get swept up in patterns. I get swept up in those shoulds and those shouldn'ts from childhood that were just so ingrained in me. And so learning how to hold all the beautiful qualities that I did learn and were modeled growing up while simultaneously just holding what wasn't mine and what I knew wasn't my path and really wasn't internally me.
And so now hold just holding both of those side by side gently and lovingly, and I bring that into the students because that's what I see in the students
when they come due to the process. There's this inner turmoil, either in their profession or their relationships or in their relationship with themselves, and how to bring all those beautiful wonderful qualities that they do have alongside with reconnecting to who they know they are authentically and being able to touch upon that and be able to then start to live again from that place within themselves. I love that. I love it.
As, you know, you you referenced I wanna ask a question about because at at the process, we talk about the positive legacy of our mother and our father. And at some point during the week, we have an experience in honoring that they actually did, on some level, give us things that we want to embrace Yeah. Double down on a little bit. We wanna tease out the difference between the the patterned part that they gave us, but there are many wonderful qualities.
And for you, it sounds like you're reclaiming, having teased out some of those patterns around emotions and only certain emotions are allowed, what have you come to embrace as the positive legacy of your mom and your dad? Oh, it's a great question in that way. And and because sometimes I also hear from students, I'll preface this with saying, sometimes actually oftentimes I'll hear from students saying, you know, I didn't have these huge traumatic
things. Right? I actually had a pretty good childhood. And and what I would say about myself and with other people coming to the process is what I say is, yes, and there are still patterns that are having some they're having real consequences in your life, that you aren't living this true and authentic place where you're really centered and connected. And so for me, it was loyalty to family. Right? There was such a loyalty to family and relationship.
And in that place that I held that so tightly, I lost track of who I was within that. Sounds like loyalty to the extreme, loyalty to the denial of who you are. Yes. Yes. And so now I feel like I'm in that place where I can still hold on to those great things of loyalty. Right? That deep connection to people and showing up showing up and being loving, a wholeness.
Right? A wholeness within that with also not dipping back into the patterns of, oh, now I'm moving away from who I am and and and who I know my my being is within that. It can be a complicated thing to both remember love both your parents have passed. Yeah. So to hold them with deep respect, care, and love in their memory and all the wonderful things they gave you.
And at the same time, remember some of the patterns and the stuff they taught you as problematic and as hard on you and having a negative consequence. Yeah. To hold both those isn't how do you navigate the the both end of your mom and dad's legacy? Oh, how I hold both of those is that's where I really utilize the tools and practices. I know I I have friends lots of friends who are psychotherapists because that's that was my profession before becoming a teacher.
And they've often asked me the question, why the process? Right? Why why this Hoffman process? Oh, this is good. So these people in the, psychology field as therapists are kinda curious with you and your Hoffman. Yeah. Very much so. They wanna know what what makes Hoffman different from the work that we do. Exactly. And so what do you say? Well, what I often say is is it's it's not a replacement or, counter to.
What I like to say is it's a complimentary because it is really important to have a, like, a professionally trained licensed therapist that can help you through some of the issues that you have in your life. And where Hoffman for me Hoffman came in complimentary and really walked alongside of it where I was able to get in touch with what we talk about at the processes, those other aspects of ourselves really deepening into, well, what are my emotions and staying with that and feeling it.
Because as wonderful as my childhood was, we didn't learn how to stay with those really hard deep feelings and let them be as reverent in our life as the positive, always being happy and finding the good in every not finding the good in everything, I should say. That would be the patterned version because Yeah. There is pain and pain and sadness. Rather than being able to just be and sit in that sadness and really be able to move through it versus, you know, pushing it away and pushing it
away. Damn. And the other aspects that I would say is is the process really helped me get in touch with my body because I really disconnected from that, from the abuse as a child. And also, not going into to the feelings. And so coming back full circle to, oh, I'm able to stop and say, okay. I might have a hard situation that might be happening, or I might feel upset about something.
And I'm able to just pause now and have all those good qualities that my family taught me, which is like, k. It'll be okay. Things will work themselves through and bring in the other, which is and what is my body feeling in this moment? And letting my body feel it and not pushing it away. What am I emotionally feeling this morning? And really being with it and giving those their due diligence and their
their voice. Yeah. So why has allowing your feelings to be a part of the dialogue and in particular around, allowing your body sensations to be held with reverence. Why is that helping you in your life? Why is that a a better path for you? What I find for myself is I'm more present in every moment. I used to be very much into the pre prehofen, doing, doing, doing, doing, always thinking ahead, always strategizing, always planning, always solving.
And I feel like now I'm able to just be in the present moment, in each moment. I don't have to look ahead. I don't have to stay stuck in the past. I can just truly be in each present moment. Yeah. Presence is such a, you know, a word that's thrown out around a lot, but when you're talking about not future tripping and not, you know, ruminating in the past that does leave this one final place to hang out in. What's it like to be more present in your life as a result of this work?
My nervous system Huge. Is calm. And even when things arise, like, a a quick example is yesterday, I got online, my financial person it's the end of the year and my financial person said, I'm gonna switch a couple things. So I thought, oh, I'll get online and just take a look at the account, see what he did. So I bring it up online, and it says I have $27 in my retirement account. Now there should have been a few more zeros after that. And in that moment,
of course, I had a reaction. I'm like, just for a moment. And then I just softened because all my Hoffman tools and practices came in, and I just softened in that moment. And I thought, just pause for a moment. There's got to be a really good explanation for this. And I found myself getting curious. I wonder what happened. And what I realized is in the past, I would have went down a very chaotic road. I would have immediately called him. I would have been freaking out. I would
have panicked. My nervous system would have exploded inside. And I realized, wow, I don't have to go to that place. How can I be curious about and respond versus react in this moment? And then I thought, wow. This is this has been the brilliance and the benefit that is now deeply ingrained in me, like, embodied in me, is to be able to respond when things happen versus react. So I called my adviser. I said, this happened. And he said, wow. I bet you you just freaked out.
And I said, for a moment, literally for a moment, because it that's a normal it's normal that that would happen, but it didn't last. And that's what I noticed is my nervous system calls calms much faster. And it ended up being I'd actually used a wrong sign on, and I didn't even know that I had a different account from a way, way old retirement fund where there was $27 left in it. And so in that moment, it all worked out fine.
Soon as I did the right sign on, everything was there that was supposed to be. And I thought to myself, this is the epitome right here of how I'm living my life differently Beautiful. Since the process. Beautiful. It kinda works that way, doesn't it? Where sometimes we don't know we get the gains we get until we have an experience, and then we're like, oh, that that was different. That was better. Yeah. I like that. Wonderful.
So you talked a lot, Cindy, about tools and practices, and I really wanna end this conversation without checking in with a teacher about her own favorite tools and practices. What do you do? What do you like? What are some of the, tools and tricks in your tool bag that you use to
stay grounded to do do this work? It's a it's a great question, Drew, because what what automatically comes to mind is oftentimes as as a teacher, oftentimes I talk with students, and they may be a month or two out from having done their process. They might be a year out from doing their process. They might be two years out from doing their process. And and on occasion, I hear, wow. Right? I don't feel like I'm really utilizing
the tools. But when we start talking about them, and I know this is true for myself, is what I what what we discover, what I discover and talk through with students is they are. They're using them every single day and they're really subtle. Right? They're just because they've embodied it. They've become those tools
and practices. Cindy, this is so good. So their definition of using the tools isn't inclusive of what they're actually doing that is more subtle, more embodied, but equally as powerful. Yes. And so those tools and practices is similar to the story I just told us. In that moment, I was able to pause and take in a breath, connected in with my spiritual self.
I got curious instead of going into patterns of doom and gloom and dread and, you know, thinking my financial advisor was, you know, somewhere on a beach in The Bahamas enjoying With your retirement. Right. And so pausing, connecting into the different aspects of myself. What's my body experiencing right now? And how do I listen to what it needs? What is my emotional self? How do I let that just move through?
Take a breath and be with that. Those are kind of in the moment tools as opposed to stepping out of life doing a quad check or a centering practice or a gratitude practice. You're talking about embodied in the moment check ins that are very subtle and yet really keep you grounded. So the other tool that I utilize that I didn't the first couple years for whatever reason, and I that's the other thing is I find the tools and practices,
they they come in. Some are more prevalent at certain times and certain experiences, and then others will come back in here, and then others I use less and then they come back in. But the one that I probably use the most now is what we call pre cycling, and that's imagining a situation that I'm going into where I know that there's going to be some energy that will probably come up. It might be a hard conversation. It might be something that might be stressful.
And I will imagine myself connected to my spiritual self, connected into my wholeness and who I know I can be before I enter into that situation. So good. And so by the time I get there, I walk in rather than going into patterns and reaction. I'm able to move into that space. And how long does that take, that pre cycling little thing for you when you're Seconds. Seconds. Seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and and in the process, we we it's much longer because we really teach
teach that in a didactic way. But once you practice that and you build that muscle You can compress it a little bit. That's that's an important piece. It doesn't need to be this elongated thing that you can get the essence of it, and it really works for you. Yeah. Yeah. And I find that with students, oftentimes, they'll say, wow. I can do this. Right? It's just it's automatic now. I can do it in the moment. It only takes a few seconds. Yeah. How you doing? What's it like to to
sit and reflect? I mean, you went way back, Cindy, and then brought in your your experience leading up to being a student and then being a teacher. You you have so stewarded so much good stuff in Canada that's you teach both places, but you've also, you live in Canada part time. I do. I do. So I live actually near the site that where the process is taught in Canada, And I moved there about, two years ago, and I'm now a dual
citizen. Oh. And so, I feel very fortunate that I get to teach in The United States for the process, and I also get to teach in Canada. And I feel like going through my life story and actually it just makes it makes me smile, and it makes me this is where the emotion comes in. It makes me really proud of staying with my own process inside and feeling the hurt and the disappointments, not only from others, but within myself.
Right? Those places where I've made mistakes, those places where I've tripped up, those places where I haven't made good choices, but also able to hold those with such love and gentleness of knowing I was doing my best and that it doesn't end here. Hopefully, I still have many, many more years ago, but that the combination and the confluence of all of these experiences make up the whole of who I am. And that's what the process allows, and and I get the I get to witness that with the students.
I get to witness that with the students, and they're coming into their life experience and being able to love themself through it all also. Wow. You are embodying the work, embodying your essence, and I am grateful grateful for you, grateful for this conversation. Thank you, Cindy. Thank you, Drew. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me here. Thanks. Thank you for listening to the Hoffman podcast. My name is Matt Brannigan. I'm the CEO of the Hoffman Institute Foundation
and a Hoffman teacher. Our mission is to provide greater access to the wisdom and power of love within ourselves, in our relationships, and in the world. To learn more or to support our mission, we invite you to visit hoffmaninstitute.org.