- Welcome to Love's Everyday Radius, a podcast brought to you by the Hoffman Institute. My name is Drew Horning, and on this podcast we catch up with graduates for conversations around how their internal work in the process is informing their life outside the process. How their spirit and how their love is living in the world around them, their everyday radius. - Hey everybody. My name is Drew Horning, and today we have Sherry Coron. Sherry. Did I say that right?
- You said it correctly, drew. Thank you. - What do they normally say? Do they must butcher that name? - Yeah. My name is spelled C-A-U-D-R-O-N. So people tend to see it as caldron. Um, and my fifth grade teacher actually stopped the class one day to explain that my last name meant a witch's boiling pot, and I was far too shy to correct her in front of the class. So I lived with that word, that name for a long time.
- She publicly in front of the class that said your last name was a witches cauldron. - Yeah, exactly. She didn't pronounce it correctly, nor did she ask me - . - I was wounded for years. . - I'm laughing, but that sounds horrifying to a fifth grader. It, - It kind of was. - So it's co - One of the things I brought to the process , - Uh, was the healing of the fifth grade experie - Of the fifth grade teacher. - Are are you teasing or - I'm teasing.
Yeah, I'm teasing. Oh, okay. She didn't come up. There was plenty of other work to do. . - Oh, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. Would you, uh, beyond the, the butchering of your last name, introduce yourself? - Uh, yes. So what would you like to know? Where's a good place to go as far as introduction? - Well, you know, uh, when you did the process and what you, how you took the process into your life. What, what do you do for a living?
- Great, great. Um, I went through the process in August, 2013. Um, I was in the same group as your wife. Uh mm-Hmm. , which was wonderful. Um, went to the process because I had broken up with my then boyfriend. Now we're married. Thank you, Hoffman. I'd broken up with him 10 times, and on the morning after the 10th breakup, I had a flash of insight that, oh, maybe it wasn't all his fault. And, uh, I started to look around for retreats. I didn't even know what I was looking for.
And, um, within about five minutes, landed on the Hoffman site. Never knew anyone that had gone. And I, it just spoke to me 10 days later, I was there. Um, and so the work that I do, this will relate to the process. I, for the last 15 years or so, have been helping people write books, predominantly memoirs. Um, and so I tend to view life through the lens of story. And what Hoffman did for me was help me rewrite my own narrative.
Um, in terms of, you know, the villains in my life weren't villains. You know, they were wounded people doing the best they could. Um, I got to see through my patterns and rewrite what those were and that they had existed to protect me and I could let them go now. Um, and so I really looked at it as a rewriting of my story and the work that I do in helping people get their own memoirs on the page. Often it involves a rewriting of their story.
Um, people come to the memoir writing process typically because they've experienced some kind of trauma and it doesn't have to be outright. Yeah, yeah. It's a, it's, but can you Yeah, go ahead. - Classify why people who are the subset of people that even wanna write a memoir? - Um, I think it's people who have gone through an overwhelming experience, and it's one of two things.
Either they haven't processed it and the way they tend to process is on the page or two, they have processed it and they've learned a lot of lessons from it, and they wanna share those lessons with others. I can't tell you how often people come to me and they say, I wanna write the book. I wish I had read when I was going through this. - Oh, I see. - Yeah. So that's, that's where it comes from. Um, - What's it like to, to help people get their story clear and then to put it down on paper?
- Um, it involves a lot of asking questions, a lot of reflecting back. They give me drafts and I'm always telling them to unpack things. How are you feeling here? How did this relate to what came before? Um, what you're doing when you - Connect the dots in a way. - Connect the dots. Exactly. 'cause what you're doing when you write any story and including a memoir, is you're putting together the links in the chain that this happened.
And when this happened and that happened, when that happened, I felt this way. And when I felt this way, I did this . And so what happens when people have to put that together very typically, is that there narrative changes. Mm-Hmm. , um, for example. - So the story they thought they were gonna write ends up being different than what they thought it - Was. It ends up changing, um, not completely, but sometimes completely.
Um, I had one woman who, a who or her story when she came to me was about being bullied as a child. And she kept telling me that she was bullied and how it affected her as an adult. And then she started writing it. And I didn't see evidence of bullying on the page. I said, I need to see who these people were who did this. I need to get a sense of what they said and where you were. And she was able to come up with maybe one scene.
And it was astounding to her because her story fell apart underneath her. And then the real work began. It was like, if, if I wasn't bullied, then what was it? And if I was incorrect about that, maybe I was incorrect in how my mom treated me, and maybe I've been incorrect about my sisters. And it, it actually led her on quite the odyssey of internal work, which she's thankful for today. Yeah, - I bet she is. But did she know that there was no bullying? Or did you have to point in her writing?
Did she know that there was only one story of bullying? Or did you have to point that out to her? - I, well, I kept asking her for it. I said, I've seen one story, but give me others, give me evidence. I mean, when you're writing a story, you don't just tell the reader You were bullied, you have to bring it to life. And she couldn't come up with them.
Just could not. And, uh, and, - And then what was that like for her to have to come to terms with this idea that the story she had been telling herself her whole life may in fact not be true? - Um, it was pretty disabling for her at first. Um, the interesting part about this particular person or aspect of it is she also has a PhD in which she studied the power of narrative in shaping someone's life. - Oh my gosh. - It's, I know the synchronicity is really amazing.
I mean, she saw it that she could point this out to other people, that their stories in their narrative, she was looking at successful women and how they felt about themselves and the stories they told about themselves influenced their success in the workplace. So she had done this work for others, and all of a sudden this mirror came up and she was pretty astonished. - And when you say disabling, you know, Brene Brown talks about gold plating grit.
And one of the things in gold plating grit is that we just tend to skip over the challenging parts. And people tell, speaking of telling a story, they're like, oh, that was hard. But then I got through it and things are much better now. Mm-Hmm, . So when you say disabling, I imagine that was an uncomfortable time. And how did you support her? What did that look like?
- You know, what's, what's wonderful about this process and the process of writing that the, that the, my client's attention is always focused on the page and on story. And so I would say, okay, so if it wasn't bullying, what else could it have been? And or how did these feelings that you carried into adulthood or eyes? And so together we kind of roll up our sleeves and start looking at the story in other ways.
Um, me asking her a lot of questions, her doing a lot of writing, um, and it ended up, she stopped writing for a while. Um, and, um, what's fascinating about this is that her relationship with her mother has improved significantly. Her relationships with her sisters have turned around and she sees them in a different way. Um, so things started to really change once her narrative changed. - Ah, it, the, the old story unraveled and a new story started taking its place.
- Right, exactly. And our stories, you know, to look at it through Hoffman, uh, terminology, our stories can become patterned. And they, they, and they're, they just, they guide us that this is the narrative and this is how I believe. And rarely do we really start, stop to question and unpack that story, um, or look at what if the story wasn't true. And so that happens with clients also that I'll ask 'em, okay, what if the story wasn't true? What would happen in your life?
- So do they ever, do they ever turn, I mean that, do they ever displace that discomfort onto you and say it's your fault? Or do you ever get some of the pushback associated with the challenge and discomfort of rewriting your story? - Um, I don't take it on. Uh, I think I've done this work for so long. I don't take it on. I know it's part of their process. But absolutely, I deal with people who are very uncomfortable. Sometimes they get angry, um, they don't wanna see.
Tears are a very common part of this process. But I, this was a couple years ago, I surveyed about 25 or 30 of my long time memoir students and clients and ask them about the end result of our work together, or not just our work together, but their work to write the memoir that what had happened for them. And what they repeatedly told me of things is they gained forgiveness for their younger self. They gained forgiveness for other people in their lives.
They gained more compassion, certainly a greater deal, deal of understanding. Um, they learned what lessons that they've embodied that they wanna share with the world. Um, it is such a magnificent, um, healing process to write your memoir and growth process that, I mean, I think it's sacred work when someone sits down to do this because of what the end result is in their - Life. And these aren't, these aren't professional writers.
It, it doesn't require that they be a, a prolific writer, it's that they're telling their story. - Exactly. Um, my best client actually is someone who comes to me and says, I have to get this story down on the page. I don't care if it goes anywhere. I just have to do it. Um, because then they wanna engage truthfully with what happened for their own sake. And frankly, then they actually have a better, um, possibility of connecting with an audience because it's an emotionally true story.
- What's that like for you to be a guide and a witness on that journey? - Oh, gosh, drew, I think it was what I was put here to do. Um, I love it. It feels like a real privilege place. Um, it feels like an honor, um, to really just bear witness to another human being working through very difficult times in their life. Um, yeah, I I actually love it. I, I love the investigation that goes into it, and I love what happens to the writer.
It's, you know, the, like, as I said, that writers come to do this because they want to understand events. Another thing that really happens is that they can experience and metabolize emotions that they couldn't at the time. I mean, you know, from working with people who've suffered from trauma, when you're in the middle of trauma, you are just trying to get through moment by moment. You're not thinking about how you're feeling. You're not, you know, you're just not leaning into it.
And what happens when you write is you re-experience the emotion. So it can be emotionally challenging, but then the grief, or the anger, or the sadness, or the self-loathing, um, or the hurt, whatever it is, has a chance to move through you in a way it couldn't at the time. - That is. So you're just, so, I love how that rolls off your tongue. It's, I just smile as you were sharing all that. It's so clear.
Not easy, but, but clear have in, have you ever, during this writing transformation and the struggle of it suggested the process for your clients? - I have, and I've had two clients who've gone actually two, maybe three, or just someone else just popped in my, and, and of course then they write me and they're like, oh my gosh, thank you. I have a much better sense of my story now. Um, and it becomes a fuller story when they go to the process.
- And, um, in terms of your, as if I had the, the narrative, right? You did this work for five years, and then you went to the process and you've been doing it the past 10 years. - Yes. Yeah. And - So how did your work as a writing coach, helping people write their memoirs change? How did your approach change as a result of the process? Did you notice that it shifted the way in which you related to your clients or worked with them? Anything different there? - Yeah, that's a great question.
So when I came back with, from the process, I wrote my memoir. Um, and so the combination of going to the process and writing my own really helped me embody the transformation that awaits my clients. I understood from my own point of view what it was like to, um, wrestle with some challenging times in my own past and make sense of them, and about how light and how much freer I felt at the end of it. Um, and so I would say I started rewriting my narrative at the process, at the process.
And then I came much further along after I wrote my memoir. Now of course, you know, that's not like, oh, I packaged my story, I'm done. You know, I just, you know, I'm still working through some of those patterns and narrative threads, but I can spot them for what they are. But, so I think going to the process and writing my own memoir really shifted how I work with people in that. Prior to that, I mean, I'd spent my career as a writer for magazines. I'd written a couple of other books.
It was all about writing beautiful work to be published, and how do you capture the attention of agents? And now my work is very much focused on, this is gonna be a healing endeavor for you, um, because it is first and foremost. And so I've really leaned into the emotional growth that happens through this process. - So what does that look like when you're, with your clients, having that deep understanding of finishing your own memoir and knowing your own narrative story?
How does that show up in real time with your people? - Um, I'm not afraid. Yeah, - Go ahead. Oh, this is good. Yeah. No, I was just wondering, the thing I was thinking about is that you're less, uh, tolerant of doling and not afraid to what, what were you gonna say there? - I'm, I'm not afraid to push them Yeah. To look at deeper truths. And I'll spend much more time on the emotional truth of the story. Um, and less time on the prose.
Because until you get the emotional truth down, you don't have a story. - And when you say emotional truth, what, what do you mean by that? 'cause I understand it, but I, I don't know what it is. So share - It. Yeah. So it's very common for a writer early in this process to talk about an experience that was difficult for them. And they'll give all the details of the experience, um, without ever talking about how they felt.
You know, dad walked in the door, he started yelling, this is what he said, this is where I was in my room. It's very fact-based. It's like they're journalists recording their life. Um, and then my job as coach is to say, but how did you feel in that moment? Because that's where the connection is with the reader. Um, and so then to do that justice on the page, they need to actually re-experience. The feeling - Isn't interesting.
You're, you're saying that's where the connection is with the reader, which means readers want the feeling. And yet that's the hardest thing for the writers to share. - Absolutely. Because you think about it, drew, you and I have had very different life experiences, but you and I have all the same set of emotions. And so that's the way you connect with the reader, that you talk about the anguish you experienced.
You talk about the self-doubt, you talked about fear, because every reader out there knows what anguish, self-doubt and fear feels like. But you have to bring that to the page. And when you've been traumatized and perhaps dissociated when you are younger, it can be difficult work actually to get those emotions out and onto the page. That's - 'cause it can feel like it's re-triggering from those childhood trauma. - And it is re-traumatizing.
So self-care is a really important part of this process. - Hmm. Wow. I'm just taking a deep breath. - . Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, it's heavy work and it's rich and it's such a gift. I mean, people come to see what they've survived, how they've triumphed. Uh, for example, I've worked, um, actually with a couple of women, they don't know each other. This is just coincidental who both raised daughters with disabilities and their daughters also just happened to die right around the same time at age 21.
Mm-Hmm. So these women were both writing about their daughter's lives, their experience with them. And you know, what they each said to me was, I had no idea what I went through because they're so focused on their daughter when they're raising her. Um, and so they can take a step back and like breathe, like exhale for the first time in years. Um, yeah. Wow. So it, it's, it can be intense work, and yet what happens at the end is just, uh, it's so, like I said, it's such a privilege to witness.
- Hmm. It's almost like they're, the, the passing allowed them to catch up to time. Like to that exhale, that breath allows them, gives them permission to go inward and understand what, what these past years have been about. - Yeah. And honor their role, because, I mean, these are women that, uh, both of them just felt inadequate, um, so often during their daughter's lives because they couldn't do enough and, and they couldn't heal them.
And, you know, they're just striving and striving and striving and striving and never feeling like they did enough, which I think tends to be the mom's position anyway, feeling like you're never getting where you wanna be. And these women in writing their stories, they just went, oh my gosh, look what I did. And that's not what the story is, but that's what the impact on them is in writing it. - I see. I see. Yeah. That's, that's, that's beautiful.
Yeah. So in, in your own story, the process, um, after after 10 breakups and then taking the Hoffman process, was there an 11th breakup? - No, there was an engagement in the marriage. - . Wait, you went the other way? Yeah. Sometimes - People Exactly. , - Sometimes people take the process and, and they break up. And there's a sense of, wait a minute, does the Hoffman process break people up in this instance? It sounds like it brought you guys together.
- Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, and you know, I, I had a lot that I had was working through at the time, and I had to kind of separate, I not kind of, I did have to just separate from the relationship and let it go in my mind and build my own life. And, um, we saw each other, I don't know, maybe six weeks after the process and have been together ever since with ne the threat of a breakup. , - I was gonna say that to take a, how many years had there been of those 10 breakups? - Uh, two, - Two.
- We were efficient . - I thought there were gonna be more years. That's a lot of breakups in ten two years. - Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was one breakup that lasted a day and one that was six weeks, and then kind of in that range. - In that range. Yeah. But to take a, um, a consistent theme in the first part of your marriage and then to really talk about rewriting the story, that is not what you do now, the two of you?
- No, not at all. Um, Bruce, my husband, um, I love the way he framed it when I kept breaking up with him, his family would say, Bruce, you know, don't you think it's a sign that she keeps breaking up with you? And he said, I think it's a bigger sign that we can't stay apart - . - So he was better at rewriting from the beginning. , - He, he, uh, that is such a beautifully positive spin.
- Yeah. And same thing on my wedding ring, we decided to get 10 tiny little diamonds to signify the 10 breakups. And he said, no, Sherry, it's the 10 reunions. - . Is that true? You have 10 diamonds. Yeah, - 10 tiny little diamonds, - 10 reunions. Yeah. - That's fantastic. But it just shows, I mean, this is like a, it's a fun, funny example, um, about what happens when you go through a little shift in perspective. And sometimes that's all it is with my clients.
Sometimes you just need to have another way to look at something and it opens up possibility. - Well, getting that perspective is often more challenging than wanting it. I mean, I think people want it, or, or maybe they say they want it, it, but how to get that perspective seems - Challenging. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think everyone's at a different place with that process. - So how many years have you guys been married now? - Um, two and a half. - Two and a half. Yeah. That's great. Yeah.
It seems like it's longer than that. - Yeah, we've been, I mean, we've been together now. I mean, so we got together right after the process, and I did that in 2013. So we've been together I see close to seven weeks. - That's it. That's it. Okay. - Yeah. - That's, that's beautiful.
So, um, as, as you, as you look at your own process experience, um, is there a moment in time from your process that stands out to you, that feels like even from a narrative perspective, that that was, that place, that moment in time felt like the beginning of the shift? - Um, well, just one , . Uh, there were so many that, I'll tell you where my mind went. I, I don't even know if I've told you this story, drew.
Um, when I went to the process, my dad had just gotten off dialysis like four or five days earlier. Hmm. And so the doctors are saying he's gonna die in the next few days, which meant he was gonna die when I was at the process. And, um, I made the decision talking with my sister about it, you know, that, that it was okay to go. She was very supportive.
Um, so not knowing anything about what the process entailed with your parents and the writing of letters and the understanding, et cetera, et cetera, I was a wreck because the whole time at the process I'm thinking, has my dad died? Has he died now? Um, and then when I wrote that letter to him at the process, I could barely get through it because I was thinking if only, if only I could have been there a week ago. Um, I did see my dad before the process, and we sat apart from each other.
We were very distant. I didn't say any of those things you're supposed to say to someone on their deathbed. It was just very strained. Went to the process, went through everything we go through there, wrote the letter, the process ends. I called my sister and I said, well, what happened? She said, nothing. He's still alive. The doctors couldn't believe it. They'd never seen someone go that long. Wait, so you, - You, you went to the process having felt like you had said goodbye to your father?
- Yeah, but not really. It didn't feel like a - Good - Goodbye. It wasn't a good goodbye. It was, it was more like a see ya dad, which I don't feel very proud of, but I didn't know how to do it differently because he and I didn't speak differently to one another. So once I heard he was alive. Right. - So then you take the process. Yeah. Still alive. - I drive down. He lives in San Francisco, lived in San Francisco. I went right down to him.
I sat on his bed, I opened my laptop, I read the letter to him. I was sobbing. Um, he was not terribly coherent, but enough that he knew what I said because he looked at me and he mouthed the words love. And then I spent the next four days lying next to him in bed, holding his hand, rubbing his back, being so present in a way I couldn't have 10 days earlier. Um, and so being able to say goodbye to my father that way, I thought if I got nothing else out of this, that was transformative.
- Sure. Wow. - Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, it was such a gift. - And, and with your sister or other members of your family, the i impact of the work as well? - Um, well, the other, the thing, one of the things I was dealing with when I went to the process is that my older sister, who I was very close with, had died 10 months earlier. And my mom had died two months after that. So I went to the process with my dad dying.
Um, and so there was not unresolved work with my sister, but definitely with my mom. And so I came back and my family had essentially shrunk by half in 10 months. And so my relationship with my younger SI sister yeah, definitely improved. I stopped releasing her from the responsibility of, you know, acknowledging me the way I wanted to be acknowledged and expecting her to be different than she was. - Hmm. - Yeah.
- Hmm. You know, um, grieving and, and mourning, the loss of, and letting go is a fairly simple concept and an incredibly complicated and difficult endeavor. Mm-Hmm. , when your family shrinks by half in 10 months, how do you, how do you navigate those waters? How do you do that? - You break up with your boyfriend 10 times, , . Um, but, you know, so I mean, that was a big part of, I mean, I was a wreck when I got to the process.
So one of the other things that came to mind when you asked that question was there was a moment there where, I don't remember what the specific instruction was, but I remember I was kneeling on the ground and I was connecting both with mom and dad. This was, um, after doing a lot of the difficult work, a lot of the forgiveness work. And, um, my mom had died a few months earlier. My dad, I, uh, had thought he was dying at that moment. I had this incredible feeling.
I'd never had it before, nor have I had a sense of my spirit being with their spirit. It was visceral, it was powerful. It was all encompassing. It was like this reminder of this intense connection that I have with both of those human beings that can never be severed, even if their life is, even if they're not living any longer. Wow. And so that connection was so strong and landed so deeply in my heart and soul that it provided comfort for the grief in a way. Nothing else ever dead.
- Well, I, I'm, I'm gonna assume that that connection you felt also felt like it was mirrored in the world around you, in, in the nature or the trees. Did you have any synchronicity with the wilderness or earth or weather or anything like that? - I'm, I'm remembering watching a hummingbird there, um, in the arbor in that one little garden area. Um, and I don't remember what it was specifically, but I remember just really being connected with that little bird and its energy and its zest for life.
Yeah. I don't know. Um, not a specific one related to my parents that I can think of. Um, - Well, that's, I hummingbirds are so like, potent in their speed wing flapping. - You know, actually as we're talking here, I am remembering. So one of the things that really attracted me about white sulfur springs is that my family, um, has property up in Mendocino County, which is just north of there. And I spent all my summers up there with the family and all the cousins and running around.
And so the landscape is exactly the same. The smells at White Surface spring are exactly the same. There, there are redwoods on the property just like there are at Hoffman. And, um, I do remember that feeling of just walking on the property there being feeling like I was being brought back to my childhood emotionally through the landscape. And that feeling, particularly from those redwoods, is that life goes on.
It just goes on and up and keeps going and going and going, um, regardless of, you know, what, what we're doing around it. Um, so there was strength for me in the property itself. I mean, the smells, the manzanita, the, like I said, the redwoods, the creek going through. Um, it, it, I mean that, that smell in particular has just been with me my whole life. And that connected me with family. - Oh. What's it like to recount your process now?
- I, you know, I haven't thought about it in detail for quite a while. Um, oh, it's, well, it's lovely. lovely. I mean, there's, I, before Hoffman and after Hoffman, I mean, really in my life, that was a, is a clear line of demarcation for me in terms of me really letting go of some patterns, um, that I needed to let go of, to allow love in my life, um, to be living where I'm living. Which I had wanted to move to Boulder for years. I used to live here years and years ago.
And at the process that became very clear in six months, six, six weeks later, I was living here. Um, and then I reunited with Bruce and I said goodbye and loved my father at the end. Um, and I take, I believe a more compassionate and understanding view of the trauma my clients are writing about. - Well, your heart muscle has grown big enough to hold all of their, all of their stories, all of them. - Wow. What a lovely way to put it. . Yeah. Yeah. I, I feel I love them into story.
I hope I love them into story. - I love them into story. - Yeah. I love them. Into their stories. - Into their story. Yeah. You know, you, you mentioned receiving love, and I swear in my work and in my own life, um, and people talk about the challenge of loving someone else. And I, I think it's, it's double that to allow love in, to really allow love - In. Yes. Particularly when you've protected yourself from those who you felt were supposed to love you.
Mm-Hmm. , you know, when you get those patterns of self-protection early on, uh, it can be hard to drop guard - If, if Bruce were here, would he say that's right? - Absolutely. . Yeah. Yeah. Well, he, he said when I called him after the process, um, he wasn't gonna take my call. And then he got curious, you know, and so then he takes my call and I apologized to him first thing, and that's what gave him the courage to see me again. - Uh, yeah, the apology. - Yeah, the apology.
- Uh, well, I'm so glad there was no number 11. - Me too. . Absolutely . - And you know, when I, when you and I were preparing for this recording, I said, Sherry, and then Siri jumped on and said, yes, what do you need? ? And, and, and I You heard that and you said, oh my God, that happens in our house too. Does when Bruce calls you, does Siri sometimes confuse that? She's the one - All the time. He'll be downstairs calling me upstairs.
He'll say, Hey, Sherry and Siri says, Uhhuh, how can I help? And I'm thinking, Siri might be conditioning him for the wrong kind of response from me. , - He might not like your response. Versus Siri's quite available, - A very so solicitous . - Oh, Sherry, it's been great to have this conversation. What's it been like for you? - Oh, wonderful. Yeah. I really wonderful. I feel very honored that you asked me. Um, I love talking about story work, uh, with people. I just absolutely love it.
Um, 'cause I think it's so powerful and anyone who's listening to this who feels compelled to write their story, I I just heartily encourage it. Even if it's just you with a journal writing from the beginning to end of what happened, there's such merit in it and honoring the path that you've walked. - Yeah. And I love that that first example you gave, that that not only is it a way of, of owning it and claiming it, but it's also a way of questioning it's validity.
- Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I find that the things that people are most afraid to write about are exactly the thing they need to be writing about. - Wait, so you're saying go towards the thing, go - Towards the - Fear you're most afraid about. - Yeah. I had a client once, um, do you have time for just one more quick story? - Yeah. Hit it. - I had a client once who, um, she had sent me an essay and it was this very light essay about teaching English in Prague.
And it's all about going to Prague and getting a crappy little apartment that had cockroaches and then going off to teach English, and then going back to her little apartment. And then she talks about her two stepsisters coming to visit her in Prague. And together they all decided to do an exorcism on their, their dad, her stepfather, because of all the abuse, had heaped on him. And then she gave a period, a space break, and she's back in Prague teaching English.
I circled that last sentence in the space break. And I said, your story's right in the middle here. Uh, it was, and 'cause she just happened to offhand mention this abuse. Um, to her credit, she took up the challenge and ended up writing, uh, what actually was a beautiful memoir about the abuse she'd suffered at the hands of her stepfather. Um, very talented writer.
Um, and then she wrote a second story, which was about being in a psychiatric, um, hospital, um, at 19 and 20 as a result of what she'd experienced. And last I heard from her, it's been a while. She was speaking to an agent about that second book. And initially she's like, I don't wanna write about that. I don't wanna write about that. I can't do it. I can't do it. And then she started writing and made poetry from it, actually.
Mm. - Wow. My my thought was like, part of your job is you, you remind your clients to buckle up because here we go. - I, I encourage them to buckle up - , right? - Yeah. - Right. - Yeah. But, but what happened at the end for her, I mean, again, it's a metabolization of all the horror she experienced. Um, and so she was able to separate from that and see herself as not just defined by that. - She wasn't her story. - Exactly. Exactly. - Sherry, thank you for your time.
- Thank you, drew. This was really enjoyable. I'm glad, um, to hear Hoffman's doing this podcast, I could see just how much value there is just 'cause what are we doing in this? We're just sharing each other our stories with each other, right? - That's right. - I advocate that in whatever form. - Thank you for listening to our podcast. My name is Liza in Grassi. I'm the CEO and President of Hoffman Institute Foundation.
- And I'm Rasin Rossi 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 hopin institute.org.