Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman Podcast glad you're here. Money Pet is with us today, and I don't know. Go for a walk, put in earbuds. Put on the podcast at your house or apartment and grab a cup of tea. She digs into her story in this conversation. She shares about her injury, vertebra bra, bars, screws, replacing a piece of her ti from a cad, Tb brain injury so much trauma physically and yet.
Listen as she tells the story of coming back, moving beyond that injury and living her life, so beautifully please enjoy. Welcome to Loves everyday radius. Podcast brought to you about Hoffman Institute. My name is Drew Horn. And on this podcast, we catch up with graduates of the process. And have a conversation with them about how their work in the process is informing their life outside of the process.
How their spirit and how their love are living in the world around them, their everyday radius assess Monique Pet is with us today. Welcome Monique. Hi. How are you doing today? I'm great. I'm feeling nervous and excited and pretty grateful to be here? Will you share a little bit about who you are? Yeah. So I am a trauma survivor? Someone who has gone through a lot of physical trauma and emotional trauma. I am a nurse, I am someone who continually reinvent themselves. I'm a writer. I'm a coach.
And, a new wife. She's just got married. Congratulations. Thank you. As you look back, on your life and your story. You mentioned a trauma survivor. Will you share a little bit with the listeners, what happened to you that morning some 13 years ago? Yeah. So I... Had made my living most of my living as a as an athlete, a athlete, and I was training for the Hawaii man in pretty high level.
Obviously, when you're preparing for the world Championships, I was 3 weeks out from the race and I got hit on my last long ride by a van. I was probably going about 20 some miles an hour in the van, more than that, close to 30 apparently. And I ended up suffering incredible spinal injury, like least 7 broken vertebra to, like, the base of my skull and, you know, broken ribs, puncture lungs, shattered shattered leg, shattered scapula, arm, the knee was touch and go for quite a while.
Underwent about 18 hours of surgery just on my spine alone, and was in a coma afterwards for about 6 plus days and woke up to a scene life through different eyeballs. I like to say. Will you share before you go there, will you share a little bit about? What you woke up to physically, like, take us to that room in the hospital? Did you know that you had been hit? No. No. So I feel like I was having a dream where I couldn't breathe?
And I was having 1 of those nightmares where I couldn't breathe and I woke up, and I remember blinking and blinking and choking, because I woke up actually innovated. And I remember closing my eyes and just praying and me like, this is just about bad dream just go back to sleep. This is a bad dream. And eventually, learning later because I was under a lot of the heavy medication was that the nurses were sitting with me and just telling me, you know, that I needed 30 minutes,
before they could actually ex activate me. What does that mean ex activate you? That means remove the breathing tube from my lungs. I just remember closing my eyes and doing all the yoga breathing I had learned. And for some reason, I woke up, and I was... Saying the Mary of all things. So just praying and praying, like, okay. Just stay calm, stay calm. Yeah. So eventually, I woke up. I had no idea where I was.
I thought actually I must have been dreaming about the Oi air, ma'am, because I I asked 1 of my friends later as said did I get hit during the race and she laughed at me. She's was like, monique in September. And the race is traditionally in October. Yeah. So when I woke up, I I had no really idea what it happened, and I had no idea the amount of damage that Had been done. And that the I imagine in a hospital room with the smells and sites and the tubes and the beeping.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I... I remember feeling almost associated from my body, like, in looking looking at it. And And looking at the nurses and the people standing above me. And, yeah, I was in a small Icu room, you know, the ventilator was next to me. I had probably 5 different Iv poles you know, with all the different drugs that were going into me, the sounds for sure, and I could see the monitor, and the nurses were just trying to do their best to keep me calm.
Which I was very calm, but, you know, it was a lot of confusion. So how did you recover? What did your recovery look like from that moment? You know, it's it's funny because I always tell people that III feel like I'm still recovering. Spent a journey, even though that's it's been 13 years. Since just I still feel like I'm recovering from, you know, the trauma of of being hit in the the physical part for me, I will go back and say, a million times it's... It
was easier for me. You know, being an athlete, I knew how to push myself, and I knew how to rest and Knew how to recover and I... And I could control that part eventually, you know, It took about 6 months for me to be able to to walk and get out of a wheelchair. And when I started to recover, I looked, I looked normal, but I still couldn't sit up. I was had a lot of pain and I mean my living as a coach.
Strengthening conditioning coach a Triathlon coach and athlete, like, how was I go get back to life? You know. So for me, that my recovery was it was every moment of my life. You know, At first, it was my physical recovery and then it became by emotional and my mental recovery. When out of curiosity, did you ever meet the driver of the van? That we never met? There was literally 1 degree separation between him and And 1 of my good friends had known him.
I have struggled with, like, wanting to reach out to him and I asked. Apparently, he had a really hard time with it. And, You know, I've I've never I've never met him. How have you navigated holding what he did to you? Oh, wow, that's a really good question. I remember pretty early on, I would say within the first 3 years. Where I have talked to the person who knew him, and I
do believe in prayer. And for me, I have you know, prayed for his own well being, and I've also written, you know, written letters I've never sent, and worked on literally making a choice to focus on practicing forgiveness you know, he's a human too. Right? He made a mistake. I got a big chunk of that. I got the the chunk of his mistake. I don't... Even malicious mean to hurt me. I've practiced compassion for him. I've practiced. I can't imagine what it would be, like, I'm
an em impact. For sure. And so I would put myself in his shoes, and I would... I can't imagine what it would feel like the road that he was turning on to had lived on for 30 years. And so I don't know for him, it was automatic pilot and he just was heading home, but I can only imagine what it would be like to... Know that you've just destroyed this person's life.
And so, for me, I forgiveness was something that I felt was a really powerful thing that I needed to focus on for him and for my own healing, when he could talk about new eyes waking up with new eyes, how did you come to terms? With the fact that you couldn't... I mean, could you compete at that level again where you were making a living and how did you navigate choosing a new career? I knew. I mean, the the doctors is even at the time where I when I woke up where, like, you're never gonna be
able to run again. If you could, it's not gonna be more than a few miles. So I knew I remember making a conscious choice saying, okay, I have 2 roads. I'm gonna go this way or I'm gonna go that way. And I just looked at it just like this is my new baseline. And I knew I would never be able to race again at that level I had to make a decision. And so for me, I remember feeling, this is it, like, this is not my life is not about me anymore. To race and train and compete in the y man.
There a lot of focus. There was a lot of focus on myself I wanted to compete and race in the top 5 of my age group and and all that. So... But I remember Thinking though, this my life is no longer about me. I am to be a completely of service on this earth. And that is really how I chose. To go forward. I know, like, in the process we talk about the right low, left road. And for me, if I think about that which I didn't even know that model obviously.
But if when I think about that, I chose the right road. And what did that entail for you in terms of next steps for me, in undergrad, I wanted to be a... When I went to college. I wanted to be a doctor and that road didn't work out for me. So for me, the nurses changed my life when I was in that hospital, I didn't... I don't even think I understood what nurses did. In some ways, and the nurses were the ones that helped heal me, and they were my earliest dealers.
They would sit with me at my hospital bed, and there were some of them, and I remember would hold my hand and just cry. It cried more than I was crying. Just the amount of compassion that they showed me and their just their ability to start healing me was life changing. And so in my journey of recovery, I eventually decided to go back to nursing school and get a master's degree. And focus my service in that in that way and give back. What particular aspect of nursing are you in now?
Well, right now, I'm actually, I'm in between, again, reinventing myself, But the only nursing that I've ever focused on was the neonatal intensive care. So I've been nicu you nurse, in the at the University of California, at Davis and San Francisco, and I've been incredibly incredibly blessed to be able to focus my attention on the most vulnerable human life possible. Those babies. The babies. Yes. Just and just give us a sense of the the reality of your day as a needle
intensive care nurse, What do you do? Wow. Well, working at level 4 trauma unit, like, in Ucsf I we see the worst of the worst of things that you really that are kind of unimaginable. It is a position that feeds my soul and also drain me at the same time where I feel like human life is touch and go. Some of our babies have the ability to to survive and and some don't. And there's no rhyme reason to which ones make it sometimes and which ones don't. And so it's a unit where you're on hire alert
all the time. You have to be because we're not only I'm not only watching my babies that I'm responsible for. But I'm in a unit with all, you know, other nurses as well, and we're all watching out for each other's babies. So it's a high stress area. It's not just about the baby. I'm I'm with the mother. I'm with the father.
During Covid added a whole another level of of stress and, you know, trauma to the to the parents they say that the parents when they leave 75 percent of them have some kind of post traumatic stress just for the parents. So I'm not only a baby nurse. I'm a... I'm a nurse to the family too. Tell us a little bit about your journey onward. How do you get led to the hoffman process? So I've stated that I'm I'm kind of a continually reinvent mentor, but so my partner, now husband.
We decided to move out of the state of California moved to Wyoming and, I had to leave my job, which was probably 1 of the most challenging things I've I've done as an adult. We moved to Jackson and we started a different life, and which was a transition, also during Covid. And Mark has... 2 very dear friends here who and now become my friends who have been to the process, and they went about 8 years ago, as I was still on my journey of searching and healing, I was skiing, I'm not a skier. I
learned out ski 3 plus years ago. For me, it's a miracle that I can even ski because of my accident. You know, there's... There's been times where I'm on the slopes and the trauma that I've... That I have endured in my life. Can take me over sometimes. And so what brought me to the process really was trauma can sneak up on me, in ways that I don't expect, and then it can turn into mental and emotional trauma, obviously, and it can ooze into my
relationships. Easily ooze into my most intimate relationship with Mark. It's amazing for me to as I have learned to keep my heart open and, become, more loving person at the same time, there's this... It brings up trauma from my past of you fear of abandonment, and if, you know, if I love this person too much, then I I can't do that because if I do that, I'm gonna close... I need to
close down to protect myself. So in my journey of healing, keeping my heart open and trusting in spite of the trauma I've endured, not only physically, but emotionally has his I I feel is really what eventually led me to soften. Your recovery allows you to see the world with new eyes. And then you head into a different profession.
And in that journey, you meet someone, you move to a different place, you're growing deeper connected to 1 another, and in that intimate partnership and some additional trauma comes up around un childhood wounds. Is that right?
Yeah. Absolutely. I feel like my last renter, my greatest spiritual journey has been, and this intimate partnership that I have with Mark and feeling like I deserve the rug that he gives me this being able to share in such a deep unique way that I over time, 1 of my patterns has been to learn to dis trust. Is not be able to trust another person. And so in spite of him being incredibly loving and generous, and and kind and
fun and playful and all these things. I notice how I wanna protect my hearts a journey of keeping my heart open and really practicing trust and feeling like I actually deserve a relationship with a man who loves me, and who I love back has been something I've had to learn literally the last few years. Did you know it was connected to your childhood or did Hoffman teach you that. Okay. So your your friends recommend Hoffman, you sign up, then what happens? Well, I did the paperwork.
I I also did the essentials previously as well, which obviously opened up for me some the patterns that I could see. But then as I started to do the paperwork, I I decided when I went in dolphin and, like, I was going all in. There was no way that I wanted to live the way that I was living, meaning, if I looked around me, I had this amazing life, and I have this amazing man I was living with, and I couldn't let myself feel it.
And so when I wanted to hoffman and I'm like, I'm doing whatever I can to just uncover the trauma. My mother was an alcoholic. She was not alcoholic my entire life, my dad spent most of his time, if not, the majority of it, catering to my mother, and we all did. There was a lot of fear in our home. My primary caregiver did not in my opinion give me or my sisters little love that a mother would. And so on my journey, I've learned how to had to mother myself and to feel love.
It's funny that love and happiness could be a very triggering thing. But for me, for me it was. And so when I went into my paperwork, I was just blown away. Like, it brought up every wound that I fought I that I could imagine and and more. And I remember looking you back at my paperwork and I think I had, like, 310 patterns or like that. I was walking around I remember pre process walking around just like a live nerve ending. Re reliving a lot of the memories that I felt were stored in my body.
I couldn't actually articulate what the memory was, but all I knew, was that I had a lot of pain. I had a lot of shame, and my body was experiencing it. It came out through tears. It came out. Through anxiety, it came out in ways that I say were sideways. And, you know, my partner got the brunt of that And I was doing my best to keep it from him as much as I possibly could keep it from him in some ways, it just it kinda just dispute out.
So the pre process work for me was, like, at the band aid, I ripped it off, basically. And so take us to your process, what was it like those first few days for you to step into this immersive experience. First of all, I felt that the process was a luxury. I knew going in that it was a gift. And I wanted to look at it that way. It didn't necessarily feel that way because I was feeling like I was being ripped apart, but I welcomed it, and I I was terrified. I was absent only a thousand
percent terrified. I was terrified that my life was gonna look so much different, but my I was gonna lose my partnership, but it's I just didn't know, but I had a trust, and I had to go in and feel at first, there were are a couple people that I met really early on. Who gave me some calm and foundation to discover what I needed to discover, and then the same time, I didn't necessarily know how much I was holding back. I thought I was ongoing on.
You know, Tuesday, Wednesday, my coach at the time just sense that I was holding back. I was blown away by that because I was... I felt like I was going all in. And I believe in hindsight, 1 of my patterns is, you know, I just I just really learned to not be able to express myself. It was not safe for me to express myself. It wasn't safe for me to to be happy. It wasn't safe for me to be sad. It wasn't safe for me to do anything.
And so 1 of my biggest breakthroughs at the process was really, really truly allowing myself to be fully all in and not care when anybody thought. So how did that shift your work in the process? That kind of new understanding of of actually going a bit deeper. Once I know the process I was getting ready for bud and
I was. Standing talking to my coach who told me that where they known me for a little bit now and if someone I would ask them to describe me to them that they still did not know who I was. I seem to be taking my the trauma that I had endured in my wife, and was beating myself up with it. And then also that I was trying so very hard. And the trying hard part was described in me in a way where I had so much in me and the trying hard was that I was trying to
still suppress it. Like, I was trying to control the pain that I felt. Again, when I think about the process, I was terrified that I was actually going to hurt somebody with my own trauma. So I didn't have felt like I at a safe place to actually express all of it. That was in me. My coach said to me also before I went to bed that night and said, stuff like, what do you need to feel safe.
When I went to bed I had a few things, you know, in my mind and I went to sleep and I woke up at 03:00 in the morning, and I woke up with that same feeling. I've always woken up with, which is anxiety. A lot of anxiety, pressure my chest that flutter rather I feel, like, through my chest and my stomach and my throat, you know, without giving too much too much away, for people who haven't done the process. I I wanted to connect with that part of me that was so terrified.
I thought Okay. And I just kinda held my chest and my stomach and just held myself there, and I said, what do I need to feel safe? And I kind of whispered what do you need to feel safe. For me, I was talking to that 3 and a half year old, that has been terrified and inside of me my entire life just terrified. Eventually, I kind of let her know that I was there, and I was gonna love her and no matter what and that she mattered.
And that she made a difference and eventually over a few hours, I felt her melt into me, and I felt that hurt scared, terrified 3 and a half year old that was so fun and playful and and curious and who had lost her own self who seed hidden. I just felt eventually felt her melt to me, and I've never lost her. And I'm gonna start crying. But to me, it was such a pointed part. I'm not journey because you know, like, I was so
I didn't know she even existed. I had cut her out who I am today, and or who It was before. And now I got her back, and I've got that curious little playful front loving pine soul, that I hidden so long and then all the trauma had kinda covered up, That was the part of my process. And Monique, this is some night mid week. As you're staring at the ceiling in your bedroom at the process. Yeah. I believe it was Wednesday night.
The the power of an immersive experience where day after day, you allow the process to work on you to open you up to heal you. And even though you're not in the classroom or you're not doing a specific experience Your healing is very much taking place at 03:30AM in the morning or some wild hour there that night. Yes Yeah. And I I think I feel I know the process is brilliant in that way where... What I was doing sometimes soon it make sense to my brain at all. I'm like
why am I doing this? You know? And but it may... It made perfect sense, you know, as I had the time to myself as I had time to to rest and and to recover, but that for me too was a part of going all in. Whereas going all in, I'm gonna go all in even in that our downtime times, where I felt that I know it's a journey and the healing can happen at any moment, And so I just know that I wanted to leave their feeling, like I had done everything I could possibly do.
To heal this trauma, part of it too was was the time in between the classroom. That's was a huge part of it. There's a huge part of healing that I saw happen in other people during that time too and the stories that I would hear. It was the most impactful part of my journey for sure. And so you head out, you leave the process. And enter your world again with your partner with your family, what happens How do you know that the process is alive in you? For me, the process remains alive because...
I'm dedicated to practicing. All the practices, all the tools that we learn there, and also the reflection of life back on me, feels different. I feel more joyful, Like, I remember a feeling gratitude for the first time in a way that I hadn't before, when I look at... You know, someone like Mark. At first she was like, I don't know if she's really different, But, I think with time, it's been obvious. I shared with him I felt like the trauma had been literally removed from my body.
And I've read the body keeps the score more than once, and I believe that I feel my energy like, I feel different to be around. It doesn't mean my patterns have gone ray at all. I'm still triggered. Russell triggered by love. Meaning my my intimate partnership with Mark, but I did have the opportunity to go back, to see my dad and my family, 3 months 4 months later, you know, all of my patterns were still there. What I had to do is I really had make conscious decisions to practice.
I feel that I can compassion towards myself and then also towards of my father, my sisters, I thought that while going to hoffman was gonna be, well, things were gonna be completely different. And the reality is is things would change with the other people that I've... I've had a change and then I have to continue to to do the work in order to show up. Embodied as the person who I am that I got left the process. Monique, when you talk about
tools and practices. 1 of the things that is becoming clear is that you actually view life relationships, as a kind of way, a living practice, a walking meditation that it's through your relationship with your husband you're now husband through your relationships with your family of origin that that practice of living into those relationships. And learning from them is where you gain so much wisdom. Is that true? Oh, yeah. That's that's really sure. And that's actually really great. Way to
put it. I've heard a zillion time is the only time there is is now. Whatever is coming up in my life, it's meant to be there. What I feel like what hof enabled me to do is it's enabled me to be more present in my life and be able to to not confront, but to able to handle to be more present in my life. So what's happening is my father could be standing before me saying words. Right? And I could feel the trigger of the seeing his pattern, which is my pattern.
I can feel it in my body, and instead of me shutting down, sometimes I'll shut down, but instead of me shutting down. I will literally, choose that right road of feeling compassion, and I was... I might put my hand on my heart, even he might not even notice it.
But I just literally spent 3 weeks with him, and I can... I feel a lot more love in compassion with him, now more than I ever have and myself, it's it's a it's been a healing journey for me just to be able to be with them, But in the moment, yes, the practice is really powerful. And and I believe it's now who I am. I am somebody that will show up in the present moment, and it's a practice,
you know, experiencing joy is a practice. That's something I realized lately that if I was happy, it was very trickery. I would be no. No. No don't don't be too happy. Don't shine the light, that shrinking piece for me is slowly and sometimes quickly going away because I am living remembering, I know my body remembers the process. And I put those tools to work, and so my relationships are with me becoming who I really wanna be in this world.
Yeah. And it's stoked. A reverse of the trauma in your body and be vendor coke spoke about the body keeps the score. Part of what you're saying there too is that your body can also remember the goodness, the experiences, the joy, the vitality, the healing. That you experienced during your process, and you say your body remembers that? Oh, yeah. It really doesn't... For me, it is as a definitely had to be something that
I have to go back to. I know what 1 of my old patterns was just just really be stuck in the work, like, the hardness of everything. And so there are are moments of the... The process that stand out for me where I was extremely open and joyful and playful, and I know that that's still in me, and I can access that part of me as well. Life, to me, I thought was just always so hard. I'm just as playful as I was that 3 and a half year old runs. And so I feel that in my body, I I
recall that. I remember that, and I believe that that's still there. And it's something I wanna continue to really nurture and bring bring forth because the trauma that I've been dirt physically and emotionally, had dim that light made me really terrified to feel any kind of happiness or joy, poor parts in my process or remembering us. Remember remembering some of the fun that we had there. Monique, what's it like to talk about this journey?
Out loud. I know you're in the process of writing a book. What's it been like over this time to share about your story. I definitely have been 1 who has been very scared to share. I've been scared to be open. You know, it's funny because I never wanted my accident to define me. And the fact is that because I kept it so quiet, and I hid from it, and I didn't really necessarily own it as much as I am now. It defined me anyway.
And it defined me in a way that I I allowed it to define me instead of instead of me allowing myself to define it. So it's freeing. It's... I still feel I feel nervous, but I can still sense in my chest and in my throat with kind of like an expansive, so it's for me, it's healing to be able to share it. I hope that I will be someone 1 day that can inspire people to keep going to lean into their resilience that we have as humans.
Hopefully my resiliency and my experience can let someone else continue to share their, like, with others. So for me, it's been... I feel nervous that I'm sharing my story, but at the same time, it's like I I can't hold it in anymore. And now I wasn't put on the earth I believe to just stay small to keep my mouth shut and to not express who I am, And and I believe Brett Hoffman it was was the key for me to be able to really truly learn how to express myself in the world.
To feel safe enough to express myself even when I necessarily didn't feel safe. Monique, you've mentioned shame. Tell us a little bit about what you discovered in your process about chain. So during the process... First of all, I love the model the negative, the drum model that we use there at the process. And I recall pre process.
Feeling the shame of the trauma, meaning, like, somehow I deserved to continually endure trauma throughout my life where there was physical or emotional and that for some reason, no amount of work that I would ever do whatever take that away and that was my crossed bear. During the process, I've heard of, but I never realized how deeply self addictive the self addictive pattern that I that I have... Nurtured over
my life. Where basically, I was taking the trauma, and I was beating the crap out of myself with it and not only the voices that were going in my head, but somehow that I expect the trauma that I deserve the trauma that I was never get a good away from it and to basically beat myself up with it, which is just led to a deeper amount of shame.
So I could be saving a baby's life, where I could do the most spectacular thing in the world, which is possibly why in some ways, I express that of my life because I wanted to be able to do these great things and, you know, help heal others, but underneath all of it was this deep core wound that I didn't deserve in some ways, I feel like life that I had. So... And that was just that ball shame. No matter what I do, I can't get away from it.
I'd really discovered that voice and that pattern in such a way that I know now. I hear it's a it's a sneaky little voice. It's a sneaky pattern and it shows up now in different ways.
But I hear and feel that self vin, shameful pattern, I would never have experienced it, or noticed it or been able to do anything about it hadn't and I participated, you know, in February in in the process I'm incredibly grateful for it being able to to have that experience and to know that it is possible to allow the trauma to heal and to move out so that I actually can be love in the world, and that shame doesn't need to control me anymore as it did before.
What a beautiful way to end that I can be love in the world and that shame doesn't control me anymore. You know, I love their feeling. I had to tell myself it it was safe to be me in the world as well, but that's been that my practice. It's just to show up and be love and that is my purpose. That's what I'm here. Monique, Thank you so much. So grateful for this conversation and for your time. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to our podcast. My
name is Liza and Rossi. I'm the Ceo and President of Hoffman Institute Foundation. And I'm Asking Rossi. Often teacher and founder of the Hop 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 hop institute dot org.