Hey, everybody. It's Drew Horn here and Natalie Lump is our guest. Natalie has a moment in process early on that becomes a kind of fu, a transformational moment that sort of before and after where everything was different on the other side and continued to be different
and change. So listen for that, I do also wanna say that in this episode, there contained some descriptions of racial violence that's at about the 18 minute mark, including use of the n word, it may not be suitable for all listeners. But do listen. It's a great episode that I'm so grateful for Natalie courage and her vulnerability, Please enjoy. Welcome to Lu everyday radius. Podcast brought to you by 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. Us is informing their life outside of the process, how their spirit and how their love are living in the world around them this their everyday radius. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast Natalie, Lump is here with us. Natalie, welcome. Thank you, Drew. I'm glad you're here. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Yeah me too.
Breath. Deep breath. Will you tell us a little bit about who you are? Yeah. I'm a mom and a daughter and a sister. And a black woman in her fifties navigating the world at a very precarious time, within a weekend sense of my purpose and my place. I'm a creative. I love making many things, pottery right now is the thing. I'm a writer. Think I'm as a space holder and a space creator for other people. I'm in Oo, which is I think Arabic and maybe Japanese for mother of mothers.
My granddaughter came into the world in 20 20, and I decided I did not want to be called a grandma or b referenced as a grandmother, and most deaf has a song called Oo says, and there's a line in the song where he's singing about his grandmother saying for him to shine his light on the world, and that's what I want. My granddaughter to do. So she calls me only. She's 2 and a half. She can't quite get the u yet. I love food and music and learning, and travel, I'm a dog owner.
I love growing things. I owned a farm, so growing was a big part of my life for a period of time. Yeah. I think I think that's me. Great. Thank you for that. So why did you sign up for the Hoffman process?
I signed up because I was at a very broken place in my life, a 10 year relationship had abruptly and unexpectedly ended in at the end of 20 18, and 20 19, I spent really numb to the fact that I was alone and had this farm that I had to, you know, dismantle and really figure out what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be in the world. I was in Austin living in Austin
outside of Austin at the time. And I was doing a lot of soul searching, like, a lot of internal and navigating, like, who am I and why did this happen and what have all of my relationships look like, Anything think looking back, my relationships with men have been either very long term. I've had really long periods of being single. I'm not a date. I don't like dating. I like being in relationship. There's a lot of times spent listening to Tara Brock and
watching the office. Because I really couldn't do anything. Other than matt couldn't listen to music. But betrayal, I think the only way I could express it was through writing, and I instantly felt a release.
Of the pain that I was in by writing about it, and that led me to create a project called the in fidelity project where people can anonymously have right about in fidelity and about betrayal that's happened in their life in that website is live and in the world and stories are collected every day. So you experienced in fidelity betrayal. And with that, you created this website where people share the pain of their own in fidelity and relationships therein in, Yeah. Writing
helped me so much. Writing has always been, I think way my voice was able to come through. And, it was the only thing that I could do in that, you know, those early months. And within weeks of my the betrayal. I I stood this website up. And story started pouring in. I just felt like if it was helping me, it could help other people, so I needed to build a place for that happen. And how did that eventually lead to Hoffman? Yeah. So by the fall of 20 19.
I had probably sometime in 20 18 found Jen Atkins. Through social media, and was a huge fan still a huge fan, But a huge round of her as a person and her authenticity and her building businesses and love of women, and she had a Youtube, but she had put up talking about a 7 day detox from your phone. And I was like, yep. I need that. And within the first 2 minutes, she said something about Hoffman Institute.
And then went on in this Youtube to talk about, like, how to turn notifications off on your phone, Like, how to manage your phone instead of allowing your phone to manage you. But I heard Hoffman Institute and Had never... I'm like, what is that? Like, what? Is she talking about, so I looked at a hub. The tagline on the website, I think so something like, if you're serious about change, And I was like, yes.
Definitely serious about change. I've been doing all of this soul searching and internal work and deep... Station, and I signed up. I didn't know anything about Hoffman. I didn't I didn't know anything, But I was serious about change and this said, if I was serious about change, like, doing this work would be, like, 10 years of therapy in 7 days. And then I went on... The hunt of, like, trying to figure out what I had signed up for. And as you know, like, there's nothing on
the Internet really without hoffman. So I just on faith followed Jen's youtube suggestion and signed up for my 7 day detox for my phone, really with the intention of trying to understand the pattern of these relationships. How could this have happened to me at a point in my life where things felt like they were really stable. And then when you got there, what was your process like for you? What happened? Yeah. There's a thing as a black person that happens when you go into...
Unknown groups, and it happens for me every time, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and then all white environment, And when you go into these unknown groups, the first thing you do is you're scanning for someone else that looks like you. And it's not to be friends or, you know, sometimes, yeah, but it's just... It's for eye contact more than anything. To find that other person and to just make eye contact, like I see you, and you see me and if shit goes down, like we've got each other.
I'm getting to Hoffman and sitting in that horseshoe before day, that scan didn't result in anything. I was the only 1, and it was a feeling that is very, very familiar to me, but coming there knowing that I was coming to do my work, there was a sense of, okay. So I'm in this space, and I'm alone, again, But I'm here to do my work, so just keep your head down and do your work, but there's also this additional weight or this additional layer of is it gonna be okay? Am I gonna
be safe? Am Gonna be judged? Can I really do my work here in a group where I'm the only person? So that was kind of the first feeling. And then on day 2, we did our morning check ins every day, and I actually went back and found my notebook and have the message that I received after doing our morning check, and what the message was that I received was that I'm carrying the weight of my ancestors and it's embedded in my bones. This is deeper than just your parents.
That's what I wrote in reading it verbatim. And I drew a picture of, like, a person, just the bottom half of a person in 2 legs and, like, a shack around 1 leg with a ball and chain. And in 1 ball, it says parental shit. And on the other leg, a shack in ball chain and on that ball, it says ancestral shit, and they're connected.
There's So after I met with my coach that morning, like, I kind of... I showed him this picture, and I said, I think that there's more than just the patterns of my parents that I need to work on, I think that I actually have been shaped by the society as well as much as I've been shaped by my parents. And I was told to just focus on my parents. Natalie, you do a quad check in your room before the start of the day And in that, you get a message that it is not just your parents. It's deeper
than your parents. You are shaped. By, your ancestors, and it it lives in your bones, and you're drawn to the drawing of that, message with parental shit and how did you phrase the other part? Ancestral is what it's... What I wrote and industrial shit. Like, there are things that have been generational passed forward that I am there to work on as well. Things that are not mine, cheap by enslave all the way to civil rights all the way to, you know, this was early
20 20. So 20 20 hadn't even really topped off yet but my Pacific Northwest upbringing and all of the racism that I experienced growing up in a white environment. Like, I was there to work on that as well, and it it wasn't received. Yeah. I'm aware that it wasn't received. And I'm aware that you, I imagine move forward anyway with the work of navigating both. Were you able to still both deal with the stuff your parents gave
you the patterns your parents gave you? And also, do the work of this stuff that was given to you that was ancestral. I think I took the lead of my coach who I have to say a day or 2 really... Soon after that morning came back and apologized. And just said that, you know, Hoffman, we're just not set up to do both right now and focusing in on Just my parents probably would be the best thing, but wanted to acknowledge that this other stuff in this other shaping was real for me.
I did put my head down and lean into childhood. But I think the thing that is really important about that message coming through when it did in January of 20 20 was it was like the seed that was being planted for an awakening that was to come. That was just months away, that I had no idea was coming. So it was the nudge of pay attention to this other part of how you've been shaped. And how you've shown up, and it's not the time right now to really deal with it, but it's coming, pay attention.
Wow. And the arrival of the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, all of that, Is that what you're referencing is about to come? Yeah. It was without me knowing, I think, it was, like the a beginning of an awakening. That, oh, I have parental stuff and shaping, and I also have ancestral stuff and shaping that has affected me and made me who I am. And later in 20 20, all of that broke wide open for me. Well, I'm I'm sorry that we at the process didn't hold both for you.
And I imagine that that is, in fact, part of the challenge in working with the ancestral stuff is that the society doesn't want to acknowledge it? Yeah. As talking to a friend yesterday about change and sacrifice. And I think we're all people, working jobs, you know, wanting things, and we all know that if there's something that We really desire and there's a sacrifice that needs to be made to get that thing.
Like, we know how to do that. We know that if our kid needs cl for a football, and we can't afford them right now. We can stop buying coffee for 2 weeks and have the money to do that. Like, we know how to sacrifice. But I think this society in order for there to be a quality and for change to really come about there are sacrifices that have to be made, and I just don't think... And and I'm
not talking about 1 race of people. I think there's sacrifice that has to be made on on multiple sides of seeing your comp simplicity or your comp complacent in not speaking up when you should seeing your entitlement, your generational wealth, your advantage and not wanting and or being willing to let some of that go
for there to be equality. So as a society, yeah, I think that in order for anything, to become better, more equal for humans to be seen as human and not as races their sacrifices that need to be made all around, and I just... I don't know how we do that. So with race being... Part of what the message you got and the ancestral shaping. As you look into your childhood in the work you did in the process what learnings did you take away? What happened? What were you able to metabolize or digest?
In heal around your your childhood. Yeah. I think there's a memory that's... Kind of like a bright spot for me around where we lived. My dad's from Cleveland, Ohio and my mom's from Houston, and they met in San Antonio in the air forest Academy. And got pregnant with me, got married I think the process showed me them as
individuals. I got to see them not just as my parents, but as individual people with dreams and hopes and aspirations that changed that came to kind of a complete pulp and an abrupt left turn had to be made when my mom conceived me and they made the choice to have me and and build this family. My dad went off to Vietnam. She got he crushed and fighter jet and came back to Tucson to recover. And when he was out of the air of force, they moved to Washington, he worked for Boeing for a little bit.
And the move to Washington was for the job, but you have to think like, their families were in Ohio and in Texas, and they're young and they're black. And I was about 4 years old. So it was, like, the same year that Martin only through King was assassinated, and I have to think that the temperature of the country was potentially similar to what it was in 20 20 and this young block couple with a child is moving to an all white upper left corner of the country.
And about at 7 or 8, I remember driving in the car with my dad. He smoked cigarettes and didn't always roll the windows down. So I'm surprised I'd like can breathe, but we were driving to a pike place market. And we... That's where we get our fish every week every couple of weeks, and I asked him why do we live where we live? I had experienced multiple incidents of bullying and being called N and being chased and having rocks thrown in at
me. My elementary years were kinda horrific, And I just asked, like, why do we live where we do? And his response to me was you're gonna have to learn how to deal with white people because you're gonna have to deal with them
your whole life. So you might as well wanna know I don't really know what to do with that then, but looking back, it's kinda heartbreaking that that was his way of preparing me for the world, but I would have to endure all of the hate that I did so young, and learn how to stay quiet and disappear or my college years and within my career, like, I've become master at being the only black woman in a conference room and making everyone feel comfortable, absorbing all the micro aggression,
never saying anything. And succeeding in my career, getting promotions and teams and travel and all these things because I have learned how to navigate. I've learned how to make people feel safe. And I think didn't even really know who I was because I had assimilated and adopted a culture internally that made me feel like I was accepted. And I think until 20 20,
I didn't know. Like, I didn't know that because I drove a certain kind of car and talked a certain way, and did all of these things that really, anytime I walked in a room, they saw my they saw my skin first. And made judgments. Yeah. So you really took your dad's words to heart. You learned it so well to the point where you got really good at it. And yet, you lost you in it until that moment in the quad check during your process, which helped you
step out of it. Do you do you see those as related Yeah. I think I see that moment in the quad check as a... Like, it was... Like I said, it was like the nudge. It was, like, I've been a asleep on a couch for my whole life, not realizing that I had really really tried to adopt this other culture, Not as if I was shu my blackness because There's a lot of work I did at Starbucks, leading a black diversity group. I mean, I
was the in charge of the first. Kwan gift card at Nordstrom when I was there. Like, there... My blackness still came through, but I was still very skilled at the internal understanding the internal dynamics of working in the No white world. In a by corporate environment. Very, very skilled at that. And just but not saying. I think more than anything. I had gotten really skilled at not using my voice, and that wasn't just corporate. That was in my relationships too.
There was a lot of conflict in my household growing up, and I would get quiet. I would disappear. I would go into books or go outside, and I just... I didn't talk a lot. I think that's where the writing comes in because that's where my voice could come through
because I wasn't using my actual voice. And even in this tenure year relationship that brought me to hoffman, there were plenty of times where I should have left, but I assimilate and I adapt just very well trained at making everyone else comfortable. In in the process, we do a lot of writing, did you find that edi and gratifying to be able to do in the process what you had learned to do to use your voice outside of the process? Yes. Not only is my process notebook full.
I brought a second notebook, and I have gone back in red, It's almost as if I narrated each day in writing, so I have my whole process. Verbatim almost of what we did and how I felt and what things look like and I wrote a ton in the process it was really, really helpful. And I think the letters I wrote to my parents were probably... Those are probably the most price possessions that I have from being there. Is there more about your process you wanna share? I wanna ask about.
Your post process weekend, but I don't wanna move you forward unless. I think the only other thing that I would say about maybe about my childhood is there became a point in high school where I got my driver's license, and I really had had enough of living
where we lived. Being surrounded by the people I was surrounded by, and getting my driver's license gave me some freedom we had a station wagon with the wood panel on the side, and I had a black girlfriend who there was another black family that live not too far from us, and she and I would drive into Seattle. Sometimes on school nights, but sometimes on weekend to go to these underage clubs. These dance clubs. Music has always been a huge part
of my life. And I wasn't accepted in the town that I lived in, like, the white people. I didn't get invited to parties. I never went to dances. Like, I didn't fit in. On And so I thought I could escape and go into Seattle and be with the black kids, and I got rejected. By them as well because I talked different, and I didn't know the things that they knew. I I wasn't in on the culture that they all had going to black schools
in Seattle. So it was just another realization of, like, you really don't fit anywhere, and you're working so hard to be accepted, and I think that's where the... When I found the place in my career where I started to get noticed and recognized and promoted and that's where it clicked for me, and I just... I leaned in harder. I felt like I didn't belong into either world growing up where I did because of where I grew it.
But that must have been such a about a shocking thing and a disheartening thing to feel so out of place throughout your childhood, and then to in your adolescence with a friend, drive into the city and yet still feel not connected, not belonging there, I'm just imagining the drive home and the realization of holy shit, do I really belong anywhere. Yeah. I don't know that I thought about it that deeply as a 16 17 year old. They were cute boys and the music was
good and I was with my girls. And so we would continue to go, but I think looking back. I know that as I got into my twenties and into college and wanted to join Black student union and do things on campus, like, I just never felt accepted. And so I would pull back. I wanted to go to an, but would I be accepted So I didn't... Like, my agency over the things I really wanted to do was really, really low. And I would...
Just fall into place into what whatever wherever I was, you know, the college that was here and was local, I wanted to join the black at my college, but felt like they would see through me. And here, my voice and know that I didn't come from the same place that they did. So a lot of apprehension to get closer to my blackness, and it felt safer to stay with what I knew, which was being in groups of white people. Which also didn't accept me. Yes. Yeah. So I mean, you have a clear sense
of this... Before you took the process, you understood your childhood, how is the process helping you look at these memories? Are things moving? Is it changing? What's happening? Again, I think I really kind of let go of the parts about race. I mean, it was there because it's always there. I'm alone. I'm the only 1. I'm hearing people talk about things and getting bodily reactions because they're talking about things and coming from a completely different world and experience than
I've ever had or I've ever... You know, or I'd be able to have people with money, the race and the difference that gap it's 100 percent there while I'm in the process, But I think I just really tried to focus in on my parents and those patterns. I think the 1 thing I remember is being given like extra car incarnation.
On the day we went to say goodbye for my own ancestors, I just thought that was a really special thing to do because when would I ever be able to honor, so many generations of people that came before me in that way. So the the race piece was rare, but it... I didn't really focus on it in the process. It wasn't until afterwards, I think. So take us there you... You head out into the world, what happens in your post process weekend and beyond? Yeah. So first 24 hours was really putting together
the 2 shapes. Like... The shape of me going in and the shape of me coming out. I felt extremely empowered. I felt so much compassion for my parents. I really felt like I was meeting myself for the first time, and I spent that first 24 hours with Abby, just rein integrating into the world and reading over all of my writing, and really feeling a sense of my voice, I think for the first time, and I knew that I needed to see my parents.
The process for me gave me so much compassion, and such a new way of seeing them as people, not just my parents, but I changed my flight and I flew to Seattle, read my letters to them individually, both of them were blown away the detail and the accuracy, which is wild because, like, a lot of things I wrote in those letters I didn't know. I think I was just in such a space of being open to having that conversation adolescent to adolescent.
But things came through that were real, which gave that is what gave me kind of the ability to really see them. My relationship with them has changed. Completely. My dad's the oldest of 4. My mom's the oldest of 8, and I'm the oldest of 4 and not only did he put us in a part of the country that was really hard to grow up in. He was also really hard on me. Because I was the oldest. His idea was I needed to set the example for my siblings. So I couldn't do anything
wrong. I had to get everything right. And when I didn't, there was a lot of be braid, and verbal, you know, you're not good enough and you're stupid and just a lot of that in my childhood. So going there after the process and being able to have not only the... This is who I see you as, and this is what I know you gave up but these are the things that you did to me that not only shaped me as the woman I am, but it's influence the men that I choose.
And so going in with that intention of why do I keep choosing these relationships? I'm was thinking that I didn't get that, but I did actually in understanding and being able to see my father for who he is. It helped me then understand the men that I choose are either exactly like my dad, and I get that same level of verbal, abuse or they're the exact opposite of my dad, so into themselves and narcissistic and not supporting me or hurting me from hurting me from a whole other fellow.
So you're you're sharing the truth... Of some of what you're learning and the impact they had on you, and which can be hard to hear, but you're also sharing lots of love to and appreciation for who they are and seeing them, how did they take it all? I think that. It was 1 of the only times I've ever seen my dad cry. I think my mom was in disbelief. She corrected a couple of things. I have things really close in a few places for her, but just in awe of like, what did you do and
how did this happen? My mom was, like, very skeptical. And really afraid for me going in. She called Hoffman and wanted to talk to someone and thought I was going to do a cult and but coming out, I think she was just in awe of what I had written and how how I was showing up that first day. So in terms of next moments, because I know Natalie so much of your story isn't just in your process, but it's what happened inside of you in your relationships and also in our country What happens next?
So 20 20 happened. Like I said, I did my process in January of 20 20. I think if I hadn't done the process, like, I really don't know how I would have made it through a mod Aubrey. Un george Floyd and B Taylor and Covid. I sold my farm. I was trying to decide where I was gonna live because my kids are grown. I have 2 kids, son and a daughter and so proud of them. But I really had nothing holding me anywhere.
And so the work I was doing had me in London a lot and I was considering leaving the country, and then Covid begins to pick up, and I have to stay in Austin, I was renting a house, and I was only gonna be there for a year because somewhere, I was gonna be land somewhere else in the world to start up my life. Again, And as Covid is happening, I'm paying attention to who's being impacted by it, and I can see the numbers of the black community being affected, and I start getting angry because...
Seed that was planted in that quad check is now starting to emerge where I'm questioning. My voice is coming in, And I'm questioning. I'm like, this virus is affecting us because we live in neighborhoods that are underserved. We don't have grocery stores. We live in food deserts, our diet sucks.
We have these chronic illnesses and that's what this thing is attaching itself to, and my people are dying in drove I'm just watching, and this anger is building, and I lose 2 family members early in Covid, And then a mod aubrey, the case starts coming up, and my son is really close to a mods age or was. A bicycle, a runner, living in Faye, North Carolina, passing confederate flags on his way to work. And I'm terrified, I'm I'm afraid for my brother, who's in
La. I'm afraid for my dad who's not staying home during Covid growing out every day. And this seeing, I think is what starts happening for me where I am starting to see a country I think along with everyone else because we couldn't do anything else, but watch what was happening. But I feel like my lens was potentially a little bit different. When George Floyd was murdered by the Minneapolis police department, I... Something broke within me.
Some things happened at work where senior leadership 2 of my managers handle me in a way that was I know, not intentional. But extremely harmful. I was raw. I think I describe it like, all of a sudden, everything that I've been holding on to, all of the stuff that I I had trained myself in learning how to hold in was visible.
Like my insides were on the outside is how I felt, and everyone could see and while I'm trying to navigate how I'm feeling how I'm waking up every day, how I'm now having to go into these Zoom rooms or Webex rooms with people who... Are looking at me, and I feel like I'm on such a spotlight, there's tears coming. And I'm like, I don't want your tears. I don't... I can't I can't manage myself, like, you're just adding more weight to me.
There was a conversation where we want you to help us, figure out how to make this better for our organization, and I'm like, I am not your person and 1 of 7 black people in this organization of 500. I'm not your person. You're not helping me. And I think that was when I put together these talking circles for black people nationwide to come together once a week to talk about what is happening. Safe space, no gaze, we get to talk and connect and share. How is this affecting you? How is it
impacting you? What are you doing to take care of yourself? And I held those for about 3 months, but this was the beginning of the emergence of Hoffman has allowed me to actually feel my body to have a sense of my voice to be able to see things in a new way and question and build space, build space for us to feel safe to process. So you you are...
Keenly aware of your own journey, and also, at the same time, leading, and con and bringing people together to talk about their journey, their journeys, Yeah. I was. Reverend angel Kyoto Williams was someone I found in 20 20 with res. Men, super powerful work that they do. I became a meditation leader with her in spaces that are safe for bodies of culture, queer bodies right bodies.
Ruth King was a is a black coach and buddhist leader crew I signed up and had her coach me, and I realized, like, the work that I'm doing, in this corporate environment is not the work that I'm supposed to be doing. And I don't know how to hold... I know how to hold these spaces. I know how to create them But like, I don't know what to do with the people in the spaces if they need something.
Like, I can make the space, but I feel I felt like I needed something else to help me actually be effective
in guiding people on these journey. So that was when I found the coaching program that I went into that similarly had a framework that was almost exactly like Hoffman, it felt very natural to go through the year of that program, very familiar, and it just expanded, the work that I had done at hoffman, now in a way where I was learning how how I was going to be able to not only just hold space, but to guide
people on their path. So natalie, you're so much of your work until that time seems like it has been about healing yourself, holding space for yourself and your own journey. And now you do this coaching that gives you the tools and the skills, and maybe the agency to help you do it with and 4 other people?
Yeah. I think I spent a number of years finding me after the breakup really deep dives into finding me, my voice, my power, my strength, my own foundation, and this program and within my coaching, it's called finding you, and it's specifically for black women, and we deal with the anti oppression. We deal with all of the ways we've been conditioned foundational inside our homes to be safe to be quiet to not speak up or to speak up, and
be loud about things. But then there's narratives that we take in with the society says this is who we are. And we work on really peeling back all of those layers that we hold that shape us to find those unique gifts that are within each 1 of us so that we can bring those forward and share them with the world and also under down how as soon as we step out of the safety of of our bubble that we create together, that oppression is gonna hit us, as soon as we step back into the
world. So what are the what are the ways that we can recognize what's happening, what our body telling us, when our throat gets tight? When our chest pounds, like what is that? Where is it coming from? And how do we how do we navigate and manage manage ourselves back to ourself. Beautiful. And that's called the art of whole being. The art of whole being is my coaching practice, and finding you is that anti oppression program for black women. And the website for... Betrayal is b trade dot com?
Right. It's b trade without the e, so b trade dot com. I guess, I'm curious about you're at this place. It sounds like there's a lot of lot of clarity. Your path forward is clear. Is that how it feels? It does. It does feel clear. It feels like I'm at a transitional point of... Bread go of run trap he's ring to catch another 1. So I'm in the space in the lim space in between right now of figuring out how to navigate that. But the pathway forward
feels very clear. My purpose feels clear, I love that reference to lu space. And I'm just curious how do you navigate? The space between it it's not always easy. What helps you move forward in that lim space. I think I've lived my life kind of in a lim space of between blackness and between whiteness? Even though I present as a black person for a very long time, I felt light inside. I think right now, I know what it feels like, to fully embrace my blackness.
I know what brings me joy I know the connections that I make with black women in this program. They're so fulfilling and fulfilling. That the lim space that I'm in right now, there's a pull towards the future. I'm not just in it. With kind of no idea which way to go. There's a definite pull and a definite direction that I'm pointed in, and that direction feels in my body, like, it feels right.
It feels like the right way to head, I will say the training that I continue to receive to add to the work that I'm doing isn't always easy because it means that I'm going into spaces just like Hoffman, where I'm 1 of of a few or I'm the only black person again and doing really deep internal work or even learning about it, in spaces where I'm with people who caused the scars and the weight it's difficult. I was recently in 1 of those spaces, and learned a lot.
Learned a lot about myself, lot of data, I was able to bring away. While I wasn't able to actually do the work because I was so triggered, I learned that I need the work, I need to release things from my body before I can help other people in a somatic way, release trauma.
And it sounds like finding spaces that are safe for you to do that work and then creating spaces that are safe that are all black spaces are all women spaces, what's unique to those spaces that will provide the kind of safety that that you can release that trauma. Yeah. I think that it is really well meaning for groups to want to have diverse. Attendance. And I think diverse attendance works for so many things, and it's necessary for so many
things. But when you're talking about having people kind of unzip their chest and open their hearts and go really, really deeply inside to these vulnerable places, it's almost impossible to do that in a mixed environment. If you are aware of where your trauma comes from. If you're not aware of where your trauma comes from, then you probably can do it
just fine. But once you become aware and weekend, to what has actually happened to you and how the society has shaped you being in conjunction with bodies of oppression, working on your own releasing of oppression. It's like driving a car through a Med midfield while trying to wash it at the same time. If that makes sense. Is there a a resource? That can help people understand the wise of this of why creating these kinds of spaces. Is so critical for healing.
I don't know of any... I know that I've been in conversation. As recently as yesterday with practitioners, and I think we all black women, practitioners, we all can see and understand that there's a need for us to create spaces for us.
And I'm really hopeful to be a part of being able to do something like that because I think the methodologies, the modalities, I think everything we did at Hoffman, I it all works, we have the extra layer of sensing and protection, are we okay when we're in it alone. Do you still have your card that you drew out with that message and that image from your process? I do. Yeah. I found my note, but this morning before. I knew we were gonna talk, and I read directly from it when
I quoted you what I... The message that I got. Yeah. I'm looking right at it. If you're open, could we put it in our show notes? Yeah. Like, take a picture? Yes. Yeah. Of course. Maybe I'm trying to be too neat in all of this and yet, the through line of your childhood, the fu cr moment of that quad check in your room, the drawing, the message, and then the way in which your life has played out since then, as you develop that stronger sense of agency, do you feel the through line
I do. I think I grew up and very early learned that I was different because of the environment that I was in. And because I was different, I needed not only to be safe. So I would... I I played a very invisible role while being very visible because I was, like, the only raisin in the oatmeal. Trying to be invisible, trying to not be seen not be heard inside my house outside my house.
And that led to just adapting and going along with and inside relationships inside corporate environments, making everyone comfortable and never using my voice, I think until I got that message that you're gonna work on some stuff about your parents, but there's also this other weight on this other leg that is your history, and that's gonna come to fruition for you in 20 20 in a really big way, and everything's gonna change.
And your voice is going to come alive and you're gonna lead people, guide people. You've done, you know, it's not everybody that follows up with the Hoffman work taking AQ2A3 day graduate weekend. You've also joined a transformation circle where people come together online. Every other week, And so I'm imagining that ongoing work, although it both triggers the wound, this other wound that you referenced from the systemic racism and oppression, of our country. It also
supports you in the work? How has the the q 2 and the transformation circles supported you. I stay connected because it always brings me back to the 4 parts of me. I am my only resource. Everything I need I believe is within me and if I can stay connected to me, to my body, to my emotions, to my intellect, what am I rum on and to my spirit, then I really feel like I can do anything. And q 2 was a whole lesson compassion for people for everyone on their journey, everyone on their path.
There's a lot of fucked up shit happening in the world, and there's a lot of people ahead of me on this path, and there's a lot of people who haven't even begun. The work. And I feel like q 2 was a reminder in helping me see that, helping me know that I... I'm a parent and have made mistakes and seen my kids struggle with decisions I've made. But know that they're on their journey.
And while I would want to take it back and change it and fix it and love them and have them whole, like, I need compassion for myself and for them in where they are, and in the fact that they're actually doing work on their journey to progress and just holding that space for them. So hoffman overall is kind of my anchor for staying connected to myself, and these additional ways of connecting in. I'm about to do
another transformation circle in the upcoming weeks. It's it's just a way to remind me that more than anything, we are spirit having a human experience. And I know that is so cliche and people say it, but I truly believe that I believe my spirit leads me with love, I lead with love, and that is spiritual. And if I can see people that way, it doesn't always make the anger go away, but I think there's a level of compassion that can soften it, I guess. How are you feeling? Shaky, like a little...
It's not anxious, shaky. I think it's more energized. Like, I feel inter... I feel alive. I feel really, really alive right now. And what's that like to feel that alive ness? I feel like I am honoring my truth. Like my voice. I'm using my voice. I'm am recording my voice. Normally, the way that this voice is recorded is in words on pages. So I think this feels like it feels fully embodied Well, you have a great voice, Natalie, and I'm grateful for this conversation. Thank you, Drew.
Thank you. Thank you so much. This was just a chat between friends. Right? And a few thousand listeners. I'm grateful. I'm grateful to everywhere. Thank you for listening to our podcast. My name is Liza and Grass. 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.