What's it like to tell the arc of this story, your story? Oh, it's emotional. It's awe celebratory. It's heartwarming, it's empowering, it's sad, it's, it's all the feelings, it's every feeling. And I also am so proud of my story. I'm proud of myself. Welcome everybody. My name is Drew Horning and this podcast is called Love's Everyday Radius. It's brought to you by the Hoffman Institute and it's stories and anecdotes and people we interview about their life post process
and how it lives in the world. Radiating love. Welcome Jen Davis. Great to have you. Thanks Drew. I'm so happy to be here. What are you up to lately? Well, my husband and I just got back from a weekend in New York. We went and met his grandma who I had never met before and I absolutely loved meeting her. She's a gem. She's fabulous. So I'm enjoying being a newlywed my fiance and I see, look, I even called him fiance. That's how recently we got married.
My husband and I, we got married in July and it's October, so I was able to go meet his grandma who unfortunately couldn't join the wedding this past weekend. It was wonderful. It was absolutely fabulous. Jen, tell us a little bit about who you are and uh, your story. Sure. So I am a Hoffman teacher. I am a clinical social worker with a master's in social work and I'm also a daughter, a younger sister. I'm the baby of my family, a wife, a friend, a dog, mama. Yeah, that's who I am.
Fantastic. So tell us a little bit about what led you, as everyone knows that in order to be a Hoffman process teacher one has to have taken the process. So before you became a teacher, what led you to enroll at this thing called the Hoffman Institute? I did not know a lot of people that went to the process. I have one good friend, my dear friend Madeline, who lives here in Madison, Wisconsin, who told me about the process years and years and years ago in a very brief conversation.
And then the real point that brought me to the process that made me realize I needed something different was this heartbreaking, shocking divorce that I went through. I got married quite young at 26, felt young for me and my family system. And within six months of my marriage, within the first year of my marriage, my ex-husband and was cheating on me. And it absolutely broke me.
And it was completely shocking from my perspective. I thought at the time, like, we're in our newlywed phase, we're in the newlywed. We hadn't even gone on our honeymoon yet. And he, over time started cheating on me with a coworker and got another woman pregnant. And I did not see it coming. And it absolutely shook me to my core in that process.
Just knew something had to change. And so I called enrollment, cried to them on the phone for, I don't know, maybe an hour and signed up that exact same day. I didn't know Hoffman was connected to an exploration of family of origin at the time of signing up. All I knew was that I wanted an a beginning and an ending in my life. I wanted an ending for this pain that I was in. And I also wanted a fresh new start in my life. And I had no idea what that actually meant at the time.
I just knew something had to be different. It's not every day that that's a unique story. Jen, sort of waking up to life through your husband's infidelity, his cheating, and coming to yourself through such a dramatic, painful experience. Yeah, I felt like all of a sudden my life was a lifetime movie and I truly at the time did not see it coming. It was the process that made me turn towards myself. That made me look at, okay, what's happening for me?
Because to be honest, it was much easier at the time to blame my ex-husband with that glaring infidelity and the cheating and getting someone else pregnant. It would've been easier for me to just say, he's a fucking asshole. It's his fault, it's him. That was easier for me to do. But going to the process made me reflect on, no, what's my part in this? Which was difficult and necessary, necessary for me to get that beginning and the ending that I wanted. So, so Jen, take us into your process.
You're thinking maybe I get healing from the divorce, but the beginning of the week certainly we steer you towards understanding the origin of some of these patterns that live in, in your life as an adult. Were you able, and how did you connect marrying someone at such a young age who ended up cheating on you? How did that connect to family? Well, you, you nailed it, drew I, at the beginning of the week towards the beginning of me completing my
pre-process work. Well, even looking back on that pre-process work and when I was introducing myself and meeting other students at the beginning of the week, my reason of being there was, this is my lifetime movie, is what I would share with people. Can you believe that my life is this lifetime movie with my ex-husband, well at the time, husband cheating on me, getting another woman pregnant. 'cause I was in such shock.
And then throughout the process week, particularly looking at patterns and patterns from my dad and well, and from my mom, but I knew my mom's stuff pretty well. There was a lot of patterns from my mom of caretaking. She was a social worker, just like I'm a social worker. So that was very clear to me, oh, I care take, I put others' needs ahead of my own. And for me, that led to a quieting of my voice of myself. And my mom loves her children fearlessly loves her children.
And I always felt her love. I always say to her, mom, you're who I learned how to love. From through the process work, I realized, here's the flip side of that. The flip side of that is that I learned to not take care of myself. I learned that staying small and quiet was safe, particularly in relationship with men, because then I started to look at my dad's patterns. And for my dad, you know, I grew up with a father who was an alcoholic, who also struggled with depression his
entire life. And at the same time, he was this really successful doctor. So he had this facade of success and money and having it all together. And yet for me and my childhood, I saw the other side of that. I saw the pain, I saw that actually caretaking for others means depression means alcoholism, it means escaping from yourself. So for me, those two patterns combined with my childhood, I realized the ways that I was keeping myself small.
I turned towards looking at myself in the marriage, which was really hard to do for me because I wanted to look at the glaring pain. I wanted to look at that pain of my ex-husband and focus on that and what he did. And you were still married at the time, Jen? Yes. I was still married at the time and we were going through divorce proceedings and there was still a part of me that was like, we can do this with me and my ex. I was like, we can figure this out.
I'm doing my work. We will figure this out. I realized that through looking at my own stuff and finding my voice and looking at the ways I wasn't taking care of myself and finding my way back to myself, that I was able to learn what's good for me. You know, my process was learning how to love what's good for me. Learning how to love what's good for me. Yeah. And through that process I learned he was not good for me,
. I was actually setting myself up, not just through my relationship with him, through previous relationships with men, previous boyfriends that I was attracted to men who were not good for me. During my process week, I looked back at my entire marriage and saw so many red flags drew that I ignored.
When I was finally able to be honest with myself and look at my patterns, the way my dad's pattern of depression lived in me, the way I kept myself shut down and small and, and the way I numbed myself out by not being in touch with my feelings, particularly doing that in relationship. By doing that and finding my truth, I was more able to clearly see the man I actually married. What was that process like to come to terms with who you had married in the middle of your process?
It was honestly, I felt embarrassed. I felt surprised. I felt shame. So much shame that I had not seen the red flags before. At the same time of owning and recognizing my shame around the divorce, I also learned how to forgive myself for not seeing it. I learned that I could move beyond my marriage and that if I could love myself, when I learned how to forgive myself for what I did not see and was and able to clearly see it during the week,
that for me was freedom. That for me was, oh, I am not this marriage. I'm not even the story I'm telling myself about this marriage and what happened. I am not my patterns. I am not my mom. I'm not my dad. I am joy and love and spirit. That's really who I am. And from that place I was able to forgive myself for what I could not see what I was unable to see with my ex-husband. Hmm. And these are insights that I imagine come through
experiences, through rituals. As you look at your process, did you take it at white sulfur springs? Yeah, I did. Yes. So as you, as you look at your time during that week at white Sulfur Springs, is there a moment that stands out that reflects some of these insights? It's such an experiential journey we take students through.
Yes. So what stood out for me was the exploration around vindictiveness, because I knew heading into that experience that that was gonna be my moment because I realized how hurtful I was being to myself by continuing relationships with men who were hurtful, the ways I was ignoring my needs, the ways I kept myself small, the ways I didn't use my voice all set me up to accept, hurt as love, to accept unfair treatment of me, the vindictiveness and the hurt I wanted for him, you know,
the pain that I felt towards him was exhausting, just, it just made me collapse how much hurt and pain and anger I had towards him. So for me, the moments at the end of that expression and exploration around vindictiveness, I remember there's this part where you let the person you feel vindictiveness towards go, you speak and wanna and understand their pain, their unmet needs, their childhood patterns. For me, being able to talk to my ex-husband right at the time, husband, and say, I see you.
I love you, I forgive you, and it's time to let me go. It is time to let you go was so incredibly healing for me. That's when I knew I could handle anything that came my way with the power of love and forgiveness on my side. I mean, that combination of forgiving myself and saying, it's okay, you're human. I'm with you. I love you, I trust you. That was huge for me, is being able to learn to trust myself again, and that I have my own back was transformative.
So at the end of vindictiveness of letting him go, laying on that floor after the, after the expression, I was like, I can move forward in my life. I am not what happened to me. I am not this divorce. I'm not my ex-husband. I'm not this story and not this pain. I am my own person. Jen, what's it like to think back and describe that situation and re-remember that experience and talk about it here? What's that like for you? I feel a little nervous talking about it.
It feels intimate because it's so close to my heart. The thing is, is that I have a lot of love for him. I do still in many ways, have a lot of love for the relationship that we we had and in the larger sense of how he supported me in becoming the woman I am today. I truly believe I needed to go through that pain to learn my own depths, to understand the depth of my own strength. So for me, it's almost like I feel a little nervous and it feels intimate.
And I also feel so much love for him at the same time, because I, I understand not fully, of course, I, I I, you know, I, I haven't heard his whole story, but I, in that moment, I understood what he went through and I had so much sadness for that he felt the need to, to cheat, to have the affair and the pain that he was experiencing along with the pain that I was experiencing. And for me, that's when I truly understood compassion,
that's when I really understood forgiveness. It's being able to hold his, his pain along with my own. And in doing so, you freed yourself to trust yourself. Yes. Yeah. For me, the process was looking less at the, the shiny lifetime movie that my life in that moment became rather, it was the real tragedy and the real heartbreak for me was that I lost trust in myself. And so when I was able to honestly look at my pain and say, no, I got you, honey. I know I got you. I have your back.
No matter what I learned to trust myself again. I learned that I can go through anything and have my own back. I learned the depth of like my own pain and struggle, and I forgave myself for making mistakes because gosh knows we all do that , we all make mistakes. Wow. Jen , I appreciate your, your vulnerability in that, that rawness, the transparency. And I'm curious about the rest of your week as you headed out of white sulfur springs down valley. What happened at the end and post-process?
Well, I, the first person I called, the very first person I called after my process was my dad. My week was focused on my patterns around men and the hurt and the abandonment, and also with, with my mom and the ways that of caregiving and all of that, of course. And I just felt this need to call my dad. I just knew it in my body, in my bones that the first person I wanted to call was my dad.
And I remember being in the peace garden that was there, and I opened up my phone and called him and said, you know, dad, like, I want you to know that I found my strength again. I found my way back to myself. I'm ready to move on in my life. I didn't share much. And he responded with, and I'll never forget this, drew, he said, you know, Jenny Jenny's my childhood name. He said, Jenny, I don't fully understand what you did during the week. I don't get it.
What I do know is that you are the bravest person I've ever met. What I do know is that I hear the happiness and joy and your spark back. And he was, he kinda got a little dis nervous speaking about emotions. That was not his strength. speaking, you know, his emotional range was in a different place. And he said, I could never do what you did in looking at yourself the way that you've done it, and you're so brave.
And so I'll never forget that of my dad really seeing me and honoring the journey, even though he did not fully understand it, he didn't get it at all. You know, my dad had never been to therapy or done any sort of emotional work whatsoever, but he, that he heard the, the spark and joy back in his daughter's voice. Hey, Jen, I, you know, as colleagues, I haven't met your dad. He's since passed, right?
Yes, he has. Yes. But what I do remember is we ride up from the airport to processes the site here in Petaluma, and we ride back and in one of our journeys together, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. And you shared an anecdote about him and it's just coming to me now. Would you, would you share that? Yeah. So one of my favorite memories of my dad is that when he retired from working as a doctor, he spent many, many years working as a doctor.
He threw his pager, his beeper, off the Golden Gate Bridge, , and we have a video of it. He just threw it off the Golden Gate Bridge to celebrate the transition in his life. And it was such a joyous moment of him also, of course, you know, filled with patterns of his relationship with work. Of course, of course. But now, every single time I drive over gold, the Golden Gate Bridge, I think of my dad. I remember his joy, his zest for life, and what a complicated and wonderful man he was.
You know, that moment of him throwing the the beeper off the Golden Gate bridge, of course, is like his relationship with work and pattern filled. Sure. And it is also so joyful in the light that he had and celebrating with his family, celebrating with his kids, because me and my siblings were everything to him. At the end of the day, we were everything to him. So, Jen, I'm curious about such a deep journey. How do you make that transition into your daily life
and then become a Hoffman teacher? What happens? Well, I returned back home, back to Madison after my process, and I realized I've gotta, I wanna rework the way I date. Well, I divorced my husband, decided Uhuh, I don't deserve this. Went through the divorce, finalized all the paperwork, moved out of our house that I thought was going to be our lifetime home that I wanted to have children in. We sold it, I sold it, signed all the divorce paperwork, moved to downtown Madison, um, with my dog,
got an apartment and had fun. I had so much fun. Drew dating and dating from a place of, wow, I get to have fun dating. I was, I was 27, 28 at the time, and I was like, I get to jump into my life and date from a place of empowerment of like, you get to spend time with me . You get to go on a date with me. And it was like power filled. You get to learn about me and I get to be in my own body and decide how I feel about you.
This date, having a drink with me across from me in the bar, it was less from a place of, I need your approval first date person. No, it was from a place of I get to do this. I get to enjoy my life. And in that process, I had so much fun moving downtown, kind of re-experiencing, embracing my youth, embracing this time in my life rather than from a place of heartbreak, a place from celebration, I get to go have fun.
And during that time is when I applied to be a Hoffman teacher. Now, during my Hoffman week, I followed the lovely Joe Mattoon . She was interning herself around the site. She was interning with Crystal Jenkins and must have asked her like four or five times. So, Joe, tell me about becoming a teacher, Joe, tell me about what the training is like. Because during my Hoffman my week, I realized I had this vision for myself of becoming a Hoffman teacher. That was my vision.
I saw myself standing up there. And so when the applications opened, I said, hell yeah, I'm gonna trust my spirit. I'm gonna apply. When I was accepted, I called my dad. I called my mom and said, I fucking did it . I followed my spirit, my gut, my intuition, and look at what happens when I listen to myself. It was another moment of look at what happens when I trust myself. And so I was living in downtown Madison, having a great time, and then I was accepted to become a teacher. Teacher.
It was such a celebratory time in my life. I loved every moment of it. Wow. Yeah. I almost wanna say . Congratulations. What a transition from heartbreak to heartbreaking open and vitality and aliveness and self-trust emerging instead. Yeah. The thing is, is that that was always a part of me that was always there. I just lost it along the way. I lost it in other people. I lost it in my, in my marriage, the ways I wasn't trusting and listening to myself.
And I think getting accepted to teacher training was an accumulation of my trust in me. And so I jumped into teacher training with so much enthusiasm and excitement. And the teacher training journey for me was a deepening of trust in myself and my strength. Uh, so my background is in clinical social work. I've worked with kids, I've worked in schools, but in one-on-one work and group work, my background was not in professional presenting.
So when I put that microphone on and went and presented, I was so nervous. And over the course of training, I once again found my way back to myself. Once again. It was, it was another journey of here's this external stressful event happening thing in my life. Let me come back to me, let me come back to me. And the more I practiced doing that, the more I practiced getting grounded in my power and strength, the more I became a teacher, the more I was able to support and see students.
So my journey of becoming a Hoffman teacher was very empowering for me at the same exact time, I think a month, or maybe it was maybe six months, I'm not sure about the timeframe there. My father was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of my Hoffman training, and he was at the same time, he was given six months to live. So my training from the training aspect was empowering. And also I was navigating another wave of grief in my life. I had lost my husband.
I had given this horrible news that my father was terribly sick and also at the same time. So there was this bubble of grief, so much grief that I was navigating of losing my, this life I had pictured with my ex and then my father. And at the same time I was starting to fall in love with my now husband. So it was a period of major growth, to say the least. And so, yeah. I want to ask about you in the classroom, all that stuff happening in your personal life.
How did you navigate Jen, all of that, the, the grief of husband now, ex-husband, the grief of father dying of cancer so suddenly and the new emergence in your love life. How'd you navigate all that? It was continuing my tools and practices, growth in my spirit, practices, always coming back to myself. How am I doing? I would ask myself that a million times a day. How am I feeling? How am I feeling? How am I feeling? What's coming up for me?
And from that place, I was able to do some preemptive actions. For example, with my grief around my ex-husband. The first Thanksgiving that I had without him, I knew everything in me told me that going back to my mom's house, which is where we would traditionally have Thanksgiving, it was also where we got married. My ex-husband and I got married at my childhood home. And so I knew that going to Thanksgiving, following our divorce was not going to be helpful
for me in my healing. And I knew that it's, I couldn't handle that in that moment. So, and I knew all that by checking in with myself. So I talked to my family and said, Hey, are you all open to doing Thanksgiving different this year? Are you open to having Thanksgiving at my apartment downtown Madison? Like, it's my new place. Are you willing to come here? It's, uh, you know, I only have 800 square feet, but we could squeeze in and hang out.
And luckily my family is absolutely wonderful and supportive, and they all came to downtown Madison. And so I had to do a lot of planning around my grief with my ex-husband, all based from the place of what is good for me, what will help me in my healing, what can I handle? And luckily my friends and family were so supportive around that. I had a divorce party with my girlfriends.
We went to a cabin up north, um, in northern Wisconsin. Well, excuse me, it was Minnesota, Minnesota. Gotta get that clear and celebrated, celebrated my newfound independence. It was through that that I was able to create space for my grief, allow the waves of my grief with my ex-husband in particular, to come through while also having the love and support of my family and my friends. Both of those helped me to navigate the waves of grief more easily. And I let myself feel it. I didn't stuff it,
I didn't hide it. I said, let me be present to myself. And now with my dad, I, no, it's been two years this October since he's passed, I took on a similar route with my grief is let me be present with my grief. Let me be present with my dad. I continued with teacher training and I talked to my family about it. I said, Hey, I'm gonna be traveling for this. I am traveling for this. I'm gonna be back and forth between California and Madison. How do you all feel about that?
And I was mindful of my patterns around not using my voice, not making space for myself. And I said, Hey, I really wanna do this. This is what I need. This is my dream. How can we make this work? How can I show up for dad and take care of dad while also pursuing this vision I have for my life and pursuing this passion that I have? And luckily, again, my family just really showed up for me and said, dad, being sick does not stop you from living your life. You get to take care of yourself.
You get to live your life. And this came from my dad and my mom. You get to live your life. That's the greatest thing that we can as parents offer you. It's for you to live your life. And I had the support of my whole family with taking care of my dad as he continued to battle cancer for two years. He was given six months to live, and he lived for two more years following that. And he courageously faced it. Courageously said, Hey, I don't want you kids stopping your life because of me.
So you have such an intense healing experience in your own process. You get accepted into the teacher training program, which is not easy. It lasts nearly two years. You become a teacher. How does that inform your experience as a clinical social worker with a master's, your experience in the classroom with kids? How does that show up? What do you notice as a Hoffman teacher as you see students go through this process over and over again?
Well, I, I see having worked with kids, I am able to see the inner child of students really clearly. When they come on in, I can see their own childhood pains and can connect with their child that still lives inside of them. Because of all the work that I've done as a clinical social worker with kids, you know, seeing a little six year old is very similar than just, than seeing an adult who's in their forties with wounds that happened as a six year old. It all connects.
And I can see that through line of when we're not seen as kids, when we are not loved in the way that we needed to. Even when we are loved in the way that we need to, there are in a childhood hurts and wounds that impact us day to day. It is about bringing that consciously to say, I see, I see your childhood wounds. I see the ways that you were not seen when you were young. What I love about this work with the process is that in therapy, and we say this during the week in therapy,
you can get all the awareness in the world. You can, your intellects, the intellect gets really active, insane. And knowing what happened in childhood, like you could talk for hours, you could talk for days and still not have any change. What is so beautiful about the process is the way it moves people from their own awareness health into change through various expression and experiences throughout the week. So as a therapist, I love sitting with people and building that awareness. Oh my gosh,
that's important. Of course, I love sitting with kids and with parents and sit and working and talking about their attachment styles and getting, supporting parents and more being able to mirror and reflect their child's needs. I love that. It's definitely something I'm passionate about. And, and process takes it another step further to say, yes, it is the awareness. Yes, of course you need that, and let's build off of that to get the innate change. So it's, it's miracles.
I I am blessed to have this job because I see miracles every single time I teach. Yeah, yeah. I love your kind of contrast between the work you do as a therapist, as a clinical social worker versus the, the work of the Hoffman process. And it all connects. I mean, it's, therapy is important.
You can do this work, of course, but like, I love when we say we heal in community because when we're able to see that we're not alone, that other people have childhood hurts and wounds and pain and connect with other people and hear about that, that's when we're able to move forward. That's when we're able to change.
Healing happens when we're together and in community. For me, during my process, I got so much comfort hearing from other women of how they had been through divorce as well, and they had come out on the other side of it. I needed to hear that because for me, at the time when I was going through my divorce, none of my friends, I was 28, you know, none of my friends were going through that. I didn't know a single other woman who had gone through a divorce.
And so then to hear stories from other people during my process of how they had gotten through this too, different details, sure. But that they too had gotten through it. And so for me, I love the community and the group aspect of Hoffman Individual Therapy supports the foundation of that wonderful and process is what takes healing and growth to another step, another, another way of exploration. Wow. Jen, such a personal testament to the Hoffman process.
So here you are in your life, you're married, your husband has done the process, you're doing the work, and your dad did pass two years ago. Share a little bit about how you brought closure to that chapter with him. Well, I, I often, and I tell my students this, when we talk about forgiveness for our parents, my dad just, he didn't have the emotional bandwidth for me to come to him and say, dad, I forgive you. It's all okay. 'cause for him, he,
he didn't, he couldn't really hear that. He wouldn't know. I knew he wouldn't know what to do with that. But what I did know is that my dad loved, loved donuts, loved breakfast food, and our tradition. And it was also part of a family history he made. My dad always made breakfast every Sunday for his dad, my grandpa. And so then I made breakfast for him every single Sunday when he was sick, when I wasn't teaching, when I wasn't training,
I would make him breakfast. And every time drew, like, I brought him his favorite donuts every time I was making those scrambled eggs or making his like really burnt bacon. He loved super, super burnt bacon . Every time I was doing that, I was saying to myself, I love you, dad. I love you, dad. I forgive you. I understand you. And so when we would sit next to each other and have breakfast, yes,
we'd be talking about golf . Yes, we would be, you know, I'm from Wisconsin, so we'd be watching badger, Wisconsin, badger football together. I knew that that breakfast that I made him was me saying, I forgive you. I see you. I love you. That brought a lot of healing for me because I knew through the process that that forgiveness was for me. It was for me in my life to move on to say, I'm not my dad's patterns. When my dad passed, I got certified as a Hoffman teacher two weeks beforehand.
I was able to tell him before he passed that I was certified as a Hoffman teacher. And now he didn't know the, the details of what that meant. He didn't really know that the depths of the family of origin work that I had done supporting other people and doing, but he knew that I was happy. He knew that I worked my ass off . And he was proud of me. And he told me that. He said,
I'm so proud of you. At that time, you know, I had been seeing my now husband Mitchell for about a year, and I had told Mitchell, because I learned through my process work that I need to state my needs in relationship. We had been talking about our future. We had been talking about getting married. We knew we wanted to get married, we knew we wanted to be together. And I said, Hey, I don't know what this looks like. I don't know,
not asking you to go ask my dad for my hand in marriage. I don't, I don't know exactly what I need. I just know that I need you to spend time with my dad, just so you know him. And Mitchell did, and he didn't necessarily ask for my hand in marriage, but he said, Hey, I want a future with your daughter to my dad before he died.
And Mitchell would bring him food. When I was teaching, I was very nervous to leave my dad when I would go teach and Mitchell would bring him groceries, we'd bring him food, we'd spend time with him. And that's when I knew that he was the man I wanted to marry, because I said, Hey, I have this need. I need you to, I want you to know my dad. And he stood up and said, you know what? Yeah, Jen, I will. He didn't run away from it.
He didn't run away from this difficulty in my life at the time, from my grief. He said, yeah, I'm here for you. And that's when I knew I wanted to be with him, because that was, I knew I deserved that. I knew I deserved a man who said, I see your need, Jen, and you know what? I respect you. I love you. I'm here for you, and I'm gonna meet that need.
Jen, I'm so grateful for this conversation. I, I know you do such deep work with your students in your private practice and with your teaching at Hoffman. What's it like to tell the arc of this story, your story? Oh, it's emotional. It's a celebratory . It's heartwarming, it's empowering, it's sad. It's, it's all the feelings, it's every feeling. And I also am so proud of
my story. I'm proud of myself, I'm proud of Mitchell and I, I'm really proud of our partnership, our relationship, and what the two of us have navigated together. So I'm really proud of us. The weekend you just spent with his grandmother, she's 93 in a way, is similar to what Mitchell did with your dad before he passed.
Exactly. You know, drew, I wanna give a shout out to you 'cause you were Mitchell's Hoffman, teacher, , you were his teacher When Mitchell went to the process, and Mitchell and I decided together that knowing about our families and knowing our relatives and our family history is important. And we we're in this fabulous time in our life where we're deciding what we want our family to look like. You know, we're talking about having children and expanding our family one day.
Doing that together is empowering and exciting and celebratory. And so I loved meeting his grandma to learn more about Mitchell, to know where he comes from. I just absolutely loved meeting her. She called me Delicious and I called her a gem. She's fabulous. Delicious. Jen . Yeah, exactly. Hey, Jen, thank you. Thank you for this time for your shares,
for your courage to tell your story. You know, as Hoffman process teachers, there can be an illusion that we have it all together, that we've figured everything out, that, uh, you know, there are no more patterns and you just describe a journey that is so, if anything, so human. Hmm. Thank you Drew. Thank you for listening. I think being a Hoffman teacher is about embracing your humanity. That comes with patterns, with feelings, with everything across the board.
So it's just learning how to be with your spirit through the ups and downs of life. And I'm really, I know there's more to come, there's more ofs and downs to come. Of course, knowing that I've got my own back has been the greatest lesson of my life. And I just love, it's my life's work. To see students find their own depths of strength and their own spirit is the greatest gift of my life. Thank you for listening to our podcast. My name is Liza Insi.
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 Hoffman institute.org.