I just have absolutely no interest in surviving in my life anymore. Life is big and bold and juicy, and I wanna thrive in it. I wanna suck the marrow out of it. I'm not interested in coming and showing up from a place of fear any longer. Welcome everybody. My name is Drew Horning and this podcast is called Love's Everyday Radius. It's brought to you by the Hoffman Institute and its stories and anecdotes and people we interview about their life post process and
how it lives in the world. Radiating love. Welcome to the Hoffman Podcast. Amy Thompson is with us. She is a faculty member, a teacher here at the Hoffman Process. Welcome Amy. Thank. You, drew. I appreciate it. Really looking forward to our conversation today. I am looking forward to it too. You know, it feels more intimate when we get a chance to interview our colleagues, our friends, these people we do this work with. So I'm excited too.
Will you share a little bit about who you are and how you came to be a faculty member at the Hoffman Process? Woo. Okay. Well, who I am is a very long one. 'cause man, I am a lot. And basically I'll just start off with, yeah, I'm a Hoffman process teacher and coach now I am a avid meditator, a artist, a poet, a singer, a mom, a wife, a lot of different things. A really good friend, a sister, and all of those things in between.
I've been in the kind of mental health field since I was quite young myself. So Hoffman for me was not the end of my journey, but definitely a huge milestone in my own recovery, in my own kind of recognition for who I am and this whole being able to be a good human thing. It sounds like, as I hear you, Amy, you had done a lot of work both on yourself and were in the mental health field as a worker, and did Hoffman sort of bring it all together or help sort of coalesce a lot of
what you had done? That's. A lot of how I explain it for people, because a lot of the people that I kind of talk to before they're coming in have done a whole bunch of work and they're like, I've done this workshop, this thing, I've been in this program, this other stuff. And I'm like, I hear you. And the wonderful thing about what Hoffman did for me was be able to kind of bring it all together with this concept of intense self-responsibility so that I had a plan for when things happen.
I knew what I wanted to be in those situations so that I was showing up authentic with trust, with confidence, and could really let go of the pieces of armor that I needed to survive my childhood, but just weren't serving me any longer. And so it was able to bring all of those other books, teaching knowledge, meditations, everything together in one, and me being able to shine through, which I'm so grateful for today. And you think the process is big on self responsibility. Why is that? Because.
That recognition of we have choice in every moment of what we're going to bring into this situation. You know, we own our a hundred percent of our 50% relationships and conversations situations, and it's something that we teach. And really what I got down to with a lot of my work was that recognition for me of over responsibility for everybody else instead of only taking responsibility for me. And actually recognizing that allowed me to really hone in on my choices, really recognize, hey,
I can show up and be calm and clear right now. I don't have to, you know, go into, as we used to call it, tea Kettling our way out of the situation, starting off really low. Okay, well this is what I need. No, this is what it's slowly going up and panic, anxiety. I love the metaphor tea kettling. Yeah. I was just like, I don't need to do that anymore. I have a choice. I can take a breath, set my shoulders, and actually come from this really calm and resourced place because I
have learned so much. I do have clarity in my life. It's just being able to come from that place first instead of having to back out of the tea kettle. Now. When you share about choice, I'm reminded of the right road, left road map and choice right smack in the middle there of that map. Is that part of what you're thinking about? Very much so. It's really taking those moments when you can recognize there's an option there and you have that option.
You can choose to go down into negative thinking about yourself, about the world, or you can choose to believe that everything's gonna work out okay for you. And sometimes even just that recognition of I can come from a place of fear or I can come from a place of love, is really where my choice points come back to. I actually have this written all over, and it's something I talk about a lot is love and fear are really those polarities within how we're coming from.
And when I'm coming from love open, spontaneity, that's really when I'm in my higher self, my essence self, my spiritual self, however you wanna phrase that, not self in some Buddhist realms, you know? But when I'm coming from fear, obligation, guilt, that's when I know I'm really operating from that unconscious when I'm operating out of how am I going to survive right now? And I just have absolutely no interest in surviving in my life anymore. Life is big and bold and juicy and I wanna
thrive in it. I wanna suck the marrow out of it. It's like, this is what we've got right now. I'm not interested in coming and showing up from a place of fear any longer. And so honing in on those choice points has been huge because it's like, right, let's go back to love each and every time. I love your clarity. And Amy, will you take us into your life a little bit? There's some juicy stuff here that I imagine was fuel for that, uh, drive for clarity.
Definitely. Well, so just a little bit of a background of my life. So I am a, uh, self-proclaimed redheaded stepchild with all of the trauma that comes along with it. So I don't need to go into it that much, but I had a lot to really work through in my life. And so for myself, that kind of came in early as a teenager where I got into recovery and stopped drinking very, very early on in my life and really started to have to figure out how to be a human without that.
And so in that realm it was just like, okay, what can I do to keep showing up in presence? What can I do to be better? What can I do to do better out in the world was really a lot of what I was focusing on in that beginning part. And so with that, that's where my training kind of started in with college psychology, so on and so forth. But I was able to do some amazing jobs. I was the harm reduction behavioral specialist for Meades project for years, and I ran their needle exchange program.
So I got right into the nitty gritty with everybody there. And I absolutely loved it of being able to show up and, all right, how can we do just a little bit better today? You know, how can we make these choice points? It's not that we're perfect, but how can we get a little bit better? And then moved on to working in different drug and alcohol treatment centers, working with children in level 12 and 14 facilities here in the state of California where I live.
And really trying to hone those skills of, you know, how can I keep coming from love and how can I model and teach others to do this as well? And so it was just an amazing experience. And then my husband, my mother-in-law, a whole bunch of friends did the process probably when I was in my mid twenties and had amazing experiences, were doing great. And I had already done so many things that I just, I wasn't pulled for it, I wasn't called to it.
And I was really grateful that the impacts occurred for these people. But really what called me is when my father died and my father was my person in my life. He was my rock for years, my emotional stability, you know, we were incredibly close and when he passed I just didn't know who I was anymore. And so the opportunity to go to Hoffman arose once again, and this time I jumped on it and said, yes, let's just, let's go into this.
So my experience with it was almost like a, like you said earlier, just a culmination of all these other healing modalities with a clearing out of old energy, old stories, old beliefs about myself, old beliefs about the world not being safe with my father, not in it. That I really needed to be able to come in clearly to recognize those moments of choice that I had. So for me, the process was just absolutely incredible.
So take us into your process a little bit. As you think about it now, what area stands out? I kind of want you to bring us into your week and if we were to go along with you, what would we have seen? Well, I think probably the most impactful part of the process for me was the expressive pieces. I had done so much work around coming into being calm, being able to speak clearly, to regulate, to let go of things that I wasn't actually in touch with. Those emotions that I had.
I had taken off so many of the negative emotions on that spectrum of feeling. You know, I didn't wanna be angry, I didn't wanna be rageful, I didn't want to be sad or grieving all the time, you know, that, that I just kind of cut those out. And so because I'd cut those out, I'd also cut out a lot of my access to that joy, that bliss, that ecstasy, that, you know, dancing on tables, the absolute ability to be in love with the world.
And so a part of my process was when I finally got permission to express not only love, appreciation, whatever that was in the kind of nice realm, but actually express my anger of my father dying. My anger for what had happened to me, my why did this occur, what did I do that I deserved this what happened, and really feel it and release it. All of a sudden the other side started coming in strong
for me. All of a sudden I started noticing the positive things, the butterflies landing right outside my window, you know, the smell of the sea air coming in when I was going on a walk on Stinson Beach, you know, my son squeezing me so hard that almost tears would start coming outta my eyes with gratitude because I knew how much he loved me.
So Amy, you are saying that given the permission that word you use permission to express some of these negative emotions as they've been labeled, anger, sadness, that freed you up to feel all these other wonderful, joyful, tender, sweet, alive moments. So much more deeply. You know, like I had it before, but the depth of it was just resonated through my whole body.
And a lot of that's because in my life I had all of these rules about expressing myself and anger wasn't safe, rage wasn't safe, upset wasn't safe, disappointment wasn't safe for me to express. And so I really needed to get practice in how to do that in a safe manner, which was a huge part of my process.
So it was like that release allowed more release for me in the areas of life that I really was trying to do, but couldn't quite get there because I was held back by just that limited emotional range. And going full on in opened doors to a range that wouldn't have been accessible. Had you not gone through that cathartic, expressive work in the process? Exactly. Because that recognition really allowed me to see where my anger actually serves me in creating boundaries.
My no is so important for my yes to really be heard fully. And so I really had to get both sides of it to come back into balance so that all of the feelings could be not only felt, but really actually seen, heard by others, that I was able to communicate them. And by creating that intimacy with myself for what was really going on, like, no, I'm actually really angry about this, or I'm hurt or I'm disappointed.
So that when I was able to communicate it, that connection with that person, that intimacy with that person got so much deeper that then the joy that I felt, the appreciation that I felt was also deeper, that it just allowed my relationships to flourish and get so much more impactful, resonant, deep nurturing . Amy, you've talked a lot about love and I think you've used that word a lot here. And I just wanna ask you about love. What is it for you and why is it so important?
I think because for me, probably one of the qualities of myself that I appreciate the most is my loving nature is really being able to come from a place of emotional goodness for not only myself, but for other people, the world, the universe, and see through that lens allows others to see it as well. Going out into the world and being love.
It's a, it's very vulnerable. I won't lie about that, but B, it allows me to have these connections and this community where I don't have to pretend who I am, I don't have to hide my silly dorkiness, you know, my expressed delight about things. I don't need to be jaded about fireworks, about dolphins, jumping about , things that really light me up because the people around me love and appreciate how much I love and appreciate the world as well.
And so it creates this amazing, instead of a vicious cycle, which we really kind of talk about in the process, it creates that victorious cycle of love where I'm being love, I'm giving love. And so other people see that and it expands into a wider and wider circle of love of acceptance of, oh, all right, how can we just show up with appreciation, with ease, with peace. That's beautiful love and the ability to express all of the emotions on the color wheel of emotions
propels you through your process. You graduate, you come out the other side and at some point another teacher training begins, take us there. And what happens in your teacher training? So in my teacher training, actually funny story. So the day that I got the call that I had been accepted into teacher training was absolutely stupendous because I had worked very, very hard for this. After I finished my process, I was like, yes,
I love this. This is the biggest, most real and lasting change I've experienced in my life and I wanna hold onto it. So how can I be a part of this community? So I started doing the grad groups and then I started helping the grad group leader and then I became a grad group leader. And so I had been involved in it for so long and I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. And so when I got the call that yes, you've been accepted, yes, we want you in this training program, I was so excited.
And then I got a call about three hours later that told me that the biopsy that I'd had on a lump in my throat ended up being a Hodgkin's lymphoma and that I had cancer. And so I had to make a choice over whether or not I was going to continue with Hoffman and try to do the training and undergo cancer treatment at the same time, or just undergo cancer treatment.
I had to sit with myself and my spiritual self for a very long time, but the call of what is going to be after cancer is what I need to be working on and working for. And so I stepped into teacher training knowing that I was gonna be going through this ordeal at the same time. And luckily Crystal and everyone were like, all right, let's do this and we're gonna support you and let us know if you need to bow out
or anything that we can do. But yeah, it was undergoing a massive, both physical breakdown and also a breakdown of my ego of the real deep-seated beliefs about who I thought I was and what I could be out in the world, what my reactions and triggers were really looking at the negative beliefs that had run me for so long that had served me for so long in how can I be helpful? How can I show up for people? What do you need? But now it was, wait a minute, how am I modeling this as well for myself?
'cause I can't do both. So it allowed a deepening understanding of my own patterns in my life in real time of like, all right, I'm showing up and I'm trying to do this internship and I am bald, I have a chemo port , I haven't slept all night and I'm only eating cereal with almond milk 'cause it's the only thing I can keep down, but what are the patterns here? How can I recycle this? How can I really embody gratitude?
How can I really embody love for myself and show up and model that for these students? And so it was like trial by fire going through my internship process, but it was also, man, if I can do that, I can do absolutely anything. And it really taught me how I can work through hard things in a way that is free and easy and again, loving myself.
I imagine that that is something you bring into your work with your students, something you embody that I can do hard things and you can help your students do hard things as well.
Yeah, it really, one of the biggest things is like, all right, so this is everything that's going on and I know that I am not a hypocrite, so I need to work this to the best of my absolute ability because then I know I'm not just teaching it, I'm living it and living it is an entirely different thing because then you're really coming from, I know how this feels. I have an idea, I have a curiosity, I have an understanding of pain. And I know that you can come through this too.
And I'm here by you. Amy, there's the walking the talk piece. But it feels kind of important to pause here and say that for you this, this is important. I, part of the word I think about here is integrity. That when you work with your students, you are very much a human being working on their patterns and connecting to spirit that it's your journey as well. So guiding them isn't an artificial thing, is it?
No, not at all. And it actually, it, it really, I think allows them to show up in their power so much more. 'cause it's not about what I think is right for them. It's about I know that their spirit has the answers. I know that their love, their strength, their authenticity is what will get them through those hard times. And it's all about uncovering it for them so that they recognize their choice points because it might be very different than mine.
But every single person that I've worked with has that and I see that within each and every one of 'em. And it's just about allowing them to be able to see it as well. I love that where you are guiding and you are supporting and at times in front of the classroom teaching, but what you're doing and what we're doing as teachers is directing them back to themselves, back to their spirit as the leader of their quad.
Yeah, it's actually probably one of the major reasons why I was willing to go into Hoffman because it's not about me becoming somebody else. It was never about that. And it's not about that for any of my students. It's not about you need to be better, you need to be different, you need to be changed. It's about you have an opportunity to show up as you clearly confidently in your highest self and from that place you can do anything. You put your mind to.
Amy. It makes such intuitive sense that they are becoming more themselves. But I'm imagining that you get a lot of students as I do that on some level see Hoffman as trying to fix themselves. Do you experience that? And how do you move students back to the wholeness that has always been there rather than trying to fix themselves to be someone else? Hmm. I love that phrase, the wholeness that has always been there because that's exactly right.
It's that recognition that we might have had things that have occurred to us, but we are not broken. And being able to check in back with yourself and build up that trust muscle of who you are, that you can make decisions, that you can show up in your own integrity. And that doesn't mean it's gotta be somebody else's, you know, that you are fulfilling your own expectations of you is really important. So how I do that is really coming back to the recognition of our common
humanity. You know, I don't believe that humans were born on this earth knowing what we're supposed to do. You know, we're here to experience life, to taste it, to make mistakes, to come back together again, to rebuild, to trust, to fall down, to fail, to learn how to do it differently. And if we can really embody that with compassion of, oh, here I am showing up as the best human I can be and loving that part, then that's the ability that you can do anything.
Because a failure is just a recognition of what didn't work out well for you. Now you know what you wanna do different and we can go back and try again. But it's that key part of self-compassion of it's okay, it doesn't mean that I am a failure, it doesn't mean that I am doing something wrong. It just means let's try something different. 'cause this way didn't work this time. So there's a lot of love,
a lot of gentleness that I bring within this. A lot of, of course you're doubting your own growth, of course you're doubting your own voice. That's what kept you safe when you were a kid. You had to follow these other people's beliefs, ideals, reasons. And now it's about getting back to what yours are.
And once people are able to get in touch with that and that clicks, which normally sometimes can take a while, honestly, I've had some students where it hasn't clicked until after the process a little ways. And I'll get a phone call about, oh my gosh, I just finally got that. It was like my whole persona was an armor. And I'm like, yep, , now you can come back into yourself and aren't you glad you were gentle enough
to just wait and be patient and keep going? So yeah, that gentleness, that self-compassion is probably something that I come back to the most . Beautiful. Amy, you have a unique situation. Your mother-in-law is a teacher, Nita, and you live so close to the site. How old is Gage? Gage is 12. 12 Year old son. And Gage, what's it like to have Hoffman be so close to you, so much a part of your family, , I imagine it's wonderful and the boundaries get crossed. I don't know what is it ?
It's a little bit of both. Nita and I have been, I mean she's, she's known me since I was 18 years old. And so it's been my entire adult life has been with this amazing human a part of it. And I'm so grateful. And my husband is absolutely wonderfully supportive within the Hoffman process as well and has done it himself. And so how we've kind of worked it out is that, you know, we are Hoffman teachers when we are Hoffman teachers.
And when I'm at home, I'm not a Hoffman teacher, I'm just another human . And so allow the leeway there and we are able to talk about it. You know, it's actually, it's pretty great. My son is now picked up on so much of these teachings, this lingo, this idea of patterns and our own responsibility and who we are and practicing
self-compassion, that it's actually pretty beautiful. I'm really, I'm really grateful for that influence for him because he sees the influence that he gets at school from his friends of how he has to be cool and he has to not be embarrassed by things. But he also is this amazing, outgoing, quirky, brilliant, awesome kid that he knows. It's like, no, I'm the only me that's out here and I know that everybody else
is trying to do their best to fit in. But if I just be me, then I'm fitting into that space perfectly. How do I keep letting go of the embarrassment? How do I keep letting go of comparing myself to others? That was actually his intention for school this year is he's like, all right, I'm not gonna be comparing myself to others. And I'm just like, wow, kid, how did you learn this? I'm just like, I don't know if any modeling in the world could have taught me that when I was a
12 year old. So I think the influence has been pretty strong on him and I'm, and I'm really, really grateful. And when it comes to teaching together, it's actually pretty awesome. . We've got a really, a really great rapport. We actually, we taught last month together and it was really nice being around the teaching table and being able to feel like family again, you know, in a different arena because as Hoffman teachers were there the whole time. And it is like being with family.
So it's nice having somebody that's known me so well and so long and really sees and supports not only my growth, but also that being of love out in the world. I so appreciate that Amy, and I haven't taught with you both, but I'm really looking forward to the chance to teach with the two of you to see and experience family in the deeper sense of it than all of us as teachers. But I wanna ask about Gage as someone who has two kids as well, how do you hold the process for Gage?
Do you say you're going one day or does he ask about going or how are you gonna hold that? That's a great question. Well, how we've been holding it so far is just that recognition of, honey, you're a human and you were raised by me and I'm also a human and I was raised by other humans and so let's be real. You're gonna have some stuff to work through. 'cause I am not perfect, nor am I ever going to be , you know, I've got patterns too.
I've gotta work on him. I get frustrated, I lose my cool every now and again, but it's about recognizing it and what can I do right now? So, you know, he'll make a mistake, he'll mess up, he'll do something and he'll come back right away and say, Hey, I did that. And it's like, yeah, what do you wanna do differently next time? As the, the big term in our household is not what did you do wrong, but what did you learn ? So it comes with it just this allowance of, all right,
let's figure it out. And don't get me wrong, I am fingers crossed for teenager years coming in soon. So we'll see how that goes. But so far it's, you know, this is here whenever you need it. And it's not a judgment call on you being a bad human, it's just you are worth and worthy the effort and energy you put into yourself, and this is a lot of effort and energy that goes into your own worth
and being able to see that and recognize that. So yeah, you know, my mom recently has come to the process. For the first time. Yeah, just within the last two years and she's now trying to model that a lot more with my son 'cause she's around a lot as well. And my sister also actually did the process before I did.
So this is a real kind of community in my life of really showing up in your authenticity and how can you just have that empathy and compassion for us going through this human experience, which is hard no matter how much work we've done on ourselves. Sometimes, you know, the Covid pandemic through my kid for a loop in some of the most formative years in his life for social situations. So I'm really having to show up and give him a lot of coaching and
doing a lot of role playing of how does this learn live in our life? You know, how do we just show up and say, hi, I'm Gage, how you doing? You wanna go play things happen that are out of our control. And so how do we really meet that with presence instead of with patterns? I can feel your passion for this work. What's it like for you to, to share your story and talk about the work as a teacher?
Well, okay, so a fun story. So I actually, I just got back from Burning Man and I have a great story of running into a student up there on the night that the man was burning and her introducing me to somebody that she wanted me to talk to about the Hoffman process. Wait, let's just pause here. So you've been gonna Burning Man for years? Yeah. I've been gonna Burning Man for, oh God, it's been 15 years now that I love it. I show up. I'm one of the designated drivers for the big art cars up there.
I help with the senior tour that we take out every year. I absolutely adore the radical expression that I get to step into at Burning Man. And then in the the mud burning fest that just took place,
you run into a student. Yep. Run into a student who had an amazing experience is still, you know, out there living her best life at this point of time and is really excited about, she couldn't believe that she ran into me and her very, very close friend who she's been really wanting to get some help around, a couple issues is right here. And she's like, do you have a minute?
And I'm like, of always, of course, you know, when it comes to talking about love, when it comes to talking about healing, I'm like, I'm in there. So we sit down on this awesome cat art car and she just looks at me and just opens up. She's like, if this wonderful woman loves and trusts you, I'm just gonna tell you what's going on. And we just talked story for probably about 45 minutes and my friends were there with me just like looking at me mouth open like, wow,
this is what you do in the world. As I'm talking about authenticity, as I'm talking about recognizing like, oh of course this is hard. I would have a hard time with what you're dealing with as well, if this is how I thought and felt about myself. Just that recognition of you do not have to have the same thoughts and feelings about who you are that are coming from that negative programmed very, very young place to continue to run what you are in your life.
And that's what this woman really connected into of wow, you can show up and really feel that love for you and that other people react to, respond to totally differently. You know where it is, like moths to a flame when you are showing up in your authenticity, when you're showing up in your love of who you are, that shines through in a way that's almost inexplicable. You know, people can't name it. They'll be like, did you get a facelift?
Did you go to a spa? Like, what's going on? And it's like, no, I just, I know I'm okay and I know that I'm out here doing the best that I can, being the best human that I can be. And that makes all the difference. Amy Thompson do have a way with words around this work and the importance of love in the process. And I'm so grateful for you and feeling love for you and all the people listening in your ability to put into words such a deep indescribable experience like the Hoffman process.
Yeah. Well thank you Drew. I really appreciate that. It's like you said, this is the stuff that makes the hair on my arms raise up when I start talking about it. And I know that if that's what's going on, my body, my intellect, my emotions, my spirit is standing up right there, front and center wanting to participate in it. 110%. That is right. Livelihood for you, Amy. Right? Exactly. Exactly. It fits. It fits . Thank you Amy. Aw, thank you so much, drew. So appreciated.
It was wonderful being on and talking with you today. Thank you for listening to our podcast. My name is Liza Rassi. I'm the c e o and President of Hoffman Institute Foundation. And I'm Ra Eng 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.