And I remember a really visceral part of the process, getting a such a profound deep somatic. Feeling of the spirit embodied. I put my hand on my heart. And It was like, you know, for anyone who grew up in the eighties Cab, you know, the beams of light energy that come out of their chest. In fact I felt like a care back or it's just like, what is happening here? It like, radiate it's be incredible light. Welcome everybody. My name is Drew Horn, and this podcast is called Lu everyday radius.
It's brought to you about 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. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast. Roxy Hate is with us welcome Roxy. Hi, Drew. It's great to have you. How you feeling today? The It's so great to be here. Yeah. This is a real honor to be asked to come whenever I drive to the process to teach, I... Always listen to 1 of your episodes
in the car on the way. So actually, being on 1 myself, amazing. I'm feeling really excited actually. And a little bit nervous as that kind of, like, vulnerability Oh, my god. Well what's gonna happen? What am I gonna say, you know, that kind of thing coming up a little bit, But but, yeah, We're mainly excited to be here with you. Great. Great. Well, I'm looking forward to the conversation, and you're in bright near the water. It's a hopefully a nice spring day there. Well, remember,
Alerts May. We are in England. So, it's actually raining outside, but we had a bright morning. So there's that silver lining, So Roxy, let's jump in your a hoffman process teacher in the Uk. You've come to the Us to teach a couple times you're coming again as we do this exchange program where our teachers go to the Uk, Uk teachers come here to would you introduce yourself a little bit about who you are and how long you've been teaching stuff like that?
Yeah. Of course. So... Yeah. I'm a hoffman teacher in the Uk. I've been doing this for 4 years since qualifying. Alongside that, I'm also a wedding ce. So that's for you Americans and efficient. So I marry people in non religious style ceremonies as well alongside my work with Hoffman and do a bunch of coaching and and work through Hoffman I live in there South England these days by the sea with my husband and my 2 dogs,
who I'm hoping I'm gonna... Stay in the other room and not be trying to bark to get in here. Yeah. That's me. That's great. Planner upstairs. Away too, and I'm hoping they're not gonna park as well. So fingers crossed on our dogs. But Roxy, let's drop in Where do we start this conversation? Where does your story start? Well, I guess it all starts back childhood, ultimately. Do I grow up in liverpool in the north of England in the eighties.
And Liverpool was a really different place those days to the city has become in recent years. And I grew up in an area called To, which is kind of renowned being like the bad area.
And just a couple of years before I was born the were, the talks riots that happened, which are basically race riots set across the backdrop of the soc, economic and political climate that was happening, then, you know, the Uk had been a long time under margaret catches, rain and a really conservative hard line government and the poor places were really polarized. So that's kind of the city that I grew up in in the ratings teens.
And I grew up with essentially with a single mom, So my dad left when I was about 2. I had an older brother, who's, like, 12 years older than me. Who wasn't at home too long, you know, in my memory. He left on he was a teenager. But my dad left when I was about to, and he was, you know, had problems and he was an alcoholic and a gambler, and he didn't really feature a whole lot in my childhood or indeed my adult life. He was pretty inconsistent person in in at all.
And I grew up with my mom primarily, and you know, she was the product of a very strict conservative parenting. And she was a great example of someone who's gone the complete opposite way and Rebelled in every way that she knew how. And so she was a real, like, alternative liberal mom as I was growing up. Which meant that there was quite a lot of kind of loose hands off parenting
going on in my childhood. And she worked really hard to give as the best life, that she could, which meant that she wasn't there a whole lot either. So there was a lot of responsibility on me from a pretty young age. And out kind of outside of the family unit, I'd... I was just go, like, a normal kid going into a the local comprehensive school where I spent the first couple of years of my school career.
And then I got I got a scholarship to this kind of like, a private school here, like a paid for fancy post basically. Which was full of the kids of barr and Qc and the local doctors and there were different people to the kids that I knew and that I'd grown up with. I always have this memory of, like, outside our school. I'd be walking there in my, like, you know, secondhand hand, like, blazer on foot to
school. And, like, there'd be all these parents like or or na dropping their kids off and like, you know, those cars so big that you put you have to have a tan to communicate with the kid in the back of the car. So there was quite a a big polarization there, I guess. I think, like, as is incredible an early life start that was and an amazing and experience.
It really gave me a huge boost, and I was, you know, the first person in my family to go to university as a result of having that education and there was a ton of payoffs, which is amazing. But also with that, came the opposite side to that. So I was very aware of my kind of, like, difference and from an early age. And I think through that, you know, through that, you know, on on the process, we talk a lot about our kind of shame statements and those beliefs about ourselves that start to set in
early on. And I think that that school experience for me was a real beginning part for my, you know, long standing beliefs about being, like, I'm stupid. I'm un. All started to already kick in around that time. And with it, became the sense of, like, self abandonment and, you know, hyper correcting my accent to try and fit him with these posh kids, like not wanting them, you know, being embarrassed about where I live, and not want to
bring people home. And with it, I kind of started losing myself, them within that as well, and all these kind of masks where these survival techniques for facing the world started to kind of come into place. Probably provide you a book about the the decisions and the stuff that's happened in my life with those beliefs about myself being in the in the driver's seat. You know, I went
on, I... After I went to Uni, I went to... I moved to London, and I spent, like, couple of decades living in London and working in the music industry. No matter what I did, those beliefs about myself were always around the corner that I was somehow inferior I'm not as good as other people, and was a whole ton of comparison and the belief that I was just inherently stupid.
Part of what you're saying is that that early sear experience of being different of almost not fitting in in that early schooling, you also made reference to your dad, not factoring in in a large part. All of those beliefs about yourself, those false identities got wired in on some level, and then from then on, your life unfolded in some way exactly as those beliefs would have dictated. Is that fair? That's absolutely fair. Absolutely. It becomes like almost
like a self fulfilling prophecy doesn't it. We believe it about ourselves, and we make it happen in the world. For me, it was a real sense of, like, I knew that I had all this stuff that was, you know, una dress. I haven't had the most... Standard of childhood, and I knew that I had a bunch of stuff, like, in the closet that would have to come out at some point. But my coping mechanism certainly for, like, my twenties.
And before and to a degree after was really around, like, just hiding from that stuff as much as I possibly could. And that took the form of a number of different things. You know, I was living, like, a really, like, he, party lifestyle, which the career I was in really supported as well. So I was, like, living for the weekend and, like, hiding myself by just being really busy when I wasn't, like, out partying, I would be perpetually. Insanely busy, 1 thing after another after another.
I was also really good at, like, care taking other people, and making other people's stuff away to hide my own. So I was became, like a master. You know, I had, like, I had a lot of friends and a lot, like, on the surface of it, you know, I had all the props have a really good life and like I had, like, a pretty cool life from externally. But I was really good at not having to face myself and even like talking to friends.
I'd be able to deflect, you know, so that the focus was never really on me, and it wasn't until I got to the process that I realized that I've been doing that and really hiding from myself. I want my whole. Even the question as simple as how are you? I'd be like, oh, you know, But anyway, tell me about you. And managed to just like hide in plain sight, and that, you know, cost me a lot as well. I had this real perpetual deep fair of... Vulnerability.
And through kind of growing up the way that I did where there wasn't a whole lot of parenting going on, I'd learned to be the parent myself when I was really young. You raised yourself. In some ways, yeah. In some ways, like, my mom was absolutely there, but she was kind of, like, young and irresponsible in many ways at this point of our life. I'd learn at really early age, to kind of make safe my childhood world around me was to become the parent.
And from a really, you know, 2 year old, I was, like trying to parent and boss everyone around in my life and trying to control and trying to make safe. And then in my adult life, Well, firstly, that wasn't winning me many friends. But secondly, I was... I kind of really developed this, archetype of the strong independent woman, and I had taken that to its death And while that is an incredible asset in many ways, and it's obviously in society something that women are taught to
aspire to be. The flip side of that as well, especially when you're coming from, like, my programming and and cat behavior in childhood, was that my walls were like, imp. I built, like, a ton of defenses around myself. And actually, this, like archetype stood in front of that as like this thing to be kind of proud of.
But really, kind of what was happening behind the scenes and amongst all that was this, you know, huge fear of vulnerability, of allowing myself to be seen, not letting myself get close enough in relationship, pulling back, not being able to ask for help. You know, all of these things that we see that go alongside that, but it really just kept me out of connection with others, importantly with myself.
And as well, you know, as I kind of Had alluded to, I was living this really, like, out there life where I'm grand type 7. So everybody loves the 7. And do you know being 7 is really fun but it also has a big payoff as well. So, you know, I was so busy, like, out there being busy enthusiastic about everything having, like, a ton of stuff going on at any time, busy, busy, busy, too scared to turn around and face myself, I'm not perpetually running for fear all the time.
And so so much so that I kind of didn't really see the crash happen. I was so out of touch with myself. I didn't even see it. You didn't see the crash. About to happen or when it was happening. For me, all I really knew was that 1 day I woke up and I felt depressed. And I'd never felt that before because I'd spent my whole life, you know, it's quote, successfully, unquote, running from the problems and hiding them in different areas so that I wouldn't have to get them.
And then the weight of carrying all of that just got too heavy at 1 point, and I woke up and I was, like, what the fuck is this feeling. Like, where are I... What's happening here. This is a bad day, and then I woke up again the next day, and it was another bad day. And it really freaked me out. You know, That was my kind of first. And luckily last, real brush with depression because I knew when that happened that I needed to stop and
take a look at myself. The downside of a 7 is that going inward becomes very, very scary. And it sounds like this depression you couldn't shake, helped you eventually go inwards. So so what happened you you keep waking up and the depression keeps showing up and you can't take it what happens next? So next, I started therapy, and I did some therapy for a while. It was really helpful to start to put stuff under the microscope and to understand myself.
But, of course, I'm a 7. You know, it wasn't fast enough. It wasn't quick enough. It was instantaneous enough. I wanted results. I didn't wanna feel like this anymore. I wanted to do anything to escape running from this. So I was just like, oh, my god. I felt like I was kind of, like, waiting too tri cool. And 1 of my dear friends Vaccine, a number of years before had said to me 1 day. I've heard about this thing called the hoffman process.
Back in the day, Hoffman used to have, in the Uk where used to do this thing in regent par in London, where it was, like an open evening where if you calm and ask questions and people who just finished the process will come and speak, and this was, like, went all the way up to Covid, and then obviously Covid killed all of our our face to face interactions. She said, would you come with me to this thing? Because I wanna find out what more about it, and I wanna make sure
that it's not cult. Be had actually grown up in account. So it was fair that she would be concerned about that. But we went along to this evening. And I'd remember remember this is a couple years before all of this had happened. And I went, and I kinda sat there and I thought... You know, wow, that's cool that something like this exists. But fact God, I'm never gonna have to do anything like this. I was kind of watching from this kind of you know, completely
detached place. And I was so detached in fact, and it really makes me last to think back at this. When, we used to do this thing in those sessions where there'd be like a big bowl of, like, sweets and fruit and stuff that would be passed around at the end. People would sit around in the circle, and they take something and say something they were quite for in their lives, and something
they appreciated in themselves. This evening when I was sat there with Be, like the bowl of fruit came to me, I literally just, like, pass it on to the next person, and I couldn't... I didn't even take a piece. Like, I couldn't even speak out what I was grateful for what I appreciated. Because not because I didn't appreciate and wasn't grateful, but because I was just so shut down to this stuff then, and it really makes me laugh thinking about the works that I do now in the world.
But I'm a teacher now, and I was person that I was so shut out. I couldn't even take, like, a jelly baby from the bowl. Yeah. So I've been aware from them that hoffman was real. And I'd seen the shift and see when she come out. She'd done it, not too long after that. And I remember sitting where they're in the coffee shop and seeing this amazing glow that she had and how calm she seemed and how she was just talking in this completely different way. But even then, you know, I was like,
oh, that's cool. I'm really glad that she had that experience, but it wasn't until it came to this for me that I was like, yeah, Okay. I think I need to do something here. So you so you sign up you're in your process, Can you take us into your process? What happened for you? Oh my gosh. It was. Mild. I always kinda describe the process for me as being like this real, like, Bc
Ad moment for me. It's like, before and after me, I had a question on a podcast, and I can't even think of what podcast it was, pages ages ago, something along the lines of when did you become the person that you are today. For me, it was the day that I I went. Actually, it probably wasn't the day I went and was the day. I came out. It blew the cover of my defended heart, wide open. Was and enabled me to be able to just really drop in and, like, get to know myself.
In a completely different way. And also, really importantly in, like, those defenses dropping and being able to soften into our heartfelt place because I was someone who didn't even really cry in life, like, unless it was
a sad movie or whatever. But, you know, quite hardened, like, real kind of, as I mentioned like this kind of like steel wall of vulnerability, I was able to just really drop into this super soft place where I was able to, like, parent myself as a little child, in a way that I just wasn't parent necessarily when I was growing up. And to validate myself and see myself It was just this beautiful thing and this kind of like incredible understanding of all of these different parts of me.
That had never existed before, coming to the fore. And this beautiful relationship with my emotional child who's still very much with me all the time. You know, when I'm, like, teaching sometimes. And if I go into, like, a fear or it's the first morning, and I'm like, oh, my god. I can feel anxiety. I'm there, like, holding a hand the whole time, I'll be standing in front of the group. You should be, like, clinging onto my leg or I'll be, like, str her
hair in my mind's eye. You know, it's this really beautiful relationship that we foster There's something really sweet about first blowing the cover off of your defended hearts. And the second piece of that is connecting with the emotional child that remained there that was left there and you didn't just usher someone rush her into adulthood, you actually have an ongoing healthy. Relationship with that little girl when she shows up even as you teach this work.
And the image of such powerful imagery of str her hair or her clinging to your leg, and you you parenting her. What an act of courage? Absolutely. It's. Through being able to have that relationship in my life. It's kind of opened up so many different avenues in different areas. The whole week was just such a ride. The levels of connection that I was able to drop into for myself, this sense of spirit, this, like, burg sense of spirit because I was quite like a
kind of cynical person before. This sense of, like, spiritual self. I was like, oh, that's some new age crap, self love, basically, meant like, I'll, have a hot bubble bath nice, enjoy yourself, you know, whatever. There was no real sense and real depth of what any of this meant for me before. And so... But actually by being able to, like, be in and get in touch with my spirit. And, like this sense of something that was, like, bigger than me yet was me but
existed within me. Just blew mind. And I remember a really visceral part of the process, getting a such a profound deep somatic feeling of the spirit embodied. And I remember, I put my hand on my heart. And it was like, you know, for anyone who grew up in the eighties cab beds. Of, you know, the beams of light energy that come out of their chest. If I I felt like a care bag or is just like, what is happening here, like, radiating with the incredible like.
We'll put some info on care bears in the show notes in case people want a little refresher there. Absolutely. So I just felt like was like living breathing Cabo, just like so in touch with myself and with the world and was probably for the first time in my it whole life in a place of real presence. I really hear. I'm not jumping ahead. I'm not doing a ton of other things. I'm just like in the moment watching life unfolding around me.
And I remember a really visceral sense of that presence was there's a part of the week where we look at them d, and that part hadn't even really resonated with me, I remember, like, when the teacher was talking about it before and dad, and I was a bit like math. I don't think I'm a particularly addicted person. But there was something that happened and the
physical release that we do around that. Well, I just remember going out into nature afterwards and it was like this, huge space, this huge vortex. Amazing space it opened up in my chest. And I was just like, oh my god, You know, it was this redundant energy that Had been stuck in me forever, and it was like, almost like I could breathe for the first time. It was pretty profound.
And also, I think for me being able to really touch into the deep defensive of compassion for my dad, and I'm understanding for him because as I said, like, he hurt me in so many ways, and he wasn't really there in any sense. And I'd been able in my kind of avoid way that I gone through life with. Been able to like, put him in a box, not really look at it and act like I wasn't really her or phased by it, But, of course, that stuff comes sideways. Right? Whether we acknowledge it. As being
there or not. And I was able to really kind of understand him and the person that he was through kind of a letting go there. You know, Burden myself with him. My mom is vale a real deep compassion for her. I was able to just drop into a real sense of self compassion. So really just be able to be tender with myself. In all of my imperfections as well, which was really beautiful.
When I see it now when people come to the process is this kind of relationship with patterns, like, in they must be eradicated this horrendous part that I don't wanna look out or that I I wanted to... I need to leave all that this here. And it's like, actually being able to, like, look at this stuff for me at least and be able to change my relationship with it a little and see, like,
Yeah. This stuff helped me survive. This is my defenses that I took on from being a really young kid and it's all that I knew how to do. And it's gonna be there. And that's okay, and I can keep working with it, you know, rather than this thing that needed to be eradicated. It was just a real softening. Feels like a key point that things that are causing us such distress in our lives. Don't actually go away.
We develop a different relationship with them, and we soften into a a wholeness that includes them. With a lot of love and compassion. This is a a really a funny example that happens a company years? Go me and my husband went on the a retreat with at heart, and I'm for, like, a week in Upstate New york. Go so it was like the best week ever with him and, Kim his wife. And so we were there. We sitting in this, like, kind of seminar
setting. And that car had been on stage, and there was, like a q and A with the audience afterwards and this guy asks that car a question. Whatever the guy said and I can't even remember what it was at car went into reaction at heart was angry. And my husband looked at me and was like, Is Ec pissed right now? Right, what what is going on? And it was just as most humbling?
Incredible moment of, like, this is Ec Toll, like, pretty much as, you know, as close as you can get to enlightened on this planet. And he's angry. He's in reaction, and it was just like this wow, Like, what Hope do the rest of us have in the best possible way. You know? Wow, the the normalization of humanity in that moment if at toll can be reactive, maybe I can be tender with my own reactivity. Exactly. We both just walked away, like, laughing just like, at oh my god, like... We
take ourselves so seriously as humans. And if there's like, spiritual master is reactive, like, let's forgive ourselves in this. It was a... Yeah. It was a brilliant take on. So Roxy, you leave the process. You feel more connected to self than you ever have before. What happens? When do you become a teacher, what happens next? I left the process feeling like so much lighter. And knowing that I'd quite literally buried a whole bunch of stuff
there that I did not need. And I went into the the subsequent days and weeks and this sense of self love that I had been really felt into on the process continued to just grow and expand. To the point where like, you know, for 2 years after the process, I was having huge aha moments, you know, another deepening. And when I was like, I really feel like, got everything I'm gonna get from this experience it Bridges drop in another layer, and I'd have a new level of understanding.
For me, actually, 1 of they're really big, I've reasons why other than feeling depressed. 1 of the key reasons around that for me, why I actually went and did the process in the first place was I've been with this guy for a couple of years. And he was a already great guy. I wasn't feeling it, and then it wasn't there. And but I just couldn't... There was something in me I couldn't end it with this guy and I was kind of, like, well, maybe the hoffman process will help me
with that as well. And my romantic life had followed a certain pattern. You know, I'd seen my mom, be with guys consistently growing up and never been by herself and a lot of kind of c dependency and it's something that I had copied directly. So I was never out of relationship because I needed someone to try and complete me. I was trying to fix me or bolster me in some way.
But actually, the relationships that I I'd felt most alive and were really unhealthy relationships, and actually, I discovered that I was really looking unconsciously looking for my dad in all of the relationships that I was in. So if it wasn't that kind of like toxic relating, than I wasn't feeling it. And I'd had some, like, you know, lovely boyfriends over the years by, you know, that connection, that heart connection that I was looking for had always been missing.
And with this guy that I was with at the time, like, I'd always had my, like, bags packed at the door emotionally. You know, again with all of my defenses, and I was just, like 1 foot in the whole time. I came out of the process, and I listened to the advice, the people are given when they leave without not making any good decisions immediately and to give it some time. And so I did. I waited And over those few months, as I was able to start
coming into connection with myself. And loving and that sense of self love and self acceptance, developed more and more in me. I realized that I could actually love him properly for the first time as well. And now he's my husband. Not where I expected this story to go. I thought there was gonna be a break up what happened. There was just this incredible connection when I was like, 1 day. I just turned around and I was like, oh, this is what lovers. Because I can love me.
I can give it, and I can love both of us, and it was just this huge a aha realization. That just created such a sense of safety and of knowing within, and oh my god, are I every everyday so glad that I, you know, I could have detonated that relationship at so many junctions. And even actually when I first left the process before I gave at that time I was like, yeah. I'm probably still gonna end it with them, but I'll wait and see
because they felt to. But actually, it would have been the worst mistake of my life, you know, we've been together for 13, almost 14 years and were super happy. So, you know, we say twos... Grads when they leave the process. Remember it's you who has changed. We sort of wire that in that don't expect the world to be different that your responsibility to show up on behalf of your integrated quad. And so I'm really curious what happened when you were able to love yourself.
What happened in the relationship? Because what's also true is that all things change when we do. And so take us to your partnership post process, this guy you were gonna leave, All of a sudden, now is your husband, how'd to get there? I think to him as well seeing. You know, there was no doubt something in his childhood wound it was making him a attractive to this avoid person who wouldn't love
him. And luckily he stuck it out because there was something that was just able when I was able to really drop in and open my heart and really allow myself to be vulnerable. And to be seen for the first time and to really trust that. There was this kind of bim that happened between us that I allowed him to drop in as well. So That was a huge payoff in the process for me. That sense of self love. Has
continued in my life. And, you know, every day I feel up, You know, the way that I used to talk to myself before the process, you know, that shitty committee of voices, and that dark sides in a credit voice that would be really strong, And again, through the work on the process. I just don't relate to myself like that anymore. Like, sure. I'll have bad days or something will happen. I'll be like, art, could've have done better there. But that incessant negative self talk.
I really feel like I kind of left that at Florence house where I did the process in the Uk could've How far is Florence house from where you live? It's about half an hour, which is so nice. But that said, we're having a bit of a change of... Location at the moment, and we haven't got AAA fixed home right now in the Uk, but still... Yeah. So Roxy, the the student Roxy, the grad
turns into Roxy the teacher. What do you notice as you teach the process, What happens for you with all of that learning inside you and all these students coming in pain on some level? Which why they're doing the process in the first place, how has that journey been? I mean, I think the commonality that I think connect... Everyone that I know who is a hoffman teacher and really, anyone who works in this field.
To a degree where all kind of the walking wounded, where, I don't think it's possible to come to this kind of career choice point unless you have been through some stuff years south, And you've been on this transformational journey that's benefited you, and it's like, it's a real kind of kicker to are refocus, like, what's important in life. And that was certainly the case for me when I came out of Hoffman. It wasn't like on my process that I was sitting there in the vision that I
had for my life. There's a hoffman teacher. I wasn't like, oh, my god. This is what I wasn't, like, a beam of light came down a upon and I was like, this is what I'm gonna do, but I did know that I was unhappy working in the music industry, and I saw myself working as a therapist. Me and So I I left the process. And, you know, I I still needed, like, a little bit more suffering in a music industry. I stayed there for like another year until I was really had had enough, and I had the
calling a bunch of tires by there. And it was like, okay. Get out of here. And I started to train to become a therapist. It was when I was midway through that. That I'd always kinda kept in touch with Hoffman, and was very active in the grad community. And it was that point when they invited me to go do the teacher training that the real kind of turning point came for me, which was a ride in itself. I mean, definitely the hardest thing I've ever done, I
think my life is fair to say. And I think I kind of went into it somewhat naive, but the reality of it was that I was being hit over the heads repeatedly, you know, the we we kind of, you know, I've heard it said on anecdotally before. Oh, yeah. It's like doing the process 10 times yourself. And it it really is in many ways. And with within all the that, you know, I kept meeting myself again. Again, it was
like, oh, great. That's. Oh, I didn't even know that existed. It was just like this, you know, constant unraveling of development to that whole time, and then there's a point that I was like I can't do
this anymore. I'm gonna get up and took, like, 6 months off and, like, reassess and then went back in and luckily completed it at that point, but it was a real journey, and had I know what what it would looked like ahead of time, I properly wouldn't have gone in for it, but there was also, like this part in me, that was driving me toward it. That I like to think was my self that was like, you know, you've really bought something to offer in this world.
And it's the journey that I'm so glad that I took because it's, you know, you know what our rewarding rewarding is. It's not your average job visit. And as a result, there's parts of my life that have opened up like I mentioned earlier that I'm primarily a hoffman teacher, but I'm also a wedding sullivan, I'm marry, like, 40 couples a year as well. When I'm not teaching a process and I do a lot of hoffman as well. I'm I'm marrying people. And there's no way the person that I was.
Course pre often and then training have been. Some I mean, I've never even delivered the presentation before. And here I am like standing up, couple of times a week in front of, you know, 200 people. And all of that, like, the reverence and the grounding and all of this stuff, know, being able to really hold the space that I learned from Hoffman training hasn't made me into the sullivan that I am now as well. Yeah. That experience has given me every part of my life that I left now. Wow roxy.
What's it like... To be able to speak out loud that as I hear you, you are living your life's purpose, from a very whole hearted, inclusive way. You're not shutting out any parts of who you are. The work you do is a celebrate. The work you do as a teacher, include all of who you are. You're on your right road. What do you notice in the public sharing of that truth, your truth? It feels really empowered and actually, you know, you asked that question. And it's funny because, like, my job as
a ce is I... A storyteller. I tell people stories. So I'm constantly, like, interviewing people finding out about their lives, but I'm always on your sides of the swing. You know, I'm the 1 asking the questions, finding So actually being able to sit here and speaking this way. It feels great it feels like a real honoring actually as well of the journey that I've been at. I think about the journey
that you've been on. And for some reason, your mom and your dad come into my heart, what happened to them and your relationship to them? Have you been able to reconnect in ways that are different? Really good questions. I asked. I'll start with my mom. So we'd had a pretty good relationship through my adult life anyway, but certainly, for me being able to go and do this work on her in the process.
Meant that we are in a really healthy relationship because I realized that I I love my mom so deeply, but I realized that it was actually almost an unhealthy amount because it was based on this, like survival of the child of this, like, I need you. And I used to listen have this incredible all through my childhood and out life, like this fear of her dying of something happening to her, when I remember being, like, a really young kid and whenever she'd go out, or leave me. I'd say,
have a good safe time. I was, like, this desperate me, like, Was so scared and I live my life in fear, something happened to her because she's all I had or You know, I didn't have anyone else. There wasn't another responsible at adult in my life.
Being able to do this work has actually made that Man that I can come our relationship from a sense of, like, mature, healthy independence where I really love her, in a deeper way in some ways, but in a really healthy way where it's not this in mashed way, where we are 1 and the same. She's done the process herself a couple of years ago, and I think actually, really, a lot of it was through, like a sense of no because she was deaf... To know what I did and what I spent my life doing.
But she asked absolutely loved it and she got so much from it herself and but her doing it, and we doing it. You know, I remember we had this beautiful post process. She was on our post process weekend, and I went met her on Sunday. And we had a night together and it was just this beautiful connection that we had and this real sharing and just being able to be with each other in the way that we never had, And, you know, I just got back. I took it to Paris
for her 7 last week. We had an amazing 4 days together in Paris and that kind of... Trip, being so great with each of the rahul hold times certainly would never have happened free hoffman. So big payoff there. And with my dad I mentioned earlier that he wasn't really in my life, generally. You know, I haven't truly really apart from, like, at the odd, family event every 5 years, you know, when I'd seen for a second and avoid them.
I hadn't really had him in my life, since so I was, like 14 and even before Ben, it was very inconsistent. And when I did the process, the first time and I say the first time because I redid it there's there's thing that we suggest to people, post process. You call it completing the circle, I believe in the states. We call it the mass piece in the
Uk. But it's basically going to your parent wherever they are in the world and telling them you love them And in the Uk, we say, I love you and I know that you've always loved me. And I did that with my mom, and it was really beautiful moment. I took myself out of doing it with my dad the first home. And to be honest, I kind of bottle it. I was fearful on 1 hand, I didn't wanna open the gate. A relationship with him because I knew that while I wanted to have this completion moment for myself, I
didn't wanna start a relationship with him. Because I knew about wouldn't be healthy for me. Anyway, so when I read redid the process, I was like, okay. I'm actually gonna do it this time I knew that I needed to do it because in all of my patents and reactivity, and all of the places in my life that was still sticking and that I still had areas. It was all that father ruined. It was all his staff playing out all the time. It was him. And I was like, I I just need to go and do this
for myself. So I did the process again. In California. I went like the following week, and I saw him, and he's pretty frail and ill and kind of at the end of his life, and I spent maybe 30 minutes for him, and I did it, and I knew when I kind of hugged in goodbye that that would probably be the last time that I saw him. I left feeling really light and knowing that I done something really important for
myself for my child as well. He's still hanging on in there, but he's not in a good be very advanced in his illness. But for me, I knew regardless of what happened or regardless of how long he did live. But that was what I needed to do. Like, I didn't meet create this relationship with him. I knew that that was, like, the
healthy thing to do for me. And actually probably conversely for him as well to Did you experience the impact on him of you telling him you loved him and that you knew he always loved you. Yeah. I really did. I really did. And this is a guy he's, like, basically stranger to me. This of course, we share Dna and connection, but it's not, you know, someone that I've had in my life. Ever really. But, yeah, there was definitely a a strong
emotional resonance for him hearing that. That was something that kind of freed him as well, I think. Roxy, we're gonna wrap up, but I wanna just offer your chance to say anything else you wanna say. What else feels? Relevant potent at the end of this interview that people are gonna listen to on their drives around As you have listened to on your drives. That's a big question. I kinda feel like I just been an hour therapy. Thanks, Drew.
Yeah. I think the 1 thing that Hoffman boils down to, and it's something different for everybody. I'm always struck whenever I teach people, it really is, you know, that analogy of the hero's journey, Joseph Campbell, you know, the getting the calling from somewhere and the going into the dark forest, the slay, the dragon, the dark night of the soul the whatever it is you wanna call.
That's what this journey was to me and what it is to so many people that I work with and everybody, emerges from that deal with themselves, changed fundamentally in some way. Often the stuff that people leave the process with I experience the stuff that they didn't even realize they needed. They weren't in with a different agenda. And they come out with something entirely different. So in 1 sense, it's kind of really...
It's a complex thing. But then at the same time, I think the process really boils down to something really simple, which is love. That journey into love, journey inward, journey past all the false self, the ego, all the layers of stuff we build up, and that journey has... As I shared earlier, it's been, like, the single most important 1 that I've ever been on in
my life. And, of course, I've done various things before or instance, about this, you know, it's work that I really believe in, which is why I kind of devote my life for doing it. Roxy so grateful for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me. It's a mail honor to be here and Joanna simon with you. 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 Ras Rossi, often 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 hump institute dot org.