- I feel like I'm just lucky and I cannot believe when I think about my early twenties and feeling my lowest, I wish I could tell her like, Hey, it's gonna get so much better. Like your life is gonna be so awesome. Just like don't give up. And I'm really glad Hoffman was a part of my journey. - 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. In this episode, our guest speaks about her history with depression and periods of suicidal ideation. We understand that this sensitive topic may not be right for all listeners. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please reach out to a local mental health hotline or emergency services.
Remember, you are not alone and there is help available. - Welcome to the Hoffman Podcast. Chelsea Javier is with us. Welcome Chelsea. Hi - Drew. Thanks for having me. - It is great to have you on the show. You did the process in 2018? - Yes, so I did it in May of 2018, but I just did Q2 last August so I'm all caught up again. - All right, so you went back for a little grad weekend. Sure, I did. Will you share Chelsea a little bit about who you are?
- Yeah, for sure. So, yes, my name's Chelsea Javier. I am an LA native, so born and raised here and I live here again, lived in the Bay Area for a bit and now I'm back in town. I live here with my husband Paul, who introduced me to Hoffman. I'm sure we'll get into that. He did it first. um, and our two rescue bunnies, hammy and Yoshi. And we have a giant ADA tortoise named Lou who's huge and he sleeps in a doghouse in our backyard. . So that's a little family .
- Wait, wait, wait. You have a huge tortoise. - Yes we do. And he's basically our dog, but he's a tortoise. . - Don't they live to be very old? - They do. And we got him when he was about 12 I think. So he's gonna outlive us. He's gonna be a family heirloom. We don't have kids yet, but if we do, you know, he's gonna be in our family for a long time. because he has at least another, I don't know, a hundred years, maybe more .
- Incredible. Let's put a link to these tortoises in the show notes so people can just see how big they are. - I can send you a picture of him as well if you want of me holding him. - Yes, of course. What's he like as a pet? - They're really interesting. I feel like I tend to um, what's the word? Anthropomorphize like I'll say like, oh he feels this way, he's feeling shy today, he's feeling sad. And Paul's always like, I think he's just like a present being.
But I think that he's very loving and like when we go in the backyard sometimes he'll come sit under our chair. So he likes to be close to us and he likes when we hand feed him, treats like an apple and stuff. I go all out, I make him costumes all the time and I dress him up. I take him on walks, the whole shebang. He's quite an icebreaker. - Now we're down a tortoise rabbit hole. I - Know. Sorry, sorry . - No, that's okay. I can't help myself.
How much does he weigh? So - I'm not exactly sure, but the picture I'll send you was taken almost two and a half years ago 'cause we've had him for three years now and I could hardly hold him at that point. So he's like over a hundred pounds now and they actually grow until they're 25. So he might even double in size. Like he can barely fit through the entrance of his house right now.
So I think they just grow if they're in a big environment, like he can walk around the yard, you know that saying like if they stay in a small box, they don't grow bigger than their box. Kind of like humans, you know, , - What a great metaphor. - Yeah, yeah, totally. - So I'm gonna transition on that one and say tell us a little bit about the box you grew up in and how you came to be Chelsea, the adult. - Yes. Well I have always been a very creative person, an artist.
I was a visual artist my whole life, a painter. And in school I used to draw all over my homework and this might be a pattern, but I kind of viewed it as a bad thing. Like I remember my second grade teacher told my mom in a meeting like she's, she has a DD, you need to put her on medication because I'd always draw out the words on my spelling test next to the word. He's like, she's not concentrating. But for me it's kind of how I learned and process things.
I'm just a doodler for life and I thought I'd always be that person. But after Hoffman, I completely kind of transitioned career-wise and stuff. But before that I went to school for art. I was an art teacher by day. Uh, a waitress by night because I did not make very much money doing that. And I was not that happy honestly. But I thought I had this pattern around being very realistic and I'm like, okay, well if I wanna be creative I have to be a teacher.
And then, you know, that's my day job and I can paint and I'm sure we'll get into it. But now I'm, I'm a filmmaker and an actor and a writer and I've always wanted to work in entertainment in the back of my head, but I just didn't think it was possible. I was like too embarrassed to admit like, oh I wanna be an actor. And I had this thought like who am I to want something like that? Like you know, I don't come from a a Hollywood family. So it's funny because people I grew up with are like, what?
Like you make movies and you act now that's so random. I'm like, actually it's not too random at all. - Chelsea, you grow up that way, you become an art teacher, you waitress at night. What happens next? - Well I'd say my early to mid twenties was the low point of my life. I hope that it will never go back to that dark of a period.
But I will say my waitress job, I was actually a cocktail waitress at a strip club for years, which was quite a double life 'cause I worked at elementary schools in the day, you know, making 15 bucks an hour and they didn't know that I worked at like the North Beach strip in San Francisco at night. And that was a very interesting time in my life, but also very toxic because you're basically rewarded for bad behavior in that environment. And I would get to work and my boss would pour me a shot.
We'd just start drinking at 4:00 PM I blacked out a lot. I felt very out of control in my life at that period. And I feel like I used alcohol a lot to kind of numb myself and not really tune into what was going on. Like I feel so different post-process even in my like meditations and checking in with myself or like in Hoffman, like how do you feel and listing like I feel this today. Like I never did any of that.
My early to mid twenties is just very chaotic party life and working in a strip club. But eventually I got out of that and I moved back down to LA and I moved in with my mom just transitioning out of the crazy lifestyle. And that was a very, very rough transition to go from living on my own from 18 to my early twenties to back home with mom, you know, sharing a bedroom with my little sister, sleeping on the trel bed. And I just was so lost. I didn't know what to do for a job.
I'm like, I don't like being an art teacher. Who am I? And I actually spiraled into a very, very dark depression. And that was like a low point in my life. I don't know I should say trigger warning, but I did have like suicidal ideation. And I eventually got back on track and I was on antidepressants for a couple years, went to a lot of therapy and crawled out of that hole eventually. And then later that year like it got much better.
And then at the end of 2016 I ended up meeting my husband Paul and crazily enough I met him. We didn't have any mutual friends, we just sat next to each other happy hour on a weekday at a bar. This friend I've never met before after that asked me to go and she was an hour late and I sat next to Paul and his friend and he had just finished Hoffman two days before he moved here from Colorado, went to Hoffman, then moved to la his apartment had nothing but a sleeping bag in it.
And he met his friend for a drink and I sat next to him and we stirred up a conversation and it just blows my mind because it's one of those sliding door moments. I'm like, if this random person who I've never talked to since didn't ask me to get a drink, would I even know my future husband? Would I have even heard of Hoffman? 'cause I had certainly never heard of it before. This guy just got out of, of this retreat, he was like glowing.
He was so happy and present and making eye contact, which was kind of threatening to me. 'cause before Hoffman I really didn't engage in eye contact a lot. Sorry, I feel like I'm just blabbing here. So please jump in whenever . - Well you're telling a good story of, of how you and Paul, this guy who now is your husband, came to be in that bar on that afternoon in that random moment. - Yeah, it was random but it was also fate.
I now feel like, 'cause my whole life has been different ever since then. - Beautiful. So what happened? You sit next to him and then what? - Well I didn't expect anything. I don't usually meet people in bars, especially at 4:00 PM on a Wednesday or something. But it was just, you know, a random conversation and we hit it off. We ended up going on a first date.
We ended up moving in together after a couple months, which is crazy 'cause I had never lived with a boyfriend or or any kind of partner. And we got engaged six months later and everyone's like, you're insane, you can't do that. But then we got married two years later. But it worked out. I don't know how to describe it other than I really trusted myself. I was like, this feels different. But anyways, I didn't go to Hoffman immediately after that. I actually didn't go for like two more years.
And luckily Paul never pushed me because I've found in my own life, you know, I'm always like, oh I want this person to do it. Like you never push it on anyone. But I did reach a point in my own life where I was just so lost, like professionally. Like I said, I didn't wanna be an art teacher anymore. I was working uh, at a graphic design job, which ended up being cool. But then I got laid off and I, I was unemployed again.
So in my unemployment time I was like, you know what, this is now or never we're getting married in the fall and this was May. And I was like, I'm gonna do it. And it felt very risky for me at the time because I still struggle with this. But I was very risk averse then. This is a huge pattern and for me it's like I don't like to take risks. I always like to take the safe route. I was like, this is a lot of money for me right now. You know, I don't have a job.
Thankfully Hoffman gave me like a partial scholarship and I put the rest on a credit card and took the risk. But I remember being so scared like, what if this doesn't work? What if it doesn't change anything? I just wasted all this money and a week of my life without my phone. You know, all the typical fears. I'm sure . But yeah, it was, it was life changing and I'm someone that's done a ton of therapy and other things, but this was - Different.
So you had done a lot of therapy prior to the process? - Yes, in my life at different points. Like my parents had a kind of rough divorce when I was in high school and separated. So I did deal therapy for the first time, you know, as my dad was moving out and it was kind of chaotic. And then I did it again in my early twenties when I was having the suicide ideation. I, I was going twice a week and I was like, this is the thing to fix me.
And as you know, it's like therapy can be helpful but if you're not doing that deep inner work, sometimes for myself I would, you know, talk myself into circles and yeah. - Okay. Chelsea, take us into your process. 'cause I'm kind of curious what transformation looked like for you. So see if you can describe those moments of it happening. - Well, like I said, I was very nervous upon arrival. I was like, what if this doesn't work? And I remember on the first day sharing like who we are.
I was like, I don't even know who I am. I felt like at that point in my life I was having a quarter life crisis. I think I was 27, 26, something like that. And I was like, oh my god, I'm, I don't know what my personality is anymore. And I remember just saying, I'm lost. I don't, I don't know why I'm here. I wanna feel better in my life, I guess. And like I said, I, I was so scared to make eye contact with people, to be vulnerable. That wasn't something that I had grown up doing.
So it was kind of scary to just be like, you know, you have to talk about your feelings so deeply. But deeply. I had a great teacher, Jane was my leader actually. You were there that week, I remember as was Barbara. And it was cool 'cause at Q2 I was there for her final session ever. And it was like, oh she was so great. But yeah, it just was like incredible to me. The exercises and ways you express there, you know, it was just so unique unlike anything I had ever attempted.
And it's just so unique. I, I don't even know, maybe if you have a specific, 'cause I don't know how to speak to it even. - Do you remember the grounds? Did you have an experience outside and where were you? - Yeah, so I did it at the old location, which I, I heard burned down, which is such a bummer.
But yeah, I, I remember having nice moments in nature, but honestly I feel like the real moments for me of of having realizations were with my eyes closed, sitting in the rooms during visualizations. Like I had never talked to my spiritual guide or anything like that before going to Hoffman. I was like, what? Like I remember not trusting myself either. And the first times I was asked to do that, you know, like what's a message from your higher self, your spiritual self?
I was like, I think I'm just making this up. Like this isn't real. Like I just had a lot of walls up and now I, I get messages all the time . It's great. - That's fantastic. What are the some of the messages you get when you do ask? - Well I ask for a lot of guidance around career and creative pursuits because I currently don't have like a nine to five a typical career.
So when I'm interested in a project or taking a risk, like I'm gonna reach out to this person or pitch this or try out for that, I check in with myself first. Like is this something that will serve who I am? And I feel like before a lot of times I was always grasping at straws. Like I remember just blindly applying to jobs like oh this has benefits, this is checks this box. I would go through a lot of motions. Whereas now I'm like, is this a good idea?
And I meditate every morning and I get messages. They just kind of, it's just a feeling, you know? Like you can feel like yes this is the right step. - Sounds like your criteria for which jobs to apply to has really changed. - Oh so much. Yeah. It's like night and day . Yeah. - And what's it like in your marriage? How do you and Paul, both of you or grads, just curious how it shows up for you, your Hoffman work in your marriage.
- Well I think it's given us common language because like I said, it was almost two years before I did it after he did it. So when he'd talk about like patterns or like you're having you know, transference or just certain things, I'm like, what are you talking about? Like this doesn't mean anything to me . So I think we talk a lot about patterns. That's something that I'm just always aware of, continually aware of, which has been a gift we check in with each other.
It's just, yeah, it's been really helpful. And I will say in 2021, you know it was still the pandemic. There was a lot of stressful things going on and we were in the middle of making our first feature film together. 'cause we also um, collaborate. We like co-write scripts and stuff.
We were going through a period of like a lot of conflict and we did an online marriage, I don't know the name but it was like a marriage, couple of counseling class through Hoffman and it was like over Zoom 'cause again pandemic. But it was so, so helpful and like the thing I loved the most is every night we had to like maintain eye contact for like two minutes And we still sometimes do that, you know, not even on when we're fighting or in conflict. It's just like, oh I see you, you see me.
And I feel like that's so special and I'm so grateful to be in a marriage that I feel like I'm like with my best friend every day. - Sounds like you have a, both of you have a shared commitment to growth. - Yeah. Yes. I think that's so important 'cause I've been married for I guess six years now. We've been together almost eight years.
And the most important thing, you know, you have to have similar values to your spouse, but we both are always challenging ourselves to grow and we are really supportive of each other's journeys. Like I said, sometimes we collaborate but we have a lot of creative projects we do separately and we're just very supportive of each other. - I'm curious, Chelsea, how the process and the work you did there and in the Q2 show up in work and in relation to your creativity. Do you have a sense of that?
- Yeah, I think it's made me a better actor. But I would say , like I said, I never did acting before because I didn't think it was a real thing I could do. So I think it's helped me to go deeper emotionally and like connecting with myself because man, I don't know how to articulate this, but I feel like I never really went deep. Like I was never super aware of how I felt before the process. Like I knew in a general sense like oh I'm pissed off or I'm happy.
But I couldn't articulate why or or go too deep. So now just the work I did there has helped me so much as an artist and a creative and it's helped a lot with rejection because that was another reason I didn't pursue these things before. I was like, I'll just be a teacher 'cause that's safe and you don't get rejected every day.
Whereas now I get rejected a hundred times and then I book something and I get rejected again and I pitch something and they're like, no. And then you know, it's just an up and down. But I think I'm the kind of person that likes that. So it's helped me with resiliency and like I am a whole person and I don't need like, oh I, I just got released from this pin, you know, this show didn't book me and I don't feel like my whole person is destroyed.
Whereas before I think I was very fragile, you know, I still have my moments. I get disappointed of course, but I am able to have more perspective now. I think - That's beautiful. You know, in the process we talk about that this work doesn't stop patterns from appearing but they show up less intensely, less frequently and they don't last as long. So they're not as intense when they do show up. They don't last as long and they don't show up as often.
And it sounds like that's part of what you experienced. - Yes, absolutely. I feel the biggest change for me emotionally, like what you're saying is I've had a history of depression throughout my whole life.
I don't wanna overshare too much about my parents' journeys, but like my dad has mental health issues and has had depression throughout my life, which is, you know, growing up experiencing that and seeing his struggles, I, I've really struggled with knowing if my depression to an extent was a pattern because I know that it's real.
And I'm not saying it's not real for certain people, but like I actually did a lot of work around this in Q2 where I was like, it's very easy for me to fall back into this mode of despair when I'm bored or I am tired or you know, it was just like, um, it was a pattern and I, I'm not on medication anymore but I was for like two years of my life and I was told by the doctor, you're gonna be on medications the rest of your life. You'll never feel normal, like you'll be suicidal your whole life.
And I don't find that to be the case at all. And it's so much better now. Like when I do feel sad, I can really think about why do I feel this way? One, I still go to therapy once a month so I can, you know, word vomit with my amazing therapist. But it lasts way long. I never ever feel suicidal anymore. Like I love being alive and it's just been the biggest change and I feel like that is something that is a very tricky topic 'cause people will be like, depression is real, like you can't help it.
But I feel like for myself, part of it was a pattern because I had just really grown up with this. I had fallen back into it all of my twenties and I'm like, I don't really think this is working for me anymore. Every time I'm discouraged I don't wanna get so listless and just, yeah, if that makes sense. - It does. You know, some research shows that the hardest emotion to feel is joy. And so I just hear you sort of leaning into that right road of happiness and joy.
What's that like to have done the work to shed the medication and to step into the happiness, the clarity, the joy that your life has for you? That, I love it when you said I like being alive. - Yeah, I mean it's, it's a great feeling and I didn't know if it would ever happen for me. I mean I of course had moments of happiness throughout my life, but I felt like it was very hard for me to consistently feel happiness or joy.
It felt like a fleeting thing and I feel like I was continually chasing it. Like how do I, how do I stay happy but now I do happiness differently. Like I think to an extent it's a choice. I think, I mean I feel it naturally all the time, but in my meditations every morning it's like a guided me one.
So they like kind of give you prompts and I think about what I'm grateful for in my life and I think about things I'm excited about and it's like I'm kind of training my brain to stay in that mode and I work out a lot in the morning and that for anyone who's suffered depression, I feel like that works better for me than any medication ever has.
I work out in the morning or going on a walk and I feel like that like kind of starts up my joy for the day And you know, some days I have a crappy day and I don't feel happy the whole whole day. But overall I'm way happier on a more regular basis than I was before and I just, it's a miracle honestly. - I feel like congratulations are in order here to have done the work to get there. - Yeah, yeah. And I had this feeling or this worry before I did Hoffman.
I'm like, okay, how could one week be more transformative than like however many years of therapy I've done? I'm like, I don't know if that's gonna work. . - Okay, this is a great question and a lot of people have this question, come on really a week. How's that gonna be so much more powerful than ongoing work? So how do you answer that question? Well, - I'll start by saying I've had friends ask me about Hoffman but I never talk about it unless I'm asked because I don't wanna be preachy.
But two, I feel like, you know, people have to wanna do the change. But as far as how it helped me, I think being in isolation, like I, this is sad, but I'd never been without my phone maybe since like middle school on a daily basis I never turn my phone off. So just being isolated in nature and Hoffman is so intense. It's like you wake up at like 8:00 AM and then you're working till like 10:00 PM every day.
So if you count the amount of hours like and span that over a year, it is actually a lot of time. It's just very condensed. So I think being in isolation like that really helps. And I think just, I can't describe it other than it's like you have to go so deep. Like I remember thinking like okay, I've hit the most vulnerable I could be and then it would be like another level and another level learning more about myself and I'm like, I can't be any more vulnerable. Like this is crazy.
Which is also why I think it took me a while to do Q2 'cause I knew it would be a lot of work and it was, but I'm happy I went back. - That is great. I think that is my experience as well is that students think they've hit their limit and there's so much more beyond that and they're surprised and happy that they could go even deeper. Is that part of what you're saying? - Yeah, absolutely.
And it really changed my ideas on personal limits because I've always, or before that I had always been very limited in my thinking. Like I said, I wouldn't allow myself to dream big and I always loved movies and TV and stuff. And I started working as a graphic designer after quit being an art teacher and working on movie posters and working for entertainment brands as a designer, I'm like, now this is close to the action and it's a realistic job but I, I'm not taking any of the risk.
You know, I'm, I'm near it but I'm not taking the risk. So now I just feel like I can be more unlimited because it's like the limit does not exist. It really doesn't. And that's so exciting to me because right now I'm learning a new program to help with visual effects that I can apply to my own content creation. And I have been learning so much about neuroplasticity and kind of conditioning my brain to know like, okay, I can learn this complex thing.
And I feel like I'm even aware of that because of Hoffman. I was like, oh I can have again the limits. I could go a lot deeper and I can learn really hard things and for unlimited beings and I'm more aware of that now. - Beautiful. Do you ever go to grad groups in the area? - I do. I went to one right before the end of 2023. Shout out to Monica who hosted it in Glendale . And that was really nice. I think I, he Hoffman alive for myself by, yeah grad groups is one.
And then I actually just had dinner two nights ago with two people from Q2 'cause someone came into town and I was laughing because it's like right away our dinner conversations are just so deep and it's not like when I go out with some friends I've known way way longer where it's like, oh, you know, like really small talk chit chat or gossip about like the news cycle. But it's like we're just talking about the deepest depths of humanity over chips.
'cause we went to this great Mexican restaurant and then also I think I've led a lot of people in my life to do Hoffman because they've seen such big changes in me. Like my mom has done it. Paul's mom has done it since my sister just did it a few months ago, which I'm very happy because she had been asking me a lot about it. And then I've had friends that have done it because they're just like, wait, why are you different? Like, what's going on? And they've been curious.
It's kind of cool. And I have those conversations all the time. Your - Community is expanding. - Yeah. Yeah. And I I love that. It's so awesome. I wouldn't have expected this. - Is there anything else you wanna share? - Um, yeah actually, so a couple years ago, in 2020 during the pandemic into 2021, I entered this contest, which I found out about like literally less than two weeks before a full feature script was due.
But it was for first time feature filmmakers to make a movie during the pandemic safely. It was called the Six Feet Apart Experiment. And they give like 50 K to five filmmakers. And Paul and I wrote a script and it was, it was about this art teacher who gets dumped during Covid And I actually used a lot of my previous art students as like the kid actors. It was kind of like meta, it was weird.
But anyways, we, it was not about Hoffman but there's a lot of real Easter eggs and lessons through Hoffman kind of infused in the story 'cause it's sort of a lighthearted comedy. And the character who plays my mentor in the film was played by Danny Trejo and we named him Hoffman Garcia. He goes by Doc Garcia, but you only see it on his business card once and it's like Dr. Hoffman Garcia. And we're like, that would be a fun little Easter egg . So it was kind of cool. - That is great.
- Thanks. Yeah. And that's also why we got our tortoise because one of the characters in the movie had a pet tortoise. They needed like a pet to die to go through this grieving process. And we originally wrote a parrot in and we're like, okay, outdoor scenes, the parrot is gonna fly away. What is something that won't run away on set? And we're like a tortoise and you can't really borrow one of those. So we put in the production budget and now we've had him ever since .
He's a lifelong commitment, but it was worth it. I love, love him . - Yeah. Lifelong commitment. Who's gonna outlive you? - Yeah, pretty much. He is gonna be in our family for ages, for decades to come. . - Chelsea, what's it like to remember your Q2 experience, your Hoffman process in 2018? What do you notice in talking about all this? - Um, I feel giggly.
I feel like happy thinking about it because I just, I feel like I won the lottery because I don't ever see marketing for this, which I think is a good thing. You know, you guys aren't like blasting ads everywhere and I feel like I would've never heard of this if I hadn't met Paul. Or maybe I would've, but it would've taken a lot of searching, like self-help. I'm looking for something very specific. So I feel like I'm just lucky.
And I cannot believe, when I think about my early twenties and feeling my lowest, I wish I could tell her like, Hey, it's gonna get so much better. Like your life is gonna be so awesome. Just like don't give up. And I'm really glad Hoffman was a part of my journey. - Chelsea, I'm so grateful for this conversation. Thank you for your time. - Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Drew. - 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.