After the process, being able to self regulate was extremely helpful for me, extremely helpful. I still ask myself every morning, like, what do you need today, Leila? What do you need? What does your spirit need? What does your body need? A radical daily question, isn't it? Mhmm. And it's so simple if you know how to ask the question and you know that there can be an answer. 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. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast. Leila Day is our guest today. Welcome, Leila. Hello. Thank you for having me. Oh, man. We are excited for this conversation. I am excited for this conversation. Leila, this is your field. You're a podcaster. Right?
I am a podcaster, so I feel very much in my element talking to you. I've been doing podcasting for the past 15 years, so I'm pretty deep in it. Yeah. You have worked for public radio before, and you're a founder, cofounder of a podcast called The Stoop. You're the producer of it, the founder. And talk a little bit about The Stoop and what you do there. Yeah. So The Stoop is a podcast about stories from the black diaspora. So I'm African American. My co host is African.
We talk about similarities and differences between our culture. We talk about just black stories, all of their diversity. We like to talk about black joy. We were both journalists from this radio station in San Francisco, me and my cohosts. And we didn't wanna focus on such negative stories around blackness and black people. And we just found a way to create this podcast so we could really show, like, the diversity
of what it means to be black. We can talk we'd have stories about, like, what it means to be a black introvert. We have an episode called Don't Call Me Auntie about that's about me, actually. Right? Issues with being called auntie and ageism and all that kind of thing. But we also combine, like, journalism and storytelling, and we've been going for we have over a 100 episodes now. So it's been ongoing. It's been like an outlet for both of us. You know? It's
like our our baby, our passion project. I love it. And you're involved in another podcast creating and kinda streamlining podcasts for production. Right? And then you're also involved in this new project. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So my background in journalism has led me to be working with a lot of different production companies as an editor.
So I help produce and craft the story of larger projects, maybe like 8 episode series, something that has a narrative arc, something that has a lot of storytelling in it. So I'm working right now with a production company, Higher Ground, which is the Obamas production network. And we're working on something extremely exciting with a lot of incredible, talented guests. And, yeah, there's not so much I can say about it, but it's definitely, it'll be released in about a year.
It's a big challenge, and it's extremely exciting project to work on. What is it about podcasting? It seems like it gives the chance to go a little deeper, to slow it down a little, to use this medium, to really explore the nuances of being human, of being in this world? What do you love about it? I have always loved story and storytelling. And I think when I discovered that podcasting was a way to tell story and personal story, I just fell in love with the
format. I love reporting. I love getting information. I love interviewing people. I love listening. And so for me, podcasting and this type of storytelling, it just really fit into who I am and what I enjoy doing. I just think also I'm a little bit of an introvert in a sense, you know, so it's it's kind of nice to be behind, you know. No one can see me. You can hear my voice. I can say something in a different way if I didn't like how it sounded. I love writing
and podcasting. The type of, storytelling and podcasting that we do involves a lot of writing. It might sound like we're just talking off the cuff, but we aren't. It's very kind of scripted and it's very thought through. And, yeah, I think that it keeps me curious. You know, all these stories, they just keep me curious. That's one thing I kept saying as I age, like, I just want to remain curious. If I can remain curious, I'm happy.
Because that word gets thrown around so often, what what do you mean by curious when you say that? I want to still be able to listen to people, engage with them, be able to be excited about their stories and their experiences. I don't wanna just become numb to people's experiences. I love I feel for me, I kept saying what like I said, like, once I lose that curiosity side of me, I think it's a problem. Like, I really would need to do some soul searching in terms of what is missing here.
You know, something has to be off if you're just not interested anymore. And I've gotten to that point and really had to reset. I'm just kinda curious about that right there. Wasn't the lack of curiosity that you realized was happening, it's what you did with it. And you took that awareness around your lack of curiosity, and it sounds like you asked why, and that why created a reset. Yes. Exactly. It was like the lack of curiosity was a reaction to, like, a symptom. You know what I'm
saying? Like, it wasn't just like it was just gone. It was a reaction because it wasn't me. It was not me. Like, when I woke up and I was like, I'm not interested in what anyone has to say. I don't wanna create anything. I don't wanna hear anyone's story. I wanna sit and stare at the sky. You know, I just don't wanna think about anything anymore. People were telling me very kind of emotional experiences that I should have been excited about, and
I just had no reaction to it. Not excited about their emotional experience, but excited about how do I tell their story in a way that could create some change or inspire someone else. You know? When I started losing the interest in someone's story, I realized, like, something was really, really off. The story I'm making up in this moment is that that led to a a great new project. Was that what led to the stoop? When I started losing interest in break when I started having that
shift, it was after the stoop. I've been doing the stoop for many years. I kept thinking, you know, am I gonna get bored with this? Am I gonna you know, when is it gonna get exhausting? When am I gonna feel like I've we've already told this story before? And I wasn't really feeling it, but something something was kind of just fizzling away in me slowly. And it was during the stoop, and it was during production that I started thinking, like, wow. Something's missing. Like, something is off.
And that's actually what led me to Hoffman. Oh, I was just gonna ask about Hoffman, and you gave a beautiful segue. So take us there. You're you're waking up. It's not working. You're not feeling the aliveness that you want. How did that lead to Hoffman? I've been asking people about this because other artists have been saying, like, have you ever felt you've lost your art? Like, you've lost your ability to create, that you're just not good at it anymore. And maybe I kept thinking, is it age?
Like, is it is this what aging means? Does it mean that I'm not gonna be interested in my art? I'm not gonna be interested in my craft? I was so confused. You know? So I was doing all the things. I was exercising. I was, you know, trying to do all the things to make me excited or feel different again. I just felt, like, little by little, like, I felt like this light that I had just extinguished. I felt so very lost. I was feeling, like, just very disconnected.
I had a story that I knew was in me, and I knew I really wanted to make. And I was sitting on it for months, you know, not able to create it. And I knew it was there, and I just put it off and put it off. And I just felt like I don't wanna make anymore. I don't wanna make the stories anymore. I have no interest in this anymore. I think I'm done. I was telling my cohost, you know, I'm I'm not sure I'm not sure if I I can do this anymore. She, you know, she was devastated, you know.
I was like, what what how can I get we get you inspired again? Like, what can we do? Maybe you need to take a break. I was working multiple jobs at the same time, you know. I was going going going going going. It was like a pressure cooker, and I just stopped. Just stopped. And I was also going through some personal things too. It was the end of a a relationship.
It was also a lot of emotions that were coming up for me all at the same time about my father passing away, who had passed away 4 years prior, but it took like it seemed like at that time, it was all coming up. I think with the end of a relationship of not understanding if I'm good at what I do or if I care anymore, knowing that I'm pushing 50, what does that mean? My body's
changing. I'm not I have no appetite. Like, all these different things, I was just like, this is what it means to just, like, have, like, a a midlife crisis or something. I said, this this is must be what it feels like because I just felt like this is the new me, and I I'm scared. I was so scared. I was so scared that this was gonna be, like, this feeling of of darkness was gonna be my new new.
I start reaching out to friends. I told them, I said, I can't explain it, but but my mind and my body and my soul feel like they're completely disconnected. I can't even hear myself think. I I I can't even understand, like, how to put things together. I'm not sure what I'm needing. And a friend of mine went to Twitter, went to the socials, and I said, I just wanna go somewhere for, like, a month or so or just, like, reset. Like, maybe I just need a reset. Like,
I kept asking for that. And she's she reached out on social media. Does anyone know of any sort of program that can help people feel in sync? And someone responded, the Hoffman process. So I started reading about it. I contacted Hoffman right away. I literally read about it for, like, 15 minutes. I was like, I need to do this. This sounds amazing. You know? I contacted Hoffman right away.
And within a couple days, I was on the phone with someone who was just, like, walking me through what was to be expected. So then you show up, and what happens? Take us into your process, Leila. You went in California? I did. I went in California. I was blank, a complete shell of myself. I don't even recognize who I was when I was at Hoffman. I was just a shell. Like, I was like a zombie walking. I went to the process not knowing anything about it because I didn't wanna read anything.
And I actually to be honest, Drew, it wasn't that I didn't wanna read. I actually didn't even have the desire to read anything really to go into depth about it. I was just like, I need something. I need it. I go to Hoffman, and I didn't know what to expect. You know, I did the materials beforehand, and I was thinking, oh, this is very interesting. Like, listening about my mother's patterns, my father's, my stepfather.
And I was seeing, like, some connections there beforehand, but I said, let me just go to the process and feel what this is all about. I was very, very to myself in the process. I was very, kind of isolated in the beginning. I didn't wanna really engage with people. When they said there there's no talking through breakfast or no talking through certain activities, I was like, fine. I'm fine with that. I I do not need to engage with anyone.
And there was a lot that I started started recognizing about myself, like right in the beginning. I think that for me personally, I immediately went into this very, very reclusive quiet space when I was at Hoffman in the beginning because I was associating it with my past experiences growing up of being, like, the only black kid in white spaces. So I was became this observer
as I have in the past. I think when I was younger, when I, you know, I went to, like, a a lot of the kids in my school were white, I've often felt kind of isolated, and I tried not to make myself too loud, too seen, or anything like that. I was more of the observer, and I felt myself reverting back into that mode again. And I really had to think about that because I was moving through some of the experiences, but not like some of my other Hoffman brothers and sisters were. You know?
I was moving through them as an observer and not participating fully. I I was just felt so insecure and so, like, in this bubble. And I remember my instructor pulling me to the side during the experience and saying, Leila, you know, I see I'm witnessing, like, your reactions to things, and I want you to talk me through it. And I explained to him, like, I am realizing that when I'm in these situations, I just become when I feel like I'm the only person there, I feel like maybe other
people realize I'm the only person. I become very, very insular and very observant. And he was saying, well, that's that's wonderful that you are an observer. That's part of your beautiful character. You know, everything's like, well, that's okay. You know? But also, you're missing out on the opportunity to engage and and to really take away from this experience because you're using your past pattern of withdrawing and observing.
And that is a pattern that you've used your whole entire life in these situations when you're the only. And imagine if you if you actually, Leila, like, took control of that and deconstructed that pattern, and you became involved and engaged and felt like your true self and not the observer because you're the only, don't let, like, that pattern
take away from your experience here. And don't associate people with that negative pattern, you know, because everyone here is is trying to do the same thing as you, but you're associating it with this negative pattern, and you're you're gonna have to try to kind of look at that. And that for me, Drew was one of, like, the biggest breakthroughs for me. It was
pretty amazing. Because imagine everyone's dancing, everyone's laughing, everyone's telling jokes, and I'm just like on the outskirts kind of just observing, you know. And I started thinking about, like, how many times have I gone through life not engaging fully for that very reason? Because I felt like the only the outsider that that I needed to mute, silence myself, that I didn't wanna be seen too much, I didn't wanna be heard too much, I didn't wanna be the center of attention.
How many times did I do that my whole life? You know? And that's why I started the stoop, was because I wanted to voice my opinion. I wanted to talk about what I felt in those situations. I wanted to be vulnerable just like this conversation that we're having right now is something I would be talking about in the stoop. And I was like, wait. I broke that mold years ago when I started the stoop and I started to let
this out. Why am I reverting to it now And this place that was built for me to grow. I am stunting my growth. I am the reason why I won't grow in this moment. And it was in that moment that I just decided, like, that is no longer going to be, like, my narrative. As you look back at her in your process, how do you feel talking about her in that moment? When I look back at the Leila in that process, I mean, I'm proud of her, but my initial feeling is I feel sorry for
her. I felt sorry for her that she had had made herself so small, and she's not a small person. She's not a small person at all. She's a big personality. She has a lot to say. She's has she wants to engage. You know? She can turn on and turn off. You know? She she's also always been a light. Like, I've always been that. My mom used to say, when you were a baby, you used to walk up
to strangers and just say hello. And I'd always be afraid that you'd be kidnapped because you were just so nice and you would just go out to everybody. And I used to think about her telling me that and think like, well, when did that change? Why did that change with me? When did I start becoming this like this person that was like on the outskirts? And I did that to myself. I do look back and I I don't blame her, but I can look at her and say, you were reacting to insecurities.
You were reacting to trying to protect yourself. You were reacting to trying to move through this world in a way that would make you feel safe. I don't blame her for, you know, living that way for so long because there's a lot that's come out of that. I think part of the things that I do on the stoop, it's almost like an acknowledgment of a pattern and then questioning it. But I never even realized that's what I was doing on the stoop. But that is what we're what we're doing. We're acknowledging
something. We're not saying we have the answer to it, but we're questioning it. We're acknowledging a behavior. We're starting to question it. And it all has to do with, you know, blackness. But, yeah, I do feel proud of her still. I'm just so appreciative of how you're reflecting. If listeners could see you at your faces deeply in the experience of reflection, You also have a great voice now, I know why podcasting is so your thing. So you get that feedback. It resonates with you.
And you make a commitment in that moment, it sounds like, to approach the week differently. That is not gonna be me, that's not gonna be my future, and it's not gonna be how I show up the rest of this week. So what happens then? It was interesting because right away, I had noticed that people had formed connections with people right away, you know, at Hoffman. And I was still just drifting, like, loner, like, very kind of isolated.
When I decided that I was not going to allow that to happen, I started voicing my opinion. I started speaking up in the group sessions. I started pushing back on things about myself, you know? Like, wait, why are you doing that? Why are you even thinking that way? You know, you've just had this amazing experience where you wrote an essay about, you know, all the beautiful qualities about yourself. Like, why are you so negative? Like, I was I could be very hard on myself, like, very
hard. And so one of the first things I started doing, I would say to myself over and over again, this is quite in the beginning, like, you're encouraged to think of what you would say to yourself to calm yourself. And I would just remember I kept saying to myself over and over again with my hands on my heart, like, I am love, I am light, I am loving. I just kept saying it to just reassure myself because I was so negative about myself.
So negative. I you know, it didn't matter how many awards you win, how many lists you're on, how many people talk about your podcast, or how many, you know, accomplishments that you can have throughout your life. It was just like, I was still so negative. And so one of the things that I started doing right away was just saying, no, wait Leila, you did that. You did that. You are good at what you do. You are a good listener. You are capable. Where did And the question like, how did
you get to this low? Like, how did you get to this place where you were so hard on yourself? That was the first thing I started doing. I needed my self esteem to be lifted. And I think that when you're in a very deep, dark place, you reach sometimes I I started to reach out to people around me, before Hoffman to kind of get that help. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm good at anymore. As much as they could call me at all hours and check on me, are you
okay? We'll let you know. You can do this. You you are good at this. You are good at talking to people. You are good at your job. You are loving. You are caring. You are a good partner. Like as much as people would say those things to me, I would revert right back
to the negative. And I think what Hoffman did in the beginning for me after I started realizing my pattern of of withdrawing and observing and not engaging was I started to say to myself all of the encouraging and positive things that that I needed to hear. Because I started realizing it's actually it's actually me that needs to build myself up. Like I can't reach out to anyone else anymore about it. I mean, their friends are always there and they're always incredible.
But no matter what they were saying, it wasn't getting through. It was me. So it was those walks and lying outside under the trees and writing letters to my mom and my dad, things that I've never said to them before. Writing letters to myself. I journaled until my hands were achy. I was just squeezing every ounce of it out. I just wanted every driplet of information. I started going to other people's groups and their instructors and talking to them about things. Like, I just
opened up. I just really, really opened up. And I started realizing, damn, these people have been opening up for, like, couple days few days before me, and I'm just getting into it. So by the time the process was over, I was like, can we do can we stay for another week? I was really wanting to just to keep going. When it ends, you're kind of just wondering, like, is what what am I gonna do? How am I gonna carry this on with me? How am
I gonna keep this going, this feeling? Because I feel changed. It really, really set the foundation for me moving forward to where I am right now. I'm curious about that process moving forward and what happened over your weekend and in the weeks following, Leila. What was that like? You didn't stay a second week. So what happened? Is that an option? I have to say the 2 days after the process were extremely difficult for me. I read
over everything that I was doing. I I just kept journaling, writing. I stayed in a hotel for a couple days. I felt a little bit like, you know, how am I gonna continue this feeling? Right when I left, I I started feeling not like just just worried that I was gonna revert into where I was before I came. When I returned home, I feel like that was the time for me, maybe 2 to 3 months after the process, that it really, really started becoming like a part of my life. I wrote every day.
It's for me. It's for me to get out there on the page. I had this moment too where I started feeling, I love my friends and family. They are they were my foundation. They really lift me up and and are amazing people. But there's some things that I need to work through on my own at this point. And as much as they wanna check-in on me and as much as I wanna, like, workshop things with them, there was a lot
that I needed to figure out. I do remember this is right after the process, about a week after I got back. And again, I was very emotional, and you can feel it from, like, your the pit of your stomach up into your chest and just, like, the tightness in your chest and the and the, you know, your head starts to feel heated, and it just feels like you're up kinda started boiling. I was crying. I was driving. When I've had this feeling before, it happened a few times before,
I thought I needed medical attention. Like, I thought, you know, I might have a heart attack. What's going on? And in that moment, the busy LA freeway, I pulled off the side of the road, and I put my hands on my heart and I was just breathing deep, as deep as I could. And I kept saying to myself, I am love. I am light. I am loving. I am love. I am light. I am loving. And I kept saying to myself, things that I learned in the process. You know? What do you need right now, Leila? What do
you need? What do you need? You know? I answered that question for myself. I remembered something that really stick out for me in the process too, which is but really puts things into perspective when I'm going through those moments, which is, you know, I'm suffering, everybody suffers, and this will pass. For me that self regulation, that ability to calm myself down, to ask myself, what do you need, Leila? What do you need? And it might just be simply like, Leila, you
need to just stop and breathe. Just stop and breathe. You need to go for a walk. You need to call your mom. You know? But when you're in it, when you're working all these jobs and you're doing all these things and you're just going going going, you you just become disconnected. And like I said, my spirit was here. My body was here. They were all just like nothing was connected. I just felt like I was just, you know, discombobulated.
So that for me after the process of being able to self regulate was extremely helpful for me. Extremely helpful. I still ask myself every morning, like, what do you need today, Leila? What do you need? What does your spirit need? What does your body need? A radical daily question, isn't it? Mhmm. And it's so simple.
If you know how to ask the question and you know that there can be an answer, there's something about TikTok therapy or those kind of self help routines that you can find online or in a book that just they weren't resonating with me. I just thought it was fluff, but it was until, like, I really started to get connected to who I am and to rebuild that confidence about who I am that it started making sense to me what those questions really mean and what gratitude journaling really means.
I started showing up. I wanted to be a better friend. I wanted to be a better daughter. I just wanted to be a better everything, but I also wanted to be, like, a better caregiver of myself. I tell people about that I did the process and a little bit about what it is, but I honestly feel like it's so hard to explain to people what I went through and what it meant for me. But when I do explain just the simple thing that I learned about
putting my hands on my heart. And and sometimes I ask people to do this with me that are having a really hard time, and they feel better afterwards. And so I know that it's something too that that pause is is just it can be really helpful for people. Do you have people you know do the process after you? After I did the process, I came back. I had a conversation with my mom and my sister. They could see a a huge change in me.
I'm not saying everything was perfect afterwards. I went through my moments, my peaks and valleys, but I did have ways to to understand what I was going through. I told my sister, and a couple months later, she was at the same process that I was at. I worked with Ian. He was in my group, and she worked with Regina, who I deeply love. I actually did a podcast episode about Regina because her her story is so incredible. But my sister ended up going to Hoffman. Transformative for her.
She, as a parent and a business owner, was looking at ways to just really live life to its fullest and understand herself better. And it was for her an incredible experience. Then my mom who also was just so intrigued by everything we did, she ended up doing the online version of it. My mom was 78 when she did it, and she did it. This is the 2 day course called Hoffman Essentials. She absolutely loved it. I mean, I was concerned because, you know, she's on Zoom. She's got the technology there.
I was like, is she gotta be on mute when she needs to be on mute? Is she gonna be but, you know, she figured it out. Mom was there. She was engaging in the questions, looking at our patterns, and sometimes I'll talk to her, like, about the patterns that we both have, that we all have. And, you know, we acknowledge them. It's not a criticism to say, oh, you know, that's a pattern. Normally, that's a criticism in our the way
we would talk in our family. If you're calling out something that you feel is, like, negative, but we can all recognize that it's something to be talked about and maybe addressed and maybe shifted. And so all 3 of us, yeah, have had half moon in our lives. That's fantastic. And often we talk about patterns coming from our parents, our caregivers. In your case, your mom, your dad, but also your stepdad. Right. Yeah. But there's also cultural patterns, societal patterns.
As a black woman, it sounds like you had a chance to name and identify and work with some of the systemic cultural patterns that you experienced growing up? There's resonance there? Yeah. Definitely. I mean, I think that for me, the tendency to make myself quiet and unheard, not the loudest voice in the room, you know, not to get too upset. Don't let them see you get too emotional. When you have a very strong opinion, you are considered an angry black woman, so, you know, watch your tone.
Those things really came up for me. I I have to say I they came up in a way where I recognize that there are spaces where I feel very comfortable in being myself and voicing my opinion, and there are spaces where I feel just a little bit silenced. You know?
I think what happens when, you know, as a black woman, when I am holding back in life, you know, when I'm holding back, when I'm not engaging, when I'm not gonna let them see my expression on my face, I'm not gonna I'm not even gonna comment on that, I'm not gonna and when you keep holding back for that long, at some point, you explode. And that was my pattern. I would hold back. Wait. I'm gonna bite my tongue on this. I'm not gonna say anything. I don't wanna be that person in the room.
And then at some point, I would explode. For me, I felt like I exploded. But for me, it's just like, I'm gonna voice my opinion. I'm gonna say what I'm saying. I'm gonna tell you what I think right now. It felt like an explosion for me because I had kept it in for so long, but I'm actually just, like, being emotive and being conversational and being, like, wait, this is what I really feel about this.
For me, it would come across as a way that was felt like a little bit hyper emotional because I would held hold it in for so long. I started thinking about like, gosh, how many black women do this? When they do express themselves, it's like you have something to say. So you're saying it and you're expressing and you're you know, I haven't said this for the past year or the past month or whatever, you know. And all of a sudden, you know, you hear from someone saying, oh, you were really,
really angry and upset in that meeting. It's just like, well, first of all, I was expressing what I felt. But also, second of all, what do you expect if I've been silent for so long? What do you expect? Like, of course, I'm gonna have a reaction. So I think for me personally, it's like the cultural side of it is like, I'm not going to kind of explain myself any longer. I'm going to express what I'm feeling. And another thing that I'm just trying to do is in the moment when I'm feeling a certain
way, I'm going to express it then. Because what happens with this pattern of mine was that I'll go through meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting or whatever and not say anything. And then all of a sudden, I'm just I've had it. I feel like I've had it. At the same time, it's okay if I've had it. It's okay. You know? So those were some cultural things I started, like, being hyper aware of in Hoffman.
And it'd be interesting to see, like, if it was inversed, you know, if Hoffman if it was more Jordy Black, what would it be like for for other folks there, you know, if it was a different balance. Right? Right. That's a great question. For you, it almost simulated your childhood experience of being one of the few blacks in a white dominant world. Right? Yeah. It definitely did. And I think, like, to be completely honest, when I first walked in, I thought, did I make the right decision to come
here? Like, is is this space for me? I don't think this space is for me. And it made me withdraw. And I could see that my instructors were noticing that. And they let me work through those things, and then they addressed it. They asked me to address it. They asked me to talk about it. They asked me to express, like, what was going through my mind and why I wasn't fully engaged.
Like I said, it was in that moment where I started realizing, I'm not going to let, you know, the way that the system is set up, where I am the only black person here in the group, to affect how what I get out of this experience. And that's exactly what my instructor told me. Don't let the system affect your experience. And that's the same thing within Hoffman as out of it. Like, I'm gonna not gonna let the system affect my experience and how I I move
through this world. Leila, we have been talking for a while now, and you're you've been reflecting on your experience during that week and in the weeks following the weekend after, but you also reflected a bunch on how you felt before you came to the process. And the friend who posted on social media asking about any places that are appropriate for somebody who's looking for a break and someone suggested Hoffman. What's it been like for you to be verbalizing out loud all of this
about your life and your experience? What do you notice about that? It's interesting because I told someone I was gonna be speaking with you and they were like, what are you gonna say? Don't say too much, Leila. That sounds personal. And I was like, you know what? I'm okay with talking about this. I just feel like we all go through these moments of not having clarity, and some of us maneuver them differently than others. And some of us us really need to talk things through, and think
things through, or walk things through. And I'm one of those people. Like, I am very, very analytical. I I question everything. I'm I'm curious about, like, why did I think that? And why did that person say that? And why did I react that way? So I think it's if it's for people that are wanting to question themselves and really kind of dig deep, I think that talking about this is very helpful.
I think that talking about what you're going through and those start times, it's very helpful because we're not always in those light, happy, you know, skipping through the daffodil moments. And and I think that you can hear someone on a podcast or see them at work and think, like, oh, they have or see them on Instagram, like, oh, my gosh. They're living their best life. Yeah. We're all going through it. We're all going through it at
some point or another. And I I have to say, like, I was in a very confused place at that time pre Hoffman, and I can honestly say that I know that I'll never be there again. I know that. I know that because I know much better who I am now and and how to handle those moments, but I'm also okay with explaining that's where I was at. I'm okay with it because I I actually don't want my closest friends or anyone to feel that they're,
that they're that lost. And the way that we can we can help each other, I think, is just by explaining, like, your truth. Right? For me personally, I know some people are a little bit more guarded about it, but I'm really happy to share my story. Leila, you and I were about to wrap up, and then you just shared something about a recording you did 2 weeks after Hoffman and what happened with that recording. Can you just share? Yeah. Well, before I went to Hoffman, I
was having this block. I just couldn't find any motivation to tell story. I was a little bit lost. I was like, am I good at this anymore? I don't know what to write. I don't know what to do. I had an episode that I've been sitting on for months, and I just couldn't bring myself to write it, to interview, to put the the script together, to create the piece. And 2 weeks after when I got back from Hoffman, I outlined the piece.
I wrote the script. It was such an emotional piece for me because it was about Charleston, South Carolina and the black hands that built that city that are sort of invisible and noticing all the details like the fingerprints of former enslaved people and the bricks and the cast iron gates that are made by, like, these beautiful artists that go unrecognized. And it was like a walk through the streets of Charleston, and it I just poured my heart into this episode.
It came out so easily for me. My editor was just like, you did it and you've been sitting on this for months. And then what happened was that episode ended up winning a very prestigious journalism award called a Gracie Award. I was so honored. I walked a red carpet, you know, wear my gown, had my makeup on. And it was almost like the I am back moment after Hoffman. So that was a highlight of my year. Beautiful.
I'll send you that image too because the dress, I gotta tell you, Drew, it was quite quite the sunnah. We will post a link to that episode, a link to the stoop even if you're open, image of you in the dress as walking that red carpet? Yeah. I'll send it to you. It was, it was an incredible experience. And when I told my sister that I got the award, it was after she had gone to Hoffman. And I just remember her on the phone. She was just crying so happy for me. She was just so happy.
And she's like, you know, you did it. You did this. And I could tell it was like that Hoffman energy of just like, you got this. You know, you got this. And we're just like 2 sisters on the phone crying about it. It was really, really special. Incredible. Well, for the second time now, Leila, thank you for your heart, for your time for this conversation. Thank you. Thank you for listening to our podcast. My name is Liza Ingrassi. I'm the CEO and president of Hoffman Institute Foundation.
And I'm Raz Ingrassi, 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 hompaninstitute.org.