I feel like everyone can benefit, and everyone's lives can be kind of shinier and brighter and more filled with love. So, yeah, I just want as many people to go as possible, to be honest. Welcome to Love's Everyday Radius, a podcast brought to you by the Hoffman Institute. My name is Liz Severn. And on this podcast, we will explore graduates' journeys of self discovery and learn how the process transformed their internal and external worlds. Hope you enjoy.
Hello. I am so excited because today with us, I have Elise Godinho. Hi, Elise. Hello, Liz. How are you? I'm doing wonderful. I, I have the pleasure of getting to know you in real life. We, did a course together, but so I know a little bit about you in real life, but I'm just so excited to kinda get to share your energy and your story with our audience today. Thank you so much for having me. I am incredibly honored to be here today.
Aw. Well, so, Elise, you'll have to interrupt me if if I miss anything, but you are a pretty amazing human, pretty rad on all fronts, but one of the main things they're are doing in the world is you are a financial adviser and consultant. Right? And and mainly for women. Is that correct? Yes. Definitely more millennial women focused at this point for sure. Rough it. And live in Hawaii. Right? Maui? Is that right? Yes. Live in Maui. Yep. And, pretty avid surfer.
Yes. Definitely try to be on the surf more, work less program if I can help it for sure. I love it. I hear it's a lifestyle down there. Oh, yes. Yes. It is for sure. Well, we're excited to have you. I love when we when we've talked, in the past just about you and Hoffman and all the things, you had this really succinct way of just saying, yeah, there was this Elise before Hoffman and an Elise
after Hoffman. Right? And 2 totally different people, but I'd love it if you could start us off of in kind of what did that look like? Elise before Hoffman, who was she? Yeah. So I think just Hoffman I didn't even know that there was kind of a before and after, so to speak, until I went to Hoffman and kind of had the experience, but I think Alyse before Hoffman was just kind of shrouded with this kind of angry cloud and very anxious kind of energy.
And, again, I didn't necessarily know that this was happening until the absence of this anger and anxiety. Kind of generally angry. My anxiety wasn't necessarily for kind of short term things, but more, like, longer term, what's going to happen in the 20, 30 year plus future. And I think I just had a lot of trauma that I had never acknowledged, to be honest, until the pre work and that I had certainly never worked through.
And I just think this anger and underlying anxiety was just such a cloud in my life. And, again, I didn't even know that it existed until its absence that kind of cleared away through the work that we did at Hoffman. I'd always love to hear how did you hear about Hoffman to begin with. Yeah, that's a great question, and I actually love telling the story. Hoffman had kind of always been on my radar kind of as long as I remember because my stepdad actually went to Hoffman many, many years ago.
He kind of had some kind of intense family trauma, so it had always really been on my radar. And then his daughter, who's also her name is Elise also, which is cool, She had gone and had really favorable results, so I kind of always knew that it existed. And it was kind of this, like, future thing that I knew that I kind of needed to do, but I never really had the drive to sign up until I've been living in Maui for almost 6 years, and my life is pretty idyllic on
the on the outskirts. You know, like, the dolphins are literally jumping and the rainbows are literally happening every day, and I kind of have a good work life balance, so I don't really have extraneous pressures. It just really became clear that the anger and anxiety was coming from this internal source. It was coming from myself, and it wasn't these extraneous circumstances.
So I just remember kind of feeling so overwhelmed with anxiety and kind of so clouded by anger that I remember I was driving home with tears in my eyes, just feeling these kind of overwhelming feelings, and that's the day I signed up. I was like, I need help. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what this is. You know, traditional talk therapy kind of isn't satiating whatever is happening, but this is kind of a a bigger thing that I have to deal with, and I signed up
that day. Wow. And you said you hadn't even sort of thought of hadn't really told some people, hadn't really addressed some of the things until you started your prework? Yeah. So most of kind of my underlying trauma and some abuse, I literally had never shared with anyone until I was physically typing it on my computer with the prework prompts, and I almost kind of withheld it. I'm not really sure why.
I think, historically, it's always been kind of this push through mentality, like, just suck it up and move forward. That's kind of how I dealt with everything in my life. So just kind of going through that prework process was also just kind of such a big inflection point to just acknowledge some of these things that had kind of previously happened that turned out to kind of
consume me in such a profound way. It's massive to sort of be sitting there in front of your computer, be confronted with some of those questions right on their pre work. And so what was the little spark or the little shift in energy where you thought, all right, I am going to be truthful here or I am going to reveal some of this because we talk about the pre work is yes for your teacher to read, but it really is this beginning of a discovery of your own self. Right? And so I I love this idea
of, like, you were confronted with, wait. What do I do here? Do I do I put down the honest truth? Do I allow myself to to kinda come face to face with some of these things? So walk me through, like, what that felt like, how you managed to to move through that. Yeah. That's a great question. I think I actually omitted it originally and kind of proceeded with the subsequent questions.
But I think as I was continuing on and the questions kind of go deeper and deeper and just it's such a holistic experience to fill the pre workout, I returned to those questions, and I think my mentality was, like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this right, and I just need help. And I need to just focus in and hone in and just be super open and truthful, and I just wanna get 100% of what I can out of this. And that mentality definitely translated to my approach to the process as well.
Day 1, I was bought in and just ready to go because I just feel like I was so raw. I was like, I don't know what I need, but I need to be doing something, and I'm just gonna trust 100% what's happening here. Right. You just said it. I need help. Yeah. For sure. Well and so your the timing of when you did the process was quite crucial as well. Right? And so a little bit of of background. Right? But the Maui fires, the line of fires started relatively close to when you were prepping to
come. Right? Yeah. So the fires were on August 8, 2023 and my process began August 11, 2023. So 2 days before. Well, walking me through what did what state were you in? I mean, 2 days before, was there a chance you were like, I'm not even gonna be able to make it or I need to reschedule or walk us through that. It was incredibly chaotic, needless to say, and my focus wasn't even on Hoffman. Like, I didn't didn't even we didn't even know what day it was, day of the week, time of day, anything
like that. I feel like we were just all in such survival mode. So there was just kind of this underlying chaos and hysteria that was happening because I myself don't live in Lahaina, but we still had the upcountry fires and the Palaihi fire. 1 was right above my house and one was right below my house, and those were actively raging, I guess, and you could see the
smoke. You could smell the smoke. The fire engines were going, and the police cars, and the military was here, and the choppers and the planes and kind of all this kind of chaos was ensuing. And it was still it was still windy and the fires were still raging, and there was no kind of end in sight. So we were just kind of panicked across the board. We didn't have any idea what was going on in Lahaina the 1st day because the information was so
slow to get out. But I had a genuine concern that my house was in danger just based on the direction of the wind. Yeah. It was insane. Like, we didn't have cell service. We didn't have Wi Fi. We didn't have power, so I couldn't even communicate outwardly. Basically, I tried to reach out to my mom and kind of text her intermittently, and I was like, hey. Hoffman's in a couple days. Can you communicate with them? So she kind of handled that communication because I could
barely get messages out to her. And then, basically, the day before I had spoken to someone at Hoffman and we kinda figured out a plan, literally, it was, like, the last thing on my mind. It was just utter chaos and everyone panicking. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm in it with you. I mean, I'm just thinking about just you know, the last thing that would be on your mind is let me go collect some mementos for for my Hoffman journey.
So was there a decision point of, like, I'm I'm gonna still go or kind of take us take us to getting on the plane? Yeah. That was a drama in itself. As we were driving down from my house to the airport in the rearview mirror, I could literally see the fire above my house still burning. I remember I was driving and I'm like, What am I doing? Like, How am I leaving my family and my house right now? Like, this is so irresponsible and illogical. What if we have to evacuate?
You know, What if we have to kind of be in a shelter? Kind of all these things were running through my mind as this fire was bearing down on me. But for some reason, like, physically, my body was kind of continuing on to the airport, continuing through security, continuing to get kinda get myself to the gate. I remember I was sitting at the gate, and I was just, like, every logical bone in my body is telling me to go home and protect my house, protect my family, and protect the community.
But for some reason, I still got on that plane, so So it was kind of this, like, intrinsic knowledge or kind of higher knowledge that I'd just started to experience where it was like, I need to be on this plane right now. This is the direction I have to go, but it came down to the wire. I think I was one of the last people to board the plane. Yeah. It was pretty heavy. Ah, I mean, I get chills as you say that because against every logical bone in your body, like,
I need to stay. And then there was this deep calling of, like, and you need to go. Well and so you show up. You make it. What was your emotional state? So on top of, you know, on top of just being nervous, setting into something unknown, what was day 1 like for you? You had to turn in your phone, kind of disconnect all over again. Yeah. I felt just utterly exhausted before I even began. I just felt kind of overwhelmed and, like, feeling all the feelings that you could
ever feel. So it was kind of this, like, almost this exhaustion that I was already so raw and so stripped down. I was almost like I was primed for the process because it was like, I don't have any blockers up. I don't have any kind of logical mental capacity to restrict myself here. Like, here I am in my raw being, like, let's do this. That's kind of how I felt because I had just been so heightened in the in the days before.
Yeah. Perfectly primed and ready. And, I mean, I see it all the time, but it's such a it's a humbling place to be in that sort of energy, but it's also so deeply powerful. Yeah. And everyone was so incredibly supportive and just kind of just being so helpful. And a lot of the people are from Northern California or Southern California who had evacuations before and kind of the Hoffman history with fire also. I just felt like I'm not alone with how I feel
at all. So that was kind of an interesting response that I didn't anticipate at all. Yeah. Well and so there's a little more magic as I hear from when you got my first day showing up, bunch of strangers, bunch of teachers, and there was some Hawaii connections there. Yeah. I thought I was gonna be the only person from Maui, and it's gonna be like a lot of San Francisco, New York executive types. But 2 of the teachers lived in Hawaii, and, actually, one of the women in my group was
from Maui. So I just kind of I was like, no way. How can this be? So that just made me feel so safe and so comfortable. Yeah. Just the fact that both teachers were from Hawaii and to have someone also from Maui is like, wow. There's this group here, you know, and a little bit of collective healing and holding already, day 1. I just love that part of the story. Yeah. Absolutely. It was it was pretty magical once I kind of discovered that, for sure. And then move us through the week. You
know what? What was it during the week? I know it's a long week, a powerful week, but is there a moment that you kind of remember from your process of, wow. This is it. This is what I came for. I'm here. Yeah. I mean, I think kind of like I was saying earlier, I was ready to go. I had the buy in. I was like, whatever is happening, I'm just gonna dive into this. So I feel so grateful that it didn't take me any time to warm up or kind of buy in, so to speak.
So I just felt really, like, open, ready, and raw, which I think kind of heightened my whole experience because I just started from the ground running, I think. But one of the most impactful and transformative and almost binary experience that I had was we had done a really heavy kind of longer visualization, and towards the end, one of the teachers kind of wanted to acknowledge anyone
suffering. So he kind of mentioned suffering from disease, suffering from natural disaster, kind of that type of stuff, and it was towards the end, and we were kind of coming out of this visualization. It was kind of to end end this section, and that just something triggered within me, basically, the floodgates to open. And I just had this kind of intense cry and by cry, it was more of like a wallow.
Like, every emotion that I had felt for the past 31 years that I had repressed or kept inside me, it just felt like was totally unlocked and just flooding out of me uncontrollably in that moment from that trigger. It was kind of juxtaposed because everyone else was coming down and feeling really safe and warm, and they were gonna move on to the next kind of whatever we were doing, but I had just really begun this process.
And everyone else had left the room except the teachers, and I was sitting in my chair, and I was hunched over, and it was just uncontrollable sobbing. And my teacher, Alicia, came over to me and comforted me, but it was still, like, uncontrollable. Like, I didn't know what was happening. I was trying to get it together, but I just couldn't. And then Danny, the other teacher from Oahu, came over. I was like, But Maui, like, Maui's hurting so hard. Like, what do we do? What do
we do? And he just really helped helped me through that to, like, feel Maui's pain, but also feel my own pain and the people of Maui's pain and kind of all these things. I can't really put it into words necessarily, but just he hugged me for minutes, it seemed, and we just felt that, and we just sat in that. And that was just such an impactful moment where I released everything that I had been holding, Maui, but my own kind of personal traumas, and that was what led it out.
And then after that, I felt, like, totally transformed. Like, I no longer had these feelings and no longer had this anger and no longer had this anxiety because it just completely left my being and my body and my soul. So incredibly powerful. Right? And I know the moment you're talking about in that visualization, but to to hear the connection between, you know, you left Maui in this state of a natural disaster.
Right? And that to have that be acknowledged, but then also let that be this eruption point. I'm grieving for my community, the land, Hawaii, and then all of this deep personal grief from the decades comes through. It's like It was almost like Maui served as kind of like a conduit for me to open up and allow myself to feel because I don't think I had ever allowed myself to feel these feelings for 31 years, to be honest. Yeah. The cathartic energy. Right? Release of that.
Yeah. It was pretty overwhelming and physically exhausting, but I think that was the, you know, pivotal moment. I feel like during the process, you have so many inflection points and so many learnings and so many moments, but that was just so incredibly impactful. I feel like I'm gonna start crying now just even talking about it. Yeah. Beyond beautiful to have it all line up like that.
Well, so beautifully said. Right? Like, Maui served this purpose to to help be the conduit to to release those decades of trauma and pain and suffering and also to be in a space where you can grieve all of that. Yeah. Absolutely. So safe, so supported, and people that knew what I was feeling and what I was going through. Okay. So moving through the week, was it hard to to kind of stay focused on your work given everything that you knew was happening outside of the process?
I think it was always there kind of in the back of my mind and something I knew that I was going to have to confront when I kind of reentered society, so to speak. But I feel like even though it was there, I still was able to do the work internally. And I even kind of, in my own healing, was trying to incorporate Maui into that also. Well and so, yes, the week is intense, and we just talked about this profound moment, but walk us through then reentering
life. So after this intense emotional release and week and experience at Hoffman, you know, how did your perspective on life and what you were returning to shift? It was kind of split between I'm so stoked because I feel like I am a new person, and I'm just so ready to enter the world as this new person and help others along with this, oh my gosh, I have to go back to this crazy chaos, and I have no idea what's been happening throughout the past week.
Because when I left, it was very unsure what was actually going on and who was affected and kind of all that stuff. So I knew. I was like, okay. The news is not gonna be good. Those numbers are gonna be out, and it's gonna be extremely overwhelming. So I think it was kind of split between this excitement to kind of help, but also shrouded with, like, oh my god. Like, I'm so afraid to turn on my phone.
When I did turn on my phone, that was very overwhelming because I had literally, I'm not kidding, like, maybe 300 text messages from basically everyone who I had ever known throughout different phases of my life, middle school, high school, college, soccer, you know, all these things asking if I was okay. And all these news alerts because Maui was kind of the only thing on the news at the time, it seemed like.
So I was just instantly kind of shot back into reality the second I turned on my phone, So that was extremely overwhelming, but at the same time, I just felt confident, and I had this kind of healing journey within myself that now I could really help others because I could lead from this place of love and light and kind of peace that I had experienced at Hoffman that now I could take back to Maui.
So it was kind of like this illogical both sided feeling, but that's how I was feeling kind of the second I turned my phone back on. It's like a little scared to leave your your Hoffman bubble and world, but then also I love that the first thing you're like, oh, so I wanna go out there and help and and serve and return to my community, but this time really full of of confidence and peace, trust, love in yourself, all
of these things. And that drove you to do a pretty impact thing back home for your community. Yeah. So I went back home, and I was ready to help. I was like, I feel so equipped to help. You know, give me a tool belt, and I'm ready. I was, like, ready to start, like, nailing nails into the wall even though I don't know anything about construction.
Basically, I realized that the best way to help in the capacity that I could was to kind of launch a fundraiser and help the people that needed the food, the water, the shelter right now on the ground. So that's what I get, and it kind of totally aligned with my skill set, my financial background, and my skill set in that regard. So that's basically what I decided to do, and it was just this, like it wasn't this logical decision where I was
like, okay. I need to do x, y, and z. It was like it came from this intrinsic place of these are what my skills are. This is how I can help people in the most impactful way for them now in making sure this happens. Basically, long story short, we launched this fundraiser, and we raised almost $100,000 in just about 48 hours.
So that was just incredible, the support that we got from my community outside of Maui because I was really focused on fundraising dollars off island, and it just felt so aligned with who I am and how I can help people. What so this happened, like, within a week of getting out of Hoffman? Definitely, the formation this idea formation happened very quickly, but I had to do kind of some logistical work before the actual launch of the fundraiser. But it was almost like the wheels were
already turning. I was like, I'm gonna help. How do we do this? How can I help in the capacity of my skill set? Because, again, like, I was ready to build houses, and I just have no construction skill set, for example. But it just felt like this is what we're doing, and this is what we're going for it. And we did it, and it was just an outpour of support, and it was just incredible. Yeah. And and you are so incredible. This capacity, this new found, you know, trust in yourself.
And, I mean, what I hear is just you came out of Hoffman so aligned and so knowing yourself that is, like, great. And I'm not even gonna worry. How do I fit this new me into my life at home? You were, like, how do I serve? How do I show up with this deep sense of authenticity and help rebuild my community? It's just incredible. Yeah. And I feel so grateful, like, everything kind of worked out because it's almost like the universe was on my
side. And every step of the way, you know, if we had roadblocks, we worked through them, and the timing was impeccable and the response was impeccable, and kind of all these things just really seemed to fall into place. And I felt like it was almost like a flow state thing where just if you lead from a place of alignment and being true to yourself and your authentic self, then just there's this trust that you get in response to that.
And that's just kind of one example of how that worked, which, I mean, is an incredible example, but I feel like that flow state works all the time now post Hoffman for me, and it doesn't have to be as big as launching this huge fundraiser, but just kind of the big and small things, even how I treat my work or my clients or kind of the surf and my friends and experiences, just kind of being able to tap into that intrinsic flow state.
Yeah. Well, tell us more then about we started this by by getting to know a little bit of Elise before Hoffman. And so tell us a little bit more then about how Hoffman has really lived in you and shifted and created this part of you, this Elise after Hoffman. I think Hoffman lives so strongly and deeply within me today. It was just exactly what I needed at the time for myself, just, again, the most impactful that I had no idea was even there.
And now that that's gone, I just feel so much more open and kind of alive and appreciative and gracious and kind of all these things because I'm not, like, bogged down by all this stuff I didn't even know was there. I'm kind of clogged. So I feel, like, just so open and free and, like, this peace and this calm and just kind of all these things because it just helped me unlock that part of myself. Again, the craziest thing was I didn't even know it was there. So I just feel,
like, limitless, I guess, now post Hoffman. And I think about Hoffman daily. It's been a little over a year now since my process, and I just am so grateful for the experience. I feel like my life started when I went to Hoffman. Well, what are some other ways that you maintain this kind of sense of inner trust or creating this ongoing feeling of limitless potential? What are some ways that kind of keep you rooted in that or moving forward towards that?
I think the feeling of being truly present and also practicing self compassion. And Hoffman has a lot of practices where you can return to presence and return to your kind of essence in yourself.
So I do many, many, many of the Hoffman practices on a bigger scale daily and also on kind of a micro scale just to kind of if I feel like, oh, I'm not feeling super present right now or super gracious right now in how I am, or if I have a trigger, how can I reconnect to that in real time, you know, through these Hoffman practices that they give you in the app and coaching with teachers and all that support that Hoffman does? And then the other side is self compassion.
I feel like before Hoffman, I had zero self compassion, frankly, just kind of walking myself through that I do love myself and I do trust myself and I do forget myself, kind of reconnecting to that inner love so that you can outwardly display love and be love. Mon, you mentioned the somos ripple effect. Right? It's you you demonstrated that you came out of Hoffman, you moved and sprung into action, created this fundraiser.
And then now, you know, life 1 year post, you're starting to see just how the impact of your experience at Hoffman kinda continues to ripple, you said, to family, to friends, to work. What do you think sort of one of the biggest ripple effects that your own healing has had on yourself, your community, your friends? Oh, man. How can I even pick 1?
I feel like even just people's response to me feels totally different because I think I'm totally different energetically so that you really see that reflected in people's response to you on kind of a macro and micro level.
And I think, you know, my relationship has vastly improved just because energetically, I'm operating from a completely different place, you know, not from kind of a scarcity anger anxiety place, but more of a love and compassion and self compassion and, you know, through my work and how I treat my business and how I treat my work and even just from kind of an athletic component from the surf to, you know, that surf community and my friends.
Just I feel like every single aspect of my life has just opened up in a profound way. And I appreciate the simplicity of just even saying the noticing the energetic shift. You know, yes, tools and all of that is a wonderful takeaway, but, you know, what I'm hearing in that is just the infectiousness that this kinda core shift in who you are and how you show up and the ripples that has is this energetic shift, how you meet every day, every moment, every wave.
I love the energy that you even say that with, but I also just love this idea, right, of of we all have this ability to just shift how we walk into every moment, and that from then can impact and and ripple through everything. Yeah. 100%. And I feel like every day, I consume energy to give myself energy, and I get to choose how I expel that energy into that into the world. Is it a positive? Is it
a neutral? Is it a negative? I really do think energy comes back to you, so I just first of all, I had no awareness of this before Hoffman. Now I feel like I do have this awareness, and now I can act accordingly that feels aligned to me. So I just feel, I don't know, just so grateful, so grateful, so grateful for the experience. Well, is there anything that you'd like anyone that's considering Hoffman or anyone that's been through and to kind of bring them back into
a memory of their own Hoffman experience? Is there anything you'd like to share or a takeaway from your own experience that you'd like to share? I think more so for the people that haven't yet gone or curious about Hoffman, I think, you know, there's, of course, a lot of people out there that have had trauma that they feel like, okay, yes, I need to heal from this trauma and do my healing work.
Hoffman makes sense, but I also think there's a lot of people that might think like, oh, I don't have this trauma or I don't have these kind of underlying things that I need to fix.
I think that Hoffman honestly was the best week of my life, so I feel like I want every single person I love to experience that week just from an experience, but also regardless of where you come into Hoffman, it will enhance your life even if you don't feel like you had this kind of catastrophic event where you feel like you need healing from. I feel like everyone can benefit, and everyone's lives can be kind of shinier and brighter and more filled with love.
So, yeah, that's I just want as many people to go as possible, to be honest. Amazing. Yeah. Very well said. I share a similar feeling and sentiment, so I appreciate you articulating that. Absolutely. Well, thanks so much, Elise. I really appreciated our talk and just kind of getting to hear more about you and and how Hoffman's lived and continues to live in you. Yeah. Thank you so much. And, again, I was I'm just so honored to be here today. Well, we're so grateful to have 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 Razi 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 hoffmaninstitute.org.