#Hoffmaninstitute Hoffmanprocess

[dcnativegal]

Grace, and its twin sister, Gratitude

Two days before Thanksgiving, and 2 days after driving home from Saint Helena California, I went to our writers group in Paisley, called Easy Writers. After we shared various bits we’d written, we had our writing prompt. Gratitude. So, I wrote this.

“One cannot go straight to gratitude if there is a deep anger that hasn’t been recognized, bowed to respectfully, and aired. Let the wind fan the flames. Let the anger burn to ashes, quietly, but with all due crackles.

             Brush the ashes away.

Then build a chair out of the gifts that were always there, though hidden. Even if there is only one gift, that you were conceived and born.

             Sit in the chair you have built.

             Forgive that which has burned and is no more.

             Finally, rest in gratitude.

I just returned from a retreat in which I worked on a series of steps – from awareness to anger, then to compassion and forgiveness. If I’m asked to reflect on Gratitude, I think, I am still and always forgiven, and I am so very grateful for that. I am grateful I’ve survived this far. That there were positive legacies from my parents, alongside the deprivation.

That I can let go of anger, as well as patterns that I inherited but don’t have to perpetuate. (Like self-loathing. I really don’t need that pattern.)

And I also know that forgiveness requires actual labor to be born, complete with screams and tears.

             And then the result is a new life called Grace, and her twin sister,

Gratitude.”

+++++++++++++

My spirit guide needs coffee.

I spent 7 days in Napa Valley at a nonprofit retreat space in White Sulphur Springs in Napa County. I’d signed up for The Hoffman Process, paid for by my sister who’d just been through the Process in August. Her husband did it in October. We three have been Hoffmanized.

What does that mean exactly? Well, at one point I was sitting uncomfortably on the floor with a yellow whiffle bat in my hands, beating a large pillow, and chanting to myself “There is enough. Enough God. Enough Love, Enough food, Enough money. I am enough. I will honor You by thriving.” I know that I was chanting this because I stopped and wrote it down while 36 other fellow humans were pounding away all around me. We were SUPPOSED to be beating out negative patterns that we’d either inherited during our childhoods from our parents (and surrogate parents if we had any), or that we’d adopted in strict opposition to parental behavior. In my case, I adopted habits of observing my depressed mother very closely: that power of observation of humans serves me very well as a therapist. But I also adopted her habit of self-loathing. So I ‘bashed’ my self-loathing. And a bunch of other stuff. (We made a list of 25 WORST patterns for each parent!) So, I was seeking something positive. That’s where the There is ENOUGH came in. I guess you could call it an affirmation. And it came spontaneously to me.

It was an emotionally challenging week; at times, exhausting. We were to consult our emotional selves, our Intellect selves, our Spiritual selves, and a Spirit Guide. My Spirit Guide was pretty quiet. He was basically monosyllabic. But they were good syllables: Trust. Hope.  Pretty key for my week.

We did a lot of guided visualizations. I pictured my emotional self as about 8 years old, often with arms crossed and a pouty face. And a potty mouth. “This is bullshit” she’d say. Or, “this won’t work, I’m still unlovable.” Basically an attitude early in the week of “Everybody hates me, nobody likes me, guess I’ll go eat dirt.” In fact, I had to metaphorically unplug my powerful, well-calibrated Bullshit Detector early on, thank it for its faithful service, and put it a suitcase in the car. I figured, I trust my sister and she’s invested 5 grand to send me here. These people seem okay. I need help, so I better dig in and hope for the best. One woman expressed what some of us were thinking: when do we drink the Kool Aid? Nervous laughter. Turned out, we were in Napa County so it was more like a non-alcoholic Zinfindel, a liquid Hope. I think every one of us drank that, and left feeling as though we really could be happier, more heart- and spirit-centered, more service-oriented, less guarded and stuck.  

We were reassured by a sign on the wall that said, You cannot fail the process.

Some of ‘the process’ felt like an emotional archaeological dig, using first jackhammers, and then delicate brushes. We remembered our childhoods, going back to scenes in memories. The purpose was to look for the roots, the taproots, of poisonous weeds and pull them out. And then get rid of them. We actually made posters of images and words that hold us back. Then in a ceremony, we threw them in a fireplace, and declared our new found intentions. Mine was: I am lovable, and I am beautiful. I still feel lovable. The beautiful is only in Valerie’s eyes, and not in my own, but that’s okay.

My feelings of sadness were dispelled pretty quickly at this place, and replaced by anxious hopefulness. As I survived more of the process, with the support of the teachers, my small group members, and some of the friends I was making, the anxiety went down. All of us were learning new tools to apply to the old behaviors. There were boxes of tissues in every space, and they were emptied and replaced. The assembled crew was 9 males, 28 females, ranging from a wide-eyed child of 24 to a grizzled Mr. Crankypants of 73 who’d be awarded a trophy of “most opened” if there were such a thing.

The Hoffman Process has been honed by 50 years of experimentation. There was a great deal of familiar (to me) psychological theory at work during the week. No therapy is 100% effective for everyone.  But when we shared stories of what got us to this 7-day adventure, people mentioned how they had noticed that a “Hoffman Grad” was different when they got home: happier, calmer, nicer. One woman told a story of a store owner who’d served a particularly bitchy customer for years. One day, Miss Bitchy came in and was nice and courteous and patient. Finally, store owner told her she noticed how much happier she seemed. Miss Transformed said, The Hoffman Process.

Apparently Bonnie Raitt did it years ago, and John Denver. Other famous folks, too, including a beautiful actress Thandie Newton, perhaps best known for the movie, Crash.

The Hoffman Process even has a Spotify channel, a soundtrack to the week. The music was played strategically, and was highly effective. At one point it was used for fun. After another long evening of reflection, we were asked to lie on our backs with our heads toward the center of the circle. We lay there with our eyes closed until they said open. The ceiling was full of lights that looked like galaxies moving, and John Lennon’s Imagine played. We all sang along and most of us (except for maybe Mr. Most Opened) knew every word. Magical.

We had name tags with our childhood nicknames on it until a great reveal the evening before the final day. We were encouraged not to tell our professions. And no wifi or cell phone for 6 of the 7 days. Our ceremony of revelation was really something: a slow parade of people who told us what they do for a living, and what their real names are. Toad became Todd. Schmoot became Lauren. Teep became Stephen. I went from Janie to Jane. And I’m an addiction counselor and psychotherapist to a very rural and poor part of an Eastern Oregon county.

++++

On the last night I was in Saint Helena, we who were staying the night after our last workshop had to go forage for food in the town. About 15 of us morphed and reshuffled into groups based on available cars and culinary pickiness. We parked near one place, and I told my driver friend I was off to get cash at an ATM. I did that, and rejoined the biggest clump of people, noticing that my driver friend was not around, but figured maybe she went off with the other participant. Half of us marched in the cold behind someone who’d heard of a fun place. We got there, it was outdoors, although with heat lamps, and again half said we’ll stay, so we remaining 4 ordered elaborate hamburgers (mine was vegetarian). I’m mostly done with my burger and who should show up, but the driver and our friend. They’d been looking for me all this time! Once they located me, they said well okay then, we’re going to find someplace warmer. Off they went, and one of my Hoffie dinner friends says, Don’t feel guilty, Janie. ACK. I did feel guilty.  I ran straight into one of my patterns: that no one notices me because I am not worth noticing.  Finally, they gave up on finding any other place, joined us, and we shared our sweet potato fries. Everyone told me to nip the guilt in the bud. Like Maya Angelou once said, when you know better you do better. Now I know better. I am not invisible. I belong just as well and just as awkwardly as everyone else. The Process came to the fore right then in real time.

I talked to my sister about this, and although she is way more beautiful and smarter than I am, she has this same tendency; to assume that she is not important. She looked at that pattern during her Process, too. She reminded me how much we were on our own in our family, with dad providing for us by working two jobs and mother struggling with her mental health. We were not read to, or asked about our day. Oh poor us, I know: we were fed and sheltered. But we picked up somehow that we were to be dragged along and not make a fuss. I was surprised my sister has this pattern too. We are going to keep bashing it until we allow ourselves to count more, in some humble way, if we have something to contribute. Which I knew we both do.

             For the record, The Hoffman Process is done in Napa Valley, Connecticut, Australia and England. They have scholarships. It makes a whole lot of sense to do the Process if you are feeling stuck in patterns of behavior or thoughts that are keeping you from being fully your best self, ready every day to heal the world. If you sign up, you will be surrounded by accomplished people who are for the most part much wealthier than you are (if you’re like me. Say, a social worker, and bad with money.) But the fact that we hid our professions equalized us, and we became a motley collection of seekers with an unbelievable amount of pain inside each of us.

             I started the week scanning the crowd for who was fat like me, who would judge me for being plain. The richer the folk, the skinner and more conventionally attractive. As the week went on, I was embraced and recognized. For, guess what, yeah you guessed it, my sense of humor and my knitting. There were two queer people there whom I zoomed in on right quick. I had someone to talk to at dinner (when it wasn’t a silent dinner.) By the end of the week, I had gone to the hot tub in all my fleshiness, taught a beautiful young surfer how to knit, and hated myself a little less.

Here’s a poem from our workbook, which was filled with poems and quotations:

You are not broken;

Childhood suffering is not a mortal wound,

And it did not irrevocably shape your destiny.

 You need not remove,

Destroy,

Or tear anything out of yourself in order

to build something new.

 Your challenge is not to keep trying to repair what was damaged;

Your practice instead is to reawaken

what is already wise, strong,

And whole within you,

To cultivate those qualities of heart and spirit

That are available to you in this very moment.

 By Wayne Muller, Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood.

 That particular bit of writing goes against the Process philosophy that something unhealthy must indeed be torn ‘out of yourself in order to build something new.’  But it’s all metaphorical anyway.  Here’s another one that I think we can all agree on:

The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect,

He becomes an adolescent.

The day he forgives them,

He becomes an adult;

The day he forgives himself,

He becomes wise.

             By Alden Nowlan

 I am grateful to be a little wiser. And I will working on forgiving myself, and loving myself as best I can until those are stronger muscles of self care. Then perhaps I can be of more and better service in the world, and feel a deeper joy. Life is short. Feel joy first.