Oprah on The Hoffman Process, How to Forgive Your Parents – And Yourself

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Speaker 3 So, a warm welcome to you, and thanks for joining us on the Oprah podcast, where I'm always so delighted to be able to share conversations with you about the human experience, about the bigger questions that we all have in life when we get still enough to ponder them, and things I believe that matter most to all of us.

Speaker 3 And on this episode,

Speaker 3 we're asking the question: is it possible to

Speaker 3 confront your worst demons, unwind all the negative patterns you have learned from your parents, have compassion for your parents, and forgive them, then heal and begin to discover who you really are without all the baggage from your childhood.

Speaker 3 Now, that sounds like a very tall order, but the reason why I wanted to do this podcast today is because I've been running into many people who say they have done just that,

Speaker 1 really

Speaker 3 accepted that tall order order and been able to move on with their lives and release the past. Maybe you have or maybe you haven't heard of the Hoffman process.

Speaker 3 Well, I have heard it described as 10 years of therapy in one week, like a psychological detox, some people call it.

Speaker 3 And other people have said it's a therapy retreat only for the wealthy or the famous. Others may think it's a hippie-dippy kind of way to spend a week on your personal growth.

Speaker 3 But lately, the thing I keep hearing about the Hoffman process, and I try to pay attention to the signs when it keeps coming up, so I thought it was worthwhile to learn more about it and to share it with you because it seems to be a thing that lots of people are talking about, all of you who are watching and listening, and letting you make up your own minds about it.

Speaker 3 Founded in 1967 by Bob Hoffman, The Hoffman Process is a week-long personal growth retreat designed to help people identify, address, and release negative thoughts and behavior patterns.

Speaker 1 If we get to the core of a human being, it's love. It's just light and love.

Speaker 1 And so our secret is that the motor force, the change agent, the beauty, the radiance is all inside of a person.

Speaker 3 The Hoffman process also helps people uncover and remove the obstacles blocking them from connecting with their authentic selves.

Speaker 3 The goal is to allow people to make decisions aligned with who they really are instead of what others expect of them.

Speaker 3 You said that many people spend their lives climbing a ladder only to get to the top and realize that the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.

Speaker 3 Maria Shriver, Katie Perry, Sienna Miller, and Orlando Bloom are among the more than 135,000 people who credit the Hoffman process for transforming their lives, changing how they see the world and their role in it.

Speaker 1 I signed up and

Speaker 1 had,

Speaker 1 I would say, probably one of the most revealing experiences in my life. And I can only say I wish I'd done it 10 years or 20 years earlier.

Speaker 3 A three-year research study by the University of California Davis found that those who went through the Hoffman process experienced lasting reductions in depression and anxiety, along with significant increases in life satisfaction, compassion, and physical energy.

Speaker 1 Hoffman really allowed me the space that I needed to reconnect to myself and then also put myself back together, but in a way that focused on love and on light.

Speaker 3 I welcome you, Raz Ngrasi.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Oprah.

Speaker 3 Raz is one of the founders of the Hoffman Institute Foundation. Okay, can you explain to me the core philosophy?

Speaker 3 Because everybody that I talk to about it has something different to say about what it does. I'm just so full of love.
I have so much love to offer. I see you.

Speaker 1 I love you.

Speaker 3 And other people are like, it's cleared me. It's really cleared me to be able to move forward.
I was able to let go so many things in my past. Other people say different things about it.

Speaker 1 Well, you've said actually without maybe knowing it, what the core of it is. And that is that at,

Speaker 3 when you get to the core of a human being, it's love it's just light and love yeah and so our secret is that the motive force the change agent the beauty the radiance is all inside of a person however can i stop you right there because it's so interesting i just recently interviewed jeremy rinner for a show we were doing on near-death experiences and he said that in that experience the thing that he realized is that the only thing that mattered And the only thing we take with us when we leave this level of consciousness and move to another is love.

Speaker 1 I was on the ice as it took every effort, physical effort, to squeeze out air, to suck air back in. And that's when I was gone.
It is a collective divinity of love.

Speaker 1 Love is the only thing that you take with you when you die.

Speaker 3 And that coming back after that near-death experience changed him so that he realizes that everything else is just immaterial if it does not involve love. So I just wanted to reiterate that.

Speaker 3 We don't want to have to die to do it. I'd rather to experience that, Jeremy.

Speaker 1 We don't want to have to physically die. We don't have to physically die to experience it.
We don't want to go through what Jeremy went through. Yeah.
I was thinking,

Speaker 1 there's a quote of

Speaker 1 the great Rumi, and he said, your task is not to seek love, but to know the obstacles. that you've created to love and to get rid of all those obstacles.

Speaker 1 Because when you get rid of the obstacles, then what's there is revealed and so

Speaker 1 we all want love and everything this society we live in now is so designed to

Speaker 1 block you from that well just to give us substitutes yeah you know we're all seeking symbols of success yeah and in our culture success equals belonging and love and everything like that

Speaker 1 We think it does. We think it does.
We think it does. But it doesn't deliver.

Speaker 3 So the core of it is to be able to reach a level of love for yourself and appreciation for your past for bringing you to this level of yourself so that you can love more fully.

Speaker 1 Yes. And

Speaker 1 so the secret, our secret in teaching and working with this Hoffman methodology is that we know where we're going. and we're going to your true self.

Speaker 1 And it's to reveal by removing the obstacles to that experience. And so

Speaker 1 I say what's really unique about Hoffman is it has an ability to help you identify what those barriers are for you

Speaker 1 and a proprietary method for removing them.

Speaker 3 Okay, so the Hoffman process is, y'all, it's a seven-day on-location retreat that people say you have to experience firsthand to understand. But what can you tell me about that week?

Speaker 3 Because everybody that comes back says, I can't even explain it to you, and I'm not allowed to explain it to you.

Speaker 1 We don't prohibit people from talking about it.

Speaker 1 Well, first off, it's safe. It's safe for you to be there.
And in the program itself, you're safe. You're taken care of.
There's no confrontation, humiliation, embarrassment.

Speaker 1 You're not going to reveal any secrets about yourself in front of other people that could

Speaker 1 later. You don't want to.
No. And, you know,

Speaker 1 three meals served on time, nutritious, great food, time for eight, even nine hours sleep a night.

Speaker 3 Most importantly, you have to give up your cell phone is what I hear.

Speaker 1 Yes, we call that a digital detox. Okay.

Speaker 1 Most people, they don't like it at first, but at the end of a week, you really notice

Speaker 1 how little you want it. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 My friend Maria did it, and I can say that because she said it on here.

Speaker 3 She said she did it and then came out of it wanting to detox even more. So a couple of days a week, she doesn't use her phone at all.

Speaker 1 Yes, because

Speaker 3 she goes, You can't even imagine how freeing it is to not be attached to your phone.

Speaker 1 I'll remember, we're of an age we can remember pre-cell phones. That's right, and it was pretty cool.

Speaker 3 It was pretty cool. Okay, so the Hoffman process started with a man named Bob Hoffman, that's why it's called the Hoffman process.
And how did he develop this? And how did you know him?

Speaker 1 Bob was best known as a, he had a kind of, he was kind of renowned as a psychic back in the 70s in the Bay Area. And he was friends with lots of people from, let's say, the Esalen Institute.

Speaker 1 He hung out in all those circles of people developing new ideas. It was a very rich time.

Speaker 1 But Bob developed a way of working with people that was reading their

Speaker 1 childhood. Really, he could.
psychically read a person and tell them what happened in their childhood that they turned out the way they did. And so many people improved from doing that.

Speaker 1 He was doing it one-on-one for a number of years.

Speaker 1 And then around 1971 or so, his close friend, Claudio Naranjo, a Chilean psychiatrist, the same Claudio Naranjo who introduced the Enneagram to the United States,

Speaker 1 said, hey, Bob, I think we could turn this into a course. I think we could teach people how to do their own psychic readings.
I think we could really do this in a group.

Speaker 3 Is this because he had seen a pattern in those psychic readings that a lot of things were coming, the reason people were the way they were is because of what had happened in their childhoods.

Speaker 1 Correct. Yes.
Exactly right, Oprah. And

Speaker 1 moreover,

Speaker 1 people could get on a path of self-discovery. They didn't need someone else to tell them what happened.
It was all right there inside if they only could learn how to tap into it. Right.

Speaker 1 So that's the way it began. In 1972, they held their first process,

Speaker 1 but for many years, about a dozen, 15 years,

Speaker 1 they were working four hours a night, four hours twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursday nights, for 13 weeks.

Speaker 1 So if you wanted to do the Hoffman process, although it was quite powerful, you had to be in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Speaker 3 You had to be in the San Francisco Bay Area, and you had to go for weeks.

Speaker 1 13 weeks.

Speaker 3 Yeah, who has that time? Exactly. Okay, and at the time, did people think, you know, I mentioned earlier, did people think it was woo-woo, hippie-dippy out there? What is going on?

Speaker 1 Well, I have to tell you, I was one of the woo-woo-hoo-hoo.

Speaker 1 What's going on? So I was tuned into all of that. Yeah.
And part of it. So for me, it was just another really interesting thing.
He's another interesting guy on the scene. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But he had something pretty, pretty powerful. But in 1985 is when he switched over

Speaker 1 to a seven and a half day program.

Speaker 1 So suddenly it was, okay, people could go into a residential environment, stay there for a week, and go through all the changes.

Speaker 3 Okay, so you, your wife, your daughter, and your son all did it, right? Elijah and Marissa and Mike all went through the process and you all worked there.

Speaker 3 Why does it resonate so deeply with you and now your family?

Speaker 1 Well, first off, I want to say that since I was 17 years old in Racine, Wisconsin, I have been a seeker. I don't know why, but at age age 17, I became fascinated with Zen Buddhism,

Speaker 1 and I started in Satori and enlightenment and awakening. So it's been a lifelong quest for me.
But why I did Hoffman, I was 41. Our kids were four and seven,

Speaker 1 and I heard things coming out of my mouth toward my four-year-old son that I hadn't heard in 35 years. And the last time I heard them, I didn't like them.
And I said to myself at that tender age,

Speaker 1 boy, when I have kids, I'm not going to talk to them this way. And in particular, it was my dad.
My dad was telling me, don't cry. You know, little boys didn't cry in his world.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so I was suppressed from crying. And

Speaker 1 so when my son was not happy, when he was crying,

Speaker 1 it was like fingernails on a chalkboard for me. I couldn't stand it.

Speaker 3 You heard yourself saying the same that your father had said to you.

Speaker 1 And to have the impulse of saying and trying to suppress it.

Speaker 3 And every one of us has said when you've been in that situation, I will never do this like my mother did. I will never do this.
And then you end up doing it.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Yes.
Why? Because we're taught how to parent by being parented. So I went and did the Hoffman process.
I cleared that out. And

Speaker 1 honestly, our kids' destiny was changed because I did Hoffman and that later then Liza did Hoffman. And our kids are super emotionally intelligent.

Speaker 1 But as a little extra piece to this, three years later, after doing Hoffman,

Speaker 1 my mother had a massive heart attack, but she lingered on with only 14% of her heart working for about three weeks.

Speaker 1 And she was in Wisconsin. I was out here in California.

Speaker 1 So I would work during the week, and then on Friday afternoon, I would leave and go back to Wisconsin for a long weekend and spend the time with her and with my dad, who was keeping a vigil.

Speaker 1 So, on the third, end of the third visit, I'm out and we're sitting next to him. It's in September, late in the month, and I was in the passenger seat in his car, and the sun was going down.

Speaker 1 I was going to leave the next day, and I was sobbing.

Speaker 1 And my dad said, I guess you know you'll never see your mother alive again.

Speaker 1 And I said, Yeah, yes, dad, I do.

Speaker 1 And there's a long silence, and then he said to me,

Speaker 1 I don't know how to cry.

Speaker 1 Can you teach me how to cry?

Speaker 1 Well, that was quite a moment. I did

Speaker 1 teach him how to cry. And

Speaker 1 she passed a couple of days later. And he would, you know, we would talk every couple of days.

Speaker 3 How did you teach him how to cry for a man who's never cried and raised you to not cry?

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 I just want to add this one last thing. And we would talk after she died, and he would say very proudly, I cried yesterday, twice.
I cried this morning.

Speaker 1 He was reporting on me, and he actually, because he was able to open his heart and grieve, he went through the grief process, I would say brilliantly.

Speaker 1 He lived another 22 years and those were the happiest years I remember for him. What I taught him,

Speaker 1 I said, you need to recognize when the impulse is coming up and then not resist it and let go.

Speaker 1 Don't control. You're out of control.
Go out of control. I said, it's only going to last 10 minutes.

Speaker 1 You know, you're not going to lose your mind here. But you have to be willing to let go for 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

Speaker 1 And he was able to follow

Speaker 1 my guidance. Wow.
And he did that and he got better and better at it. And he became

Speaker 1 what was fascinating is that as he opened up that grief end of his spectrum, emotional spectrum, the joyous end opened too. So,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 his emotional bandwidth expanded. Yeah.
Both down and up. Yeah.
And he became a happier, really happy person.

Speaker 3 You're just saying that. I just, it makes me want to cry, thinking about all the men I know who can't cry.

Speaker 3 who have suppressed their tears and what that does when you suppress your tears, that your inability to express multiple things and inability to feel joy on the other side of that is also suppressed.

Speaker 3 And so you just sharing that story so beautifully, by the way,

Speaker 3 allows us all to see it would have been a very different journey for your father, the grieving process, had he not been able to release it.

Speaker 1 It would have been very, very different.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Thank you so much for spending your time here with us.

Speaker 4 When we come back, acclaimed actor Orlando Bloom shares what the Hoffman process revealed to him about his authentic self and why it inspired him to move through the world differently. Stay with us.

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Speaker 4 Welcome back to the Oprah podcast. I am so glad y'all are here.
We're talking to Razin Grasi, who's one of the leaders at the Hoffman Institute.

Speaker 4 And he's sharing how the Hoffman process helps people uncover and release negative thought patterns in order to reconnect with their authentic selves.

Speaker 3 One of the two core principles, as I understand it, of the Hoffman process is a concept called quadrinity, based on the idea that each person embodies four different components.

Speaker 3 This is what I read about it. Yes.
Can you walk us through what they are?

Speaker 1 Gladly.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 what we're saying is that there are four dimensions of self that are occurring simultaneously and interactively. So first, obviously, is our physical body.

Speaker 1 Then our emotions and our intellect. Our emotions, what are you feeling?

Speaker 1 What is your mood?

Speaker 1 You know, do you belong? Am I connected here? Am I happy? Am I sad? Am I curious?

Speaker 1 What's going on?

Speaker 1 You just feel it. Then there's the intellect.

Speaker 1 What are your thoughts? Your judgments, your perceptions.

Speaker 1 So the intellect and the emotions are working together. Emotions will trigger thoughts.
Thoughts will trigger emotions. And then there's a spiritual dimension of self.

Speaker 1 And this is what we call a spiritual dimension. You might think of it as your essential, the essential self or your most authentic part of you.
You know,

Speaker 1 when I say we call it spiritual self, but there's nothing to believe in. There's no religiosity implied here.
And

Speaker 1 so those four dimensions of self are working interactively. And the

Speaker 1 spiritual or essential self is

Speaker 1 where

Speaker 1 you are, your primary identity is love. And it feels like really like myself, most like myself, like coming home.
Oh, it's not like coming, it's a new discovery.

Speaker 1 It's like, oh yeah, oh yeah, this is me. It's that feeling, not a new discovery.

Speaker 3 And I heard that the second major component is something called negative love syndrome. What is that?

Speaker 1 A child is born with no ability to survive at all.

Speaker 1 And our entire survival mechanism, impulse, is our dependency on our parents and that they will take care of us and we call it the parent-child bond it's good and what has a continuous flow of unconditional love child is comfortable child is happy everything is taken care of but of course

Speaker 1 no parents are perfect

Speaker 1 even the best of parents no best of parents can can't give you everything you need they probably are only you know there 40% of the time even the best ones but some are actually

Speaker 1 checked out or worse.

Speaker 1 And some people experienced, unfortunately, abuse in their childhood, physical or emotional. So

Speaker 1 basically what happens for a child is as long as there's that continuous flow of unconditional love, everything's cool.

Speaker 1 But when the child perceives that that has been interrupted, there's a moment of desperation. Because they have to reestablish that in order to know it's their lifeline.
Right.

Speaker 1 To know that I'll be taken care of. So whatever emotion the parent is in at that time, the child will emulate in an attempt to simulate the bond.

Speaker 1 So instead of the parent recognizing where the child is at, the child has to see where the parent is at. And, oh, okay, you're angry at me, Daddy.
I'm angry too. I'm not good enough.

Speaker 1 Now do you love me again? So they're always trying to connect to their parents. And when it's negative,

Speaker 1 they'll connect through negativity.

Speaker 3 Even though we say we don't want to connect through negativity, even though we don't want to, we do it.

Speaker 1 This is pre-intellect. We say that later.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Before we have an intellect.

Speaker 3 You're doing it even when you don't even know you're doing it.

Speaker 1 You have to do it to survive. And the thing is, it works.
We survive.

Speaker 3 So you're saying we have to mimic what our parents are offering in order to survive because you're trying to figure out where they are

Speaker 3 in what they're offering to you.

Speaker 1 Right. So,

Speaker 1 you know, it's forever, been forever, thousands of years, millions of years, we've observed that children emulate and imitate their parents. They walk like their parents.
They talk and their gestures.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 what Bob Hoffman uncovered is the motivation of the child to do that.

Speaker 3 They're doing that to survive.

Speaker 1 To survive, but they're also, they're motivated to be loved.

Speaker 3 To be loved.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.
And so the motivation of the child is to is to be loved. And so

Speaker 1 we never, we hold on tenaciously to whatever is love. Just think of whatever is love in your life and how important that is to you.

Speaker 1 And so that's why we hold on to this negativity so tenaciously, why it's so hard to be rid of it. We know it's wrong, but we are.

Speaker 3 Okay, so here's the other thing, Raz.

Speaker 3 So if you didn't get, as I know so many of you and us didn't, if you didn't get the love you needed as a child, those harmful childhood patterns where you're mimicking your parents or those who were acting as your parents continue to show up in our adult lives.

Speaker 3 And that's what Hoffman is about, is about how do you break free of that.

Speaker 1 Right. And it's how you break free of it in the areas where

Speaker 1 that you really can't control and that are very important to us. The areas of love, how i feel about myself my my love relationship parenting um

Speaker 3 you know my career my my self-image uh and all these things you know we we learned how to parent from our parents we learned how we learned relationships from the way they related to each other well as i said i wanted to hear from a few people who've been through the hoffman process and one of them is actor orlando bloom you all know orlando bloom from his many roles and from blockbusters like the Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings movies.

Speaker 3 How are you, Orlando?

Speaker 1 Hi.

Speaker 1 Hi, Opro. Hi.
Hi, Ross. Hey, Orlando.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well, Orlando, I thought you were one of the, thank you for agreeing to talk to me because I thought you were one of the best people to speak about this because every time I have talked to you about it, you've been so enthusiastic.

Speaker 3 about what it's been able to do for you and how it's opened up an aperture for you. What was the catalyst for you to go through the program?

Speaker 1 You know, I think, first of all, thank you so much. It's lovely to see you both.
And Raz, I love listening to your voice right now because I've listened to it so many times on the

Speaker 1 app for the Hoffman when I'm like in need of a little centering.

Speaker 1 So I was, I would say I had, I went to the Hoffman process about 10 years ago and I'd been triggered in a dynamic with my partner that had led me me into a pattern of behavior that

Speaker 1 was very

Speaker 1 similar to the way in which I would say I had been

Speaker 1 grown up with my mother, the way that my mother had loved me and

Speaker 1 had interacted with me.

Speaker 1 And I had gotten very confused about

Speaker 1 how to navigate the dynamics and the feelings that I was having.

Speaker 1 And I had recalled that this wonderful actor and a friend had mentioned a Hoffman process to me, like maybe a year previously.

Speaker 1 And I thought, you know what? I've never done anything like this.

Speaker 1 Yes, I've done therapy. Yes, I've explored the world and my mind in numerous ways.
But this was the right time for me, I felt. And so

Speaker 1 I signed up and

Speaker 1 had, I would say, probably one of the most revealing experiences in my life. And I can only say I wish I'd done it 10 years or 20 years earlier.

Speaker 1 I was just about to turn 40 and

Speaker 1 it was really

Speaker 1 the greatest gift I could give myself and the greatest reveal in my life up until that point. I felt like I'd almost been born again,

Speaker 1 if that doesn't sound too hippy-dippy.

Speaker 3 Was it like 10 years of therapy in a week?

Speaker 1 Honestly, yeah,

Speaker 1 I refer to it like that. I feel like

Speaker 1 what it feels like is,

Speaker 1 you know, I think people say that between the age of zero to seven, we're imprinted

Speaker 1 on by our parents. And unless we understand

Speaker 1 what that impact has on our lives, what the Hoffman process helps you to do is unpack almost that period, which feels almost impossible, but through visualization work and through a lot of

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 sort of group conversation and then more intimate conversation in a smaller group, you get to sort of, and through watching the other people who may have parallels to your life, you get to sort of unpack

Speaker 1 the sort of trauma or the challenges of

Speaker 1 your upbringing

Speaker 1 and come to terms with them and really sort of release them and realize that those patterns of behavior aren't yours.

Speaker 1 And as Raz was saying, when I felt like what I learned to do was sort of leash in my inner child and my intellect, which both have really great aspects to them, but to use my keep my body and mind in a space to let my higher, the best version of myself run the show, as opposed to perhaps it was my intellect that was like being too hard on a situation, or perhaps it was my inner child that was going, I just need a hug right now.

Speaker 1 And I couldn't express that.

Speaker 1 And it was, it was really just the greatest gift of sort of learning, I think, to love myself in a way that I hadn't really understood or had a great example of I would say

Speaker 3 how are you now Orlando living your life differently today

Speaker 3 than before you went through the process

Speaker 1 it's it's honestly like

Speaker 1 it's like I can't unsee that I think the work is ongoing

Speaker 1 it was for me it was the first step into

Speaker 1 into

Speaker 1 self-care, self-love,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 an understanding about how I move through the world, some empathy for myself and others,

Speaker 1 and the ability to

Speaker 1 not be conflicted

Speaker 1 or not be overwhelmed by some of the trauma that would come up in relationships or situations and have a deeper understanding, I suppose.

Speaker 3 You know, Raz started out saying that he

Speaker 3 did Hoffman himself because he heard himself saying the same things that his father had said to him when he was parenting Mike.

Speaker 3 And I know you have a 14-year-old son from a previous relationship and a four-year-old daughter with Katie. Has the Hoffman process changed how you see yourself as a dad and how you parent?

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 my job as a parent now is to allow my children to grow without getting in their way. Like, it's sort of like, don't get in the way of anyone else's journey.

Speaker 1 Don't let anyone get in the way of your journey.

Speaker 1 And just be grateful for the opportunities that are presented to you and see the challenges of the dynamic that are in front of you as an opportunity for you to grow.

Speaker 1 And, and, and whether that's with my son, who is the most beautiful opportunity at times and also just the sweetest soul to not take it personally when he is processing his emotions and at a young, at a young age and at that age, he's going through a multitude of them, to just allow those things to unfold.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying I'm perfect, it's not easy at all, but it is something that without the Hoffman process, I don't think I could say I would have understood. I think I could have been easily

Speaker 1 triggered. And now even if I am, and if we come across a situation that we're in conflict about,

Speaker 1 I can take a step back, I can let some time pass, and then we can re-engage in a conversation where I'm looking at everything from his perspective whilst trying to

Speaker 1 lay in my thinking without it overwhelming or getting in the way of his process.

Speaker 3 So it sounds like the Hoffman process actually made you a better man, a better person. It allowed you to step into that role in a way that enhanced your

Speaker 1 living process.

Speaker 1 It certainly did.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't say it's,

Speaker 1 I would say that it's ongoing. So, you know, and I did.

Speaker 3 And is it what you take from it? Because you say it enhanced you, but it may not do the same thing for another person.

Speaker 1 I think the way that it's curated is set up to help anybody who decides to go. And it just depends on the individual as to how much work they're willing to do and continue to do and

Speaker 1 how open they are and what their capacity for this kind of experience is. But it is certainly an incredible opportunity to...

Speaker 1 even just not having your phone for a week, being offline and just being present to yourself and your emotions and your feelings. And,

Speaker 1 you know, there's a remarkable amount of some of the most detailed questions.

Speaker 1 I think it took about 10 to 12 hours for me to go through

Speaker 1 this questionnaire, which ultimately becomes your workbook through the week of work and you refer to it. So it's something.

Speaker 1 to do with with sort of a lot of diligence and care when you go into it because it does become an important tool in the process but yeah it is a it is a it is a a tool that i think

Speaker 1 for life for skills for life in a way and that's you know it's it's it's something that i'm i'm super grateful for yeah absolutely well i do it's ongoing you know it's something that of course and i went back um I did a Q2 for a weekend and I actually went with Katie.

Speaker 1 We did a couple's

Speaker 1 and actually Katie had gone a year off.

Speaker 3 Q2 is when you go back again, right? For three days. For three days, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Three day sort of refresher, which was remarkable, actually. And I kind of, after I did the Q2, I think I did it just a couple of years ago.
I was like, I'm going to do this more often.

Speaker 1 Just whenever I feel like there's a new chapter embarking, I want to kind of do a Q2 to remind myself, to take myself back to that initial feeling.

Speaker 1 you know, when I send people or recommend people to go and I've sent and recommended so many people, because it's like

Speaker 1 the just the feeling of that first,

Speaker 1 the feeling of that first week is something that you'll never have again. It's like, and it's, and it is a really beautiful process.

Speaker 1 I mean, Raz talked about the food, but it's almost, it's so curated, it's like you get like a

Speaker 1 Christmas meal, you get a a gifting process, you get a birthday.

Speaker 1 It's like all the things that maybe you didn't get or have in the way that you could appreciate or feel in your youth as a child, you get to receive in that moment, in that week, rather. And

Speaker 1 it's a really beautiful, beautiful process, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 Well, thank you for joining us and thank you for sharing with us. Thank you so much.
Orlando Bloom.

Speaker 1 Great to see you, Orlando.

Speaker 3 Appreciate it.

Speaker 4 When we return, we will hear from a former Marine and presidential security guard who was suffering from intense post-traumatic stress disorder before the Hoffman process helped her turn her life around.

Speaker 4 That's next. I am so glad you've joined me here on the Oprah podcast.
I'm in the tea house with Raz Adgrossi. He's with the Hoffman Institute.
You may have heard about it.

Speaker 4 He's talking about how so many of us strive to fulfill expectations that others have set for us. And he explains how the Hoffman process can help us identify our true needs and desires.

Speaker 3 Raz, you said that many people spend their lives climbing a ladder only to get to the top and realize that the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.

Speaker 3 I read that and I went, whoa, I love that analogy. How do we know if we're climbing the wrong ladder and how do you get to the right one?

Speaker 1 The right ladder, you'll have a heart connection to it. You'll meet people along the way that you love, that are amazing.

Speaker 1 It won't always be easy,

Speaker 1 but somehow you'll stay connected to it. You'll feel it's really yours.

Speaker 1 You're not trying to put on someone else's guise to get through your life.

Speaker 1 I'll never forget about 50 years ago, I was reading the Bhagavad Gita, and something came, just this line popped out for me like it was in neon lights.

Speaker 1 And it said, it's better to live your own life and fail than to live someone else's life and succeed. I was talking to a man, I was coaching a man last week.

Speaker 1 He's

Speaker 1 in excess of a billionaire. And

Speaker 1 so he said to me,

Speaker 1 you know, I'm a billionaire. And

Speaker 1 my mother made me become a billionaire.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I did it. And I thought, finally, I've done it.
I've made her happy. And I'm a billionaire now.

Speaker 1 And he said, you know what? I said, no. He said,

Speaker 1 I still hated her.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 He thought becoming a billionaire was going to make his relationship with his mother great.

Speaker 1 But, you know, she was someone who relentlessly drove him. And she

Speaker 1 had internalized her.

Speaker 1 She didn't need to be there anymore. He had internalized her.

Speaker 3 Because he was doing it himself. Oh, he was.

Speaker 1 relentlessly driving himself.

Speaker 3 Okay. I hear when people come to the Hoffman process, they often have reached material success or checked all the boxes, college, marriage, home, kids, cars, the things.

Speaker 3 And then they start to wonder, is that all there is? Yes. And you know that that happened almost every single day that we were taping the Oprah show.

Speaker 3 That became my major connection to the audience because every day I would sit and talk to the audience. And around the 90s, women started to stand up and say that to me.

Speaker 3 They've said, I did all the things. I got the degree.
I had the kids. I did all the things.
But is this it? Is there more? Is that all there is?

Speaker 1 Well, obviously, that's not all there is. Obviously.
And there's self-satisfaction. And there's really the feeling of belonging and loving yourself.

Speaker 1 When we say self-love, this is not some narcissistic thing.

Speaker 1 This is

Speaker 1 discovering your essence. Yes.
And your essence is love, as I said.

Speaker 3 I understand. You believe most people are seeking two experiences, the feeling of, of course, we all love this feeling of vibrancy, of being alive,

Speaker 3 and this feeling also of, I love this word, wholeness.

Speaker 3 Because I think in all of my, you know, interviews and research and reading and seeking, I've seen that so many people are looking for perfection when they should be seeking. to be whole.

Speaker 3 And I remember this interview that I did with Jane Fonda, and she said to me, I've stopped looking for being perfect. I'm no longer in search of being perfect.
I just want to be whole.

Speaker 3 And I remembered that I went, whoa, Jane, you're so wise.

Speaker 3 But that's what Hoffman is about, is about bringing wholeness to people. I realized later in life that

Speaker 3 the challenge is not to be perfect, it's to be whole.

Speaker 1 And I think it takes a little work to become whole. You've said it exactly.

Speaker 1 Wholeness is the main result of the Hoffman process, a sense of wholeness. And

Speaker 1 when one has that wholeness,

Speaker 1 you connect to the wholeness in life.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to remember

Speaker 1 the educator, Parker Palmer, said there's a hidden wholeness in all things.

Speaker 1 There's a hidden wholeness in all things. And when you discover that wholeness within yourself, And that is when your quadrunity is integrated and in harmony, then you

Speaker 1 the hidden wholeness in all things is revealed to you and you are at home in the universe.

Speaker 3 Oh, I love that.

Speaker 3 Well, you know, when you first start hearing about the Hoffman Institute, for me, it's usually from people who have wealth or who have fame or who have received a lot of attention in their lives.

Speaker 3 But not everybody who goes there is famous. Most people who go there are not famous.

Speaker 3 Megan is joining us from Oklahoma and she's a former Marine who also served as a security guard for President George W. Bush.
Hi, Megan.

Speaker 3 And I understand that despite your high-profile career, you were really struggling on the inside. What was going on, and how did Hoffman help you change that?

Speaker 1 Yes, ma'am. First off, I just want to say thank you for this opportunity and hello to both of you.

Speaker 1 When I joined the military, it was an escape. I was trying to figure out what I could do with my life, but I unfortunately went through the experience of military sexual trauma.

Speaker 1 I was also physically injured when I was in the Marine Corps. So I came out with pretty significant post-traumatic stress disorder.

Speaker 1 And so you layer that on top of my childhood traumas. And then I'm also a tribal citizen.

Speaker 1 I'm Muskogee Creek. And so.

Speaker 1 you layer in the historical and generational traumas and all of that. And

Speaker 1 I was stuck. I was very stuck.

Speaker 3 And what happened when you went to Hoffman?

Speaker 1 So I had, just prior to Hoffman, I had learned about meditation, about sensory awareness. So I was familiar with using that as a coping tool.
But then I lost my dad to suicide.

Speaker 1 And that's, I mean, it opened up all of the wounds all over again. I was very much right back in the midst of all the PTSD, flashbacks, nightmares, everything.

Speaker 1 I was even struggling just to get out to go to the grocery store. I mean, my whole life was just derailed.
And so my mentor at the time, she told me about Hoffman. She told me that it would help.

Speaker 1 And I said, you know what? At the end of the day, what I've been doing, it kind of works, but I need something more. I need to do something to get unstuck.

Speaker 1 And so Hoffman really allowed me the space that I needed to reconnect. to myself and then also put my put myself back together,

Speaker 1 but in a way that, as you've already mentioned before, focused on love and on light. Because before that,

Speaker 1 I had three emotions and I lived mostly in anger.

Speaker 3 Anger,

Speaker 3 angrier, and most angry. Yes.

Speaker 1 Yes, pretty much.

Speaker 3 Wow. When you hear this, Raz, it makes you feel what? It makes you understand how the pro you, well, you know the process works.

Speaker 1 It makes me happy

Speaker 1 because that's why we're doing this. We're doing this so that people can be free.
They can be more free, open, loving, and spontaneous.

Speaker 1 That's the rich life. And

Speaker 1 everyone, you know, it's not by my standard, it's by your standard. And you can see,

Speaker 1 I could see by the smile on your face, and I can feel the gratitude in your heart

Speaker 1 that you are,

Speaker 1 you're living, doesn't mean your life is perfect, but you're living the life. you're living your life, not someone else's life.

Speaker 3 And you've said, one of the things I love that you've said is that the goal is, your goal is to help people to become more of who they are. Right.
Who they are instead of who they aren't. Right.

Speaker 1 And, you know, taking off on

Speaker 1 what we've just heard here is that,

Speaker 1 you know, in her desperation, she tried putting on the uniform of a Marine to be all right,

Speaker 1 to be tough, to be strong enough to withstand all the things that were hurting her, but it only got worse.

Speaker 3 It only got worse.

Speaker 3 And that is what happens when people put on someone else's identity or put on the identity that they think they're supposed to have instead of being able to be fully whole in themselves.

Speaker 1 And it's the false promise, perhaps, of often I would say of our military is that it takes young people who are trying to figure out, I'm 18,

Speaker 1 what does it mean to be an adult?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 there's the idea that if I become a Marine,

Speaker 1 I'll be an adult. or if I become a banker, or if I become an entrepreneur, or if I become this or whatever.
And so so much of

Speaker 1 what passes for adult life and accomplishment, in her case, it was a negative experience, but a lot of it is people's success. So many people are successful and not happy.
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Having the symbols of success is not enough.

Speaker 3 Have you become more whole, Megan, as a part of this process?

Speaker 1 I definitely believe so.

Speaker 1 I have had some pretty major career changes as a result. I went and I got my master's in social work.

Speaker 1 I'm now working on my PhD in psychology, and my focus is to create a wellness model for marginalized communities like tribal nations. Wonderful.
Especially for our veterans.

Speaker 3 Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us today.

Speaker 4 I appreciate you all taking the time out of your busy day to be here with me.

Speaker 4 When we come back, Raz Ngrossi with the Hoffman Institute explains how the Hoffman process helps people find a sense of meaning and wholeness in a society that often seems to care only about the outward signs of success.

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Speaker 4 Thank you for staying with us.

Speaker 4 I'm talking with Raz and Grossi with the Hoffman Institute about how we're often so focused on the symbols of success, we lose sight of what we really need to live a meaningful life.

Speaker 3 You know, Raz says, Raz, the Hoffman Hoffman process is over $6,000 a week, and many people, as we know, cannot afford that. $6,000 is

Speaker 3 a lot of money when you're just trying to make it, and even though you might want to be whole. So what do you have there for people who can't?

Speaker 1 We have a very robust scholarship program. I believe Megan was a recipient of one of our scholarships.
We like to have people who are receiving scholarships to have some skin in the game.

Speaker 1 So we want them to

Speaker 1 pay what they can.

Speaker 1 But we offer this for, in fact, Megan, I think, came in through our veterans program.

Speaker 1 But also there's just these people who are holding the fabric of society together.

Speaker 1 Our first responders, teachers, firemen, they don't earn the kind of money that can allow them to, or people who are in nonprofit organizations.

Speaker 1 They're doing great things for the culture, for the society, but they're not earning the kind of money. And it's not only the money, it's the time to take a week away.

Speaker 3 I hear many people have said to you, especially, you know, businessmen, I don't, you know, wealthy guys, I don't have time to do this. I don't have time to do that.
And you say what to them?

Speaker 1 Well, actually, I say you're one of the people who has control of your life. I say you're not a single mother of.
two kids waiting on tables in Omaha, Nebraska. Right.

Speaker 1 You are in charge, and you have control of your life. And what you need to do is prioritize yourself instead of squeezing you out of your life.
Put yourself in the middle of your life and

Speaker 1 organize yourself so that you can be the person you really want to be, who you really are. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I just want to say,

Speaker 3 I love that phrase that you're there helping people to become really who they are instead of who they aren't.

Speaker 3 Because I think one of the greatest compliments I ever received was a reporter who had interviewed me back in the 90s. And then in 2010, we did another interview.

Speaker 3 And she said, you know, I remember you from this interview we did in Washington. And she said,

Speaker 3 you're the same, but you've just become more of yourself.

Speaker 1 Beautiful. And I said to her,

Speaker 3 I'm going to put that on my tombstone. If I had a tombstone, I'm going to be cremated.
So therefore.

Speaker 3 But that you've become more of yourself. I think that's what we're all here to do, is to become more alive, more vibrant, more fully who we were meant to be.

Speaker 3 And I read that globally, 135,000 people have gone through this Hoffman process and they're currently, what, 13 centers worldwide? What would you say is the secret behind

Speaker 3 the program's success?

Speaker 1 Well, we don't do any marketing, so it's all word of mouth. And the secret behind the success is that the program works.

Speaker 1 I think as adults, we get to that point, many of us, where we say,

Speaker 1 I need to do some serious work on myself. I need, there's something going on here.
Yeah. I need to work on myself.

Speaker 1 And when people reach that point, what we want is when they start asking around and looking around, that Hoffman will come up as a really credible alternative.

Speaker 3 Well, you've spent 30 years guiding people through a process that where they experience, and as I said at the beginning of this, you confront your demons, you're trying to heal from some of the most difficult challenges in life, all the challenges that keep coming your way and crises.

Speaker 3 I often ask this question on the podcast: what do you, I heard a Stanford professor say this, that he was planning on doing a course at Stanford on this, and that is, what is your definition of a well-lived life?

Speaker 3 What is a well-lived life?

Speaker 1 Wow. A well-lived life, I'm in the middle of living my life,

Speaker 1 trying to do a good job.

Speaker 1 Well-lived life, I think, is one in which your heart is open and you have compassion for yourself,

Speaker 1 inner compassion for others, that you're,

Speaker 1 you know, everyone's hurting. Everyone's got something.
Yeah. And

Speaker 1 where you are able to navigate the mysteries of life rather than trying to get the answer. There are these mysteries in life, parenting, love,

Speaker 1 sex.

Speaker 1 relationships,

Speaker 1 my career, expressing myself into the world. And we want to be competent at navigating those mysteries rather than finding the answer because there is no answer.
There is no the answer.

Speaker 1 And when you navigate the mystery in life, I like to say that your spiritual self, this essential and authentic, deepest part of you, is resonating in harmony with the universe.

Speaker 1 I mentioned earlier that when you just come into your own wholeness, you're connected to the wholeness of life. And so you have that

Speaker 1 feeling that the force is with you,

Speaker 1 right? Yeah. This is my day.
Wow, things are falling into place.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 often we see it, I like to watch, you know, San Francisco Bay Area has got all these athletic teams. And I like to watch that.
I like to watch golf. I like to play golf.

Speaker 1 And sometimes you just see them, they're in the zone. The whole team is in the zone.
Or I've been in the zone and different things.

Speaker 1 Well, I just want to say it's possible to live in the zone a lot more. And

Speaker 1 that's a very rewarding place to live and to help others find their zone and to live it, to be joyful and contribute to. Contribute to the world, contribute to the others.

Speaker 1 Well, that's why you were here.

Speaker 3 That's why you were here, because as a seeker, you started out by saying that you've been a seeker your whole life. And I know that's what seekers do.

Speaker 3 I'm a seeker too seekers want other people to have the same kind of fulfillment that they they have in life and I haven't been to the Hoffman Institute as I as I said to you all at the beginning of this I know so many people who have been and other people who now are going I've even sponsored other people to go

Speaker 3 but I was just curious just to see who is behind this thing that I keep hearing about. I thank you.
I thank you. I thank you for raising the consciousness in the world.

Speaker 3 Thank you, Ras, for being here, giving us a glimpse into the Hoffman process. And thank you to my guests, Orlando Bloom and Megan, for joining us.

Speaker 3 For more information on the Hoffman process, you go to HoffmanInstitute.org. It's all there.
And I want to thank you all for joining me for this interesting conversation.

Speaker 3 I don't think there's anything more important, actually,

Speaker 3 than

Speaker 3 realizing the

Speaker 3 fullest potential of your own life.

Speaker 3 And I often say this, that I know that we're all here seeking the same thing, that we all want the same thing, and that is to be able to live out the truest, highest expression of ourselves as human beings.

Speaker 3 And that's the kind of thing that we like to talk about on this podcast. So I'll see you next week.

Speaker 1 Go well, everybody.

Speaker 3 You can subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week.
Thanks, everybody.