My Hoffman Process Reflections
Last week I took one of my non-negotiable breaks from life.
Where I go completely off the grid, no phone, no email, no access to the outside world. Before I became an entrepreneur, I never would have considered taking time like this off. I thought being unreachable was reckless, actually no, I thought it was simply impossible. I genuinely believed that stepping away from the daily grind would leave me so far behind, as if my world would somehow fall apart without me holding it together.
Now I know that this thinking was complete bullshit.
After I started my coaching business in 2023, I made a commitment to myself. At least once a year, I would schedule a 'peak experience.' A stretch of time where I'm unreachable, recharging, and reconnecting to my life without the constant demand of doing and distraction. Not because I need to escape my life, but because I need to return to it. If I don’t force myself to step away from it all then survival mode takes over, and I start living like everything is urgent and nothing is enough.
This year, my peak experience was the Hoffman Process.
What is the Hoffman Process?
As someone who is endlessly curious about personal growth, I love hearing about experiences that offer a new lens on what it means to be human. When a few people in my orbit shared their profound journeys at Hoffman, you can bet I jumped all over it. True to form, my spontaneity kicked in, I didn’t do any research and the call of intrigue encouraged me sign up ASAP.
The simplest way I can capture the Hoffman process is this:
We aren’t living our lives. We are living a patterned version of them.
The process is an intense (very intense, lol) deep dive into uncovering, understanding, and unraveling patterns we learned and embodied to receive love as a kid.
The Hoffman Process teaches you to:
Identify inherited behavioral patterns you developed in childhood as a way to feel love
Understand how your patterns disrupt and affect your life today
Interrupt your patterns and see yourself as separate from them
Reclaim what I constantly remind my coaching clients about: the power of choice
Most of us live in what they call 'awareness hell' = we can see what's not working, but we can't seem to change it, so we stay stuck in it.
Through visualizations, somatic expression, journaling, and extremely vulnerable group sharing, the process showed me that I am not defined by my patterns. I am just the human who learned them, which means I’m also the one who can change them.
To give you a concrete idea of what this all means,
Here are several patterns I confronted that have greatly shaped my life:
Being a perfectionist
Minimizing my own pain and/or emotions
Fear of expressing my needs
Narrative of ‘never enough’ means I'm always raising the bar
Constant busyness to give me a felt sense of worthiness
Always planning and thinking ahead
The deeply ingrained belief that “skinny is better”
My goals going in were to:
Cultivate more self-love
Be less reactive with my self-sabotaging habits
Feel inherently worthy without attachment to external conditions
A Note on Expectations
Before the process, I was in a life chapter where I felt burnt out, anxious, and very disconnected from my body. I left the process, feeling grounded, rejuvenated, more compassionate with myself, and filled with excitement for my future.
I have to be totally honest in saying, these outcomes weren’t necessarily new or foreign to me. I do feel this way (for the most part) in my current life, but I also recognize and accept the essence of the human experience: we, and our lives, are constantly changing. Plus the daily noise of responsibilities, obligations, and expectations, slowly drowns out our presence, and the most beautiful parts of who we are.
There were many powerful aspects to the process and tons of unpleasant experiences that stretched me in really uncomfortable ways. I know that I’m walking away enriched, but I’m not sure that Hoffman completely transformed my life, and I think that's worth naming. A few reasons why I believe this to be the case for me:
I was fortunate, and am so grateful, that I grew up with incredibly loving and caring parents
I've spent years and many hours investing in healing, spirituality, and personal development, so I arrived at Hoffman from a very informed, practiced place.
My self-love and growth journey is a huge priority, so I already implement and infuse a lot of their teachings into my daily life
On the final day, we were instructed to write a personal vow. I'm sharing mine with the hope that something in it lands for you, and reminds you that this life, your life, gets really good when you stop holding back.
My Commitment to Self
I came out of the process with clear and honest vows to myself:
To make love my default setting
To be gentle with myself, especially on the hard days
To let myself be imperfect and messy
To trust myself fiercely
To stop abandoning myself for success
To live from possibility, not fear
I know I won’t live these out every single day, but that’s not my goal. My vows aren't a standard to perform, they're my anchors that gently steer me back when I inevitably drift away.
In practice, this looks like:
Printing out my vows and having them visible as daily reminders
Acknowledging my harsh inner voice with compassion instead of criticism
Grounding myself over and over again by coming back to my breath
Remembering that my thoughts and emotions are temporary
Relying on the amazing friendships I formed at Hoffman and not being shy when I know I need help
