“When unpleasant things happen in our lives, we can become wise or wounded - that is our choice.” Sadhguru
Wise or wounded - it’s your choice.
This past month, I attended a process called “The Hoffman process”. It’s an intensive personal development program, lasting 7 full days, designed to help you break free from negative patterns, heal emotional wounds, and reconnect with your authentic self.
It combines psychotherapy, Gestalt, guided visualizations, meditation, expressive work, and inner-child exploration. The idea is that many of our struggles as adults stem from conditions and coping mechanisms we unconsciously adopted in childhood from our parents and or caregivers.
Had I known how challenging and intense this week would be, I don’t think I would have gone; yet, I am so grateful I did.
Ultimately, this process marks the transition into adulthood. You are responsible for your life and choices, and you can choose to be happy and free or to allow patterns and rebellious patterns to dictate your existence. What is meant by this is either you adopt 1-1 the patterns of your parents/caregivers, or you adopt a rebellious pattern to them, which is still not a pattern out of free will. I always felt that I was free, as I could leave places and people whenever I thought I wanted to. Yet, now I see that I was running out of fear of any commitment that would tie me down, as my childhood was quite unstable. So, this so-called freedom as a grown-up was simply me allowing my fear of losing control to take control of my life.
When you arrive, you are asked to surrender your phone, computer, tablets, books, magazines, car keys, and essentially anything that distracts you from the present moment. You are also asked to refrain from any form of exercise or spiritual practices, such as meditation, outside of the process. When I heard the no exercise and to give up my car keys, I immediately felt a pang inside me. Those things have given me a sense of freedom since I can remember. Going for runs and being able to jump in my car or hop on a plane at whim have always felt like my get out of jail free cards, when in fact, they were putting me in a prison of my own making. I really only began to understand this toward the end of the process. The capacity to sit with feelings, to surrender to everything that is happening within you and around you, and to NOT HAVE TO CONTROL is precisely why I love being with horses, and yet take me away from them. I have often fallen back into my patterns. Seeing and understanding this has felt like a wake-up call and a gift for the process of partnering with horses and people.
I have made some changes since leaving Hoffman, and I look forward to sharing more soon. I wanted to share this audio, which you can listen to and reflect on past or recent situations where you acted out a pattern, or where you know you will act out a pattern. This takes about 6 1/2 minutes. Here is the Audio. Get comfortable and try it.
