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Light News: What is it about Hoffman work that called to you, individually and as a couple, and continues to hold your interest? Raz: Throughout my adult life I’ve been fascinated by transformational change. While in high school I studied Zen Buddhism and I learned about enlightenment experiences. I’ve always been drawn to things that allow people to live in a way they never imagined was possible. I’ve spent my adult life studying and exploring how that works and the Hoffman Process perfectly suits my understanding of how these profound and lasting changes occur. There’s a literature in every culture go- ing back thou- sands of years documenting transformational learning experiences; Joseph Campbell wrote about it in “The Hero’s Journey.” The Process fits with those forms and also includes the rational mind, landing us perfectly in our 21st century culture. Of course, I am still learning. LN: Liza, what was it about the Process that called to you, professionally?
Liza: A significant result I got from the Process was the importance and possibility of living and working in a way that supported family, and supported Raz and where we were in our lives. So when I completed the Process, in order to fulfill the deep change I felt inside, it was very important for me to work somewhere that was family-friendly, and where I could work hours that supported my young children. My degree is in childhood development so the Hoffman Process brought Raz’s knowledge and my knowledge together in a brilliant way. LN: You brought to the early days of the organization a great deal of management and operational experience. Liza: When Bob Hoffman was looking for help, I was happy to bring my administrative expertise, with the goal of supporting the organization’s growth. My involvement with the Institute started before I actually did the Process -- it started with helping to create a foundation for the organization to grow. LN: The Process commemorated its 40th year in 2007. What was it about the social climate of the 1960s that allowed the Process to take root? Raz: The Process was born in 1967, the same year as the ‘Summer of Love,’ when the counterculture was blossoming. There was actually a great spiritual awakening in our country from the mid sixties to the mid seventies; a big discovery and a popular understanding, especially in the younger generation, that love was central to human existence, that love was the most important thing. All this came at a time of great social upheaval, so the good, bad and the ugly all kind of got mixed together. At the same time, Bob Hoffman, who was in his mid-forties, was coming up with a way of accelerated learning that led to a more lasting, in-depth understanding of change and allowed people to live more fully from love. In the sixties when the counter culture was saying “don’t trust anyone over 30,” Bob Hoffman discovered how to induce intergenerational healing. LN: What had you decide to make this your life’s work? Raz: I first met Bob in 1973. I knew him well for a couple of years and we drifted apart. I re-met him at a Christmas party in 1988 and asked him to remind me of the underpinnings of his work. He told me about Negative Love Syndrome and I understood immediately that he was onto something extraordinary. I asked, “is your program as good as your theory?” He said the Process was even better. A few months later I did the Process, and indeed it was excellent. I felt that it deserved a much wider audience, and I was confident that Liza and I could help. LN: Liza, you’ve been intimately involved in every aspect of the Hoffman Institute for the past 18 years. When someone who’s unfamiliar asks you to describe the Process, what do you say? Liza: I describe it as a retreat that provides an experience where people make profound inner change by resolving what’s unresolved in their own heart. The Process allows a person to deal with what cannot be dealt with through your intellect or even by knowing it so well that you could write a story about it. I believe the Process provides a restoration of one’s essential life force and intuition. It teaches people to recognize and trust their inner voice, and it gives them tools to become more fluent in challenging the negative patterns that no longer serve them. The Process is restorative and renewing because the wisdom that people find inside was always already there.
Raz: Life truly is a mystery, but there’s a pretense in our culture that it’s not. There’s a pretense that when you become an adult you will magically know how to get married, sustain love, have a career, how to raise children, grow old gracefully, save money, and so on. But nobody teaches us any of this so everyone’s imitating what they see on TV and in the movies, but unfortunately, so much of the popular culture is empty and meaningless. The Process initiates people into being human and into finding answers within that are needed to live a life based on love, peace, dignity and contribution, rather than on things people imagine will bring them satisfaction, but don’t. At the Process we see a lot of successful people who are confronting a lack of deep meaning and they want a bigger life, they want to really be alive. LN: How is it that the Process is so effective, even though participants come from very diverse backgrounds? Raz: Because just below the surface people are the same everywhere. If all you see when you look at another human being is what’s different, then you don’t see the human being. Liza: When Bob Hoffman was asked if there’s anybody the Process isn’t good for, he would answer, “anyone who didn’t have a mom or dad.” It’s a simple statement with a lot of truth to it. I’ve seen people of all ages, religions, and backgrounds, people who’ve written workshops, people who’ve done every workshop, clergy members and every kind of professional gain tremendous benefits from the Process, no matter how much other work they’ve done. Everyone starts from where they are, so it’s not redundant. LN: Raz, I’ve heard you say that one of Bob Hoffman’s goals was to “Create peace on Earth one person at a time.” Can you elaborate? Raz: Bob was saying that peace is a choice that comes from inside - it’s not an external thing. The kind of peace Bob spoke of is not merely the absence of violence -- it’s deep personal peace. When you penetrate the depths of the human psyche you find light, peace and love. And when people take the Hoffman Process, they find that too. LN: Can you share some milestones that you’ve witnessed or been responsible for during your time at the Institute? Raz: A big milestone happened in 1985, when the Process was made into a 1-week residential program. Before that Bob was doing a 13-week program where people would come for four hours a night, two nights a week, for three and a half months. It was very powerful but it was impractical for expansion. Within five years of becoming a one-week program, the Process it was in ten countries and was beginning to really grow in the US. In America, making the organization into a nonprofit was very significant. LN: When did it become a nonprofit, and how did it impact the organization? Liza: In 1998 we became fully non-profit. From a financial perspective, making money was not the goal. Making the Process available to more people was the most important thing, yet if we charged what we needed to charge, it would not be accessible to most people. Being a non-profit allows more people to participate in creating a better future, whether it’s for research or for Harvard or for training teachers, or the gift of White Sulphur Springs…. LN: Or the Process Scholarship Fund… Liza: Yes! In 2007 we’ll give away more than $400,000 in scholarship support. The Scholarship Fund lets people do the Process when they’re most open to it, which is not always when they’re most financially able. Raz: If we did not have nonprofit status, and were paying a mortgage on White Sulphur Springs, sponsoring the research, paying the teachers and staff a living salary, we’d have to charge at least 50% more in tuition. It’s a labor-intensive program. Liza: Labor intensive and human intensive. Raz: Yes, it’s based on human interaction. There’s one highly trained teacher in residence with eight people for more than a week. What happens through the Process is a huge miracle. So far there’s no technology that can replicate this -- the human heart opens only in the presence of another human being so you can’t do it any other way. Liza: Right…this isn’t distance learning, nor is it on the Internet nor is it something you can get from tapes and videos. Raz often says that ‘the longest journey you’ll ever take is to travel the distance between your head your heart.’ Raz: I didn’t originate it but yes it is important. We often know things intellectually, but until it’s known in our heart, in our being, nothing really changes. LN: The benefits of the Process were recently published in a scientific journal, and medical and mental health professionals are speaking out in support of its effectiveness. How does this impact the future of the Process? Raz: This kind of recognition puts us in a different league because the question is no longer ‘does the Process work?’ The question now is, ‘are you ready to do the work to change your life?’ LN: So the discussion has shifted. Raz: The research shows that there’s nothing else (in the scientific literature) that produces as much positive change as the Hoffman Process. The Process reduces a broad range of negative affect while simultaneously increasing a wide range of positive affect. The research shows that a full year after completing the Process, the positive changes have even increased. LN: The Process makes the distinction between learned negative behavior and the authentic self quite beautifully. Raz: If you think about life like driving a car, a lot of people have their hands on the rear view mirror and they look out back, wondering why they crash all the time. They’ve got to get their hands off the rear view mirror, grab the steering wheel and look out the front. So you’ve got to teach people how to “drive their life,” which actually is not so difficult. What’s really difficult is not using it the way it’s designed. We’re orienting people to live the way life works naturally. LN: On a personal note, you seem to have a strong, happy marriage. How has being joint stewards of this work impacted your marriage and family, and how do you make working together work? Raz: I think we’re both committed to this work. We’ve both been in this field for about 30 years and we’re happiest when we’re working together. Liza: And both of us are clear that to take care of a relationship and a family, there needs to be a commitment to doing your own personal work as well as the work of the couple, and the work of the family. Raz and I can tell the difference between something we have to work on in ourselves, and what we have to work on together. The bottom line is we’re committed to each other’s success and to the success of the whole. And we are in love. Raz: And while we both have a strong calling to do this Hoffman work, we approach it from different perspectives. I’m more visionary and Liza’s more organizationally savvy and implementation oriented. She’s got a lot more know-how in running an organization. There’s also something poetic about a husband and wife, a mom and a dad, running the Process because it needs both of those perspectives. LN: So true!! What might the world, from the Hoffman Process perspective, look like in the year 2047, 40 years from now? Raz: I’d like to see some of the central values of the Process embedded into the culture. I’d like people in high school to be taught about child development. I’d like people to know that authenticity is at the heart of leadership. And for people to understand that every human being is an absolutely unique gift. Children need to be given respect, dignity, appreciation and love, which unfortunately is not what many kids receive. And I hope that people will live from the knowledge that the earth is alive and that humanity is here to serve the Light. I see a turning towards this knowledge and the Process accelerates that understanding. LN: Liza, how would you shape the future? Liza: I’d like to see a restoration of compassion and respect to all levels of humanity. I believe that each and every person who does the Process, by living their own lives with greater respect, more healing, deeper acceptance for themselves and others, leads to that restoration. We’re never going to have every person take the Process; it’s simply not possible. So the message of the Process needs to be shared through the way we treat one another. LN: On behalf of the Hoffman community, our most sincere thanks for your vision, your dedication, and your unwavering love and compassion for each person you have touched through this work. And here’s to the next 40 years!
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phone: 800/506-5253 or 415/485-5220 · email: enrollment@hoffmaninstitute.org |
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