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The Hoffman Process:
The World-Famous Technique that Empowers You to Forgive Your Past,
Heal Your Present, and Transform Your Future
A new book by Tim Laurence, published June, 2004 by Bantam Books,
Inc.
Tim Laurence
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$13.00 |
Sales tax added for CA residents.
Foreword
By Joan
Borysenko, Ph.D., from "The Hoffman Process: The World-Famous
Technique That Empowers You to Forgive Your Past, Heal Your Present,
and Transform Your Future," by Tim Laurence
There are moments in every lifetime when the tide turns and you
are forever changed. Long after such moments pass, you can recall
them with an almost crystalline clarity. They seem realer than real,
imbued with a singular richness of insight, emotion, and presence.
In that instant you step out of the trance of daily life into a
state of awakening and freedom. You are at home at last, comfortable
in your own skin, feeling what Einstein called solidarity with all
life. Your personal journey —the successes and failures, the
wounds and the wisdom—makes profound sense. A wellspring of
compassion opens, and you love yourself and all beings with deep
humility and utter simplicity—perhaps for the very first time.
From that tender place of homecoming comes the absolute conviction
that life is a sacred journey, a blessing and a privilege.
I experienced such a moment of awakening over a decade ago during
the Hoffman Quadrinity Process. I had already done much of the work
that you will do in the first section of this book, identifying
the patterns of behavior that had caused so much pain in my life.
But the understanding was largely intellectual until our group played
a simple game together. One person stood in the center of the circle
and made some kind of funny motion, like jumping around in a circle
or flapping their arms. The rest of the group had to mirror their
antics. The person in the center then chose someone else from the
circle to be "it." I was the last one chosen. It felt
achingly like being back in grammar school again, viewing life from
the sidelines.
As I stood in the circle watching my classmates, I felt more and
more self-conscious. I would gladly have disappeared from the face
of the earth rather than stand there for one more minute. Since
I was a psychologist, medical scientist, and author used to giving
frequent lectures to large crowds as well as leading intimate personal-growth
workshops, you might wonder why I felt so uncomfortable. Everyone
else seemed playful. They were having a ball. I stood there poised
and smiling, self-contained and apparently confident. But it wasn’t
really any fun at all. In fact, I wanted to throw up.
My teacher in the Hoffman Process was Tim Laurence, the author of
the book that you are holding in your hands. A few hours after the
game, he called me aside. Why, he inquired with great respect and
interest, did I think that I was the last one to be chosen? I froze.
My breath stopped. I turned red. Damn it,
caught out, I thought.
I racked my mind for plausible excuses that might restore some dignity
to my bruised ego. At the same time, I realized that there was nowhere
to hide. I had signed up for the Process to face my behavioral patterns
and to create a future different from my past. Honesty seemed the
last best hope. It was clear that there was no way out but through.
"I am so self-contained that I scare people away, don’t
I?" I said in a small voice, a child’s voice. "I
am a know-it-all. An Ice Queen." My carefully wrought, polished,
professional persona fell away and I began to sob, "How can
I play when I hate myself? Whatever I am is never enough. No one
could love who I really am." Now I was getting somewhere. My
false self, or ego, had cracked and fallen away. Inside was a familiar
pain and fear that I had carried around in secret for a lifetime.
It cried out for healing.
Tim witnessed my emotional pain with absolute kindness. And he didn’t
let me off the hook. He asked questions that helped me stay with
the feelings that I was experiencing. Whereas my intellect had talked
a good game all my life, it hadn’t changed how I felt. I was
perpetually uptight and unable to play and be spontaneously present.
Instead, all my energy went into projecting an image that I felt
would look good to others. My emotional reactions were those of
a small child, still looking for love and acceptance. I saw clearly
how my body was caught in a constant crossfire between the rationalizations
and postures of my intellectual self and the fear and sorrow of
the small child inside. The warring voices of my intellectual and
emotional selves created stress that had shown up as migraine headaches,
muscle tension, stomach problems, and other physical symptoms. In
fact, it was those very illnesses that had gotten me interested
in mind/body medicine two decades earlier.
But in spite of all the studies and sincere efforts to heal my life,
I hadn’t really changed. I had just become a more insightful
neurotic. Finally, with Tim’s help, I had come to a turning
point. In that moment of awareness and honest emotional expression
I was able to glimpse my own innocence and forgive myself. This
proved to be a lasting foundation for new behaviors. It enabled
me to do what the book offers you— create a future different
from my past.
Since that moment I have been a champion of the Hoffman Quadrinity
Process and currently serve as Chairman of its advisory council.
Every month I get letters from grateful people who have found the
Process through my writings and come to a new level of awareness
and action through the beautifully designed program that is now
available to you not only as an eight-day residential program but
also now described in this book for your guidance. As a psychologist,
medical scientist, and author of ten books on stress, healing, health,
and spiritual growth, I can attest to the elegance of this healing
system.
If you have come to the point where you are fed up with being fed
up, you are ready to change your life. What you have here is a skillful
means to begin your transformation. The program in this book is
the finest and most complete expression of what healing and spirituality
are all about. If it were the only book available on psychospiritual
transformation, it would be enough. Tim has done a superb job describing
the steps that you need to take, bringing many years of experience
into these pages. All you need to bring is your sincere desire to
create a better life for you, your family, the people that you work
with, and our troubled world. That is spirituality in action. And
it is the truest expression of love. It is what you were born for.
—Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.
Foreword by Joan
Borysenko, Ph.D. from "The Hoffman Process: The World-Famous
Technique That Empowers You to Forgive Your Past, Heal Your Present,
and Transform Your Future" by Tim Laurence. Used by permission
of Bantam Books, Inc., a division of Random House, Inc.
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$13.00 |
Sales tax added for CA residents.
Read
our interview with Tim Laurence »
Read
the press release (PDF 155K) »
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