The Hoffman Podcast S10e13: Lee Klinger Lesser – What Does This Moment Ask of Me?
Lee Klinger Lesser is our guest today. A graduate of the Hoffman Process, Lee has led Sensory Awareness somatic workshops worldwide for many decades. She teaches workshops to diverse groups, including veterans and wildland firefighters.
Lee led and co-founded a non-profit organization to work with military veterans: Veteran’s PATH. While she no longer leads this organization, Lee still works with Veterans, many of whom have graduated from the Hoffman Process.
As a Hoffman grad, Lee is familiar with the “Left Road, Right Road” tool, a choice point that occurs many times each day of our lives. Lee speaks to how crucial presence is in choosing the steps of our lives and the direction our lives take. The question she often holds is, What does this moment ask of me? In each moment, we can ask ourselves this powerful question. It’s a way to slow down and realize that everything that exists is here and only here. Each moment asks us to stop and sense our next step, or in Hoffman terms, whether or not we will go down the Left Road or Right Road.
The capacity Lee has to express the power of an embodied life in words is extraordinary. Listen in as she offers an articulated path to conscious choice in each moment of our lives. She says, “If we keep offering what we can offer, and we have confidence in our own possibility to have impact and our capacity to respond, then we’re not going to have regret. We may not be able to change things, maybe we’re not going to be able to change what we want, but the way we’re living and what we offer is coming from our own love and our own vitality and our own ability to respond.”
We hope you enjoy this deep and rich conversation with Lee and Drew.
Content warning: This episode references suicide. If you or someone you know is considering suicide, you can call the US National Suicide Prevention Program at 800-273-8255 (or simply 988), or message the crisis text hotline at 741741.
More about Lee Klinger Lesser:
Lee studied Sensory Awareness for 33 years in the United States with Charlotte Selver, the founder of this practice. Through Return to Our Senses, she’s been leading workshops since 1976, in English and Spanish. Lee sees over and over again the gift that this practice brings into the lives of so many people and into our world, which is in such great need of people living with awareness, resilience, and presence. She has reached into communities facing significant challenges to offer the resource and refuge of this practice.
Lee led and co-founded a non-profit organization to work with military veterans: Veteran’s PATH —Peace, Acceptance, Transformation, Honor. She led this work for 12 years, stepping away from a formal role in the organization in Fall 2019. Under new leadership, the organization dissolved in 2023. Lee still facilitates programs for veterans and honors this work as some of the most meaningful and life-changing work she has had the privilege to do. She witnessed veterans open to devastating experiences, face, and transform pain into new possibilities. Lee continues to be inspired by the profound commitment to service and the loving dedication to community that she experienced in her work with veterans.
Lee’s work and the Climate Crisis:
Over the past six years, Lee has been helping to develop programs for Wildland firefighters on the front lines of the Climate Crisis. These firefighters are seeking support to meet the overwhelming challenges they are facing.
Whether we realize it or not, we are all on the frontlines of the Climate Crisis. This has led Lee to develop programs to integrate the practice of Sensory Awareness with responding to the Climate Crisis. She is dedicated to bringing forward the core lesson she has learned from her years of practice: “There is no place to run, there is no escape from being with what is.” This is especially poignant and true as we realize that this Earth is the only home we have. We cannot run from what is happening. There is no escape from what is happening. So, it is up to each of us to find how to contribute to healing and caring for this precious home.
As mentioned in this episode:
Sensory Awareness and Charlotte Selver
Return to Our Senses
• Return to Our Senses Veterans Programs
• Return to Our Senses & the Climate Crisis
“Despair is never a solution. It is the ultimate failure. If the rope breaks nine times, we must splice it together a tenth time. Even if we ultimately do fail, at least we will have no feelings of regret. And when we combine this insight with a clear appreciation of our potential to benefit others, we can begin to restore our hope and confidence.” The 14th Dalai Lama
Listen to the poem “Lost,” by David Wagoner
Elsa Gindler
• The history of Sensory Awareness
Listen to Megan Lowry on the Hoffman Podcast.
Learn more about various Hoffman Process Scholarships
Watch the Greta Thunberg and Dalai Lama video
“I sleep nine hours every night and I sleep very peacefully.” The 14th Dalai Lama