The Hoffman Podcast S7e14: Stella Horgan – Illuminating Our Full & Deepest Potential as Human Beings
Stella Horgan, beloved UK Hoffman Process teacher and so much more, shares with us this wide-arching, panoramic view of her singular life. Stella calls upon us to heal and find our full glorious potential as human beings, reminding us we are valid and that we are in the driver’s seat of our lives.
Content warning: This episode contains explicit material and may not be suitable for all listeners.
Stella takes us across time, lands, cultures, and the many lives she has lived all in this one lifetime. She begins in South Africa, her beloved homeland in the painful years of apartheid and the way those years shaped her.
Stella travels to Australia and shares with us a bit about her ten years living there. While there, Stella found the Hoffman Process. She came to the Process in the early ’00s with a desire to heal. Stella shares with us the powerful, transformational apex of her Process when she experienced knowing she is loved and valid exactly as she is. She left the Process knowing she wanted to become a Hoffman teacher, which she did there in Australia, beginning her journey to be a part of the healing of this world.
We then journey with Stella back to her beloved South Africa and the majestic white lions, women’s healing and empowerment, and permaculture education. Since becoming a teacher, Stella has taught the Process in Australia, the UK, Canada, and the US.
Stella shares stories about the era of apartheid in South Africa and how it affected her and her future life trajectory. She has dedicated her life, personally and professionally, to healing trauma and shame. You will be deeply moved by Stella’s stories and words of hard-won wisdom about the inherent worth and validity of every human being.
More about Stella Horgan:
Stella Horgan is an artist, Director of South African impact NPO Zingela Ulwazi Trust (ZUT), a Senior Supervising Facilitator of the Hoffman Process (UK), a board member of the Australian wildlife advocacy group For the Love of Wildlife, and a coach, facilitator of groups, and workshops. She lives between the UK and South Africa.
In 2022, Stella and the ZUT team created the first Centre for Women’s Independence in Acornhoek, Mpumalanga, South Africa, offering learning experiences to rural women in Food Security (permaculture/regenerative practice), Livelihood Security (small enterprise development), Personal Security (self-defense skills to respond to and prevent harassment and assault), all woven through with Stress Reduction techniques. They formed a thrilling partnership in 2022 with American Zach Bush and his Farmer’s Footprint addressing food security, nutritional diversity, and regenerative practice, through permaculture and planting a food and medicine forest of 2000 trees in a denuded local village.
Stella has worked with dozens of Civil Society organizations in urban and rural contexts addressing environmental and human rights issues. She is fuelled by her love of nature and guided and enriched by her work with the Hoffman Process. Her main mission is to find ways to rebalance human life with nature to create regenerative, happy ways of living where all may thrive.
Enjoy Stella Horgan’s artwork here. Discover more about Stella and Zingela Ulwazi Trust (ZUT). Follow Stella on Instagram and Facebook.
As mentioned in this episode:
Stella has taught the Hoffman Process in Australia, the UK, Canada, and the US. (Pictured is a US Hoffman teaching team with (bottom row, L-R) Lecia Arye, Stella, Amy Thompson, Aerin Lim, Searl Vetter, and Drew Horning (top).
Apartheid
Apartheid, the History
Bright Blue “Weeping” Original Music Video
“It wasn’t roaring, it was weeping.”
Hillbrow, Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa
The Anti-Apartheid Movement in the 1990s
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
The Soul’s Code, by James Hillman
Hoffman Process Australia Team
Volker Krohn – Founder, Director, Supervising Facilitator, Hoffman Australia
– Listen to Volker on the Hoffman Podcast
Craig Tunnell – Supervising Facilitator, Hoffman Australia
Kerri Chinner – Supervising Facilitator, Hoffman Australia
The Dandenongs (and the old-growth forest) outside Melbourne, Australia
School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE), Australia
Global White Lion Protection Trust
Kruger National Park, Timbavati Game Reserve
Linda Tucker – Keeper of the White Lions
White Lions – the Guardians of Life, An Apex Predator
Acornhoek, Mpumalanga, South Africa
Permaculture
Sekwannele Self-defense – “Enough is Enough”
10 Trees – Zach Bush – Regenerative Agriculture
Calico fabric, Embroidery thread
Drakensberge (Dragon’s) Mountains:
“The Afrikaans name Drakensberge comes from the name the earliest Dutch settlers gave to the escarpment, namely Drakensbergen, or Dragons’ Mountains.”
The Blyde River Canyon
(aka Motlatse): “The name Motlatse is said to predate the name Blyde and means ‘a river that is always full’ in the sePulana dialect of Northern Sotho.”
Zingela Ulwazi Team (ZUT):
Trygive Nxumalo, Permaculture Educator
Lillian Marule, Community Liaison, Manager of the Centre for Women’s Independence
Agnes Rapau, Education Program Manager
Becky Harmon, Special Projects Co-ordinator
Hoffman Institute, UK
Hoffman UK and Anti-Racism: Our Statement of Intent
Serena Gordan, Hoffman UK Managing Director, co-founder and Process facilitator
– Listen to Serena on the Hoffman Podcast
Diversity and Inclusion
Horgan: “… is a surname of Irish origin. The origins of the name lie in County Cork, Ireland; the name translates to Warrior or Champion.”