
The Hoffman Podcast
Love’s Everyday Radius
Latest episodes

Sep 19, 2024 • 38min
S9e3: David Bedrick – Unshaming Your Shame
Teacher, counselor, and attorney David Bedrick has developed a profound method for helping people unshame their shame. In this third episode of our short non-grad series of four, David and Drew dive deep into a conversation about the true nature of shame and how to heal it through what David calls Unshaming. While David is not a graduate of the Process, his work is very closely aligned with the work of the Process.
As David says, “Shame is an internalized vision of oneself. It creates feelings, but they are not feelings.”
According to David, to heal shame, someone must truly witness us. In telling our story of what happened, we need to be heard, seen, and understood. We need to be humanized, not stigmatized or pathologized. He says we must be “witnessed for being a human being who’s been through an experience. That’s unshaming. That’s humanizing.” We hope you enjoy this profound conversation on the nature of healing shame with David and Drew.
**This episode mentions physical and sexual violence and may not be suitable for all listeners. Please use your discretion.
More about David Bedrick:
David Bedrick, JD, Dipl. PW grew up in a family marked by violence. While his father’s brutality was physical and verbal, his mother’s denial and gaslighting had its own covert power. This formative context introduced David early to the etiology of shame and instilled an urge to unshame. Professionally, he was on the faculty for the University of Phoenix and the Process Work Institute in the U.S. and Poland and is the founder of the Santa Fe Institute for Shame-based Studies where he trains therapists, coaches, and healers and offers workshops for individuals to further their own personal development.
David writes for Psychology Today. He’s the author of Talking Back to Dr. Phil: Alternatives to Mainstream Psychology and Revisioning Activism: Bringing Depth, Dialogue, and Diversity to Individual and Social Change. His new book is You Can’t Judge a Body by Its Cover: 17 Women’s Stories of Hunger, Body Shame, and Redemption. North Atlantic Books will publish David’s upcoming book, The Unshaming Way, in November 2024. You can preorder The Unshaming Way here.
Discover more about David at DavidBedrick.com. Follow David on Instagram and Facebook.
As mentioned in this episode:
The Wounded Healer Archetype
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross:
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
Dr. Larry Nassar
Somatic
Brené Brown
Allopathic medicine

Sep 12, 2024 • 46min
S9e2: Zach Bush, MD – Nature is the Pathway to Healing Our Wounds
We welcome physician, author, educator, and thought leader, Zach Bush, MD to our podcast. Part of our non-grad series, Dr. Zach is not a graduate of the Hoffman Process but his work speaks to the nature of the unburdening of self that also happens through our highly transformative Hoffman Process.
In this conversation, Dr. Zach and Drew speak of the unburdening of patterns as just the first step. Then, once we know our authentic nature, we can explore who we truly are in relationship to nature.
As a doctor and researcher, Dr. Zach shares with us about the isolated human cell that becomes cancer and how that relates to human beings. Isolation can keep us in a state of disharmony and dysfunction. Coming back into connection and community with other people can heal us, just as the human cell heals when it returns to a connection as part of the larger soil of the body. After we complete the Process, we must find a place or community where we can be our newly awakened selves. This is how we keep unburdening, growing, becoming.
According to Dr. Zach, the deep belief that we were kicked out of nature is the root cause of our wounds. And with that belief comes a deep-seated sense of scarcity in all areas of our lives, especially, as Dr. Zach says, “love, acceptance, and God itself.” We must heal humanity’s root wound – the belief that Nature abandoned us. Nature never did. Nature is our gateway and mirror to healing.
We hope you enjoy this profound, expansive, and enlivening conversation with Drew and Zach Bush, MD.
Photographs of Zach Bush, MD are by Leia Vita.
More about Zach Bush, MD:
Zach Bush, MD is a physician specializing in internal medicine, endocrinology, and hospice care. He is an internationally recognized educator and thought leader on the microbiome as it relates to health, disease, and food systems. Zach Bush, MD founded *Seraphic Group and the non-profit Farmer’s Footprint to develop root-cause solutions for human and ecological health. His passion for education reaches across many disciplines, including topics, such as the role of soil and water ecosystems in human genomics, immunity, and gut/brain health. His education has highlighted the need for a radical departure from chemical farming and pharmacy, and his ongoing efforts are providing a path for consumers, farmers, and mega-industries to work together for a healthy future for people and the planet.
Zach Bush MD’s work in for-profit and nonprofit arenas creates avenues for collaborative action for all stakeholders in our global community for a regenerative future of health for the planet and our children.
Discover more about Dr. Zach at ZachBushMD.com. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, X(Twitter), and YouTube.
As mentioned in this episode:
Mitochondria
Hippocrates
Traditional Chinese Medicine
Yogic traditions:
Ayurveda
Qigong
Tai chi
Microbiome
A Course in Miracles
Hospice and Palliative Care
Buckminster Fuller

Sep 5, 2024 • 30min
S9e1: Michael Franti – Telling Your Story is the Greatest Gift
Welcome to Season 9! We begin this new season with a mini, four-episode non-grad series highlighting guests whose work is harmonious with the work and ethos of the Hoffman Process. Our first non-grad guest is musician, activist, and award-winning filmmaker, Michael Franti.**
As you listen to Michael’s life story, you’ll hear him speak of his feelings of abandonment and being an outsider. These feelings echo much of the work done during a week at the Hoffman Process. With eloquence and an open heart, he tells us his story of adoption, living with alcoholic parents, and what healing these wounds can look like. His life story is beautiful. As Michael says, you’ll see what a generous gift it is to tell one’s story.
Originally recorded as part of an ongoing collaboration with Modern Elder Academy, Michael and Drew met in person in Santa Fe to record this conversation. Chip Conley, co-founder of MEA, chimes in at the end. This is a deep, fun, vulnerable conversation. We hope you enjoy it!
**Please note that this episode is marked explicit for language and some content.
More about Michael Franti:
Michael Franti is a globally recognized musician, activist, and award-winning filmmaker revered for his high-energy live shows, inspiring music, worldwide philanthropic efforts, and the power of optimism. Throughout his multi-decade career, Franti has earned three Billboard No. 1’s with triumphantly hopeful hits “Sound of Sunshine,” “Say Hey (I Love You)” and “I Got You,” as well as six Top 30 Hot AC singles, 10 Top 25 AAA Singles and three Billboard Top 5 Rock Albums. Spearhead’s Follow Your Heart was released in June 2022 and debuted at No. 2 on the iTunes Pop Chart behind Harry Styles. Praised by American Songwriter as “an energizing batch of songs that spotlight the common threads that connect us,” Franti & Spearhead’s 13th studio album Big Big Love is available everywhere now. It features 17 tracks co-written by Franti, reflecting his tenacity, inclusiveness, and optimism.
Franti & Spearhead are currently on the Togetherness Tour in 2024. They bring their dynamic and invigorating shows to Soulrockers across the U.S. This tour includes a return to the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre. With 60+ dates through the summer, the Togetherness Tour kicked off at the Tortuga Music Festival on April 6 in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
The Bay Area native resides in Bali when he is not on tour. Michael owns Soulshine Bali, a 32-room top-rated boutique hotel in Ubud, Bali. Soulshine Bali focuses on joy through wellness and music, offering unique retreat opportunities and accommodations. They also host special events and celebrations. Franti continues to foster community on and off stage with a wish-granting non-profit, Do It For The Love. which brings those with life-threatening illnesses, veterans, and children with severe challenges to concerts worldwide, fulfilling over 3,500 wishes and touching the lives of over 15,000 people to date.
Find out more:
You can find out more about Michael at MichaelFranti.com. Follow Michael on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter(X).
HoffmanInstitute.org/donate
As mentioned in this episode:
Reverend Cecil Williams: “Joy is the intersection between the human and the Divine.”
• Glide Memorial Church
• Michael singing at Rev. Williams’ memorial
Nottoway Indian Tribe of Virginia
The Munchies band – Bali, Indonesia
Lynne Twist
• Listen to Lynne on the Hoffman Podcast: Love’s Immense Power
Robert Mirabal
• Taos Pueblo: Home of the Red Willow People
Gulf War
HIV
Soul
The Multiverse
Modern Elder Academy (MEA)
• Chip Conley – Listen to Chip Conley on the Hoffman Podcast: Wisdom and the Ultimate Spirituality
Rick Rubin: Art vs. Craft – “If you know what you want to do and you do it, that’s the work of a craftsman. If you begin with a question and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of the artist.”
The Beatles
Chuck Berry
University of San Francisco
The Phoenix Hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District
The Esalen Institute
Joie de Vivre Hotels
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Collective Effervescence
• coined by Émile Durkheim
• Dacher Keltner on Collective Effervescence
The Togetherness Tour
• with Michael Franti, Steven Marley, Trevor Hall, Trombone Shorty, Bombargo

Jun 27, 2024 • 36min
S8e20: Dr. Kulreet Chaudhary – The Raw Power of Self-Love
We wrap up season 8 with Dr. Kulreet Chaudhary and her powerful, dynamic conversation with Sharon. Dr. Chaudhary is a neurologist, neuroscientist, and Ayurvedic practitioner. She combines modern neuroscience with ancient wisdom. She also coaches executives of large corporations on how to connect.
Dr. Chaudhary completed the Hoffman Process in 2022. She shares a powerful, pivotal moment from her Process. She was paired up with another student, which provided the perfect invitation to be messy. As she tells us, she’s been trained to keep things clean in her life and work. But at this moment, she let go. Kulreet shares, “I don’t think I have ever been that emotionally messy in my entire adult life.” She tells us that because of her willingness to let go fully into her emotional messiness, she also found a freedom she’d never felt before as an adult.
After she completed the Process, Dr. Chaudhary dove into the Hoffman practices and tools. For about six months, she embraced a daily practice to deepen the transformation that had happened during her Process. It is hard to describe what happened to Kulreet after diligently working with the tools and practices. What stands out is how, in the moment of incredible transformation and healing, Kulreet was holding herself in a profound, unwavering self-love. Holding herself in the radiance of this self-love, the darkness she thought was within her shattered. It wasn’t at all what she’d thought it was. This is the raw power of self-love.
We hope you enjoy and benefit from this profound conversation with Kulreet and Sharon.
We’ll see you again in the second half of August for our next series of conversations.
More about Dr. Kulreet Chaudhary:
Meet Dr. Kulreet Chaudhary, a neurologist, neuroscientist, and a pioneering voice in Sound Medicine and Ayurveda. Combining modern neuroscience with ancient wisdom, Dr. Chaudhary has helped thousands achieve health goals they never thought possible. She passionately advocates for a wellness-based medical system that empowers patients, moving beyond traditional disease-focused approaches. Dr. Chaudhary is the acclaimed author of “The Prime: Prepare and Repair Your Body for Spontaneous Weight Loss” and “Sound Medicine: How to Use the Ancient Science of Sound to Heal the Body and Mind.” She has shared her insights on national platforms like The Dr. Oz Show and Home & Family.
With decades of experience, Dr. Chaudhary continues to advance medical research, participating in over 20 clinical studies on conditions like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease. Her work includes pioneering stem cell therapies and uncovering ancient Siddha Medicine texts in India. As part of the Healthy Directions family, she’s developing an at-home wellness program to help millions lead healthier, happier lives.
Discover more about Dr. Chaudhary’s unique approach to wellness at www.drkulreetchaudhary.com. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook.
Article: The Connection Between the Gut and Brain in Ayurveda (https://www.healthydirections.com/articles/ayurvedic-medicine/ayurveda-gut-brain-connection)
As mentioned in this episode:
Dark Side Stomp (Check)
Ayurveda Medicine
Siddha Medicine Tradition
Star Wars – Return of the Jedi
Enlightenment

Jun 20, 2024 • 0sec
S8e19: Leslie Kornstein – Embodying Our Social Sensibility
Equine Assisted Coach and soon-to-be-published author, Leslie Kornstein, is our guest today. Leslie and Liz sit down for this powerful conversation about healing and coming into a wholeness of self that includes what Leslie calls our social self, the aspect of ourselves she discovered learning from the horses she worked with.
Leslie experienced a delayed emergence of language until age five. Her early challenge became a unique gift as she developed sensitivity to people’s energy, empathy, and understanding of others’ unspoken feelings. Leslie shares her journey to becoming the coach and author she is today. Throughout her story, you’ll hear her weave this deep sensitivity to aspects of life that often go unnoticed by most of us.
Leslie attended the Hoffman Process in 2004. As she tells us, she found the language of the Quadrinity to be a gift. It allowed her to listen to the parts of herself that were in pain. Through this exploration, she was able to heal on multiple levels. She found more healing working with horses herself and then becoming an Equine Assisted Coach.
We hope you enjoy this heart-opening and thought-provoking conversation with Leslie and Liz.
More about Leslie Kornstein:
Up until high school, Leslie was language-challenged. However, her other attributes invited positive peer guides who supported and guided her. After receiving her Master’s degree in 1975 she married and during the next decade became a dedicated teacher, evaluator of learning challenges, and creator of a resource room for children with learning challenges in a NYC public school.
Leslie was moved to adopt a son and daughter due to her physical inability to carry her own children and her near death from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. This created a family for all to benefit from. In the ’90s, Leslie was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. She then realized an inner knowing that healing was a whole-body process. Leslie became a Breathwalk instructor, learned meditation from Deepak Chopra, and completed the Hoffman Process giving her permission to forgive herself and those in her sphere of influence. She trained to be a Hoffman Facilitator. Leslie went on to study Spiritual Psychology at The University of Santa Monica (USM). She followed those studies by becoming a personal coach and training as an Equine Assisted Coach.
Now, Leslie works on her ranch in Reno Nevada assisting others with her equine coaches. She has integrated her life experience and extensive educational background to guide others through their healing and growth journeys. For years, Leslie envisioned a fable being written as a preface for the book she’s been working on with Robert Stokich. One evening K. Alden Peterson, Leslie’s partner, became very curious about SPIES, went to sleep, and dreamt of the fable, which is now the preface to “Lies, SPIES & Butterflies: where individual stories abound, exponential powers emerge, and reimagined lives flourish.” Stay tuned as Leslie & Robert’s book and Alden’s children’s fable will be available by 2025.
Find out more about Leslie on Facebook and Instagram.
As mentioned in this episode:
Equine Assisted Coaching
Near-death Experience (NDE)
Ectopic Pregnancy
Chron’s Disease
The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukov
Spiritual Psychology at The University of Santa Monica
Sentience
Horses as prey animals

Jun 13, 2024 • 0sec
S8e18: Elaine Duncan – From Big Family to Far-Reaching Community
Elaine Duncan, Hoffman Process graduate, and strategy and development consultant, shares her touching story about growing up in a family with numerous adopted siblings. She came to the Process over a decade ago. One thing Elaine remembers and cherishes about the Process is the copious amount of laughter she experienced and the feeling of deep connection, laughter, and joy.
Elaine was the only child in her nuclear family until her parents adopted their second child, a boy younger than Elaine. Elaine’s mother was a social worker who believed deeply in the need for and benefits of international adoption. Living her values, she adopted many children from around the world. While the home was full of children, with both parents often gone, Elaine eventually came to feel adrift in her own home. She eventually found solace in her relationship with her grandmother.
When children are adopted, they have to find their way to a sense of belonging. But what is it like to be the only biological child, the oldest, and then bounce around in the middle position over time because so many siblings join the family? While Elaine wasn’t adopted, she and her life to come were deeply affected by adoption. Listen in as Elaine shares how many children her mother (through two marriages) adopted and the deeper lessons Elaine learned.
Elaine speaks of being a connecter in her life. She draws people to her and creates community wherever she goes. As she tells us, she has found it to be a sense of community that has always saved her. Unsurprisingly, Elaine has recommended the Hoffman Process to numerous people over the ten-years-plus since she completed the Process.
We hope you enjoy this heartwarming and connecting conversation with Elaine and Drew.
More about Elaine Duncan:
Elaine Duncan is a strategy and development consultant inspired by nature, healing the planet, and regenerative practices. She is writing a memoir on growing up as the only biological child in a large multicultural family. Elaine and her husband, David, live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado with their dog, a Brittany named Shilo.
Follow Elaine on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Read Elaine’s articles on Medium.
As mentioned in this episode:
Social Work
International Adoption
The Donahue Show
Oprah Winfrey – Anchor on Baltimore News Station
Latter Day Saints
AA (Alcoholics Anonymous)
Connector
Landmark
Raz Ingrasci, Founder Hoffman International, Hoffman teacher and coach
• Listen to Raz on the Hoffman Podcast
The Hoffman Process Feelings and Sensations List
White Sulphur Springs
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, MD
Gabor Maté
Triggers
Transference
Quad Check
The Quad Check is a practice to support you in checking in with all four parts of your Quadrinity: Spiritual Self, Intellect, Emotional Self, and your Body. To practice Quad Checks with others, join our virtual Quad-Check at 8:00 am PT on Instagram. We also hold an Appreciation and Gratitude practice each day at 6:00 pm on Instagram.
SGA – Student Government Association
Mentorship
Hoffman Couples Retreat
The Q2 Intensive
Twelve Step Sponsorship

Jun 6, 2024 • 0sec
S8e17: Roxy Hayde – Blowing the Cover off My Defended Heart
Roxy Hayde, Hoffman teacher and member of the Hoffman UK team, is our guest today. She came to the Hoffman Process after a lifetime of trying to hold it all together behind a deeply defended heart.
At a very young age, Roxy knew that to feel safe she would have to learn how to control everything and everyone around her and not let herself feel vulnerable. Through the Process, she dropped into a very soft place and came to parent herself in a way she’d never known. Roxy and her emotional child have fostered a beautiful relationship. She tells Drew how her inner child is often present with her when she teaches the Process.
Roxy describes her deep fear of vulnerability and how she hid herself behind the archetype of a strong, successful woman. That kept her from having real connections with the people in her life. Now, she connects deeply with people and also connects people in marriage as a wedding celebrant. Roxy is a celebrant who celebrates love with an open, vulnerable, radiant heart.
We hope you enjoy this conversation with Roxy and Drew.
More about Roxy Hayde:
Roxy joined the Hoffman UK team in 2018 and is now a supervising Hoffman Teacher. After completing the Hoffman Process in 2014, she became deeply passionate about it and its transformative effects. Roxy has completed numerous courses and trainings that inform her work with clients and groups.
When not teaching in a Process, she coaches, trains teachers, and is a Humanist Wedding Celebrant (non-religious officiant) in the UK and abroad. A lover of all things ritual, she creates bespoke, one-of-a-kind wedding ceremonies for couples.
In her downtime, she loves traveling and beach walks with her dogs in Brighton, England, where she now lives after nearly two decades in London – much of which was spent working in the music industry.
Discover more about Roxy here and follow her on Instagram.
As mentioned in this episode:
Liverpool, England
• Toxteth riots, 1981
Margaret Thatcher
Shame statements at the Process referenced by Roxy:
During the Hoffman Process shame is explored as a false identity, an unconscious or subconscious belief about oneself. Shame is part of the human experience.
Self-abandonment
The archetype of a Strong Independent Woman.
Enneagram – type 7
Treacle – “any uncrystallized syrup made during the refining of sugar.”
Regent’s Park
Jelly Babies
Care Bears
Eckhart Tolle and Kim Eng
C0dependency
Dark Side – Dealing with your Dark Side.
Florence House
Joseph Campbell
The Hero’s Journey
Dark Night of the Soul

May 30, 2024 • 0sec
S8e16: Tami Tack & Kim Worrall – Living From the Spiritual Self
Tami Tack & Kim Worrall graduated from the Hoffman Process in 1996. They took the Process a second time after it was rejuvenated from an 8-day Process to 7 days. Tami and Kim have been stewards of this work ever since. For over 15 years, Tami has been a graduate group leader in the Portland, Oregon area.
Tami and Kim speak to the power of learning to trust in and live from the Spiritual Self and softening into its care. Kim first realized that his nature had a spiritual aspect during the Process. Tami and Kim share stories from their post-Process past to illuminate how vital this aspect of our Quadrinity has been to leading joyful lives.
You’ll hear Tami and Kim speak about how the Process work has been vital to their relationship. The Hoffman Process supports not only our internal transformation. It also transforms our relationships. When two partners have completed the Process and followed it up with the Hoffman Couples Retreat, the work can deepen the quality and power of your relationship.
We hope you enjoy this conversation with Tami, Kim, and Hoffman host, Sharon Mor.
More about Tami Tack & Kim Worrall:
Married since 1987, Tami and Kim enjoy traveling and exploring the inner world of relationships and spirituality. They host a monthly spiritual Living Circle and have participated in Thom Bond’s Compassion Course for two years, an outgrowth of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Tami and Kim sing together in local choirs and volunteer with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) to work with children in foster care. They live in Tami’s childhood country home which they have named Harmony Hill. Enjoying an active life, they hike, bike, and kayak. They are deeply grateful for all that Life has brought them and look forward to the next adventure.
More about Tami Tack:
Tami first experienced the Hoffman Process in 1996, then again in 2015 after the Process was rejuvenated. Passionate about Hoffman Graduate Groups, she led the Portland group from 2009 to 2023, mentoring other leaders beginning new groups. She is a retired school counselor and therapist and has always loved working with people of all ages. Another passion of hers is music, expressed both through piano and voice. Classically trained in piano, she discovered in her 40s that she could compose music and recorded three CDs of her original piano solos.
Singing with many choirs, she directs the Lower Columbia chapter of Threshold Choir whose mission is to sing at the bedside of the dying. The proud mother of two delightful adult children and grandmother to four, she prioritizes family and heart connections.
More about Kim Worrall:
Kim discovered the Hoffman Process in 1996. In 2014, he repeated the HQP, remembering that he is not his patterns—imagine that! A major takeaway was that he has a Spiritual Self. He is curious about how things work, from human thinking and behavior to galaxies and microbes. He is a retired teacher and counselor, a former pilot and mountain climber, and a father and grandfather. Formerly singing in the Portland Opera chorus, he now sings with a local men’s ensemble. Having been interested in magic since he was a kid, Kim has produced magic shows and always carries a bit of magic with him. He loves to travel for its broadening view of our world and people. He is learning the value and strength of vulnerability.
As mentioned in this episode:
Engulfment
Bob Hoffman
Hoffman Couples Retreat
Hoffman tool: Embodied Recycling
Graduate Groups
Virtual (Zoom) Grad Meetings are held in four time zones – Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern.
Hoffman Process Rejuvenation
Neural Pathways
Threshold Choir
Religious Science
Ed McClune: Listen to Ed on the Hoffman Podcast
Prayer Wheel

May 23, 2024 • 0sec
S8e15: Jessica Kizer – Finding Belonging Through Our Commonalities
Jessica Kizer, PhD and Professor of Sociology, shares her powerful life story. One of the main threads of her story is the deep feeling and sense of not belonging. Through her story, we can understand how identities, roles, and circumstances can cause us to feel as if we do not belong in this world as we are for who we are. You’ll also hear Drew reflect to Jessica: “…that’s stereophonic not-belonging on overdrive.” Through her studies in Sociology, Jessica began to understand how societal forces shape our lives societal constructions, and choices made by others.
A myriad of steps and people brought Jessica to the Hoffman Process. On her first day, she felt that all-too-familiar pang of not belonging. She saw that she was the only Black person there. This was the reality. Immediately, she felt a familiar pain of distance from everyone. But in the first few days, she experienced a shift. You’ll hear Jessica share a moment when she saw that we can have very different life stories but arrive at the same place, feeling the same things about ourselves and our place in the world. This was when she began to focus on “our commonalities and not on our differences” in her time at the Process and after.
As a mixed-race, neurodivergent person who teaches Sociology at a top university, perhaps Jessica’s story is one we can identify with because we don’t share those same identities. The patterns of not belonging, having to prove our worth, and feeling like we are in the wrong place, are common patterns among us. Jessica’s experience, wisdom, and understanding, both academically and personally, shed a powerful light on the human experience. We hope you enjoy this conversation with Jessica and Drew.
More about Jessica Kizer:
Jessica Kizer was born and raised in a multigenerational, multiracial family in the South Bay of Los Angeles County. Her spiritual journey led her first to Hoffman Essentials and then the Hoffman Process in June 2023, where she experienced deep healing for herself and her family. As a result of her experiences growing up Black, Puerto Rican, and Indonesian and neurodivergent in a neurotypical world, she developed a strong sense of justice, equity, and inclusion, which led her to a career as a sociology professor.
In her courses, Jessica creates educational experiences so that everyone can learn and, in turn, helps students learn how to communicate sociological research in a way anyone can understand. In her courses, students tutor elementary school students and then write and illustrate sociological storybooks for the children’s home libraries. They also participate in intergenerational and interracial dialogues on race, research, and create podcasts on racial inequality, which they share with elders.
Jessica loves going on walks and talks, journaling, and finding adventure in the everyday. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, their two cats, and two dogs. Follow Jessica on Instagram.
As mentioned in this episode:
Hoffman Essentials
Jehovah’s Witness
Marni Battista – Listen to Marni on the Hoffman Podcast
EMDR
Brainspotting
Kristin Neff – Listen to Kristin on the Hoffman Podcast
Quad Check:
The Quad Check is a practice to support you in checking in with all four parts of your Quadrinity: Spiritual Self, Intellect, Emotional Self, and your Body. To practice Quad Checks with others, join our virtual Quad-Check at 8:00 am PT on Instagram. We also hold an Appreciation and Gratitude practice each day at 6:00 pm on Instagram.
Left Road, Right Road

May 16, 2024 • 38min
S8e14: Johanina Wikoff – Going Deep in a Superficial World
Johanina Wikoff, PhD, sits down with Drew for a conversation about consciousness, the Hoffman Process, psychedelics, relationships, and deep inner healing.
As someone who has always been “drawn to explore the mysteries of life,” Johanina began exploring psychedelics when she was a teen and in college. She lived off-grid in deep nature and homesteaded while raising her children. Eventually, she was called to return to school for graduate studies, earning her PhD and becoming a therapist and educator. During these years through her practice, and for decades with clients, Johanina has explored the mystery and terrain of the inner world.
Although she’d known about it for decades before going, Johanina attended the Process in 2010. She found the Hoffman Process to be deeply healing. As she shares, “The Process is a brilliant way to embody what was lost in a way that is deeply healing…When we are able to feel the full range, the depths, the heights, the full – the whole catastrophe of our emotional life then we’re not owned by denying, our energy isn’t tied up in pushing away or clinging sentimentally to it. … It’s all part of life and so are we.”
Johanina has a mantra she follows and shares with those she works with. “Be open, interested, and curious.” It’s a good mantra, especially as we open to new territory, whether in our lives or our inner world explorations. Many of our guests say this way of being helped them get the most out of their Process experience. We hope you enjoy this deep conversation with Johanina and Drew
More about Johanina Wikoff:
Johanina Wikoff, M.A., PhD is a therapist and educator. She has been working in the areas of body-mind healing, couples therapy, consciousness studies, and the therapeutic use of psychedelics since 1979.
With her husband, Andy Milberg, a senior Hoffman Process teacher and coach, she created Dare To Love Again, a body of evolving relationship work. Discover more about Johanina and Dare to Love Again here.
As mentioned in this episode:
Andy Milberg, Hoffman teacher and coach.
• Listen to Andy on the Hoffman Podcast.
Ayn Rand
Psychedelics
Living Off-the-Grid
Homesteading
Breathwork
Ajijic, Mexico
• Lake Chapala
Peak experience
Hoffman Tools Mentioned:
Left Road, Right Road Map