I used to believe that I needed to
transcend being human
to be enough and now I see that
being human is the sacred experience.
Hello and welcome to Love's Everyday Radius, a
podcast brought to you by the Hoffman Institute.
My name is Sadie Hanna, and in this
podcast, you'll hear real conversations and stories with
graduates about their courageous journey inward and how
their love and light are living in the
world around them. Love's everyday radius. Thank you
for being here and welcome.
Hey, everyone. Welcome. I'm here with Alicia
Sheikh today. She's a Hoffman process teacher. Alicia,
welcome.
Hi, Sadie. Thank you so much for having
me. I'm so excited to be here. So
let me introduce you. Many of our grads
may already know you. Alicia
is not only a Hoffman process teacher, but
she also has a background in mindfulness.
She's got a master's in mindfulness studies.
She's also got a background in coaching,
speaking.
She's a trauma sensitive meditation
teacher
and has a passion for wellness
and healing,
and also
the host of the Relish podcast,
a podcast for people who are tired of
living on autopilot.
So, Alicia, with that, tell us a bit
more about who you are. What's your story?
It's so
interesting hearing you say
that little bio
back to me
because all of it
was so informed by my process.
It's making me realize how much who I
am today
is really
thanks to my process experience. So I'm I'm
excited to dive into this.
What's the earliest
time you can remember having a sense of
yourself?
It makes me wonder which self
because
my preprocess
self
and my postprocess
self
are so different.
It's actually hard for me to remember
who I was
because
I did not have
a relationship
with
my inner world at all, and so
I feel so disconnected
from that person. I look and feel and
sound so drastically
different.
I almost have processed it that the me
before the process
was living
almost
entirely on this autopilot
and kind of never
didn't know I was on autopilot, didn't stop
to question it,
didn't know there was any other
possible way,
and also completely driven by my intellect,
and
really
emotionally
numb.
So it's hard to go back and remember
what I felt
because I was not
feeling. I was not I mean, I was
feeling, but I wasn't aware
of those feelings, and I didn't have any
tools or awareness that they needed
space.
It's just so drastically different from my experience
now, which I'm so grateful for, which feels
so much more
rich and full. But
that is not how it felt when I
went into the process. I mean, that was
almost ten I think it was, like, eight
years ago, which is crazy too. I was
quite young when I went.
How old were you when you did? I
was I think I was 27.
Now we get people younger than that, but
I remember at my process, I was one
of the youngest people in the group.
And I remember some people in my cohort
being like, why are you here this young?
And I was like, oh my gosh. I'm
so glad
I'm here so that I can do this
work now.
But I do remember walking in and having
no idea what I was getting into
on the first day.
A very visceral memory
is
getting the feelings list. So at the very
beginning of the the first day,
we hand out this list of of emotions,
and
I remember seeing that
and being like, holy crap.
Are there so many
emotions? I mean, obviously, I knew what an
emotion was intellectually,
but I had never stopped to ask myself
what I was feeling.
I mean, this was not a part of
my childhood. We didn't talk about feelings. I
think some of that is, like, family patterns.
Some of it's cultural
as well. I grew up in a, mixed
race household. My dad's an immigrant, and so
I think
there's different ways of relating to emotions culturally
as well. But
it was just not even on my radar
that
it was important.
And so to show up to this process
where they're like, we're gonna ask what you're
feeling all day, all the time,
it was such new territory
for me.
Very uncomfortable, but, also, I was so intrigued
because immediately,
I could sense
that
there's information
here about myself
that I had never had access to. It
was like this rich
intelligence
that helped me
understand myself and other people.
It almost felt like
if I was living before in a gray
scale, like a black and white world,
and then suddenly
life was in color
with this depth and texture
that I didn't even know was there. Was
it shocking to you?
Yes.
Yes. It was shocking, and I think that's
why
the process is hard. Like, you're doing hard
work,
but I was so intrigued
that the curiosity
really took over. It was this drastic
shift from
the narrow world view I had been indoctrinated
with, not questioning it, not knowing there was
any other possible way,
to all the possibilities.
And I was like, oh my gosh. I
need to go there. I need to understand
it.
It was my awakening. Tell us a bit
about who you were, but give us a
sense of who walks in that day and
gets that feeling list.
I was 27, but I probably
felt about
seven.
I was just
on autopilot
doing all the things I thought I was
supposed to do.
I thought you go to school and then
you get the job and you do the
things, and this is what you're supposed to
do, and this is just what a human
does.
And I never
stopped and asked what I felt about it
or if it was what I wanted
or if it gave me any meaning or
purpose. It was just like, this is what
you do.
And so to stop and go, well, wait
a second. Why?
I was so driven by intellect. I was
so flat. I was doing, doing, doing.
And the process was this awakening to there's
more to me
than
my mind. There are all these other parts
of me.
Being human is complex,
and I wanted to believe it was simple.
I just do the things,
and then I, like, become happy, I guess.
No. It's messy.
Emotions
are messy, and
being human is not
clean. And
what I realized was that wasn't a problem.
I had this real awakening
to a sense that I was a human
doing
rather than a human being. I loved that
framing of it. It hit me like a
ton of bricks. Like, oh my god. Have
I ever stopped to ask what a human
being even is?
So did you find yourself before you came
avoiding
things that opened up
messiness or that weren't organized?
If we were to observe you
before you came, what were you doing?
Well, what I was doing, it's, interesting. I
was running a YouTube channel at the time.
Actually, that was my job. And I do
think when I look back, some part of
my spirit,
I had followed breadcrumbs along the way.
There was some authenticity
in it, but
the I was most disconnected from my emotional
self. Like, of my quadrinity,
I had no relationship to my emotional self.
And
I think that that person before was
trying to find
happiness,
wanting to feel happiness without ever having to
go to the discomfort of feeling,
in part because
she didn't know how. She didn't know it
was important.
I mean, the power of understanding
expression
in the process was so powerful for me.
It was fun. I remember
so many people were
angry and upset. And, I mean, I expressed
anger,
but I remember
seeing, like, the calluses on my hands
and just laughing,
like, laughing hysterically,
feeling so alive.
And I had been living waiting to feel
and not knowing how to do it. And
as
a human doing,
there's no focus on emotions.
What I learned was not only were emotions
important, but the whole range
of emotions
were important. And maybe I came in
numb
and wanting.
Some part of me knew there was, like,
there should be something more,
joy or something. I didn't quite know what
happiness.
But what I discovered
was
my capacity
to tap into the joy
was dependent
on my
willingness to go to the hard stuff,
the painful stuff, the shame.
Shame
was one of the most profound parts
of the process for me. And I think
that what that person you're asking what who
was that person before
the process?
I think what she was feeling all the
time,
subconsciously,
was shame.
I just lived through this sense that there
was something wrong with me, that I was,
like, broken and needed to be fixed. Because
if I wasn't if there wasn't something wrong
with me, I wouldn't feel this way.
The quadrinity
you mentioned, and that's these four parts of
self, intellect,
emotional self, body,
and essence, or we use the word spiritual
self. And so you're saying that you felt
disconnected from your emotional self.
Yet, I also heard
emotional expression through body movement, through different cathartic
exercises.
And so seeing
those calluses
on your hands made you laugh out loud
feeling alive.
I think that
experience of expressing at the process
was the first time
I ever really felt something and was aware
that I was feeling it.
It was such a profound
release, but also moment of
connection. I think it's like the first time
I felt human.
That wasn't while I was feeling something really
comfortable and great.
It was feeling
uncomfortable things,
like shame.
It's so interesting too that now shame
is my favorite piece to teach
because it was so fully encapsulated
my experience as a human, just constantly living
through that belief.
What do you love about that piece?
I love that
having the awareness
of shame,
having an understanding
of
what that emotional experience is and why it's
there and learning to recognize it and separate
from it
is what allowed me
to go back to my life after the
process and not live through it.
So it feels like such a gift to
teach that piece,
to open people up
because going toward it,
as uncomfortable as it is, it's liberating.
It's liberating
to be able to see it and then
see that it's not me.
I have a story I could share that
came close after my process. So I'll start
actually when I was a kid.
I always struggled with
reading.
Reading was not
easy. And I was always in the gifted
classes,
but I needed tutoring
and summer school and all that kind of
stuff for reading specifically.
I think actually being in the gifted classes
made me feel even more shame. I internalized
this belief that I was stupid,
which was one of my many shame beliefs.
And as a kid, I always had
issues. I had, like, headaches and eye problems,
and I was seeing doctors all the time.
And
the eye doctors always struggled to diagnose me.
They were, like, could tell there was some
kind of problem, but they couldn't figure out
what it was. And I remember I have
a core memory of a doctor telling me
that diagnosing me was like throwing darts at
a dartboard.
I remember being this little kid, and in
that moment, that feeling of, like,
I messed up. Something must be wrong with
me. They can't figure me out. Even these,
like, smart people can't figure me out. So
I go through my life internalizing
this belief that I'm stupid.
Probably two months after my process, I go
to
a routine eye exam,
and
the doctor
diagnoses me with something called convergence
insufficiency,
which I had never heard of. But, basically,
my eyes work
perfectly
individually,
separately, but they don't work well together.
He tells me that the diagnosis didn't exist
when I was a kid, so, like, they
couldn't have known, but he couldn't believe that
I had graduated
high school with the diagnosis and not having
been treated.
Immediately when he said that,
I again, this is two months out of
my process, so I'm very attuned and aware
and using my tools and present to it.
And I immediately can name, like, oh, I'm
in shame right now. And I felt
my shame response is so visceral. It feels
like this metal
lava in my
throat
and, like, upper chest. And I know. When
I feel that,
I know it's shame.
It's such an alarm for me now. And
so I felt that
I was able to notice it
and name,
like, oh, this is shame
right now. And, typically, that's happening. Like, my
whole life before the process, that had been
happening in the background,
dictating my behavior.
And now I was able to go, oh,
wait a second.
Name it, separate from it, which allowed me,
one, to be somewhat compassionate with myself, but
also,
really, I got curious.
And I realized
right after that, it was like the shame
dismantled and then came this insight, this moment
of, oh my gosh. This diagnosis
validates
my whole life experience.
It makes so much sense now
why I had all these challenges. And then
came this thought, maybe I'm not stupid.
Maybe
I just have this difference
that
needs
support.
And so I got the support. I got
these special glasses and tools for reading and
that kind of thing. And reading had always
been this dreadful, terrible thing. I, like, never
wanted to read as an adult. I think
the next year after that, I read something
like 100 literally 100 books that year
all on, like, mindfulness and
being human and philosophy
and this new interest of mine
spurred by the process. And that's what led
me to go back to grad school for
mindfulness. I mean, I never thought I'd go
back to school. This this changed the whole
trajectory of my life. Right? Like, I wouldn't
be a Hoffman process teacher
if all of that hadn't happened, if I
had kept living through that belief that I
was stupid.
So it was just so powerful
to
realize
the concept,
the feeling,
how to navigate it,
and how to
not fuse with it
so that I can stay connected to what's
true and
remember even if I feel the shame at
times
that it's not
me.
You know, that's not a moment that happened
in my process, but I very directly
correlated it to the work that I did
there.
And I still see that when I teach
that today.
It's making me wonder why I've never talked
about this at the process, actually, now that
I'm, like, saying it here
because
it's changed my life being willing to go
there, and I'm so grateful for the process
for that. It sounds like it gave you
a physical sense of what that experience is
like. Oh, that's what's happening here. This is
shame.
Yeah. It was so helpful, actually, to be
able to name it in my body because
that became the alarm.
Sometimes when I'm feeling something,
I don't know. I can't name the feeling
right away,
but I can become aware of the body
sensations. And I know everybody's different, and different
people feel in different ways. But for me,
the body sensations are quite strong, and so
that understanding,
now when I feel that,
it's a chance to go like, okay. Pause.
What's happening here?
Instead of before where I would notice how
uncomfortable it was, probably subconsciously, and then just
try to get away from it and then
numb to survive.
Shame,
as we know, as we teach, thrives in
this belief that it's because of who you
are that you suffered or that you do
continue to suffer.
I am not my patterns
applies. We say that at the process. I'm
not my patterns, and it's true with shame.
I am not my shame. And
now
shame is so self oriented. When it comes
up, it feels like
it's confirming, like, no. It is who I
am. I am bad.
And so to be able to
now have access to this intelligence where I
can see it and separate from it,
it feels like
I don't know. It just feels like what
else could I need? You know? And it
was this
affirmation
or reassurance
that I have everything I need.
I can be okay in the present moment
with everything I already have. It's all been
like this domino effect of
understanding
the power of emotions and shame and navigating
it and where happiness is really gonna come
from, and it's a liberation for me. What
even opened your mind to consider taking the
process?
When I did the process, there was no
social media about it. Everybody found out from
word-of-mouth, and I actually found out
from
my yoga teacher.
I was not particularly close to her, but
I went to this yoga class three times
a week. It was a safe space for
me, and she told us she was gonna
be gone for a week. And I was
pissed. I was like, where are you going?
And she said she was going to the
Hoffman process, and I looked it up.
And
I watched the little video, and I had
been
having a lot of stress come up with
family
separately. And I watched the video, and I
was like, oh my gosh. This is exactly
what is coming up for me right now.
I called
back when you could do this, and they're
like, we can get you in two weeks.
I went two weeks later. I, like, literally
knew nothing else about it. Didn't know
what was gonna happen. Didn't know anyone who
had actually done it yet because my yoga
teacher was going, like, the next week. But
there was something, I guess, spirit
that just sort of said,
this is it.
And I went, and it was, I guess.
A lot of people are listening to this
podcast post process as process
as grads, but a lot of people are
listening to it because they're trying to figure
out if those
little hints or those bread crumbs
can be trusted.
Yeah. And I think that I can look
back now
and see many breadcrumbs
that happened throughout my life, some that I
listened to and some that I didn't,
but
I didn't
know they were important
then.
I can now look back
and see that. And I wish I could
go back and tell her, like, wait. This
one matters.
I can intellectually
more so than emotionally remember, I think, because
I was so disconnected
emotionally, but just having the sense that, is
this it? Is this it?
What else is there?
You know, at 27,
I was like,
am I just gonna keep doing this, playing
this game
for what?
Like, everybody,
society,
adults told me this is what I'm supposed
to do, and I'm not quite getting it.
Like, something must not be clicking, and it
must be me. So you come to the
process,
have the courage to move towards shame,
and then you realize it's not true. You
feel it in your body. You go out
into your life, and now you know, oh,
this experience is shame.
What happens next for you?
Well,
I was
a good student.
Despite feeling stupid in school, I always really
tried.
I was a good Hoffman student.
I was a good
post process Hoffman student in terms of, like,
using my tools.
And what happened after
is
I became so
drawn
to the freedom
that I almost got a little trapped in
it.
So I
was
very good at using my tools,
but my personal growth work became like another
productivity
project.
The doing was back,
I guess, even though I was on this
path to, like, come you know, being.
And it was harder to spot this time
because
I thought it there was this veil
of
personal growth and spirituality.
Like, it's in service of these things, and
so I have to do the quad check
and the tools and the meditation and all
these things.
I had an insight one day when I
was doing my gratitude practice
at the process. We start a gratitude practice
for everyone. Everyone does you know, writes down
three things they're grateful for every day, and
I kept doing that after. And I had
a moment where I realized,
this is rote. I'm just writing things down.
I'm not even really paying attention to what
I'm writing. I'm doing it to check it
off the list. I'm not really feeling gratitude.
That moment of insight was like, oh, how
much of that is happening in the rest
of my work too? Like, I'm doing a
quad check,
but my intellect is actually doing the whole
check. My intellect is telling me my body
needs to drink more water and exercise. But
is my body telling me that? My body's
actually telling me you need to go sleep.
Right? And so
it was very covert.
The conditioning doesn't it runs so deep.
It did not disappear. It sort of evolved.
And so what was next was me
seeing through that
and
being on that nonlinear path, which it is
for everyone. Everyone's on their own path, and
it's it's never a straight line, but that
was a part of mine was sort of
overcorrecting.
I think that's part of why I was
drawn to being a Hoffman process teacher.
There's a quote,
we teach what we need to learn.
I love that quote.
I felt like doing this work in that
context keeps the work alive in me, which
it does.
But
every time I go teach a process, I'm
not doing my own process. It's a different
experience.
And what I've learned now is that
when I'm at a process, it's mirroring my
work to me in a different way. Not
because I'm going through it as a student,
but it's showing me
the gaps. And it was through other students,
actually. Like, the students become a mirror for
me when I would see students starting to
overcorrect
or after they finish the process on post
process calls or coaching,
and they start beating themselves up for having
patterns
or not using the tools enough. And I'm
saying to them,
the point of the Hoffman process isn't to
get a bunch of tools, it's to live
your life.
You know? And then I'm like, wait.
Am I listening
to what I'm saying right now?
So that was where I went with it.
I love that. I can actually see life
becoming this beautiful friend to you
where
whatever
you think you've figured out, it's like, and
here's this, my love. Take a look. Yeah.
It really is. And now I'm much more
in a surrender of
whatever is being put in front of me.
I don't feel like I'm having to actively
try so hard to do the work because
it's just there, and now I'm less afraid
of it. For me, I feel like there's
been a tipping
point, not where we ever stop doing the
work, but
I think it's that I've become
free of the illusion that it's ever gonna
end. And now it's just a part of
the journey, and now
it lets me really focus on being
and remembering the point of all of this.
I've been thinking a lot actually about
a part of my first process that in
the moment, I didn't realize how important it
was. But now, eight years later, I'm like,
oh, this was a really important part,
and that was
the portion on play.
When that part came around
at my
first process, it was
intolerable
to me. Like, I remember
seeing everybody else
get so excited
to play and kind of happy for a
break. I I at least I perceived,
you know, that they were happy even though
now I know not everybody was.
But while everybody's playing, my intellect
was like, we gotta get back to work.
I realized I didn't actually know how to
play. I never really
got to just play. As a kid, it
was always about work.
So on the portion of play in the
process, I was kind of like in a
corner dissociating
while everyone was playing, and I was waiting
for it to be over.
After
a couple of really powerful days at the
process,
this play portion
forced me to confront this,
what is the point?
What is the point of this human experience?
What's the point of all the work if
there's not gonna be joy?
Joy, what I see, what I learn is
that it's not optional
for
a meaningful
life.
It's not gonna come from something outside of
me. And that's where my work has been
these last couple of years as I reflect
back on that girl who went into the
process,
numb, wanting joy. The joy comes around. She
couldn't hold it. She's like, I'm not ready
for this, and wasn't even ready to process
that part of it until
these last few years. And so I think
that's, as I'm saying it, a very powerful
piece too that the process
still lives in me today. That first process,
I'm still learning from
today. And
it's so fascinating to reflect in that way.
I'm so grateful for it.
Now post process, you have a podcast that
is about savoring
an experience,
and you're describing
in your gratitude practice the difference of really
being there to enjoy.
What I'm really hearing you say
is there's no box you can check
or tool that you can execute
that can really make you enjoy your life?
What
can what has it been for you?
For me, it's been
being.
It's being. It's realizing I'm a human being.
I mean, I left the process. I remember
you make a commitment or a vow on
the last day. I remember my vow was
I vow to be.
And
my post process weekend was such a magical
weekend.
It was so beautiful, so many magical moments,
but one of them is I walked into
a tattoo shop and got bee tattooed on
my arm
because I was like,
I am so committed
to this question of what does it mean
to be,
and that so much of my learning of
what it means to be came from meditation
and mindfulness and learning what it means to
be in the present moment. But I think
in Hoffman terms,
it's being my spiritual self. It's being
authentic and true.
And in a moment of presence,
I am my spiritual self. I am my
authentic self, and that's where the joy exists.
Joy can never exist in some moment outside
of now.
It can't be yesterday.
I hope it comes tomorrow, but I can
only experience it now.
So I think what it means for me
is how can I be here
more
and notice the moment and feel it so
that I can
relish it? That's why the podcast is called
Relish.
What's one final
tidbit, fun fact about you that you'd like
to leave our listeners with?
A fun fact
is that
I just started playing pickleball,
which is bringing me joy.
And
a final note about me, I guess, just
that none of us escape being human.
We are all
imperfect and also,
like, whole and lovable, and
that includes
teachers too.
I used to believe that
I needed to transcend being human
to be enough, and now I see that
being human is
the sacred experience.
So
I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful to be
on this journey. I'm grateful for
the process that led me to it, and
I'm grateful to share it here with you
in this
episode and on my podcast and just with
students when I get to interact with them
on-site.
Thank you so much for sharing your
humanness and showing us a bit of a
different lens into who you are. I love
the idea of you playing pickleball.
I'm really happy that we had a chance
to have this conversation.
Yeah. Thanks, Sadie. I appreciate you.
Thank you for listening to the Hoffman Podcast.
My name is Matt Brannigan. I'm the CEO
of the Hoffman Institute Foundation
and a Hoffman teacher. Our mission is to
provide greater access to the wisdom and power
of love within ourselves, in our relationships,
and in the world. To learn more or
to support our mission, we invite you to
visit hoffmaninstitute.org.