S2E19: Karen DeGannes – A Gentle, Persistent Resilience

02/25/21 • 39 min

Karen DeGannes came to the Process when she realized she was not showing up for her life. She discovered just how capable she is of showing up after taking the Process when she faced serious life health challenges. Karen discovered a quiet, gentle, persistent life force within herself that when surrendered, supported her to meet her most difficult life moments.

Karen’s story is one of learning to take responsibility for one’s life with a gentle and persistent resilience. Prior to the Process, she had lost touch with religion and spirituality. During the Process, Karen was reunited with her Spiritual Self. She realized that Spirit had never left her; instead, she had turned away from her Spiritual Self.

More about Karen Degannes

Karen is most passionate about resilient and adaptive infrastructure business models that center communities while sustaining and regenerating ecological and just socioeconomic systems. She works as a natural resource and environmental scientist; an organizational sociologist; an energy, climate, and environmental justice expert; a strategist, innovator, and trusted advisor to corporations, communities, and governments; and an entrepreneur.

Karen treasures her deepening self-awareness and understanding of what it means to be alive as a human being. After surviving a grave illness, and in this age of the Covid-19 pandemic and social, economic, and ecological crises, she prizes her new-found courage to show up authentically and to have a voice in socially difficult spaces. Karen is passionate about creating concrete, innovative, implementable, and scalable solutions to our most exciting challenges. To do so, she says we must develop operational solutions that jointly center people, communities, and ecosystems.

An aspiring meditator, Karen loves to read and write poetry. She’s a connoisseur of art and long walks in nature. She is now reacquainting with her love of photography, dance, and laughter.

More about Karen Degannes

An aspiring meditator, Karen loves to read and write poetry. She’s a connoisseur of art and long walks in nature. She is now reacquainting with her love of photography, dance, and laughter.

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S2E18: Billy Bush – A Successful Reboot

Billy Bush is our guest today. Billy came to the Process four years ago when his life instantly plummeted into chaos. Listen in as Billy shares with us about his time at the Process and his life since. In his heartwarming and candid style, Billy tells his stories with vulnerability, humor, and a kind of confidence that comes when you’ve found your way back from being down. As Billy says, “There’s a lot of value in knowing what it feels like to be down when you’re talking to people because everybody is going to be down. I don’t care who you are; if calamity has not struck yet, it will.”

Billy’s time at Hoffman proved to be a turning point. He survived it all by digging deep into himself, owning his flaws, and identifying the patterns in his life. There was a moment at the Process when he wanted to leave. But, he found by staying with himself long enough, he realized that the Process was indeed doing exactly what he came for. In Billy’s words, “It was a successful reboot.”

Billy Bush has had a long and successful career in radio and television. He currently is the host of Extra. Before that, he was the host of the Today Show’s 3rd hour and the host of Access Hollywood. He is the father of three girls aged 16, 20, and 22 which means “his hands are full.”

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S2E20: Nita Gage – A Courageous Ripple

Get to know Nita Gage, a beloved Hoffman Process Teacher, and Coach. Before becoming a Hoffman teacher at 63, Nita had a long and distinguished career as a psychoanalyst and transformational retreat leader. Listen in as Nita shares about growing up on Native land and the many gifts of that time. She learned so much from her friend’s Grandmother, Grandma Wilson.

Nita also speaks of how we must all stand up against the status quo and speak the truth. We can be part of a courageous ripple that brings good and necessary change to our world.

One thing Nita shares is how she first came to the Hoffman Process, “kicking and screaming,” so to speak. She laughs as she shares that she understands how it feels to be a student on the first day of the Process and experience great resistance.

More about Nita Gage

Nita trained in psychoanalysis with R.D. Laing in London from 1970 to 1980. Upon returning to the United States, she pursued graduate degrees in clinical psychology and a doctorate in shamanic psychology.

Nita has been leading transformational healing retreats for over 25 years, most recently with the Hoffman Institute. Before Hoffman, she founded the NeuroImaginal Institute and Healer Within Retreats, primarily working with physicians. She was the Executive Director of the American Board of Holistic Medicine. She also served clinical and executive positions in hospitals and treatment centers over the 40 years of her career.

Growing up on a reservation in Arizona gave Nita a unique understanding of diversity. For many years, she worked in rural Arizona and Hawaii with diverse populations in addictions and mental health, initiating many innovation programs to address underserved populations.

Nita has authored two books: Soul Whispering: The Art of Awakening Shamanic Consciousness and Women in Storage: How to Reimagine Your Life.

Hoffman hosted our first-ever virtual conference, Embodying the Spirit of Change, on April 1-3, 2021. Nita was the panel moderator for the Indigenous Voices: Answering the Call to Mend Our World panel. If you’d like to know more about this panel, listen to the Indigenous Voices Hoffman Podcast episode with Tim Harjo, Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey, and Anita Sanchez, Ph.D.