Relationship coach and author John Campbell did the Hoffman Process in the year 2000. Now living in England and Spain, John coaches and teaches alongside his wife Annie (also a Hoffman graduate). We caught up with John to talk about his upcoming book, Miracle Relationships: A Path to Freedom and Joy, in which he kindly talks about his time on the Process. Read on for an excerpt.
Who or what inspired you to do the Hoffman Process?
I’d been in AA, that was the start of my awakening journey. I’d given up drink, didn’t smoke any more, and I was studying for a diploma in therapeutic counselling. I was at an AA convention where there was a dance, and I was invited up to the dance floor. Immediately, I lied. I heard myself making an excuse about not feeling well, which was completely untrue. Then I slunk off to my room, where I lay on my bed in huge shame. I looked up to the ceiling, full of self-loathing and asked the question ‘Why can’t I get on a dance floor without alcohol?’
When you ask, you always receive (always, without fail, even if the meaning of what you receive isn’t clear at the time). When I went to college the next day, a friend came up brandishing a copy of a book called ‘Healing the Child Within’ by Dr Charles Whitfield. At that time, I was early on in my studies and hadn’t even heard of the inner child principle. So I read it from cover to cover (it’s a pretty thin book!) and realised there was something around inner child work that was calling to me.
So then I asked again, ‘What’s the best inner child healing process you can find?’ Two weeks later, thumbing through a magazine, I came across a great big advert on the right-hand page for ‘The Hoffman Quadrinity Process’ (as it was then called). The advert carried a testimonial from John Bradshaw, whose book ‘Healing the Shame That Binds You’, I was reading at the time… I picked up the phone and booked on the next available course. And I still say it was one of the major turning points in my life.
Was there a specific moment on the Process that resonated for you?
The whole thing, really. I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t look ahead in the workbook, that I would keep that discipline. And for those who know me, that took quite an effort, because I’m not a natural rule follower. But I took it day by day, allowed it to unfold, which I now realise was listening to my spririt and allowing it to lead the way. Every night I went to bed thinking ‘surely tomorrow can’t be better than today?’ And every day, I learned something new.
Does the work that you did on the Process still play out in your life today? If so, how?
I’m loyal to the belief that I couldn’t do what I do now without doing the Hoffman Process first. Along with Annie, I’m now a teacher for A Course In Miracles, and what I find is that many people get into the type of spiritual teaching we do now, but without looking at the darkness in their lives first. And as a result, it all seeps out later. I think it’s so important to do that lower clearing, to lay that groundwork, before you get into the higher stuff.
Do you still use any of the Process tools?
The first and most basic tool that you need to have before anything else is awareness. And that’s a huge part of the Process. So yes, I use tools around that. I practice the recycling tool, I use the elevator tool. The other, biggest thing I learned on the Process was visioning. Annie and I, we don’t get out of bed in the morning before we vision our day. We start each day off with the belief that ‘today is a wonderful day, I have everything within me to handle anything and everything that comes my way with calmness, tranquility, grace and appreciation’. And we have a wonderful day.
How would you finish this sentence: ‘The Hoffman Process allowed me to…’
Be myself. Accept myself unconditionally.
The change in my life has been so dramatic. I joke that I’ve changed from being ‘an oil and whisky smuggler into an angel therapy practitioner almost overnight’. Of course, the reality is that I’ve been doing this work now for 20+ years. But the Process was where I first found total acceptance and self-love. It was where I took my first steps on the path of real forgiveness, and in finding compassion for both of my parents.
And did you ever get over that fear of dancing?
Here’s a story… Not long after the Process, I went up to London, and had to wait at East Croydon station. I was standing on the platform with all of the businessmen, the commuters with their bowler hats and their briefcases. And there was a coffee stand there, run by an Italian guy, who was playing music full blast. This was back in the days of ghetto blasters, and he was really booming it out. And before I knew it, I started to dance, right there on the platform. I couldn’t help it. Everyone was looking at me. And you know what? I didn’t give a damn…
John’s book Miracle Relationships: A Path to Freedom and Joy is released on 27 October 2023 (you can pre-order a copy here)
You can find out more about John and Annie’s work with couples and individuals by visiting their website https://miraclesrock.com/
An excerpt from Miracle Relationships: A Path to Freedom and Joy
(Published with kind permission of the author)
“I went into this work twenty years after my mother had passed away and twenty-nine years after my father had passed away. At the time, I was still holding a belief that my mother was the ‘devil’ and my father was the ‘saint.’
I had made a classic ‘separation’ of my parents and blamed my alcoholic mother for everything. Consequently, I had an acute imbalance of my own inner male and female sides, which then manifested in my outer world. I held a belief that all women were cruel and unloving and that they were never present. I also had a belief that men were supposed to grin and bear everything and never get angry; thus, I developed a classic ‘victim’ mentality.
During this process work, which was an intensive seven days, I was able to go back and take an in-depth look at my childhood. I was given the opportunity to actually feel and express all the anger, hurt, and deep sadness of my seemingly lost childhood. I was then given an opportunity to examine, equally carefully, the childhoods of both of my parents and feel the same pain they must have experienced growing up.
After this incredibly tough seven days, I found a place of total acceptance and self-love; and forgiveness and compassion for both of my parents. The most powerful experience, though, was this feeling of total balance between them. I experienced them both as equal, with one not a fraction better or worse than the other.
This had an amazingly powerful positive effect on my life. It was only the start of my healing, but at least I no longer felt any male/female difference at a deep level and had healed this imbalance within me. Gradually, I noticed I no longer made any inappropriate gender difference comments like, ‘Women do this,’ or, ‘Men do that,’ and became increasingly sensitive to generalisations of that type from others. I had healed most of my male/female separation issues”.
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