How the Hoffman Process Helped ‘Transform’ Hosts Sami Clarke and Sami Spalter Step Into Adulthood

Adulthood isn’t just about birthdays, job titles, or signing your first lease. Those milestones might look official on paper, but real adulthood arrives when you stop blaming the past and finally choose to take ownership of your life.

On Transform, hosts Sami Clarke and Sami Spalter shared their deeply personal experiences at The Hoffman Process—a retreat where they discussed this very idea of transforming limiting beliefs. Both women attended the week-long trip this year, and both walked away with a radically different sense of self. Their conversation was about forgiveness, healing old patterns, and stepping into a new kind of freedom.

“For me, it was really the first time I felt like an adult,” notes Spalter. “I was no longer blaming them [her parents] for what my life was. I was no longer passing off guilt to them for what I had possibly gone through. It was me actually taking ownership of my life and me finding compassion and forgiveness for my mom and dad.”

The transformative power of the Hoffman Process

The Hoffman Process, founded in 1967 by Bob Hoffman, is a structured, week-long program at the Hoffman Institute designed to help participants break free of old patterns that no longer serve them. It goes beyond affirmations and ‘positive vibes’—you really dig into childhood conditioning, naming the habits you inherited, and letting them go.

The process involves a structured cycle—awareness, expression, compassion, and forgiveness—that allows participants to honor where patterns came from, release the energy around them, and choose new ways of being. To achieve that, participants engage in group exercises and reflections that touch every part of who they are—physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.

As Clarke explains, the week is intense: “You went for a week, you have no phone. You deep dive from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and that is a true story of how much work you are doing for seven days straight.”

For those who can’t attend the retreat in San Mateo, Tim Laurence has written an excellent book about the matter.

Learning how to express what’s been buried

One of the most powerful aspects of the Hoffman Process is learning how to release emotions that most people spend their entire lives avoiding. For Spalter, that meant confronting her lifelong discomfort with anger. As a woman now in her thirties, Spalter explains, “I had never really moved through the emotions and released the emotions.”

Clarke’s experience was different. Where Spalter hesitated, she let go completely. “I was expressing anger like I was a part of the Mean Girls scene in the cafeteria. Like I was an animal, I was primal. I was in my own world. I obviously had to let a lot out because I didn’t even realize how much my body needed to express,” she notes.

The idea is to clear what’s been stored so compassion has room to grow. The Hoffman Process uses a structured cycle—awareness, expression, compassion, forgiveness—that allows participants to honor where patterns came from, release the energy around them, and choose new ways of being.

Forgiveness as the gateway to adulthood

At its core, the Hoffman Process asks participants to confront their parents’ influence—good, bad, and complicated. The end game is to see your parents as human beings with their own patterns and pain.

Spalter went in with one clear intention: to forgive her mother. And, she succeeded. “Not only was I able to forgive my mom, but I was actually able to see her for the beautiful human that she is and love her so much more,” she says. “Not only find forgiveness, but find real unconditional love for who she was in this life and who she forever will be as my mom.”

That work freed her to move forward not as someone carrying childhood baggage, but as an adult with choice, compassion, and clarity. For Clarke, the transformation was just as profound. She describes leaving the retreat with an entirely new sense of safety: “You do come home to yourself, which in my eyes is my life being changed because you feel so connected to who you actually authentically are.”

Can it work for you?

The Hoffman Process isn’t a quick fix, and it’s not for everyone. As Clarke points out, “This is a way, but it’s not everyone’s way. So you have to understand it’s supposed to be a tool for you and it’s going to change some people’s lives, but some people, this isn’t for them, and it’s not for you to pressure it.”

But for the hosts of Transform, the experience was nothing short of life-altering. It wasn’t just about healing—it was about stepping into adulthood in the truest sense. The Hoffman Process has the potential to not only heal past wounds but also to provide a new perspective on life, relationships, and personal growth.

Adulthood isn’t defined by the milestones you check off, but by the courage to face your patterns, release them, and finally choose yourself. 

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