¶ Intro
From twenty one to twenty five, I was running my own PR business, a nightlife PR business. I was totally hooked on drugs and alcohol. I was totally addicted to relationships, addicted to work, addicted to being seen, just food issues, so multi addicted.
Gabby Ben Seen everyone is on her tenth book. You're a spiritual leader to so many people. You've helped so many people make it through different parts of their journeys in their life.
I was cracking, I was falling apart. I was having a mental breakdown only to have a dream, and in that dream, I remembered sexual abuse from my childhood that I had completely dissociated from first.
The first time you had a memory of it.
Yeah, these moments of wreckage are our assignments. We have a choice in this lifetime. Are we going to show up for them or we're going to play small? Can you just try on something with me? Would you just place your hand on your heart and your other hand on your belly. That's really nice? Thank you.
¶ How Gabby Bernstein's spiritual journey began
I'm rather Dabukiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw, unfiltered conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I am just obsessed with you and been such a big fan. And I know I came on your podcast and you were just the most incredible host. But I can't believe
you're on your tenth book? Are you joking? Gaby Bernstein? Everyone is on her tenth book, and you're so many things like I feel like you're a spiritual leader to so many people. You've helped so many people make it through different parts of their journeys in their life. And I just think that the work that you've done, I think there's only certain types of people that can do that,
is people who've really done the work themselves. And I think that's what's so beautiful about your book is I can really read and I can feel the work that you've done to be able to speak on a topic like that. And so I know we've known each other for a while, but I want to take it back because I realized I don't actually know how you started, Like, oh, all of it.
Go back, because I need to know, Okay, Roddie, I first of all, I want to just say to you that to reflect back to me that when you're reading the book, you feel the work is really meaningful to me, Because if we're going to go backwards, all I can say is that for the last nineteen years, I have been deeply devoted to the inner work more than anyone I know, more than anyone I know, more than some
of the greatest spiritual teachers I've ever had. Not to compare myself to anyone, but I've seen so many people that have done great transformational work in the world, and I think the greatest transformational work we can do is on ourselves, definitely. And what does that look like like, Well, yeah, to take you back, to take you back nineteen years, but it's actually really this past October. Second, I just
celebrated nineteen years of sobriety. That's amazing, yes, And that is really kind of That really is where my big spiritual journey began. I was introduced to spirituality and personal development and meditation as a child though so way before I even got clean. And I was a kid, and my mom would bring me to ashrums and I would named by Gurumai and I was, you know, was sitting in meditation with My mother taught to meditate when I
was twelve, really really taught to meditate. I was given a meditation practice as a result of having a lot of anxiety. My mom taught me. I would witness my mother go into her room with incense and the mantras, and I would just feel this really strange sense that there was something happening that was magical in that room, and she'd come out, and she'd be totally in a different space. Yeah, because she would go in crazy and
come out come Yeah. And I think that the biggest, the biggest part of my journey was that I really lived a lot of life without knowing a lot of who I was or what had happened to me as a child. And so by the time I was twenty five, I was running my From twenty one to twenty five, I was running my own PR business, a nightlife PR business.
I was totally hooked on drugs and alcohol. I was totally addicted to relationships, addicted to work, addicted to being seen, just food issues like all of you name it, like so multi addicted and how don't that lasso. I think I was living with all forms of addiction up to that point, but the drugs and the alcohol for me
thankfully brought me to my knees very quickly. So within a two to three year period I was I went from lots of drinking and partying to daily cocaine use, which is such a gnarly drug that it will bring you to your knees. It will it will either kill you these days, it'll kill you right on the dot because of the fent and all and everything else. And so thank god that was what was happening when I was using. It was just horrible that it is now.
But it brought me to my knees fast, and I was but right away when I got twenty five, when I turned twenty five, was sober. I very quickly started to recollect those spiritual imprints that my mother had imprinted on me, and I began meditating, and I awakened my spiritual practice and started to develop a higher power of my own, and I became such an incredible spiritual student.
Just would soak up everything and anything and reading metaphysical texts and nurturing my connection to spirit and started to channel and just became very very awakened. And in that journey I started to teach very quickly, and so through my journey of teaching spiritual personal development tools, I was also very much healing myself. And I've been now you know, ten books. So I started writing books in two thousand
and eight. But the big part of my story that I think is very reflective of the work that's in this tenth book, which is in self Help, my new book. The big part of my story was that when I was thirty six, I was ten years sober, I'd been on Oprah, I'd written probably like six or seven books. At this point, I was on stages all over the world. I was at this place where you're on the outside you'd be like, oh, she's got it together. She's a self help author and she's a spiritual teacher. And I
was cracking. I was falling apart as having a mental breakdown, only to have a dream. And in that dream, I remembered sexual abuse from my childhood that I had completely dissociated from.
For thirty first time you had memory of it.
Yeah, although if you, if anyone listening has had the memories resurface of Trump trauma memories resurface, they know what I'm about to say, which is you don't know, but you know, there's always a sense of did something happen to me? Or there's fragmented images that you might see, or there's and then of course with that knowing or not knowing, there's extreme explosive behaviors and patterns and protection mechanisms that you build up to protect yourself from that
impro simple trauma. Yes, and so to give you to this moment, the greatest part of my recovery in life has been my trauma recovery and a huge element in all kinds of somatic and sematic experiencing in EMDR and EFT and I have had the privilege of having all these great trauma therapies in my life and spiritual support. But the greatest device for my healing was a therapy called Internal Family Systems Therapy, and IFS is what has informed my tenth book Self Help, which is where we
are today. And that therapy was so healing for me that I befriended the founder. He became sort of my buddy, my mentor. He guided me as I went and I got to the practitioner training with the IFS Institute. I was one of the last students to go through it. That isn't actually a therapist, so they've stopped teaching it to people. They've stopped training people who aren't therapists, which I completelyunderstand. They're training in other ways, many other trainings though,
And so I've got the level two training. I'm like, I've got this tool. I can use this in my work, not one on one, but I was wanting to use it in my lectures and my coaching and in my podcast coaching. And then I realized, I got to write a book about this. But I have to make it
¶ Internal Family Systems Therapy
self help, because not everyone's going to have the privilege of getting an IFS therapist or finding their way to therapy, or even having enough willingness to go do that work in therapy. So I wrote this, I wrote the book self Help.
Wow, Well, thank you for sharing that, And I'm so sorry that you had to go through something like that.
Don't be sorry, because you want to know why I am in the I am the happiest person I know. I am in such a great place in my life. I am literally so clear, so confident, I have so much courage. I feel so great in this life right now, in this moment. And if I hadn't lived all the life experience that I've had, I wouldn't be right here.
And that's such a beautiful thing to be able to say. And only when someone has truly done the work and healed, are you able to truly be able to say something like that, especially after having been something so traumatic, when you've been younger. Yes, So you mentioned the therapy that this is all based around mention it again.
So it's called internal family Systems therapy. It's also known as IFS.
IFS yes, IFS therapy, And so could you explain a little bit around the IFS therapy because the first time I heard about it was reading your book.
Oh wow, great, Yeah, that's my hold that that's the first time I had about it because here you are, you know, like you and Jay are like this is your space, and like this is your first time hearing about it. So that's showing me that it's definitely my duty to sort of light the fire under this and really let people who wouldn't otherwise necessarily find this life changing healing. Yeah, it's very in the zeitgeist right now, so you're going to be healing hearing about it a
lot more and more and more. And it's been around for forty three years maybe around that roughly, Doctor Richard Schwartz was originally a family therapist, and then he started working with women who were binging and Beliemeck, and he found that these women were talking about these parts of themselves, like a part of me wants to harm myself or a part of me wants to shut down, and then they also started speaking about this other part of themselves, that part of me feels a lot of compassion for
this experience. And so he started to sort of rework it, and through his systems, family training, and his intuition and I believe higher power, he created a model that has this premise that when we're children, we have these extreme experiences.
Some may be as extreme as mine or even far more extreme, right, Or they may just be being bullied by the big kid right, or being told you were stupid by a teacher, or or all of the above little impressions to begin, little impressions, or your dad just wasn't around a lot because he was working, or mom left dad, or you know, things that sometimes you might be like, I had a really great upbringing, but you know,
they'll be like, but my dad was an alcoholic. You know, yeah, you know, you don't always like even really equate it because you just have normalized it. But the experiences from our childhood imprint these wounds, frankly, and those experiences are often so extreme that our child brain cannot handle it or process it. And it's far too often the majority of the time that we don't have an adult parent or caregiver who can help us process it.
Oh, we don't even know to express it, for someone to help us throw it.
Like, we have shame around it, whatever it might be. It's too shameful. I mean, I have a six year old, right, so I can see that when I I'm like, oh, how do you feel about the kid in the class that wasn't nice? We don't want to talk about mommy. It's fine, you know what I mean, he likes me.
You know.
It's just too much shame that it won't even come to the surface. So these young parts of us that were so traumatized very young became exiled. And that's an IFS called the exiles. Okay, So they're like these impermissible, huge feelings of terror and fear and shame, and they're just we're just deppressed, suppressed, and we subconsciously are like, I never want to feel that again. So at a very young age, we start to build up these protectors, protection mechanisms.
I loved hearing about this in your book.
Yes, so the protectors are all the ways that we learned how to cope with those horrible feelings as little children. Right. So for my son's example, right, he was three years old, he went into a class, a Montessori class was three year olds and six year olds. There was a six year old in the class, and he was obsessed with him. He only wanted to be friends with the six year old, and the six year old was like, I hate you.
I want to have nothing to do with you, and I you know, kids are mean, right, and also like what is the six year old want of people? And with a three year old for you know, like they don't. It's just he's like, I don't want to be around you. And he was bullying him a little bit, but natural
stuff that happens. But this sent in and press my son that said to him, the only way to make myself feel good enough and protect myself from that feeling is to always be the boss R. And so even to this day, three years later, I see in my son that he has a protector part that's like, I'm the boss. When new people come around, he'll go grab his NERF gun and he'll walk around with his NERF gun, which, by the way, I would never wanted to give him, but eventually you just give it to them because then
you think they'll get over it. But like or some like weapon, they I'll have a sword with him. He walks around with it when new people around because he needs to be the boss, right And it's this misguided believe that I'm not the boss, I don't belong. And so that's an example of a moment in time, not that big a deal, but it was extreme for him, and he didn't have a process that and even with mom it was Gabby Bernstein. It was a lot. And
so we're still processing it, you know. And so it told him I'm going to protect myself by being a boss. So that was a protector part that was established for this little guy. Okay, so imagine the more extreme things that have and we build up these protectors. You know, we weren't loved as kids. I'm going another protector could be I'm going to be a perfectionist, so nobody ever has to so I feel good enough, or I'm going to control everything because they didn't feel safe at that time.
High that's me, And so that becomes this way that we manage our big, impermissible feelings. And so the good news is that, well, let's talk about the tough news. First, most of us are living our lives in these protector parts were when something gets when that childhood feeling gets triggered, we go right into a control We go into you know,
some kind of trauma response. Right, so it's going to be judgment or it's going to be you know, freaking out, or ways of protecting, being the boss, whatever it might be. Those are called manager protectors, where we're just kind of keeping it together. But those managers aren't working. It gets to really extreme levels, and those are called the firefighter protectors. And that's like drug addiction or love addiction, because the pain is so big that we have to put out
the fire. So internal family, we have an inner family of lots of little children inside of us, these locked up, little exile, traumatized kids, and these protection mechanisms that are literally like little children running our fucking lives.
You know what this is reminding me of? Did you watch the show with Tom Holland.
What's the show?
You have to watch it? Do you know what the show is called? Tom Holland's it's literally what you are saying right now, is that a cartoon? No? No, no, it's a really it's like it's a drama. Its specifically speaking about basically this where he's and in that they say that he's schizophrenic, but really what he has is every single thing that's happened to him as he has grown up. You realize at the end that he's actually created these people, these personalities that he becomes as protective
mechanisms to the trauma that he's had. So every time he's in that situation, this protected person, which eventually you see them inside his heart. You see all these little people,
¶ Understanding the layers behind our triggers
and each one represents a different pain or trauma that he has created. This personality or this person he's speaking to, that's protecting him, that's with him, that's his safety blanket that he is turning into or speaking as there you go, and.
I have to guess that it's based on ifs.
Yes, and from everything you're saying, I'm sure, I'm sure the crowded.
Room, I'm sure it's based on ifs it has to be. And it's not like this is an uncommon under awareness, but the idea that we're not one mono human, right, this is what Dick Schwartz teaches, but that we have multiple types of protection mechanisms that are little children inside of us. And it's a very non pathologizing way of looking at yourself. Right, It's like, I'm not a schizophrenic as a lots of parts of me, I'm not a
drug addict. I just have a protection mechanism that's called a drug addict that that puts out the fire with the drugs because it's too scary to live in this world.
And I love that because I do think that nowadays everything has just gotten so much much smaller and smaller, and minds have just gone smaller and smaller, where you just can't believe that someone can be have duality, that someone can be both happy as you were but still have trauma, that someone can be a self help teacher and philosopher. And I've done a lot of work but
still have a lot of work to do. And I think that is that what you're explaining I think would help one where if people learned it, even if they don't have to use the therapy for me. It makes me think, Oh, like my friend who drinks a little bit too much, or my friend who has these sudden outbursts in this specific way, or my mum or my sister, whatever it is, it's making me understand them so much more just by you saying that. And I'm looking at my life and I'm thinking, oh, wow, when I have this.
There are some times when to my husband, to J I'll be like, I'll have this sudden response that's really bigger than it ever needs to be. I'm like, why do I respond to him in that way? Because what he's saying actually isn't triggering, and what he's saying and the way he's saying it isn't triggering at all. But the way I've reacted it's way larger than what he was saying.
It's way bigger.
And the only thing I can think of there is like, oh, it's definitely And I've broken some of those down for myself, where you know, if I'm if he's even if he's trying to help me in some way, my automatic response is I can do it myself. I can do it, like you don't need to do it for me, I can do it myself. And at first for him that was like, wait, I'm just trying to help you, like I actually love you and I'm trying to help you.
For me, I interpret it as people didn't think I could do anything by myself when I was younger, So now I have to show that I can do this all by myself. And so I don't want your help. I don't want you to promote this. I don't want you to do this for me. I want to do it by myself and I don't want your help. And so that so when you're saying that, that's the first
thing that came to my mind. I was like, I would never understand why I would have that response to someone who's just trying to pour love into me, and that would be my response. And so I'm like, oh, wow, that was my protective mechanism or me trying to suppress something that I haven't yet worked through, and that's how it's coming out of me.
Do you want to check in with that part? We don't have to go deep deep, we can just have a conversation with it. Yesday. So this is the step that I've created in the book. Yeah, this is now we'll teach it, and it's actually not meant to go to the exile. It's not meant to go to like like it'll the young memories might come through, but that's not what I'm trying to do here. This is an
IFS informed self help book. And before we go into it, I have to really tell you the most important part, which is that we have these little children that are kind of controlling and running our lives and they're always on high alert. But we also have an internal parent. We also have an adult resourced, undamaged self with a capital S. It self is compassionate. It's eight C qualities. Compassion, the energy the essence of compassion, connection, courage, confidence, clarity, creativity,
calm and connected. Think I said already that.
Sounds like all the things where in our scriptures it talks about our super soul, and it's like the the part of us that is as deeply connected to the universe to God. So like there's this small spark in us that has all of that that embraces it's all loving, all kind, all compassionate, and we all have that seated in us, but it's just covered up with all the layers and layers and layers of material existence.
And so you just nailed it. Which is there's a beautiful quote in the book that I quote one of an I F. S teacher and it talks about how the sun is self, and.
I just loved it. Yeah, it's the sun. The self is the sun behind the clouds. The sun always the Self always exists, but it is just behind the clouds. Even though we can't see the sun, we know it's always there. Just like the sun. The self isn't something we have to find, It's already there. We just have to let ourselves be revealed from behind the clouds of our protect is. I loved that.
I have to remember who was at We'll say we'll pick it up. I'll pick it up because I want to make sure that I give him all the credit. But I mean, there it is.
It is beautiful there. It is so true.
And his point is, it's the self is the Sun behind the clouds. We have access to it at all times. It's always there, but we've built up these protection mechanisms like a wall that block that presence or the clouds that block the light. And so when we do what we're about to do together, of course, if you took it further and did it in IFS therapy. Particularly starting here with the self help check in process, which is what I'm calling it, you begin to release that cloud
and reveal the presence of self. Now this is a four step process, but now you understand why the book is called self Help. Self be there to help your little parts. You have an inner parent. And this right here, right now, Roddy, is why I'm so happy. It's everything, it's all my sober recovery, it's all kinds of therapy, but it's really this practice living in this way, knowing that I'm not alone, knowing that I can tend to these inner parts of myself in any given moment and
redirect and reorganize my energy. It's the greatest gift of my life.
And I just love that you've turned into something that like I am assuming this four step process is the process people have to go through every time they come
across something like this. But the fact that I can do it with you now, but the fact that people can do it at home by themselves, that I have it as their constant check in process every time they feel something like this happened, Like it's just such a beautiful thing that you've created for people to have at home as a mechanism to cope versus maybe turning to something else.
And a way to befriend every part of who you are instead of shaming yourself, blaming yourself, or overriding the
¶ A Four-Step Process for Self-Healing
protection mechanism with another protection mechanism. Right, So it's like you might be protected, you know, protector rage and then later be in protector judgment of yourself and then being protector or addict because you don't like the judgment and it's just going from to protect or to protect or
to protect her living so blended in that way. But this practice teases it out in the moment and gives you that distance between the trigger and the response, and it allows you space to be present with the feeling and the experience and be curious about that part of you, to give it some space to soften. And the more you habitually practice that, the more second nature it becomes, the more you learn to rely on that self energy inside God.
I feel like we need it so much now, more than ever, because I think we're so used to being so stimulated and having such immediate reactions and receiving immediate reactions to things that sitting in something is not you know, whether it's you writing something on your Instagram story when you're angry about something, or whether it's message your friends as soon as something happens, or calling someone or there's just so many options of how you can how you
can have a lash out or have your feelings expressed in a very extreme way before you've even had time to sit and process it. And I think having that moment, I think having this practice allows people to have that moment by themselves, without anybody else's view, opinion, thoughts being shoved into their mind when they're in a vulnerable state or when they're in an impressionable state, which is usually when we're in those emotions. We are in those states.
When we're in those emotions, we are in those states, and we are blended with the part. Right. So you said this beautifully before, which is that we can we can speak. We can learn how to speak for these parts, not as them. So the next time that that thing happens with Jay, we're going to work on it now. YEA, the next time that thing happens with Jay, you can say, WHOA, I'm noticing I'm feeling that feeling again, and I want to just say it and name it. And maybe it's
nothing to do with you. Maybe it is and I don't know, let's let me tease it up. But you could have that awareness, or you can step away and just say I'm gonna go check in the bathroom and you guys are going checking it all over the place or whatever feels like you need in that moment. Okay, So how would you call that protector or was there like a way that you would reference it or it's sort of I want to do it myself protector.
Yeah, it's like the prove yourself like protect yourself. Okay, Yeah, probably beautiful.
So this is a beautiful opportunity to Step one choose to check in.
Okay.
And the reason that Step one is choose to check in is because we can't like a little kid, right when you have a kid, you're gonna get this. I mean, you're gonna call me like how do I do this? So my son if I if I see he's agitated about something and I'm like, so Allie, like let's talk about it. He well, I don't want to. I need
his buy in. Usually it's like right before bed, always like those are the mudget or it's you know, when we're in the car driving, and so I need that that can't be in the heated moment necessarily the wolves correct, So you have there has to be a crack that's been opening, and so that choice is going to be there when you take that for a step, because you're going to be have enough separation or enough awareness, or enough desire or enough willingness to witness and say, oh no,
I just went into that trigger again. Okay, I'm going to choose to check in. That's step one, and without that buy in, the parts of us will get really agitated, kids like children.
Yeah.
Step two is curiosity. So I'll ask the questions to you, but really you're asking them to your part myself. Okay, So first, just maybe even close your eyes if you feel comfortable, and just tune your attention inward. Notice if you have access at this moment to that what did we say? What did we call it? Again? Prove yourself protect your self protector. And as you focus your attention
a little bit on this, prove your self protector. If there's anything physical sensations that you notice, you can speak for them. Yeah, but it's suffocating suffocating great, okay, and any thoughts, ideas, sensations.
It definitely feels very childlike, like it's not an adult emotion. It's very like immediate and almost like not tantrumy, but it feels that way like it will be very it will be irrational a little bit. It feels rational, but I know in my adult self that it's irrational. Okay.
If there's any images, thoughts, sensations, anything it wants us to know.
Oh, it definitely takes me. My trigger is definitely school and education, Okay, always has been for this emotion.
Anything else it wants us to know.
A younger child thing like from like being the younger child in my family, having a lot of intelligent cousins and sisters around me, and that was definitely a big part.
But right, okay, Yeah, I think there's are like beautiful, really good, really nice, nice druggle Okay. And then the third step is to compassionately connect to this part. So this is where you might check it. Do you feel like you have a connection to it in this moment? Yeah, definitely great, So checking in with the part, ask it what it needs, let me think, well, let me feel, yeah, exactly, don't think too much what it needs.
I think it needs me to let go mm hmm, yeah, let go of things that are like, aren't relevant anymore.
Okay, okay, beautiful and now if we yeah, beautiful, already beautiful and feel that right now with me, don't don't override it. Be with me. I'm with you completely, and I'm with the part. And notice how you feel in this moment this is the four step.
A bit vulnerable, Yeah, definitely, like an emotion that I found difficult to work through.
Perfect, Perfect? Do you feel? How do you feel towards that part of you?
A bit like it's been around for longer than it should, like if it doesn't feel as relevant anymore, but I he like it's there's smaller parts of it that I hold on to when that's not who I am anymore.
So can you just try on something with me which you just poast your hand on your heart and your other hand on your belly and just breathe with me for a moment and just real deep breath in and out and just give it some presents, give the part
¶ Why self-awareness is key to healing
a little bit of presence and breath. Really, just give it some deep breaths. Just breathe with it another moment, just let it know that it's totally safe here with me and you, and let it know that I'm really excited to get to know it, and I'm really happy. Let it know anything else that you want it to know. Okay, you can just take another deep breath and just let it let it know you're here. That's really nice. Thank you you did it.
That was really powerful. That was really really powerful. I feel like sometimes even with the smaller emotions, when you end up having them. One thing I've realized is with even emotions like this, where it may not affect me every single day, or it does in smaller ways, but even if it doesn't, when you end up addressing it, you automatically feel like even something small because you've suppressed it constantly or haven't worked through it fully, it feels
really big in the moment. So when you're like addressing it, what you said at the beginning, like you have to choose to buy into it. At first, I was like, I really don't want to do it. Like in my mind, I honestly was like, oh God, and know I'm gonna cry. I know this is what's going to I know what my emotions are going to get heightened, because that's how I feel in the moment when someone's asking me questions
or it's getting triggered. But it's definitely a process of like getting extremely vulnerable with yourself where you don't like to go like that's the it was really uncomfortable.
First of all, you're very good at these steps because you have such strong awareness already. Right, You've done a tremendous manner work on yourself. You know yourself, right. But what I think is so beautiful is that the way that you just defined exactly what I think most people's protector is is the fear of that vulnerability. How do you feel about the How do you feel right now now?
I feel definitely relieved because I've let the emotion flow. If I hadn't, I would have probably cried throughout the episode in some way because it would have built up or pen up in me. But also that it's an easier process than I thought to work through it in that moment versus having an irrational response to something like this feels a lot clearer and cleaner, Like my mind feels clearer.
So clarity is one of the c qualities itself. Yeah, so you let self help.
Amazing.
That was a really so imagine a world where when you have those moments or that awareness, whether it's in the moment or it's three days later, it does not matter that you're had a part that's present and it needs some attention, and you just choose to check in step one, become curious, Step two compassionately connect by asking what do you need? Step three and step four check for c's, check for those c qualities. So what I
did it with you? But I was like, and then you got into the place where you said, I feel clear, Yeah, there's your quality. That is your sign that self energy has come through, and it's a sign. And so these steps, this is not IFS. IFS is very different. This is IFS informed. Okay, i FS is going to take you on a very different journey because you have a therapist with you, holding you. This is a much This is a very safe and contained Richard Schwartz, the founder of IFS,
very approved model for doing this for yourself right. And the beauty of it is that you can befriend that part of yourself. You can begin to establish relationship with that part of yourself so that she doesn't have to run the show she doesn't have to flow about and instead she can feel seen because what she wants to feel seen. But who does she need to feel seen by? Yeah? Yeah, right, so true And as soon as she feels that truthful,
be this will change your life. This will change change everything about your life.
It's also like the heaviness of you think that then even if they feel like smaller things and to the grand scale of what people can go through, what my emotion is is somewhat small. But what I've realized is that these little small things that you carry, like you pick them up along the way, and if you're not letting them go as you got to, like, you feel so heavy. And it's not a physical heavy, it's like
you have heavy, heavy emotional emotions. It's like a heaviness that you feel in your heart every time it's happening. So even this release that I just had with you for me, I'm like, had I not done that now, it would have kept building and building and building, and
then the release would have felt so much more dramatic. Yeah, And I just think that that it's because we we pent up these emotions over and over again, and these traumas that you're talking about over and over again, and without releasing one, all you're doing is adding to the weight of it all over and over again.
Think about how little kids manage their feelings. Right, they tantrum, they they or if they shut down, right, they hide, or they you know, let it all out, it burst.
Right.
That's how we that's how we are. We are running. It does not shoulder your adulthood, and it's not. It really doesn't, because we get stuck in time and we become stuck in that pattern and that behavior and that behaviors and these protection mechanisms because the only way we can feel safe. So it's shifted your energy here right now, you're in clarity. We can be more connected, you can feel more calm later. So that self energy that you
established in this moment can carry you. Also gives you this spiritual proof that there is help inside.
Yeah, that's so true.
That's the power and that's confidence.
Like I always think about that every time I work through different parts of me, it increases the love and confidence that I feel, and then that spreads into different parts of my life, and then that spreads into my relationships, and then that spreads into the other people I interact with. On the street. It's like, it's such a knock on effect of what you just said. As soon as you feel you can help yourself and someone else isn't doing it for you, and someone else isn't the savior in
your life. Whatever it is that you can do it for yourself, it's just a completely different experience.
You nailed it, Yeah, because confidence is a sea equality. So when you start to let these qualities of confidence, courage, curiosity, right, clarity, yeah, creativity, when we let these sea qualities start to come forward, they have a massive ripple effect because when you start to develop that self energy, it starts to get really big in your life. And so you walk in the door and people are like, I don't know why that
girl makes me feel really good? Yeah, and you have the energy, by the way, but you know, thank you very much, and it's the self help work. It's period end of story, right, because it can feel I mean,
¶ Reflecting on misaligned goals
if you'd met me five years ago and Jay's known me for you know, eleven twelve years, like a really long time, and when he knew me, then he knows a different woman.
You know.
Jay and Lewis are like my brothers because they knew me at a time when I was had a lot of self like qualities, but it was it was intermittent, right, and it wasn't And I had a lot of purpose and had a lot of love in my heart, but I wasn't. It wasn't integrated. Yeah, and that's just because I was on the path and I'm still on the path. I did self help check in last night, and I totally changed my life around, completely changed my day around.
I had the most The other thing is is, you know people want to talk about manifesting, like, if you want to manifest, do self help, honey.
Right.
It's like when you heal here, that confident energy, that courageous energy, that compassionate energy, that calm present is what makes you a super attractor.
Oh my gosh.
And that you know.
I've been talking to my team actually about the manifesting stuff because I was saying to them that you have to be so careful and you know, on to what you were saying about doing the self help. When you're trying to manifest and you're you don't have clarity in what you actually want, you will manifest something you do not want in your life. And so I was talking about this to do with things that I'm you know,
been been dipping my feet in with work. And yesterday I said to one of the girls, I was like, fundamentally, it is not making me feel happy, like it is not I thought I wanted it. And the funny thing is, last year I was talking about it so much I was I was putting it, putting the words into my life of this is what I want to happen next year, And funnily enough, a year later, it happened.
That's that thing.
Happened, and I'm in it, and I could keep dipping my feet in it, and I was like, it is not it's happened. But actually I was not in a clear place last year when I started deciding I wanted to do this. So it's happened, but it's actually not something I want. And now I've realized it's not what I want because the more I'm dipping my feet in it,
the more I realize how unhappy it's making me. And so it's so interesting because because I didn't have the clarity then what I manifested in my life, whether it's in by the way, this is the case in relationships, in work, in your personal life, in everything if you are not in clarity when you start to decide what you want in your life, you will end up manifesting something and realizing, actually, my dream has come true, but
it wasn't really the dream I wanted. And it's been a really this week has been a big reflective week for and I've been like, wow, I just that is not who I want, what I want to be known for, That's not who I want to be. And I'm going to have to take my toes out of that water.
It tows out because but there's clarity right there. Yes, that's clarity right there. Oh you know, that's actually not what I want anymore. Yeah, that's cool right. And And the thing is is that we're just living in this life where we're unlearning fear and remembering the love of who we.
Are, unlearning fear and remembering the love of who we are.
Yeah, it's this is our classroom, right, These these moments of wreckage are our assignments. We have a choice in
¶ Teaching while still learning yourself
this lifetime. Are we going to show up for them or we're going to play small? Are we going to stay stuck? Are we going to feel the burdens of these parts of us and the beautiful thing that happens is that when you start to befriend these parts of yourself and you start to have this kind of relief and you start to feel self presence come through the parts of you don't have to go away, right, Like my controlling part gets a lot done. Yeah, yeah, for for a lot of time, even in her darkest moments,
she did a lot of good work. You know, she wrote ten books in fourteen years. Right, She's served a lot of And so you can still be going through really difficult times and do really good things. And that's really important because not everybody's going to be feeling the
freedom I'm feeling in this moment in a week. But you can feel that freedom and that light can enter in, and that light can enter in, and that light can enter in, and it really adds up and you can doing beautiful things in your life even when you're going through tough stuff.
How do you This is the kind of off topic question, but it just came to mind. How did you go through all of those things while you were also helping other people and not feel like you, like, aren't being truthful to them? Does that make sense?
Like, because I was always telling the truth because whatever stage I was at in my teaching was where I was at in my learning. Yeah, yes, okay, So at the time when I was most you know, when I didn't remember the trauma, but I was just looking for answers and I was finding it through metaphysics, that's what I was teaching. I was finding my safety through specific yoga, That's what I was teaching. Yeah, I was finding you know when I in these in these through breath work,
and that's what I was teaching. And every book I have shows you. This shows you the journey. All ten books show you fourteen years of spiritual recovery because each level is the level that I was at. And I always write my books for myself first. Yeah, that's that's such good advice. I always fine.
I think there's a difference between how you feel and always the perception of other people and then well how they view as and you can't change that. Like I can keep saying I'm a beginner in this, but if you see me as an expert, I can't change. I can keep telling someone I'm a beginner, but I think
¶ The first step to breaking patterns
it's really difficult when the perception is for example, if you meditate, if you're someone who meditates, no one expects you to have road rage. Let's just give that as an example. It's like, if you are showing that you meditate, no one expects you to send a voice note back to someone who's just been rude to you and schooling
them on that. You know, what I'm trying to say is there's a perception that people can have of you, no matter how much you share where you're at, if they want to perceive you in a certain way, you can't control that. It's just the narrative.
Yeah, I think if you're telling the truth and you're that's all you have to that's all that matters. And other people are always going to put pretenses and projections onto you. They're gonna they're going to idolize you, They're going to shame you. It's just the nature of the world that we live in. But the realities if you're good with you, yeah, straight on your side, the street is clean, whatever. Yeah.
What do you think is the biggest of the biggest hurdles you mentioned, you know, changing passions? What do you think are the biggest hurdles that people have to actually one make change and then be able to sustain the change of passions, beautiful.
¶ How to believe you can change
Question, Well, making the change. I think the biggest hurdle is the absolute terror of facing into these exiles right or even slightly textrating into recognizing that there's a protection mechanism, which is why in the book, I don't want to work with these firefighter addicts or any of the exiles. I just want to work with the managers, right, Like I want to work with the parts of you that are, you know, controlling your life in that moment. I want
to work with the parts of you that are a perfectionist. Yeah, I want. I want you to start to get to know the day to day protection mechanisms so that you can just soften them a touch, and then if you start to feel some relief, you might be like, hmm, this is kind of working. Let me go where Gabby told me to go to the IFS Institute and find a therapist, or or I go find that coach that's
going to help me, whatever that might be. But you start with yourself, you start being your own inner healer, and then you can know what the next right actions that.
Yeah, I completely agree, and I feel like with the different parts of you know, I think one of the reasons that people end up not being able to stick to patterns or change. Is that feeling of not thinking you even.
Can, Like, yes, you know, this is why it's so exciting right now, right you just showed them that you can. So there's a four step practice that you just got relief from. You gave everyone watching spiritual proof that there's a four step practice that can give you relief in the moment, and so that in itself is healing. That proof is healing. This isn't just we're not just talking around an idea. We're not just like, hey, here's the new trick that you can try, or this is the
new thing that somebody suggested. You showed them that relief is on the other side of this four steps And if you want a little bit of relief every day, four step check in. And in the book there's ways I said, you know, journaling check ins, I have prayer based check ins, I have meditative check ins. Every chapter has a check in. And there's also a chapter called Anxious Parts, all dedicated to the anxiety as a protector.
Body Parts is another chapter, how our somatic, our physical experience is a protector.
Right.
The work of doctor John sarnaw how our back pain is protecting our impermissible rage.
But don't you think it takes like a whole lot, Like I think the first step to wanting to change is you need a small amount of well either it's rock bottom or it's you need a small amount of at least of self love or love for yourself to want to change, because you have to want to be a better person or you have to love the future version of yourself to be able to want to take
steps towards change. So for someone who feels like they really are struggling with their worth with with love for themselves, like, what are the first steps that people should start taking to really create that feeling of like worth in themselves.
Well, the thing is this, the work only works if you want to do the work, and you don't need
¶ Knowing your protectors in life
a lot of willingness, but you need a slight willingness. Yeah, right, you need a little mustard seed of willingness because that mustard's willingness will be like hmmm, let me go listen to that podcast with Gabby and Riddy, right, or hmm, maybe I'll pick up that book called self help, right, yeah, But the nice thing about this book in particular is like it says what it is on the chin, you're
either in or you're out. And so I know that anyone that's picked this book up opened the first page, whether it was given to them or they purchased it themselves, if they opened that page, then they're willing because it's telling you point blank what this is. Yeah.
Yeah, you're choosing to self help.
You're opening a self help book. It says, called self help. And I think that, Look, not everybody's going to get there in this lifetime. But if anyone who is here right now watching and listening to us, they're here. They wouldn't be listening if they weren't here. Yeah, So congratulations people, Yeah, well done.
You showed up What was some of your protectors or that were coming up for you, like the ways that it showed up for you in your life.
Okay, So I've named them, Yeah, very intimate with them. There was the cocaine addict. There was the and I say it was because she's been clean and sober, but I still recognize as a as a recovering cocaine addict. There's the controller who now is not in her extreme role, but she's still around because you know what, I got lots of good things happening, and I got to keep control over all of these balls in the air.
Right.
So she's doing it, and she's like calling her assistant and she's like, I love you. Can you do me a favor and just make like five phone calls so we can move that flight so I can be there at this time. And she's thinking and getting shit done. She's getting herself on the plane, and she's getting herself home to make the dinner, and she's got a little bit of control. And it's good.
Actually, Yeah, I like how you're sharing what it was and now how it's still there but it's not burdened.
Yes, these parts flourish when they're in there, when they're no longer burdened. Yes, these parts of us become their greatest assets. I've read one of them was your wlkoholic workaholic. She does not she she doesn't exist. She just thrives because she loves her work. So she can be here with you and then fly home tomorrow and then maybe on the plane write a little bit of the next book that she's working on. But she's not a work ahole. She's not harming herself she's in a flow, she's asking
for help. The biggest one for me that I still work with today is the part of me that has a belief that if I don't do it, nobody else will yes. And that's the little girl right who lived
¶ Small shifts for big changes
in a world where she couldn't control anything, where she had so much fear and rage and she and she'd no caregiver that was making her feel safe, and so she just had to take care of herself. And so that belief is something I've been working with tremendously. I've been even two nights ago, just like checking in with her, listening to her. And the more I work with her, the more I can let other people help. The more I can let my husband, who I work with as well,
I can let him just take the lead. I can just see a vision of a future where I don't have my hand in certain things. I sat with one of my employees this morning and he flew in from San Francisco, and I looked at him and I was like, I'm so excited to give all this to you, because my vision is that you can just play with all this and I can stem step away. These are huge things. Yeah, she's run the show for a long time.
She's run the show for a long time. I feel like with in New Year, people end up sticking, like they end up committing to a lot of new goals and new patterns and trying to keep them consistent. How does someone who and I think what happens is usually even my gym trainers tell me this. They're like, it's so busy at the beginning of January and then suddenly it quietens down and is just the regulars. How does
someone stop? Because I noticed for myself when I stick, when I start committing to a pattern or a new habit and then I somehow end up having a break in it, or I don't end up committing to it that day. You go into like this spiral, which is like a shame spiral that stops you then from going back to that pattern because you're like, oh, okay, well I didn't do it for the last three days. Do I even deserve to go back to it? Do you know that I'm out with dueling right now and I'm
getting so shamed? Duo is like Shito is like, where the fuck are you? I did?
I did thirty three hundred days of duo and then I fell off a day and then now it's like every two days. Now you feel like me back down to this like low level where it's like, oh, lamas ass and I'm like, what like I am I, and it's it's messing with my brain. So yes, and I think that the real message here is that I believe
in small shifts for big change. And so if you can make the commitment to do one check in a day for two minutes, right or read a page a day, if that'd be my work, whatever work it is that you like to do, you know, if it's five pages of journaling a day, if it's just listening to your Jay on the podcast right like these are, there's a spiritual transmission. If you miss a day indications, just jump right back in, just jump right it back in.
It's weird that we shame ourselves and that we literally it's it's it's hard because your mind is shaming you for not doing it, but then it's also stopping you from doing it in the next few days or the week after, all the month after, so you almost jeopardize it's self sabotage in one way because you're telling yourself you didn't do it today. But that means you shouldn't do it tomorrow or the next day or the next day.
It's also remember it's a protector. So when we get into that pattern of just some of it, some of its protector and some of it's just sort of well, protectors are habits, right. Protectors are habitual behaviors, and so
¶ Take the first step toward healing
to undo the habitual behavior of the rage or undo the control, it is about doing something different, right, And I think that if someone just hears me say, it's never too late to start again, period and do one minute a day, one small thing a day.
You know.
I have my Gabby Coaching app. It's a membership app, and it's the first thing you do is pull a card. You pull an affirmation card. We'll pull on for you today. The second thing you do is you land on the home screen and it's two minute practice.
Yeah.
Now, there's long meditations in there. There's ten, you know, thirteen fifteen minute sessions to our talks. But it's all I'm asking is to pull an affirmation into it and listen to a two minute practice. That's it, and that's enough. And that simplicity, I think, is where people are at. It's what people need and then you're like, Okay, well I fell off, but I can just do two minutes, right.
What do you Is there anything else from the book that you feel like people would really benefit from hammering now or do they just really have to go read it and through the whole thing.
Well they do. Here's the thing. If they're still listening and they're still here, then I think that's a sign. The subtitle of this book is this is your Chance to change your life I have. This is my tenth book. I have been on the front lines of personal growth and spiritual development for nineteen years. I have moved through addiction, I've moved through repressed trauma, I've moved through extreme trauma with birthing, and I carried a child for almost six months.
I released that child. I've lived life. I've had my traumas. And the reason I have had the resilience and the joy that I can live in now and the faith no matter what, is because I've worked my spiritual and personal development like a muscle. I built the muscle every single day, every single day. And so if someone's looking at you and me and they're like, I want what they have, or I want that feeling, or I want to just feel from freedom or relief, then here's an answer.
Here's the solution. If I'm resonating, if it's resonating, or whether it's again, I always say, like, whether it's my book or anyone else, just take that first step. Just just just press order or open the page. Take the first step.
Thank you so much. This was honestly such a phenomenal episode, and this conversation was so useful for me, and I can't even imagine how many other people it's going to help. So thank you.
Dial and we can just check.
So excited you're going to block my number. I'm really looking forward to.
I actually came over here today and I'm like, I think we're going to become really good friends. Like I had that sense, I feel like that, why not, right? But it happens when we go deep like this.
You look forward to dive deeper into the book. And thank you so much.
I love you all. Thank you for your vulnerability.
M m hmmmmmm.