Get ready for the new year! Listen to guru, coach, and #1 New York Times bestselling author Gabby Bernstein as she helps us through anything using a technique that she found to be extremely useful herself!! Thanks, Gabby!

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Gabby. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Self Help. This is your chance to change your life. Love it. Congratulations. 

Gabrielle: Thank you. Thank you. Moms, moms can make time for this book, I think. 

Zibby: Totally. Not too long. User friendly. I love it. Dog eared like a thousand pages, but anyway, it was, uh, it was great.

Okay. Tell users a little bit about you to start. I read your bio already, but just a little more about you so they understand why this book is coming now from you. 

Gabrielle: Yeah. Thank you. Well, this is my 10th book and I've been writing books for the past 14 years, I've been in the field of personal growth and spiritual development for 19 years.

And my career really began based on my own journey and desire to begin a experience of healing my own inner world. And much of that healing started off on the spiritual path with my, my meditation practices and my spiritual faith. And as I've grown, it has. Gone beyond my spiritual faith and deeper into therapeutic healing and trauma recovery and my latest books this book and the one previously were really focused on the therapies that I've used to heal from traumatic events and from belief systems that no longer served me and to really reclaim a new way of being and That's been my mission, truly, is really just to be on this path of helping people crack open to their own spiritual connection and help demystify and democratize spiritual and therapeutic practices for people to begin to apply them easily as self help in their back pocket and have the tools so that they can access relief quickly.

And, um, not feel so burdened by stories and belief systems that hold us back. And that leads us to this book. I mean, this book is, like I said, it's my 10th book. So by this point, I've been writing these books for myself first. And so this will be probably the first one where it was the least for myself because I'd already had the experience and the gift of it.

It's based on a therapy called internal family systems therapy, which we'll get into. And it was a therapy that changed my life. And so I knew it was my mission to really simplify and demystify. the principles of this therapy and make it self help. And so that's what I've done here. 

Zibby: The therapist was clearly so delighted in his foreword.

Gabrielle: Yes, so this is, this man is Dr. Richard Schwartz and he is the founder of this world renowned therapy. And he's a very dear friend of mine and really mentored me through my own, my own journey of, of mastering this therapeutic model for myself. And gave me the blessing to go out and bring his 43 year body of work into the world in this way, which is humongous for me.

And, and not for me, but for the reader, right? It's just like to, to not have to, you may not find your way to a therapist's office, let alone an IFS therapist's office, but now you can experience the gift of this model. And in a way that is self help. 

Zibby: And before we dive into this, the nitty gritty of that, which I also found super interesting, the firefighters and managers and all that.

What happened to you that led you down this path? What traumas were you overcoming? And like, what is, what led you here? 

Gabrielle: Well, when I first started my career, I actually was a few months sober. I started speaking publicly on my spiritual faith and I got sober at the age of 25. the, uh, the addictions that led me to my sobriety were sort of strange to me.

I was like, well, why am I, why am I an addict? What's, why am I acting out in these ways? What's going on? And I carried on with a lot of other addictive behaviors like workaholism and control and, and relationship addiction for many years, even past getting clean and sober. And when I was 36 years old, I started to have these mental breakdowns is really the best way I could describe it.

I was just cracking and cracking and breaking down. And my mantra was, I can't go on like this. I can't go on like this. And I, I, I was seven books in, I'd written about seven self help books. I'd been on Oprah as a next generation thought leader. Like I had been doing good work in the world, but inside I was really suffering.

And, um, I had a dream when I was 36 at that time, and in that dream, I remembered sexual abuse from my childhood. And often, when we have such extreme traumas like that as children, we can actually dissociate from them, and literally leave our body and dissociate from the memory. And that was the case for me.

And remembering that trauma was equal parts horrific and terrifying as it was relieving. Because what it showed me in that moment was, This is why you've been running. This is why you were addicted to drugs and alcohol. This is why you've been so hyper vigilant This is why you're so afraid all the time.

This is why you don't trust anyone This is why you believe that you have to do everything yourself And that and that was nine years ago that began a new direction of my spiritual and personal development path Which really led me down the journey of the therapeutic Therapeutic practices and methods that were going to help me heal the trauma And the one that really helped the most was internal family systems therapy, which is what I've written about in this book.

Zibby: I'm very sorry that that happened to you, but thank you. 

Gabrielle: You know, you know, I'm not, I'm not, okay. I appreciate you saying that though, but I, so 

Zibby: I'm not, I'm not either then I'm not sorry at all. 

Gabrielle: No, I think it's fine to say those things. I mean, no one wishes that no one would want any child to experience things like this, but I wouldn't change a thing.

And I mean that because the, the, Sometimes the, the most difficult moments in our life offer us the greatest opportunities for transformational growth. And there's this gorgeous roomy quote, the wound is the place where the light enters you. So sometimes when we have these crack open moments, the breakthrough is what the gift is.

That's the miracle. I wouldn't have the. Yeah. Life I have today if I didn't have the history that I had so that's why I can really say today Maybe nine years ago. I wouldn't have been able to say this today. I can say to you I'm grateful for everything that's happened in my life because it's gotten me here.

Zibby: That's amazing. That's really great. So internal family systems therapy go What do we need to know, and how can it help the regular person listening? 

Gabrielle: You know how Hillary Clinton would call Bill Clinton, like, the chief explainer? I think that's sort of my role in personal development. It's like, I'm just the simplifier.

So I'm going to take a really big therapeutic model and make it simple for you. If you've ever said to yourself, you know, uh, a part of me feels really triggered when my husband says this thing or part of me is really controlling at work or a part of me is a people pleaser. Sometimes I act out in these ways when I feel inadequate or, you know, just we have these ways of extreme behaviors.

And patterns or a habit that we don't like that we just can't kick, right? Like we keep going to the refrigerator every night, we just over binge or whatever it might be. Those patterns and behaviors that seem to just sort of be who we are, just, just habitual patterns that we carry around with us are actually not who we are.

They're just parts of who we are. And they're actually protection mechanisms. Maybe you've thought of them at times as coping mechanisms. And these protection mechanisms oftentimes can really run our lives, right? So I have one that's a controller. She I'm working with her this part of me every single day and she's, she's, she's really controlling a lot of things.

And when we start to really look at these extreme patterns and behaviors through a different lens and that's the lens I'll teach you through the book, we start to recognize, okay, first they're protection. They're protecting me. They're doing, they're working these, these, these, these. Behaviors and extreme feelings are protecting me from something.

And then we have to get curious, what are they protecting me from? And in IFS, when we have these extreme behaviors and patterns, they're known as protector parts. And what's beautiful is that these protector parts have been around for as long as we can remember. And they've been there ever since a probably very young age.

And at a young age, all of us, no matter how big the trauma or small the trauma, we experienced uncomfortable experiences. Whether we were told we were stupid by a teacher or we didn't have a caregiver that was present with us or We were having abuse in my case or we had somebody bully us on the playground Really doesn't matter.

These moments in time are significant And as little children, we do not have the brain capacity or the emotional resilience to process those big experiences. And from a very young age, we build up belief systems and protection mechanisms to protect against ever having to feel those big feelings again.

So the little children parts are called exiled parts because we shut them down and we exile them. We don't want to feel them. And the protectors. are the experiences that we do, the actions that we take, the extreme behaviors that we rely on to push down those protection, those, those, those exiled feelings.

And so anyone listening right now to keep it really simple, you know, if there is a habit in your life and you're like, Ooh, I just can't kick that habit. I don't know what, why I keep doing that. Or if you've ever said, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm so angry all the time, or I struggle with anxiety or I, you know, I have, I have back pain.

I mean, even pain, physical pain can be a form of protection as well at times because it's masking something deeper. It's masking a psychosomatic effect of something. So Any of our really undesirable feelings, emotions, and behaviors really can be seen through the lens of protection. And as we start to witness those as protector parts of us, we can take the steps that are in my book to begin to relate to them differently, and offer them some connection, and offer those parts of ourselves some compassion and some curiosity, so that we can stop judging ourselves, and instead start tending to the protection mechanisms.

And the goal is to help those, Knee jerk reactions feel more and more calm, and as they settle, we can start to experience less reactivity, less charged energy, less extreme patterns and behaviors. And more serenity in our life. That's a baseline breakdown. 

Zibby: Good job. A book in three minutes. I'm kidding.

There's a part in the book where somebody says, Oh, Gabby, you look so peaceful. And you're like, that's because I fully love myself and I'm great with who I am. Tell me about that. And can, do you think everyone has the potential to reach that state or do you have to be predisposed to sort of the openness to get there?

Or did you ever think that you would get there? 

Gabrielle: Yeah. Yeah. When, when that woman asked me and she said, Oh, you, you seem so, so happy what's going on. And I said, well, I love every part of who I am. 

Zibby: Okay. Sorry. I love every part of who I am. 

Gabrielle: And you know, but that's, that's, it's, I like that you picked up on that, on that piece, because it is profound.

I love every part of who I am. And what that means is that I've learned to respect and honor and love even the most extreme aspects of myself. Okay. Bye. so that I can help them help these aspects of myself feel less burdened. And that's the goal. And to answer your question, hell yes, I believe everyone can get here.

I, a hundred percent. If I, if I lost that faith, I'd have to quit my job because my mission is to share the tools that have healed me in the service of others, awakening to those practices in themselves. And there's a beautiful 12 step motto that's if he works, if you work it, So whether it's Gabby Bernstein's books or it's somebody else's work or it's a therapeutic practice or it's a yoga practice with our friend Tara Stiles or whatever it might be.

Whatever path guides you to your greatest healing is all that's required. And I remember years ago, I was having a conversation with my friend Deepak Chopra. We were, we were giving a talk together and he said to me, I said, you know, I'm doing all these different practices and trying these different therapies and spiritual practices.

And it's like, is that okay? And he said, he said, of course, he said, do whatever it takes to get closer to consciousness. And so for someone listening today, if they're drawn to this, then this is your step. Or if you're drawn to a different book that you bring in, go do that step. Do whatever it takes to get closer to consciousness because it's possible to all of us to have that same sense of freedom inside.

Why help other people? Oh my God, I know I have known suffering in my lifetime and I know that many people have. I mean, all of us suffer in our own ways. And I have been in the pursuit of, of relieving myself of that suffering and having the experience of that relief is the greatest gift I have to share.

And I think that I, from a spiritual perspective, I believe that my soul said, sign me up for X, Y, and Z so I can heal and be a rock and tour and be a teacher and heal and support others. And. It's, it's, it's funny, nobody ever really asked me the why because the answer's always been that is what I do. It's just what I do.

It's what I'm here to bring. To answer the why, it's like I'm sitting on the keys to the kingdom. How could I not open the door for people? That's a beautiful way 

Zibby: to put 

Gabrielle: it. 

Zibby: I love that. Well, not everybody would do that. And I think it's great. So I think even the decision to share and to have, and that sort of wanting to give back to the world, that's a great, that's a great thing.

I don't know. Take a minute. Yeah. 

Gabrielle: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that we all can do that in our own ways. Mm hmm. You're doing it right now. You're doing it right now. We all have, and when we're in the service of others is when we actually feel the most aligned, and that's actually brings us to self help because self is actually the thing that we all have access, an energy we all have access to.

Mm hmm. These exiles and we have these protector parts. We all have self, and self is an energy. It's like, you might think of it as the God within you, or the spirit within you, or your Buddha nature, or the universal energy of love. That's, I don't care what you call it, but it's a force within you and around you.

And self Is the energy of compassion and connection and creativity and courage, confidence, clarity. And so right here, right now, we're in self. You and I are together because we're connecting and we're creating and we're calm together. And that self energy is what also when we're in the service of others, we're connecting.

So that creates self energy. And so when Deepak said, do whatever. Takes to get closer to consciousness. I, I see that as, do whatever it takes to get closer to self. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm . 

Gabrielle: Self is there. You just have to release the blocks to the presence of that self energy. And that's, that's the steps that are here in this book.

Or to help you go through a journey of. releasing the resistance to that self inside. 

Zibby: Yeah, didn't you have like eight of these C's? I feel like you were reading. Oh, yes. 

Gabrielle: So, um, Dick Schwartz has named these eight C's for, uh, self qualities. So, calm, connected, compassionate, creative, clarity, courage, confidence.

connectedness. I think maybe I left one out. I always leave one out.

Zibby: So you've basically made yourself and your healing into its own brand. How did you do that? Did you know you were doing that at the time? 

Gabrielle: Yeah, I think I did. I, I, I, my teachers are great teachers like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Louise Hay. Beautiful people that were really devoted to the personal development space.

And so I saw that There was a way that was sort of the model I had at the time of what it was I was visioning and creating for my own career. And of course, it's quite different in my generation. We have access to a lot more, more ways to, to share a message. But I think, I think, you know, I was 25 when I first got on a stage with a microphone talking about spirituality.

And I think I've just been sort of saying yes in this dream, just one day at a time waking up and saying, okay, yes. Yes, yes, and those yeses have just continued to show me where to go and what to do and what the next book would be and what the next message would be. And also, as I've said yes, I've really said yes to myself.

And yes, to healing myself. And that journey has been a journey of undoing all of the stories that held me back and remembering and reclaiming that self inside, that, that, that true nature of who I am and telling the story of how to get there. 

Zibby: And then what does it look like to be you these days? Like, what is your self actualized self?

Like, are you working out? Are you like going to the movies? Are you doing, are you reading self help books? Are you in personal development classes? Are you like What, what does it look like now? 

Gabrielle: I am deep into personal development every single day of my life because I want to keep shining the crystal. I'm going through menopause, so I, I'm deep in that journey with my new part time job, which is, which is help managing my hormones.

I'm not sure if you're there yet, but it is an experience, which has also been a real cracking open. Yes. Um, and a, and a way of, a new way of living and really welcoming support in a way I've never done before. And I think it's, it's, it's something that's necessary when you go through something like this.

So yes, I'm exercising very daily really with my heavy weights and my cardio blasts and all the things that we middle aged women do. 

Zibby: Should do. I am not doing. 

Gabrielle: Should, you know, I will do what we can do, do what we can do. And I am, uh, I do about two therapy sessions a week typically, or one depending on the week, but, but I have a couples therapy with IFS and I have personal therapy with IFS.

I am a mother to a six year old. So I am, let me just repeat that cause you got a little there. I'm a mother to a six year old, which is the greatest privilege of my life and offers me. Endless opportunities to practice what I'm teaching in this in self help Because truly the practice in the book is about treating your own inner children with respect and compassion and connection And so I use the four step method with my son on the daily and and I also I'm working every day on a moment to moment basis because With this tool that I teach in the book so ingrained in my system, I'm really aware each moment of when I get taken out and when I'm in a protector part.

So I mentioned I have a controlling part, working with that part of me every day. I have a part of me that's really, I'm trying to really heal right now, which is an old belief of, you know, if I don't do it, nobody else will. And I heal that belief every day. And as I continue to heal that belief, I attract more and more support into my life and things get easier and easier.

And so I'm just going to keep working with that belief. And showing up for it every day. And yeah, no, I just have fun. Like I've really great friends. You know, we, we talked about our mutual friend, Tara's like cherished humans in my life that are, are so beautiful and supportive and they really, to me, are a reflection of, of the hard work I put in on myself.

To be able to attract those kinds of people into my life. 

Zibby: And are you working on another book now? 

Gabrielle: I am. Actually, I'm going to go write a little bit today. I'm working on an Audible original right now, which is kind of like a half of a book. And it will be, I'll put it into print at some point, but, um, it's starting as audio and it's called Seven Habits of the Super Attractor.

And I have a book that was like three books ago called Super Attractor, which is methods for manifesting a life beyond your wildest dreams. And so then I've taken. The book and I've taken another step further by really fine tuning and honing in on the methods of a super attractor and the, and the qualities of what it means to be a super attractor.

In like one sentence, what is a super attractor? Thank you for asking. So super attractor means we're really all super attractors. We all have the capacity to believe something and allow it to come into our reality. Maybe not exactly as we expected, but oftentimes far greater than we expected when we let go and we surrender.

And so Being a super attractor is about undoing the beliefs that are holding you back and really attuning your thoughts and your feelings and your energy in alignment with what it is that you want. Because so much of the time we walk around manifesting and attracting what we don't want because so much of our focus energy and belief systems are so hooked into what we don't want.

So when we align our energy, we return to our natural state. which is a magnetic state, which is a vibrant state, which is a joyful state, the self energy, and that's when we become, or we, or return to our super attractor power. And 

Zibby: what in life have you not achieved that you still want to achieve? 

Gabrielle: Uh, I feel really good.

I think I would like to, my intention on the daily is to reach more people in whatever form, I can. Uh, we're, we're real, we're really suffering right now. There's, there's so much suffering, there's, there's so much lack of safety and I just want to help people find safety inside and know that they have an inner healer and an inner leader and that the resources and the, the feelings that they're looking for outside of themselves are actually available inside first.

And I really believe that my, if I were to, if you asked me what I really want, I just want to spread my message far, far more than I even have. However, that's supposed to come. I'm not attached to it. 

Zibby: Love it. Do you take time to read? And if so, what do you love? What do you like to read? 

Gabrielle: I'm such a loser. I only read personal development.

Zibby: You're not a loser. There's no judgment in what people read. I'm just curious. I have 

Gabrielle: all fours on the floor of my bedroom, like waiting for me to pick it up. And I'm like, I'm like waiting for some vacation or something to read it. Like, I don't know what I'm But I really need to get my hands on that book because, because that sounds like fun.

But at the moment, I'm, yeah, I'm reading personal development books on, on repeat one book right now. I'm reading a book that's, um, written by, uh, Dr. Richard Schwartz, his wife, and it's about food and IFS. Like, like, Um, body and food and, and, and internal family systems. And um, they've kind of always got something in the background and I listen to a lot of books as well because when I'm driving, I'm always listening and I'd like to read my, I read all my own books for my readers, for my listeners.

And that's really a special thing, I think, for the author to read a book. Do you ever cry? She's like, I mean, any audio book I've read, I end up crying. When I read my audio books in the studio, I do cry. 

Zibby: Any last minute advice for aspiring authors? Oh 

Gabrielle: my god, I have so much advice for aspiring authors and I'll give you a link.

I have a whole like free training that I have that's all about how to write your book outline in an hour. So i'll give you that and i'll get the link before we hang up And I particularly advise and teach personal development or not non fiction authors But anyone can take my principles and use them I think that the most important thing when you sit down to write a book is to really know what your core message is And oftentimes your core message is reflected in your subtitle at the end, like once you get, get, get, but I always think that forget your title at first, get your subtitle down.

And if you start writing your book with your core message, which really could just be your subtitle, then you know where you're going and you don't end up trying to write five different books at once. And you stick to that, that core message as your through line and each chapter that you embark on, you have to ask yourself, is this in alignment with my core message?

Before you even write the chapter, you would write, create an outline that I'll teach you how to do in one hour. And that outline has every clear message of that core message inside of it. So you'll never write yourself into circles. That's my advice. 

Zibby: That is great advice. I've never heard that before with the subtitle and delighted that you have an outline that, because everyone, I always never, I'm like, go, just Google book proposals.

I don't know. Go find one. That's a good idea. 

Gabrielle: Yes. Let me give you this link. Hold on a second. I'll find it for you. You can go to deargaby. com forward slash start your book. Start 

Zibby: your book in an 

Gabrielle: hour or less. 

Zibby: Look at 

Gabrielle: you. Amazing. It's really cool. It's a great training. Yeah. I think that that's a fun thing for anybody to try.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm texting this to a girlfriend as we speak. 

Zibby: Okay, where can everybody find you? 

Gabrielle: Uh, you can find me at DearGabby. com. You can find the book Self Help on Amazon or Barnes Noble, wherever you get your books. Hopefully you go to the local bookstore still in any way that you can support. And, uh, yeah, at Gabby Bernstein on social media.

And I'm just so happy we got to do this. I've heard so many wonderful things about you. And it's so nice. 

Zibby: Well, it's so nice to meet you too. I've heard great things about you and have been following along and this is, uh, it's really great. And I got some good tips out of it for my own personal growth and all of that.

So thank you for taking the time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Are you in, are you in New York right now? Are you in LA? I just got back to New York yesterday, two days ago, and I'll be back in LA in a couple of weeks. I go back and forth and you're in L. A. or you're in L. A. 

Gabrielle: No, I'm in New York.

I mean, I live in the city and I also live in northwestern Connecticut. Oh, I didn't realize that. I go back and forth. Yeah, I live in the West Village and then like up in Connecticut. I actually live in Connecticut right near, right near Tara. Oh, that's how you know each other. Well, we actually have known each other for like 20 years.

Oh, as if we've been in the same field for so long. Amazing. 

Zibby: All right. Well, have a great day, Gabby. Thanks so much. It was so nice to meet you. Thank you for. It was so nice to meet you too. I really appreciate it. Of course. Okay, take care. Have Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi, formerly Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.