If You Struggle with Anxiety, this Trick Will Change Your Life | Gabby Bernstein

In this episode of MarieTV, we do have some adult language. So if you do have little ones around, grab your headphones now.

Gabby Bernstein:

Acknowledging that there has to be a better way is an unconscious prayer. It’s opening an invisible door to literally open up your consciousness to receive guidance. And so if you’re listening to us or watching us right now, consciously or unconsciously, you may have said that in some corner of your life, like this got to be better than this or there has to be a better way. And that led you here.

Marie Forleo:

Gabby Bernstein is a speaker, a number one New York Times Bestselling author and the host of the podcast, Dear Gabby. Her latest book, Happy Days: The Guided Path from Trauma to Profound Freedom and Inner Peace, is available now, Gabby. Oh my goodness. Congratulations. Thank you so much for making time. This book is tremendous. How are you feeling?

Gabby Bernstein:

I’m feeling really good, Marie. I feel steady. I feel proud. And yeah, it’s just real different. I think this is my ninth time doing this, so I think it’s a little bit of a different vibe. It feels good.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. That’s actually what I wanted to talk about because I love how in the opening of the book, you talk about the fact that your publisher was a little concerned about how vulnerable and how much you’re sharing in this book. So I want to talk about both of those things, but stepping back even further, what was the inspiration behind this book and why did you feel so compelled to share these stories and these tools?

Gabby Bernstein:

I knew I needed to write this book in 2016, but I knew I couldn’t write it until I was really ready. In 2016, I was 36 years old. I was 11 years or so sober. I had written half a dozen books or more. I’d been on Oprah with you. I’d had a lot of life experiences that were profound and I felt like I’d done a lot of beautiful work in the world, but I was really crumbling on the inside and I didn’t know why. I didn’t understand why I was a workaholic. I didn’t understand why I wouldn’t let anyone help me, why I was a control freak, why I’d been a cocaine addict, why, why, why. I just didn’t have the answer. And so I started to feel myself cracking into pretty much a breakdown of week after week saying this mantra, I can’t go on like this. And then I had a dream and in the dream, I remembered I was an adult having a memory of being sexually abused as a child. When I woke up, that memory was almost as if it was absolutely real.

It was so true in my physical sense, in my system, in my nervous system, in my mind, and it was so terrifying. And so right away, I was like, no, thank you. Never going to go there again. Not talking about that. And so I went off and did some therapy a few days later and in that therapy session, my therapist just said a few things that just catapulted me into the memory and full acceptance that this was a disassociated memory that I had just not touched into for over 30 years. And that day was the day that I began a deep dive into my trauma recovery. I’d had sober recovery behind my belt. I had spiritual recovery behind my belt. I’d had a tremendous amount of therapy behind me, but this was the deep dive. And early in those days, I said to our speaking coach, Gale, I said to Gale, “I have to speak about this. I need to write about this.” And she said, “Hell no.”

She was like, “Not until you are ready because if you speak about it too soon, you’re going to traumatize yourself and others.” And so I listened. There’s a few detours there, but I listened for the most part and that’s why it’s coming out now, Marie, because there’s no way I would be able to put my face on this cover saying, Happy Days: The Guided Path from Trauma to Profound Freedom and Inner Peace, if I wasn’t fully living in that truth right now. And so that’s why now.

Marie Forleo:

And so, tell us a little bit more for those who haven’t read the book yet, some of the concerns, right? That when you handed over the manuscript came back your way because I think this is an interesting process. We have so many folks in our audience who are either authors or aspiring authors or they dream of writing a book. And I would imagine even though you had more than a half dozen books under your belt, still getting pushback is challenging. So speak a little bit about what that was and what that experience was like for you to say, “I know what I’m doing here.”

Gabby Bernstein:

I’m going to read about it to you. Here we go. It’s Gabby reading hour. This is in the introduction. “Introduction. The truth about this book. ‘We’re anxious for you, Gabby.’ Said my publisher after reading the first pass of the manuscript, ‘It feels too vulnerable.’ They continued, ‘You’re revealing one difficult moment after the next. You’re not showing your true strength.’ ‘My ability to be this vulnerable is my true strength.’ I replied. The conversation carried on with several moments of tears, passionate explanations defending the manuscript mixed with mutual agreement and love. While this was a challenging conversation to have, it was necessary. This book is different from the eight that came before. This book reveals parts of me I’d never known were there until I started this writing process. This book tells the story of how to survive and thrive. This is my story of recovering from trauma.”

And so I read that because there are two sides of this. One was that my ability to be that vulnerable is my true strength. Like I said, it was only going to be when I was sitting in the seat of safety and freedom and inner peace that I could write this book, but my publishers are family to me in many ways and so they weren’t wrong. They weren’t wrong and really what they asked for and it was really beautiful in the writing process, and I’m sure you’ll appreciate this as a fellow author, they were asking for me to make sure that I didn’t leave out the spiritual strength because it actually took two different parts of my brain to write this book.

Marie Forleo:

Say more. What do you mean?

Gabby Bernstein:

There was one part. There was one, you know, the left brain’s…

Marie Forleo:

Yep.

Gabby Bernstein:

…capacity to get things done and then the right brain’s creative capacity. And so the first part of the writing process was really the logic and reason and studying and really going deeper into re-educating myself more and standing behind the methods and not just being a patient of the methods, but now introducing and teaching these profoundly healing methods. And so that required a different part of my brain. And then that was what they got in the first pass. But this other element of what I have done throughout my entire career as a writer is allowing myself to channel material. And so what I did was I took their suggestion and had about a week to turn around the adjustments and it came through like rapid fire because I had done that logical work that I had to do and I could put that there. And then I could do almost like the last three strokes on a painting that were the most profound that made it what it is.

Marie Forleo:

Mm, hmm.

Gabby Bernstein:

And that’s where I was able to really bring in and drive home a lot of the spiritual foundation that carries this book.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. And I think that’s so important for people to hear about that process and especially too, for you as an author, to challenge yourself to go to new places and to do something different than you had done before and that was unexpected and that was stretching you in new ways. And I just really appreciate you sharing that because books are so transformative. I love books so much. It’s probably the thing that I am addicted to the most. Where I live, it’s like stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of books. I just never can get enough. And so often we see a finished, beautiful work that will change millions of lives, but we don’t really know what goes into it. So thank you for sharing that. I want to shift. So many people are struggling with anxiety and fear related to trauma, right? Whether that’s Trauma with a big T or trauma with a small T.

And you have a very simple prayer, a mantra, that you share in the beginning that I think is such a beautiful opening for anyone that could be listening right now that may have that feeling in their heart or that still small voice that says, “Gosh, this is either uncomfortable or I don’t know. Do I have trauma? Do I have big or small? Do I have fear, anxiety? I don’t even know if I want to go here.” Can you share the sentence, or actually I can share it for you, and then we can kind of unpack it a little bit, this notion and just saying out loud, “There has to be a better way.” Why do you think this simple phrase is so powerful to calm our fear and our anxiety and help us get on that path to change?

Gabby Bernstein:

There’s such an opening in that phrase. So acknowledging that there has to be a better way is an unconscious prayer. It’s opening an invisible door to literally open up your consciousness to receive guidance. And so if you’re listening to us or watching us right now, consciously or unconsciously, you may have said that in some corner of your life, like this got to be better than this or there has to be a better way. And that led you here. That will lead you to the therapist, that will lead you to the book to read when you need it. That opening, that was the phrase that opened the door for me to get clean and sober 16 years ago. So really grounding yourself in the strength of being able to be able to witness that this isn’t what you want and that there has to be more.

Marie Forleo:

It’s such a beautiful statement too because it has implied willingness, right?

Gabby Bernstein:

That’s right.

Marie Forleo:

Implied willingness that some part of you is like, this is not working and there is a possibility out there that is different and I want that.

Gabby Bernstein:

Willingness is the key. You’re absolutely right.

Marie Forleo:

Yes. And I think that there’s so much freedom in that too because you and I have known each other for so long and there are parts of ourselves, like we have some shared DNA in terms of our, there’s a part of us that’s driven, right? And ambitious and we’re excited to serve. And at least I’ll speak for my own experience, when there’s got to be a better way, sometimes I’ve heard folks in our audience and people out and about, but what is that better way? And I think from a spiritual perspective, you don’t have to know what the better way is quite yet, but staying grounded, and I’m curious if you would agree with this, with that statement, there has to be a better way, actually invites in, welcomes in, calls in, pulls in a possibility or a technique or a teacher or a book like this, right? That can get you on your path.

Gabby Bernstein:

Totally, totally. And it’s interesting what you just said, Marie. You said something about, we have part of ourselves and that’s actually a huge player in this book because I’m now trained in the practice of internal family systems therapy. And IFS is based on the premise that we are not one person. We have many different parts of who we are and I write about this in depth in the book. And we have these impermissible child parts, Trauma with a big T trauma, trauma with a small T that we experienced as children. So it could be a big T Trauma like mine where experiencing sexual abuse as a child, or it could be a big T Trauma of living with an alcoholic parent or repeated neglect, or it’s a small T trauma of being told you were stupid or that you’re not good enough or being bullied. And whatever those traumas may be from our childhood, we push them down. We lock them up. And in IFS, that’s known as exiled parts, like the inner children that we were just like, no, not going there.

And we build up all these other parts that you just referenced, these protection mechanisms, and they’re known as protector parts. And so one that you and I share is just this achieving mentality, which while it’s been in the, as a force for good in the world and it’s been excellent, for me, I can only speak for myself. I know you have more balance in some ways, we’re different in our ways that we show up as protectors, but in my protector part, I used that work for so many years as another form of anesthetizing that impermissible feeling of inadequacy from my childhood or fear from my childhood or terror from my childhood. And so the first step of that willingness is the willingness to witness these different protection mechanisms, a.k.a., protector parts.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Gabby Bernstein:

And to see ourselves not as just one person, but someone who has many different personalities, many different ways that we fight back and numb out so we don’t have to feel.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. Mine, like you said, just the achieving and the overwork and the commitment to work. And while it has slightly different flavors and it comes from a different root, mine was really about control. Control because in many ways, for me, things that I experienced when I was young, there was so, everything felt so out of control that for me, it’s like, oh, I’m going to take control.

Gabby Bernstein:

Yes.

Marie Forleo:

And it’s just, again, like a different flavor of protector that came through.

Gabby Bernstein:

Correct. Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

But I think there’s also, there’s just so much compassion and I find so much healing even in understanding, and I love that you’re now trained in this modality as well because whenever, when I first got introduced to this notion that there are different parts of myself too, it allowed me to not feel so broken or to make a global statement about this is who I am all the time.

Gabby Bernstein:

Right.

Marie Forleo:

Or this is me and there’s nothing I can do about it, but I actually found so much freedom and also this odd sense of playfulness that really worked for me of going like, oh, well, that’s the part of me that’s this and she needs some tending.

She needs some care. And I think you did such an incredible job of introducing us to this incredible work, which it sounds like has been so profound for you on your path, because we’re not taught this in school. And so many of us, we don’t have access to information like this until we’re in our forties. And can you imagine what the world would look like if this was a part of what we all talked about in our families from the time we were little. It’s just transformational.

Gabby Bernstein:

Are you doing IFS? It sounds like you are.

Marie Forleo:

No, but I’ve done… You and I have spoken privately so much over the past couple years that there are so many modalities, especially like EMDR that you talk about here and the somatic healing that a lot of that work started to permeate in there and just helped me see things from new perspectives. So it’s just been extremely helpful. And let’s actually talk more about that now, because you say, we all have a confident, compassionate Self with a capital S at the core of who we are, but we may have lost touch with it. Tell us more about this idea because I have found it so… There’s like a sense of hope…

Gabby Bernstein:

Yeah. Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

…in a really grounded way and a sense of peace in a really, rings true in a deep , kind way about that statement. And again, for anyone listening or watching right now who may be intrigued, tell us about this notion of a confident, compassionate self that is the core of who we are.

Gabby Bernstein:

The reason I asked you if you’re doing IFS is because you’re really speaking to it in just such a natural way, it’s so beautiful. So you mentioned compassion and you then read what is the truth of who we are, which is self energy. And so in IFS, they call it Self with a capital S. In spiritual rooms, you might call it higher self or God, but each and every one of us has Self with a capital S and that is the compassionate, courageous, curious, creative, calm, committed energy within all of us. And when we begin to create more access to that part of ourselves, we can then let that part self become the internal parent to all these other parts to start to be able to become curious about why we’re so controlling, become compassionate towards the cocaine addict, be calm in the presence of the melting down part. And so as we start to activate and practice self patterns and behaviors and energy towards these other elements of who we are, we begin to do what’s known as settling our system, settling our nervous system, settling the parts.

And it becomes a beautiful practice of really knowing that you always have this internal parent that is grounded in the seat of safety and security and that will always see you. And a lot of the things that we did not receive as children are available to us when we allow that internal parent of self become the leader in our internal system. And you also said something that was super fascinating. You said, once I started to look into this stuff, it felt so playful. And that’s actually really beautiful that you brought that up because as we look at these parts of ourselves that are so controlling or workaholic or a cocaine addict, or whatever your parts may be. Maybe just like rager, or who knows? They could just be somebody that’s always cleaning or whatever it is. If you asked that part, if you weren’t in such an extreme role, what else would you be doing? The answer often is playing, being playful, being creative, relaxing, going for a walk. And so yeah, that’s why I was like, she must be doing parts work, but maybe through the book.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah. No, it’s really good. So, I know one of the things, I don’t know if we’ve dug too deep into this yet, but I want to talk specifically about anxiety because I feel like over the past years, Gabby, first of all, both myself and so many dear friends, dear colleagues, and also our audience, it is a word that is so prevalent and people are suffering so much. So I’m wondering if there’s anything that you have to share for folks that struggle with anxiety. You have so many beautiful tools in the book, but is there one or two that we can walk through right now that you found will help people in the moment that they’re experiencing it?

Gabby Bernstein:

Yeah. So while Happy Days is designed to really help people find their guided path to their own recovery, there’s also in the moment, real-time practices that I teach and specifically for addressing anxiety, because one of the biggest reasons that we get so unsettled or so flipped out is because we let that anxiety loop take over. And so if we interrupt the pattern of anxiety with the practice, we can begin to ground ourselves in a new level of steadiness and a new grounded energy. And in that energy of grounded steadiness, we can then redirect. And so there’s this beautiful parenting model, known as, it’s a Dan Siegel model, called connect and redirect. And so I’ve used it on myself, which is, oh, okay, if I practice these anxiety relief practices, I can connect with myself and then redirect. But I can’t just try to do something else without making that connection first.

And so there’s one practice in particular, there’s a heart hold, which is placing your right hand or your left hand on your heart, whichever feels better to you, and I’m actually fascinated to hear which one is more soothing for you. I put my right hand on my heart and my left hand on the belly, but check in with yourself and see which one feels best for you.

Marie Forleo:

This actually feels more calming, my left hand.

Gabby Bernstein:

Yeah, that’s interesting. It really depends on the person, but you will know it the second you try. And placing your right hand on your heart or your left hand on your heart and the other hand on your belly and you just take a deep breath and breathe into that space in your body and then let it go and just feel your butt on the seat and your feet planted on the floor and just get grounded as you breathe. This is a powerful position to get into in the morning when you’re waking up and you’re feeling a little anxious and it’s really creating a sense of safety in your nervous system and relaxing your whole body and just notice, Marie, what does that feel like right now for you?

Marie Forleo:

So incredibly peaceful and time expansive. What I mean by that is that it feels like you and I are together and we’re like the only people in the world and there is an infinite amount of space around us.

Gabby Bernstein:

Nice. Yes. Self energy. Yeah.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Gabby Bernstein:

Beautiful. And that was like 10 seconds of breathing with your heart.

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Gabby Bernstein:

Come on now. So that’s just one of the many methods and I’m happy to share more if you want, but that’s the one I think that is so accessible in any moment and particularly when we’re really feeling anxious. Now, if you’re feeling super anxious and you’re like, this is the moment I’m like, I can’t get out of this panic attack or something, this is something that’s very soothing as well. And it’s an EFT tapping technique…

Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

Gabby Bernstein:

…where you tap in between your ring finger and your pinky finger, and you just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And as you tap, that’s the point that sends a message to the amygdala, okay, it’s safe to relax and settles your nervous system. And as you tap on this point, just simply close your eyes and say, I am safe.

Marie Forleo:

I am safe.

Gabby Bernstein:

I am safe.

Marie Forleo:

I am safe.

Gabby Bernstein:

I am safe.

Marie Forleo:

I am safe.

Gabby Bernstein:

You can affirm another affirmation if you feel more called to something else, like I am letting go or I forgive my myself or whatever feels appropriate for you. But tapping on that point, I call it the holy sh*t point, that’s the point that when the sh*t hits the fan, you can just start tapping.

Marie Forleo:

I love that.

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Let’s shift gears and explore. And I was so happy that you shared about this, was just about the stigma of medication and talking about this, especially someone as a motivational teacher, a speaker, and a spiritual teacher and this is your entire career, walk me through what that internal process was like for you. And I know you talk about it in the book, but I think it’s so helpful because people, obviously, it’s a hot topic and we’re not advocating for one thing or the other, but for me, I just think it’s so important as a personal practice. It’s just like, there are a million different ways and so many different paths for people to heal. And let us please have open hearts and open minds when it comes to the different tools that a person may need at different parts of their journey to continue them on the path. So however you want to dive into this, whatever piece of it that you want to share.

I think it’s just really, really important to de-stigmatize and to remove the shame from any of us feeling like we need to raise our hands and to have help from whatever mechanism, tool, practice, approach can really be right for us at this stage and season of our life.

Gabby Bernstein:

Definitely. I am so grateful that you brought this up. It’s a big chapter in the book. The chapter’s called “Don’t Call Me Crazy.” And in the early part of the chapter, it opens and I’m in the backseat of my car. My husband’s driving and next to me is my four-month-old son. And we’re driving to Mother’s Day brunch at my in-law’s house. And under my breath, I say to myself, “I want to die.” I get to my in-laws, I’m sitting at the dining table. I start hysterically crying. My sister-in-law, Meredith, is holding my hand. My mother-in-law comes to the table and she puts her hand on my shoulder and she says, “All moms have new anxiety. All new moms have anxiety.” And I look at her and I’m like, “This isn’t just new mom anxiety.” And months and months went by like this with suicidal ideation and insomnia and depression and extreme anxiety to the point of breakdown. And I kept trying all the tools in my toolbox; meditation, healing, energy healing, psychic readings, melatonin, ashwagandha, homeopathy, and I was brought up homeopathic.

So there really wasn’t an option for me to consider taking any kind of psychopharmaceutical drug. I didn’t give myself that option and nor did I even give myself the option to even get a proper diagnosis because I was very in the space of the wellness world. Who am I to deal with depression? I’m the spiritual teacher, I should be able to get myself out of this. And month after month, after month. And finally I hit a massive bottom because I hadn’t slept in two months. Literally, I would have about an hour a night and that will kill you. And my therapist stepped in and she said, “You need psychiatric support.” And she got my husband on the phone and she said, “We got to get her psychiatric support.” So finally I was at that breaking point where I was willing to just open up to something different. And I got myself to see a psychiatrist within 48 hours, which was a miracle and she diagnosed me within five minutes with postpartum depression, anxiety, and insomnia.

And she looked at me and she said, “Listen, I know you’re resisting the idea of this diagnosis and the idea taking any kind of medication, but I want you to understand that all of the great spiritual work and all of the therapeutic work that you’ve done to this point has gotten you to a place that you’re at now, which is magnificent, but this medication will give you an even safer baseline so that you can do the deeper work, you can go even further into the trauma and come out the other side.” And when she said that, it gave me so much hope and it gave me so much purpose for me because now it wasn’t like, I’m just going to take this drug and just fix this problem, just put a bandaid on it. It’s, I’m going to take this medication and use it as a tool, as a gift from God, to go even deeper in my own personal growth and deeper into the trauma healing places that I would be unable to go to because my nervous system was far too rocked to go there.

And it really was that. It saved my life out of that acute trauma of the PPD and PPA. And then it put me on this really beautiful path of steadiness and that energy of steadiness allowed me to go into three therapy sessions a week, somatic experiencing, EMDR, IFS therapy and dive deep into the trenches of the most terrifying parts of myself that I had been so unwilling and so terrified to face. And the reason I share so publicly about this is one, because women are dying all the time from suicide and breakdown. And listen, I pick up the phone whenever a woman calls me who’s having postpartum anything. Most recently, I was on a call with a woman in the psych ward, just a few months postpartum. So we can’t let these things be pushed under the rug because of the stigma. We can’t be too far into our wellness world that we don’t get the help that we need the way it’s coming.

And I really like to allude to the parable, that parable of the, this man’s drowning and God sends him the raft and then he sends him a boat and he just keeps turning it all away. And then he goes to heaven and he’s like, “God, where were you?” And God’s like, “I sent you a f**king boat.” You know?

Marie Forleo:

I sent you a raft, I sent you a helicopter and you said no.

Gabby Bernstein:

I sent you everything. And so I finally had to just get on the boat and really made the decision in that moment that I was going to see that medication as God, that God worked through the medication, God worked through the psychiatrist, God worked through the friend that led me there, all of it, and through the therapy and through the IFS and through… Because it can’t just be one way or the other.

Marie Forleo:

That’s right.

Gabby Bernstein:

And you can’t just take the medication and not do the deeper work. You have to be really willing to do both.

Marie Forleo:

And I love, you just illuminated and I want to underscore just the power of us being able to assign meaning to what we are doing and how that can transform our experience of life, right? So for you, the meaning of saying, this is my next step to continue on my journey of healing, this is going to provide even more stability. This is going to allow me to continue to walk this path, to continue to heal and to love and to become stronger and to serve. And it was that meaning switch that sounds like, if I’m hearing you correctly, made all the difference in the world.

Gabby Bernstein:

Yes.

Marie Forleo:

And how beautiful it is that all of us get to decide and assign the meaning that we give to anything. Thank you so much for sharing that because it is really important. And one of the things that just makes me so crazy pants, and I’ll use that word, is just this notion that people have that they have the right idea for other people.

You know what I mean? Like your way or the highway and that it’s binary and it’s either this or it’s this, but it can’t be any shade in between. And it’s like, we’re all so unique in so many different ways, in our histories, in our bodies, in our capacities and what we’re dealing with in the present time, never mind what we’re dealing with from our past.

Gabby Bernstein:

Right.

Marie Forleo:

And to be able to have the freedom to know that you can explore possibilities and that there is no shame in finding your own mix and finding qualified professionals and asking questions and touching base with people who know and have experience, I just think it’s so important. And also, I just want to just commend you and I love you so much because being a spiritual teacher or a coach or an author or someone who stands on a stage, I don’t think we can emphasize this message enough, is that we’re not perfect

Gabby Bernstein:

Right.

Marie Forleo:

And we have so many struggles. And just because you have either expertise and you’re excited about sharing it, it does not preclude you from all of the challenges and the hard times. And people will often ask like, are you happy all the time? And I’m like, no. No, I’m just not. And we’ve talked, that’s another conversation for another day. But my point is is that it’s just really important, I think, for all of us to recognize that every single human on the planet suffers.

Gabby Bernstein:

That’s right.

Marie Forleo:

And that is a part of our journey. And there are many, many different paths to navigating that and to healing that, and we don’t want to make each other wrong for the paths that we’re on.

Gabby Bernstein:

That’s a really important point is that we all suffer. And so many of us have sort of diminished our suffering or pushed past our suffering or numbed out our suffering for decades. But I think one of the gifts that we’ve experienced in the last two years is that a lot of the coping mechanisms that we relied on to stay safe from our suffering or to numb out our suffering were no longer working because when you feel unsafe, when you go through a crisis, a global crisis, whether you feel unsafe, you feel uncertain, you’re out of control, that’s going to rock your grounding. And so any protection that you’ve put up in place of all that difficult impermissible fear will start to feel dismantled and it will ultimately allow you to crack into something more. And that’s a blessing. I was joking that if I wrote this book five years ago, I think I’d have half the readers that I have right now.

Marie Forleo:

I mean, it’s true. And I love too, because again, we’ve known each other for so long and I know you as someone who takes a lot of action and I’ve seen you have ideas and you go and you create and you manifest and you put them out into the world and it is really beautiful. And I just want to also acknowledge you for having that seed of the idea, 2016, which feels like I don’t know about to you, but it’s like my gosh, that’s like a whole other lifetime ago. And for having the wisdom, the guidance around you, the guidance from above to say, you know what? This will come out, but at the perfect time, and it did happen to come out at the perfect time.

Gabby Bernstein:

That’s right.

Marie Forleo:

Another tool that you unpack in helping us handle our fear and anxiety is something you learned with Oliver, your beautiful son. The idea of the four Ss and how we can take that parenting, nurturing relationship and use it for ourselves. So feeling safe, seen, soothed and secure. I wondered if there’s anything else that you want to say about those four Ss because when I look at those four Ss; safe, seen, soothed and secure, I’m like, is there really anything else that we want in life?

Gabby Bernstein:

No, there’s nothing else.

Marie Forleo:

If we really break it down. You know what I mean? What we want from ourselves, our friends, our partners, even heck, I’m going to say interacting in business, right? How you would want to be treated in even that kind of environment. So curious what’s your perspective, if there’s anything else you want to unpack there?

Gabby Bernstein:

Totally. Well, at the beginning of 2020, I’m home with my toddler and my husband running our business and we didn’t have any childcare and the world is all shut down and everyone that had children or no children were all rocked. But those of us who had children at home, we had that extra challenge of functioning. And so I just, at that moment, looked to the right of my bedside where I had a stack of parenting books next to my bed that I hadn’t cracked open yet and I was like, okay, this is my moment. And I started just going nuts, reading all of the work of Dr. Dan Siegel, who is a really profound psychiatrist and author and just neuroscientist… Sorry. He’s studied neuroscience and he’s just transformational. And the work that I was learning from Dan in his books was fascinating and it was so effective.

Right away, when I would notice my kid flipping his lid, I would just be present with him, be aware of his needs, sit with him, see him, soothe him, help him feel secure and in that place of security, then connect with him and then redirect, right? Connect and redirect. And I started using all of these methods and all of his beautiful acronyms, just interchangeably all the time. And I was just noticing Ollie just feeling so connected to me. I was bonding to him and he was really attaching to me, which was really what we want ultimately. And around that time, I started writing this book and I started thinking to myself, well, what if I started to apply these practices to myself? Because I’ve got all these inner children that are needing tending to at times and throughout the day. And so what if my self energy, that adult resource part of myself started to parent myself with these same methods?

And so I really started to ask myself daily, how can I see myself in this situation? How can I soothe myself? How can I feel secure and how can I feel safe in this moment? And so those four Ss became a daily ritual of tuning in to my own internal landscape and checking in, am I checking off those four Ss for myself? And I then put it in the book because it felt like such a… It’s towards the end of the book and it felt like a really beautiful way of saying, yeah, I’m going to show up for myself and re-parent myself with the same tools that I would want to bring to my child. And I know a lot of your listeners and viewers are women that have had children. I think it’s really important to hear this, which is that you could read every parenting book in the world and practice the methods, but if you haven’t fully done the work on yourself, if you haven’t really done the care and the healing and the four Ss back to you, then your system may not feel as settled and safe for the child. And so it’s not just about the actions, it’s about the energy. And so…

Marie Forleo:

Yes. And if there’s not that energetic alignment or that integrity, right? Happening as you’re thinking that you’re soothing or you’re thinking that you’re having someone feel safe or seen, it’s profound, the difference.

Gabby Bernstein:

That’s exactly right. What’s most soothing for my son is my self energy, my grounded presence, being able to be in that steadiness. And so I have to have these methods for myself. I have to have all the methods that I write about in this book in order to stay in that grace that my son deserves. And then you always f**k it up for a minute and then it’s about how quickly you repair.

Marie Forleo:

That’s right.

Gabby Bernstein:

But that’s the same with yourself. If you screw up on your own and you let yourself down, how quickly can you repair? How quickly are you going to come back and say, Gabby, you just did the best you could and I forgive you and I love you, and I’m so compassionate towards what you’re going through right now. All of these methods can be applied on ourself.

Marie Forleo:

That’s so beautiful. So there are so many tools and practices in this book and I love it because you’re so gentle in helping people get on their path and really giving permission for people to take pauses when they need to, move past certain things if it’s a bit too intense, and I really enjoyed that part of the journey. As we wrap up, is there anything that you want to share for someone listening right now who, as they’ve heard this conversation, their small inner voice inside says, there’s something for me here. They’re detecting that there is a healing that’s possible. They’re perhaps seeing themselves in the conversation. Is there anything outside of getting the book, which we want everybody to get, that someone can start doing right now today to start putting themselves on this path of healing?

Gabby Bernstein:

Well, I actually think they’ve already done it. By listening or watching this conversation, they’ve said yes. The universe is always listening to everything we do. And the universe is a yes for what we’re a yes for. So by following along and sticking around until the end, you’ve already begun the journey of saying yes to feeling new, opening up your conscious awareness to possibility. So there’s a lot of other first steps, but the absolute first step is to really claim that you’re a yes for change. And I don’t think that it works without that desire and a vision for a new life. And in fact, early in the book, I have a whole chapter on how to create a vision for your new life. And one of those vision statements for me was I want to wake up without anxiety every day. And so I would ask the listener now just to think about what is it that you want to feel? What does it feel like? What does it look like? What does it smell like? And really let yourself go there. How do I want to feel?

I want to feel free in relationships. I want to feel financially secure. I want to wake up without anxiety every day. I want to not be so reactive, right? But really claim how you want to feel and hold that vision because that is always going to be the guiding light for the journey ahead because you have something to hold onto.

Marie Forleo:

Gabby, thank you so much for being who you are, for being so brave and courageous and for putting so much of your heart and soul into this beautiful book, which I hope everyone gets. I love you. I can’t wait to hang out. I’m going to text you and we can have a date because it’s been way too long. But thank you so much for making time today and I just adore you.

Gabby Bernstein:

I love you, Marie. I love you. Thank you for holding space for this conversation. I love you so much.

Marie Forleo:

Wasn’t that awesome? Now, if you enjoyed this conversation, you are going to love this next video because it’s about how to transform any stress in your life quickly and effectively. So this came from my own personal experience and I’m telling you this one tool seriously changed my life. Click here. Watch now. You’re not going to regret it.