How To Support Your Spiritual Health In The Time Of COVID-19 with Gabrielle Bernstein

Coming up on this episode of the Doctor's Pharmacy.

It's about momentum. It's about creating the patterns in our day where we create sustainable serenity, not just serenity when we've melted down.

Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark Hyman.

I have a goal to live to.

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Feel the improvement in your morning routine. Now, let's get back to this week's episode. Welcome to the Doctor's Pharmacy.

I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and that's Pharmacy with an F, a place for conversations that matter. And if you're struggling with these difficult times in the midst of COVID-19 and coronavirus, this conversation is gonna matter to you because it's with one of our special human beings on the planet. Gabrielle Bernstein, I've known her for many years. She's a spiritual teacher and a reverend soul, a deep thinker, and a guide for us all in these troubled times. She's the number one New York Times bestselling author of the Universe Has yous Back. I hope that's true right now for all of us.

She's written six additional New York Times.

Bestsellers, including Super Attractor, which launched in September 2019. I encourage you all to get a copy right now. She was featured on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday as the next generation thought leader. And the Oprah Winfrey Network chose Gabrielle to be part of the Super Soul 100. That's like the time 100, but for spiritual folks, I guess. It's a dynamic group of 100 trailblazers whose vision and life's work are bringing a higher level of consciousness to the world. The New York Times identified her as a new role model, and I agree. She appears regularly on experts as an expert on shows like the Dr. Oz Show, And she co-hosted, this is really cool. I think this is really cool. She co-hosted the Guinness Book of World Records, Largest Guided Meditation with Deepak Chopra. She's been featured in Elle, OWN, Today, Marie Claire, Health, Self, Women's Health, Cosmopolitan.

Glamour, and the covers of Success Magazine.

And Experience Life and more. Welcome, Gaby. Hi, Mark.

We made it happen.

Well, we did. So, everybody is, in a different situation than they were a month ago. Everybody is hunkered down with their families, hopefully maybe alone, struggling to make sense of this new world order where this virus has literally brought humanity to its knees and has created enormous disruptions in our health, in our economic lives, and in our emotional, spiritual lives. So I'm really glad to have a chance to talk to you about this because We're all struggling and I think you may have some thoughts for us about how do we actually navigate this craziness and how are you navigating it and how can we think differently about this in a way that doesn't take us down but helps us get through this and do it in a way that has integrity?

I love that you just said do it in a way that has integrity. Thank you for that. That was a beautiful message. Yeah, I think that's my primary intention is to get through this with integrity, to practice the principles that I've been writing about for 15 practice them like a full-time job. The only way right now that I can speak for myself, the only way that I'm going to get through this without crashing or burning out or making mistakes as a mother and making mistakes as a business owner is going to be by relying on my spiritual foundation right now more than ever. And I really don't that's not lip service. That's serious truth. I am.

You got to double down now, right?

We'll have to double down right now. I actually said to my team today, I said, you know, I had created this hour-long anxiety relief workshop for people, and we delivered it. And I said to my team, hey, how many of you listened to that? You know, how many of you watched it? And it wasn't in a way of trying to be like calling them out or shaming them because they all have devoted spiritual practices. But I just said, you know, we need to rely on the tools that we share right now more than ever. right. And always, always. And it's a devotion for me. I've meditated every day for the last 20 years. Well, for the last 15 years, daily. I, you know, I had to just say, like, let's put this in a schedule. So after the call, we put a whole 1 30 every day that we would all take 20 minutes, not expect anything from each other and do our practice. Now, for me, I have three times through the day that I schedule my practice, and I have to be very routinized about it right now because We don't have childcare at the moment. My husband and I are running our business here with a 15-month-old that is probably the most important business that we run. Baby boss. So it's not something that we're accustomed to. We've had an amazing person who's been in our home every day taking care of our son as we work, unless it's a weekend. And that is a new thing for us, as everyone is experiencing new things. We have to create a sustainable energy at this time, no matter what kind of obstacles are in front of us. Obviously, many people have far bigger obstacles than others.

Yeah, so true. And I find myself the same thing. All the things that I know I practiced for decades to actually maintain my health and well-being and my emotional resilience, I got to double down on. which is sleep and eating whole foods and exercise and meditation and time really connected time with the people I love, whether it's my wife who lives here with me or whether it's friends through just remote connections. You know, my wife's birthday yesterday and her family lives in New Zealand and Arizona and, you know, some of our family lives in Utah. And so we literally had a virtual dinner party where I put up the computer with everybody on a video conference call and we literally just hung out for the entire dinner and it was just so special. And I think those things are so critical and I think for people who aren't disciplined in the structure of their days and their lives and their routines, it can be a very unsettling time because we're all taken out of our normal routine and we don't have anything to replace them. What can you share with people that could be helpful in this moment where people are used to going out and being in the world and going to their job and coming home and having a kind of a routine that they're used to, and all of a sudden it's gone? What can they do in this time to actually get grounded and connected to what matters?

The first thing I would recommend is take out your Google Calendar or your app calendar or your written calendar, whatever it is that you have that you use, and schedule your spiritual practice. that's not something that I've, I've typically loved to do because I've had the freedom throughout my life to be able to tune in when I felt like I needed it, you know, often typically around the same time of day, but it would always change depending on what was going on that day. Right now, we can't do that. We have to create a routine that is sustainable. So I would say choose two spiritual practices, or at least one that you can put into your day right now, whether it be a meditation, whether it be listening to a guided meditation or an affirmation meditation or, you know, just Just giving people an opportunity to really ground themselves in whatever way. Even if it's going for a walk and listening to a podcast like this, that can be your way of grounding. I don't want to decide for you what that is, but I'm really strongly recommending that you schedule it in so it's a non-negotiable. Because some of my friends have been calling me and team members calling me and saying, oh, I'm losing it. I'm melting down. And my question is, well, what is your routine? What is your virtual routine? What is your mental health routine right now? Because it's about momentum. It's about creating the patterns in our day where we create sustainable serenity, not just serenity when we've melted down.

Yeah, right. How do you be proactive? So, so I'd love you to share what your routine is and, and I, I, maybe I'll share mine might be helpful to people, to sort of understand how do we take this chaotic time and create a bit of coherence for us to actually get through this because it's not going to end tomorrow. It's going to be not weeks, months, and it may be even longer.

Well, I have the privilege of having a 15 month old, which is a routine, right? You know, work around those naps, man. So I, and, and I, and I want to really say that I have the gratitude that my husband and I both work together so we can tag team this, but it's, it's no, no joke, so.

I think he's watching your son right now. Yeah.

Yeah. And I texted him, I said, Hey, remember I have a podcast? And he's like, I didn't remember. And they're like, Yep. So, there's a lot of that going around. He's saying, I didn't remember, you know, so we have to really put it in our calendars and schedule it. And so I had said to him, so I, so what I'm doing is, we do have our days around my son, but each morning when I wake up, what I did that's so cool is I bought this really groovy mic that you're seeing and listening to right now. And it's killer. And so I, it like gave me this deep inspiration to start recording meditations. And so I just started randomly in the middle of the night recording meditations just because there's just a lot coming through. And I think that anyone that's on the path of, of, of, of being a, a guide in any form is probably hearing that call and rising up to it as I'm sure you are. So I'm just randomly recording meditations. And one afternoon I recorded this affirmation meditation that was so unbelievably beautiful. I just sat down, I just riffed for five minutes. It's my team, my editor put some music behind it and it's so gorgeous and I want to give it to all your people. I want to give it to you. I want you to hear.

They find it.

I'll give you the link to put into it's a totally like it's a gift. I want it to be everybody's. I'll give you the link to put into your show notes.

Okay, great.

And the affirmation meditation that I created, I felt was so moving to me. And this has never happened to me before. A lot of the conversations I create, I don't, I don't use them like I don't listen to myself. I use the practices in my own, my own minds, in my own mind or own, in my own meditation practice, but I don't listen back to my own voice.

Yeah.

Meditation. And I've created thousands of meditations in the last 15 years, hundreds, maybe a thousand. right. I am so moved by this meditation. And so I wake up and I'm listening to it every day. And then I play it for my son in the morning, and he. He looks at the phone and he goes, Mama. Mama. And then every day I do two TM. I practice Transcendental meditation. And with all the tools I have in my toolbox, TM has actually been the one that I think brings me the most Serenity. When I lie down to do my my mantra based transcendental meditation practice. This energy comes over me, Mark, and it's like, you know when you're just like, like feeling relief come on slowly? That's what it feels like. It feels like this like slow titrate, titrated release of stagnant energy. It's like slowly like hissing out kind of like, yeah. not like a pressure cooker on full blast, but like the slow release. Right. Because it literally is that, right? Like we're walking around like a pressure cooker right now. And then when we start to meditate or slow down, you know, your nervous system isn't going to go blasting into full release, although it can, you know, you start moving, which is good. That's a good sign. This just means stagnation is moving and trauma is releasing. But for me, it's like slow release. It feels really amazing. And then at night I have prayer. I just pray every night. I'm praying for the world. I'm praying for people for love.

Yeah. It's powerful.

Yeah.

You know, it's interesting. My wife and I were talking this morning about how do we build even a more structured calendar? How do we want to design our days so that we can do the work we need to do and also be in this practice of like nourishing ourselves in every way. And I think, you know, for me, my life's been so much on the road. Being home is really different and it's actually good. And so we go to sleep at 9:30 every night and read before bed and connect. And then in the morning, we do a 20-minute meditation. It's essentially a derivative of TM from our friend Emily Fletcher, the Ziva Meditation. It's just mantra-based, primarily all sound meditation. and then we drop in together before the day starts with a cup of coffee. We just drop into this practice of called what's Up Below.

Yeah.

Which is essentially, you know, when you're, when you're in a long-term relationship, it's easy to just kind of go through the day of the logistics of life. But this is a moment for us to stop to go, what's happening on the inside? Are we anxious? Are we happy? Are we excited? Are we frustrated? Are we lonely? Whatever, whatever is happening, and we just listen to each other. And it's a really amazing way to start the day in a connected way. So you start with connecting to yourself and letting go of, like that hissing, like you said, but also do that. And then, you know, we go about our day and really focusing on eating well, because I think in this time it's easy to start to go to Comfort foods. And, you know, most people don't realize that the, the more junk you eat, the more likely you are to get sick from coronavirus, the more likely you are to die from it, that, that, that the people who are getting sick and dying are the ones who are unwell, who obesity or overweight or have heart disease or diabetes. And, you know, 75 of us are overweight. A lot of us. It's a time to really double down on your health. And then I try to find a time to exercise a little bit every day, whether I take a walk with my wife out in the woods, keeping our social distance. There's nobody around here. Or, or I, I jump on my Peloton or I have tennis courts so I can hit some balls. So I find a way to sort of just get the physical anxiety out.

Yeah.

And, and I think, you know, and we do an afternoon, we sort of decided to take a few hours every afternoon just as a break time so we can work in the evening if we need to, but, or we stop and we'll do some yoga, we'll meditate, we'll connect, take a steam, have a little steam shower. And that's sort of a routine that allows me to sort of stay focused and connected.

And because the collective anxiety sounds like a retreat.

Yeah, sort of. I mean, you know, that it's like the the, the truth is that, you know, sometimes I wake up at four in the morning and I just feel the collective anxiety of everything, of everyone and the enormity of, like, what we're going through as a human race right now, which is unprecedented in our lifetimes. It's certainly been common throughout human history of plagues and pandemics. And, you know, we just got nailed so many times throughout human history. But for this Collective generation, the last 100 years, there's nothing like this. And I think we have never really had to grapple with such a radical change in our lives, especially in America. We haven't dealt with war on our home turf. We haven't dealt with the kinds of destruction and chaos. I mean, just, you know, the unemployment level is staggering. So I think people are losing and losing, and it's easy to get sucked into that. I think for people listening, you know, you have to find what it is for you, what it's the practices that call to you that that keep you grounded, but it's really more important than ever to double down on that. I think that's so important.

You know, there's another practice I left out and you reminded me because it's something I just have been doing this whole time. So in super attractor, I wrote about this daily design method. And you had said earlier, design your day. Right. Back and I do half of it. We wake up and we. So that the method is every morning you ask yourself or you write in your Journal. How do I want to feel today? Who do I want to be today? What do I want to give today? And what do I want to receive today? Zach, my husband and I wake up and we say, How do I want to feel today? And what do I want to give today? We say that to each other, to each other, because the feeling we are co-regulating all day long or not, So we are contributing to the other partner's high vibe feelings or contributing to a low vibe experience. So we want to tune in together about how we each want to feel and then what we want to give. And the giving is to our family or to the world in the ways that we work. But most days it's we want to give our son a fun day or we want to give love, which was both of us said this morning that we want to give love.

That's always a good place to start.

Right? You know, if you give love, then you always want to come back to your method again, your daily design method, and remember what you decided you want to give when four o'clock in the afternoon rolls around and your child is upset. So, yes.

Then there's that.

Yes.

And there's that. All right. Well, I really, you know, wanted to do this podcast with you because your work is so extraordinary and you help bring messages of of wisdom and hope and inspiration for so many people. And your recent book, Super Attractor, which I encourage everybody to get, is sort of a slight departure. It's not so much a how-to book, but it's really about how we reframe our thinking to attract the life we want. And often we're doing the opposite. We're attracting the life we don't want, but we don't even realize it. And, you know, we, when we come from a place of lack or things not working out in our life, you know, where we just kind of perpetuate the problem. So what, what's the best way to sort of shift our mindset where we can, you know, be in a more sort of proactive, engaged and positive sort of effort in our, our achieving what we want in our lives?

So in Super Attractor, the subtitle is Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond youd Wildest Dreams. And that is true. That is the promise of the book. But what the book is really about is a book on how to feel good. Because the key to manifesting the life that you want is to focus on feeling good. So right now, with what we're going through. The first method that I share in the book is probably the most valuable. Okay, so this is the method called the choose again method. And it's something that we, that is really required of us right now in this time, because all day long, we are going to be taken out, taken out, taken out, taken out. We're going to be turning on the news. We're going to be outraged by the political arena, we're going to be whatever it may be. Okay? So we need to have the self-regulating tools to bring ourselves back to a place of higher vibe thoughts and feelings. So here's how it works. Step one is you notice that negative thought that you have on repeat and then notice how it makes you feel. Okay, so maybe the thought is right now, you know, I, here, I'll give an example. I don't know how I'm going to sustain full-time childcare and full-time business. I don't know how, and that's a repeated thought, right? And that thought is giving me a sense of anxiety in my chest. That's step one, describing that thought, right? How it makes you feel. and like calling it out. There it is. You know, there is that sucker. Let's talk about it. Step two is really the metaphysical part, which is where we have to suspend our worldly perceptions and recognize that the thoughts that we're having are not who we are. So when we have a repeated thought, Abraham Hicks says this beautiful thing, which is a belief is just a thought that you keep thinking. So if we've had a thought that's on repeat and repeat and repeat, it becomes a belief that we have about ourselves about our reality. And the only way to unwind that belief is to forgive ourselves for having the thought. That's step two. So in that moment where I can say to myself, I forgive.

I'm human. Like, it's okay. I thought that stupid thought.

Correct. Or actually, I'm a spirit having a human experience. And that's a little heady for some people, but. But. But getting into that place of recognizing that the human. thought that we thought was who we were, this perceptual thought that we got hooked into isn't the truth of who we are. The moment that you forgive yourself for having the thought or even simply forgive the thought, right? Forgive the thought. Oh, there is that thought again. There it is. There it's up again. You are no longer in the belief that that thought is who you are. And you can see that thought as something separate that has been a behavioral pattern rather than the truth. Okay, so it separates it.

That's a very powerful idea. I just want to unpack that for people because what you're saying is you're not your thoughts. Correct. Because often people conflate who they are with their thoughts and they're actually become things that are real instead of just a ripple on the surface of the ocean or a lake. Right.

That's exactly.

That's the whole purpose of meditation is to witness the crazy mind that you have. Because I can't meditate. Well, you know, because I keep thinking, well, yeah, that's the point. You know, you actually are watching the unquiet mind do its craziness. And then eventually it slows down enough where you go, oh, there's a thought going by and there's another thought and it's not me.

That's right. And what's so interesting about this is that you actually can do this practice before you meditate and it will help you get into a deeper meditation. so the third step. So you've now, you know, you've now identified the thought. You've forgiven yourself for having the thought. So you're no longer stuck in the belief that you are that thought. And the third step is to reach for the next best feeling thought. And it's not like, oh, you know, I'm struggling with full-time mom, full-time child, full-time business owner. Instead of being stuck in that thought, and I've forgiven that thought now, I say to reach for the next best feeling thought would look like. It's a privilege that I get this devoted time with my kid at such a really groovy time in his life when, like, every day is a new development.

Yeah.

A new word every day. There's a new understanding, and it's just happening so rapidly, and I'm going to be the first to see it, and I'm going to be be able to focus on my deepening of my bond with my child. And I keep going, right? So you keep reaching for the next. And what a privilege it is to be able to serve this human and to be able to put food on his plate every day. And I am so devoted to this child that I can put my business on pause for him, and it will actually expand time because the more fun I have, the more time expands and I can create more. And so you just reach and reach and get yourself into that momentum.

So it's the frame and the mindset, right? And it's sort of like a friend of mine said to me, you probably know her, Mickey, right? Yeah. So she says, you know, you reframe your conversation from, I have to, like, I have to take care of my kid. I have to cook dinner. I have to. And to, I get to, I get to, I get to make dinner for my family. I get to hang out with my kid. I get to, and it's a really different way of thinking about your life.

It changes everything. And I think that there's so any situation where whether your deepest low, you can choose again at your deepest low. And then in the book, you know, there's something really big that I wrote about in the book, which happened before I even had something happen to me. But I wrote about, I said in the book that feeling good is to decide to stop feeling bad. And a lot of people listening might be like, F you, Gabby. You know, I've got, I'm, I have mental illness or I have no money in the bank or, but I actually learned how to live that wholeheartedly in May of last year, a year ago, when I was diagnosed with postpartum depression and anxiety and insomnia, and I was suicidal. And at that stage in my life that I'd never been before, I'd never known, I did use, I was able to use the choose again method because the simplicity of witnessing the thought of I want to kill myself, I'm so miserable, to forgiving myself for having that thought, which I could, I could forgive myself because I could say, okay, that's a biochemical condition. I forgive myself. And then choosing again some days was as simple as saying, I have people I can reach out to. I can call a psychiatrist. Or I had two hours of sleep last night rather than none. my son is healthy. And those small thoughts were what gave me the power to live and the chance to seek help.

Powerful. That's a scary moment for, you know, for you to have to feel that when you have a little baby and you want to kill yourself.

And it was the worst experience of my life, but it was also the best, Mark. I can tell you right now that that bottom, and I've had quite a few bottoms with addiction and remembering trauma, but that bottom gave me such a deep understanding of mental illness. And, you know, to be honest with you, I was probably part of the stigma for a long time because I could see people would say things like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm depressed or I have, you know, I've been diagnosed with, with anxiety disorder and response would be like, well, here's a meditation. But when you're in a biochemical condition, Doctor, you know this, you know, that medication isn't going to work. And it's not that it won't work ultimately, but there may be some medical intervention. And so I went on medication, and that medication saved my life, and it deepened my spiritual practice because it made me safe enough to go deeper into my own person.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think, you know, what I love about functional medicine is balance between, you know, both sides of the story.

And, yeah, whatever it takes, I always say, you know, we believe in what works, whether it's exercise or exorcism, we're going to prescribe the right treatment for the right problem at the right time in the right way.

Exactly. And so, you know, I think that right now, people's depression may be activated, their anxiety is definitely activated, gut inflammation is activated. You know, I'd like to share a method with, because you're so so devoted to the gut, right? Which I really think is what's genius about the functional doctors, is that it's all traced back to the gut. And I couldn't agree more. I really just couldn't agree more. But when we say it's traced back to the gut, we have to recognize that it's traced back to stress. It's traced back to anxiety. It's traced back because the root cause of gut inflammation and dysbiosis is our mental condition, our energetic condition.

And, yeah, those in your gut are listening to your thoughts, by the way. And so you're listening to their thoughts. So it's, it's quite an interesting dance.

And listen, you know, I've lived this. I'm a, I'm, and you know this, I'm a CBO Survivor. I am a SIBO Survivor.

So for those of you who don't know what SIBO is, it's a condition where you have bacteria growing in the upper part of your intestine. When you eat food, you get a food baby and blow up and you feel really uncomfortable and all this terrible bloating that affects your whole body and your mind and your immune system.

And so for me, I did all the food related changes and I took the medication. There's stages of having to clear SIBO, but what needed to happen most was to regulate my nervous system. And so I would love to share something that helps with the gut. It actually literally sends a vibration into your gut and then stimulates your vagus nerve and puts you into a parasympathetic state and relaxes you, but ultimately relaxes your belly. So it's called Voo Breath. Have you ever done this? It's really cool. You take a deep breath in and extend your diaphragm. And then you hold that for one moment. And then on the exhale, you chant the mantra, voo, okay? And I'm going to do it with you. But you do it in such a way where you get a real resonance in your belly. As you inhale and you hold, you exhale, voo, voo, voo. Hold it again. Then you let the inhale come in naturally. Hold. Hold. Then inhale again. Hold it. Let's do it one more time. Hold and then I inhale naturally. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. And each time you let yourself voo, you can go deeper and deeper into a place where you start to feel that relaxation and that almost it's like a resonance. It's like a vibration in your in your in your gut and your belly. And just a few voo is I feel very different. I feel very relaxed and it will it will help you get into that relaxation mode, your nervous system can relax, but then most importantly, your gut can relax.

It's powerful. Well, you know, these are really great tools. The method of, you know, three-step choose again method is great. I think the little techniques are amazing, but I want to sort of loop back to the super attractor book because Right now it's an unusual time and you say in your book that when you have faith in the universe it becomes safe to hold big visions even if you can't see them yet. And the question is in this time where people don't feel safe, in this time where even if you had dreams and visions for your life, and I know I had that have been completely derailed. How do we deal with this in this time and what holds people back in the best of times from pursuing their dreams? Because I'm struggling with this now just personally because I launched my book Food Fix about transforming the food system. I was going to be speaking at the Vatican and Stockholm and at this global conference and that global conference and meeting with senators and congressmen and launching a campaign and all of a sudden, boom, just stopped.

Right.

And, you know, I'm struggling. And I think people who, who even didn't have a dream are struggling even more because they're unemployed and they're not able to not able to do the things they even thought were possible. Forget the things that they might have thought were impossible. So can you share what, what we should be thinking about how to hold visions and dreams and how do we How do we deal with this sort of big obstacle called coronavirus that's in front of all of us?

Yeah. Yeah. There's just so much I want to say on this. I'm just going to rant. Okay. First things first, I have a mantra that I use whenever I feel that there's a block in the way. And if it's particularly around an abundance block or a actually, you know, it's really just around any block. I would say and I offer this up for people who are having abundance. blocks or blocks around life purpose and goals and visions. Here's a mantra for you. It's a prayer. I'm open to creative possibilities. When I say that, what happens is, is it opens your consciousness up to release that single pointed focus of this was the only way that this could have happened and open you up. to, well, what's possible now? So it's a prayer. It's a prayer. It's saying guidance that I'm aware of. My a God of my own understanding. I am open to creative possibilities. Show me what you've got, right? Reveal to me what I can do right now. And so that energetic state can relax you because it gives you this opportunity to stop searching and start allowing, but it's also just a very different vibrational stance to be in. So that's step one. The other thing that I do, and I believe this has been the key to the momentum that's been been the work I've done in the world, and I think you can probably find your own agreement with this. And it's probably a practice that could be most valuable for us right now. And it's a method in super attractor called the spiritually aligned action method. Here's the message behind it. The message behind it is that whenever we take an action from a place of fear or uncertainty or grasping or controlling, it will not be supported because that energy is funky, right? So if you send an email with that graspy energy, the universe doesn't support it because the other person on the receiving end feels assaulted by that email, right?

It's what you talk about as pushers, right? People who push and try to control and reach their goals and feel safe, right?

Right, baby. That's right. So I like that. I'm like calling the doctor, baby.

It's actually a common thing. People try to force things. They try to make things happen.

That's right.

And feel like the more they do, the more they try to achieve, the better it'll be. But often it's not that way at all.

I'm seeing a lot of it right now because I think people are totally rocked. You know, people that own clothing companies are like posting, posting posting, like trying to do discounts and sales. And there's a lot of reactivity. And I understand that completely. But you back up your actions, which you must take action to create. You can't just sit there on your ass and let things come to you. Although once in a while that happens, but most of the time it's going to require of us to show up. So the actions that we take right now in the pursuit of momentum for getting a new job or running a business or keeping healthy or whatever it may be has to come from a place of spiritual alignment. Because when we take an action from that centered place of spiritual alignment, it is greatly supported. It's supported by others because what happens is those that are on the receiving end feel like you're not assaulting them, right? They feel relaxed in your relaxed delivery. So here's how it works. Step one, is to make sure that your desire, whatever it is, is backed with love and service and not your own ego.

Right?

And so our ego gets into the story of like, I was supposed to be that way, or our ego gets into the story of like, I'm losing money right now, or I lost my job and I'll never get another job again. But get back into why do I love the work that I do? What is the service behind work that I do. And you're, we can use your example right now. Love and service is this book I wrote will help people stay healthy right now. Love and service, right? And the second step is to have faith. And that's where we have to return to our spiritual, our spiritual condition in whatever form that comes. So that faith comes through prayer, that faith comes to the affirmation. I just said, I'm open to creative possibilities. that faith is asking of us to return to a centered state. However we get there individually, there's methods all throughout the book, there's methods all online that are free. But coming back to center through meditation, through prayer, so that we can get grounded in the faith that everything is working out for me. I am truly supported and taken care of even though I can't see it right now, as you quoted me before. That's step one and two. And then step three is that only take action from that place of service, love and faith. No action unless it's coming from that place. So if you're out there writing a newsletter to your audience or you're sending an email for employment, ask yourself, tune in, is this email backed with service Love and Faith. Is this post on social media, Backed with Service, Love and Faith? Is this announcement about the book Backed with Service, Love and Faith? And when you know that you're grounded in that place of service, love and faith, you know that you're there because you're not attached to the outcome.

Right.

Right. So whenever you take an action, when you release the outcome, it will always be supportive. Now, the final step. fourth step is pain.

That's a really important thing to underscore because I think people often can do things, but they're maybe coming from a good place, but they also are attached to what happens at the other end of it. And that attachment to the result is what causes all the suffering and pain and actually impairs your ability to get what you want.

Exactly. And then the final step, which is so relevant right now, is patience. So we have to continue to take action. If you're unemployed, you have to seek employment and get on LinkedIn and create work on your resume. If you are a business owner struggling to sell your products, do not try selling a single product until you are spiritually aligned. It will fail. It will offend. It will come off as tone deaf.

Although people making toilet paper are making it like bandits.

Toilet paper. My feeling is they're backed with service, love and faith right now.

What is that? I have no idea.

But, my feeling is, it's funny, I actually tried to order toilet paper on Amazon yesterday. I was like, maybe I'll order three roll, three, you know, packages. They only let me order one, which I was very proud of.

And it won't come till like the middle of April.

May 17th or something. So here's the deal. I really, really, really cannot emphasize this method enough right now. We all have to take action in order to keep the momentum of our lives going. We can't just, you know, crumble and fall apart to the point of that will be the demise of our economic system if we all just stop working and fail to show up, right? So what we have to do right now is really to use this time to strengthen our commitment to service and love, set devotional practices that strengthen our faith. And then when we feel in that, that we're in that alignment, that's when we take an action. Those were those meditations I've been recording at night. I'm not recording them because I'm like, I need to create, I have plenty of content out in the world that almost too much, right? I'm recording them because I'm feeling this call for service and love, and I have deep faith that they to change lives and serve people.

We have to all do what we can and all the skills we have, whether you are a meditation teacher, whether you're a doctor, whether you're a writer, whether whatever, where maybe you're the Amazon delivery guy. I mean, we're all doing our part. And I think within this new world, we each have to sort of stop and I hate to say silver overline. It's really not that. But, you know, what, what could this chaos actually help us figure out about our own lives that maybe we didn't think about? You know, I was, I was listening to a podcast with Ryan Holiday and Peter Tia this morning, and, you know, it was interesting hearing Ryan talk about how he had this life schedule of talks and events and this and that and the other thing. and things that he thought he wanted or looked forward to. And all of a sudden he's at home and like all the rest of us and has stopped. And he's like, well, maybe I didn't really want those things. I actually would prefer to live my life like this. And I'm having a similar experience because, you know, for me to be two weeks at home without getting in a plane is really unusual. And I'm like, wow, maybe I don't want to go back to that. Maybe I want to figure out a different way to live that. is more in connection to who I am, what matters to me in this moment in my life, and how do I do the work I do in a way that isn't so costly to me. And I think a lot of people are having to sort of reframe what they're thinking and doing in their life. And it's tough. It's not easy. It's not easy for me. And like everybody else, I've sort of. Everything is contracted, and I think it's. It's a. It's an interesting moment for us to sort of stop and. and start maybe thinking about a way of reframing our lives like you talked about in the Super Attractor. And one of the things you shared that I'd love you to share and close with, which is these five principles that you recommend people following when they're starting a spiritual journey. So what are those principles and like, why do they matter?

You're the third person to ask me to riff on these principles, which I don't remember the order.

Okay, well, the first one is the universe always says yes.

Yeah.

So I'll cue you.

I don't know if this happens to you when you write a book, but you forget what you wrote.

Sometimes, yeah, you write it and it's like two years later and like, okay.

Well, I will reread something that I wrote like yesterday. And I'm writing another book right now and I'm editing it because I'm submitting it right now. And I'm reading it over to do the edits and I'm like, I have no recollection of writing that a week ago because so much of it is just channeled, right? So you can prompt me with my own methods. Here we go. So the universe is always a yes. The universe is always a yes. Means that every thought we have is a message, is a request, and the universe is always responding yes. so if we're saying, I don't have enough, I don't have enough, I don't have enough, then the universe is reflecting back to us that we don't have enough. Whereas if you were in a story of I'm welcoming creative possibilities for abundance, then the universe, yes, for creative possibilities for abundance. So it's all about getting into an energetic state of feeling into what it is that you truly desire and sending that message out through your words. and your actions and most importantly through your energy and trusting and knowing that the universe delivers.

And it might not always be what you think, right?

True. So the other element of this is having a desire, getting grounded in that desire, being conscious about putting the energy out and putting the words out, but also being open to this or something better.

I never really just brought back a memory. I was probably like 23. and I literally, you know how you have an epiphany and you remember where you were standing and what you were doing? And I remember, I remember, you know, struggling with trying to force things or being unhappy with how things were in my life. And I just had this download, which was, you know, just trust in the unfolding of things because it's always going to be exactly what you need to learn or understand. And it's not always going to be easy. It's not always going to be fun. It can be extremely painful and difficult. But at the end of the day, if you can relax into that, that, that concept that you're sort of saying the universe is a yes, and it sort of reflects back how you, how you navigate your life, because it's really led me to kind of take the hands off the, off the wheel a little bit. Right.

That's right.

And, and, like, and it sounds scary, but, like, you know, you go, wow, you know, there's, there's a, there's a higher Consciousness at work in guiding the unfolding of my life. And if I trust that, then I don't have to live in a state of fear and anxiety. And it sounds a little woo and crazy, but it actually has been really the fundamental principle through which I've lived my life, and it's allowed me to be alert to when things are happening that may seem out of the ordinary, unusual, that I didn't create or plan. Like all the things that I really am doing or have done in this life were not things that I intentionally set out to create. Like I didn't, you know, for example, get sick in order to learn about functional medicine, but getting really sick allowed me to become an expert in something that helped lots of people or getting the job at Canyon Ranch, where I didn't even apply for the job. I was sort of met someone in a bookstore, and I sort of collided in a way that allowed that to happen. Or getting a job at Cleveland Clinic, you know, just, I, I, you know, I was invited to an event where I met the CEO and said some crazy thing to him, and he wouldn't leave me alone. I wanted me to come work there.

So it's like, Mark, is that all that? unfolding for you because you were a yes for health and spreading health, spreading health and living healthy. Right. So that commitment and devotion was why the universe kept responding yes to you.

Yeah. Yeah.

So the other thing I want to remember, remind everybody is that, okay, you might be sitting here and being like, but I'm deeply stuck in a yes for poverty or I'm deeply stuck in fear. Well, I gave you a lot of methods today. I gave you get method where you can reorganize your yes. I gave you the daily design method where you can reorganize your yes. I gave you the spiritually aligned action method where you can reorganize your yes. Even the voo breath can reorganize your breath. Your. Your breath, of course.

And here.

Yes. So. So use what even one of these tools and. Or the affirmation meditation I'm going to give you. I just want to really Empower people to recognize that we're not just talking about stuff that we can do because we've been. this path for so long, but this is stuff you can do right now if this is your first time experiencing an idea like this.

So great. And so, you know, I'd just like to sort of leave people with a question, which is, you know, as we are all navigating this completely uncharted territory, you are, I am, everybody listening is, and, you know, that's sort of the one strange thing about this, whole pandemic is that all humanity is in the same condition right now. We're all in the same sort of common human experience of this viral threat that leaves no one spared from Prince Charles to, you know, Tom Hanks to whoever. And, and how do, and, and as we're in this common human condition, you know, how do we sort of maybe reorient our way of being in the world? I mean, maybe it's sort of challenging us to look at the divisiveness and the conflict and the hatred and the sort of unhappiness and sort of reorient us to, you know, what's really important in life and what really matters. Because we are all having this collective human experience, whether you're, you know, Muslim or Jewish or Christian or Republican or Democrat, or white or black or whether you're, you know, from China or whether you're from America, it's, we're all the same.

It's beautiful because in times of crisis, I think, is when we remember our Oneness most. When, when all of our safety mechanisms and pretenses about who we are taken from us, that's what, what are we left with? we're left with the truth, which is that we're all spirits having a human experience. We're all in this together. No one is immune to this experience right now, not just COVID-19, but the experience of what's occurring around us. So what you do see a lot of, which is just beautiful, is people, you know, it makes me cry thinking about the New Yorkers who got out on their balcony and clapped for the hospital workers and the people giving lunches to children and the, the, just the giving.

Yeah.

Giving is just so in the midst of all this, there's just, just tremendous Unity and love and giving and support and people thinking beyond their personal problems.

And once they've stocked up on toilet paper, then they're looking at service.

Get your toilet paper and then you can. It's just, you know, even today I was feeding Oliver and I was making him eggs and then I was making him a apple crisp and I was just, I was brought to tears as I Cooking because I thought about all the children who do not have food to eat because the only food they get is in their school and they're home right now with potentially abusive parents or parents who show up because they're at work and there's little people home by themselves or in a very dark scenario. And my heart broke and I started crying. And instead of getting lost in that, I got on my Instagram and said, No kid hungry, right? No kid goes hungry, let's go support and donate now, right? And I made my own contribution and I shared it publicly and these moments where we feel powerless, we have to remember where our power lies.

Yeah, where?

Our power lies in our interconnectedness and our oneness and our compassion. Our true power lies in our ability to be compassionate. to really tune into that state of compassion. That's when we're inspired to serve and help.

Yeah, you know, it's a, I sort of reflecting on the, so the, the sort of bipolar nature of America, you have Thomas Paine saying, give me liberty or give me death. Right. Don't restrict my freedoms. Of course, now we have all of our freedom restricted or we will die. But then Benjamin Franklin said, you know, we must all hang together almost assuredly we will all hang separately. And I think that is, that is really what I'm focused on now is how do we hang together through all this? How do we help each other? How do we each contribute in our own way, small or big, to helping our fellow humans through this crisis? And how do we stop in this moment when we have a little more time and think about how we want to create our lives going forward? How do we want to create a different world, a more humane world, a more loving world, a more awake world. So you're a beacon of light in that journey, Abby. And I'm so happy to call you my friend and fellow journeyer on this road to help wake people up in every way.

Can we do a FaceTime dinner soon?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, virtual dinner parties is the way to go.

Well, actually, let's close on that. One of the most beautiful several things is how much connection people are creating right now because they've felt like they've been deprived that connection. So they're creating more of it. And everybody off with take advantage of all of the miracle moments throughout your day and celebrate them. And I'm, I'm proud of anyone that's listening because that means that you're part of the solution.

Thank you, Gabby. And everybody should go to gabbyburnstein.com. I get her book Super Attractor and take this time to hunker down and wake up a little bit and build those practices and morning routines. And just every little bit counts, even if it's a one minute meditation. It matters. And you're just such a great contributor to a voice of a wakefulness in the world. And you've got so many great resources. Everybody should follow you on Instagram and social media. Get your book. Go to gabribernstein.com. and learn all about what she's doing and what she's up to because it's a lot of good stuff.

Right back at you.

All right, those of you who've been listening to the Doctor's Pharmacy, I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. If you've loved it, please leave a comment. We'd love to hear from you, share with your friends and family, and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And we'll see you next time on the Doctor's Pharmacy.

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