Signs You Have UNHEALED TRAUMA & How To Heal From It Today| Gabby Bernstein

And then the beautiful good news is we all have what's known as self. And for years, as a spiritual teacher, I would have called this higher self or God or universe. And in this case, I would call it self with a capital S. And self is.

I think you gotta have a dream. The school of greatness, really.

Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howiss.

I feel like a lot of both you and I have gone through traumatic events recently, sad events. And I feel like a lot the world has gone through sadness and trauma.

Yeah.

And we were talking about before the difference between, you know, the little T's and the big T's, the bigger moments that feel like heavy. And also the kind of the daily traumas that we either put on ourselves or our environment kind of creates for us.

Yeah.

And trauma is something that more and more people are talking about because I feel like people don't have the solution on how to heal. As an athlete, when you hurt yourself, you can't keep playing until you heal the bone or you heal something. If you tear a muscle, you can't really keep playing. If you do, you're going to hurt yourself more. But whatever. For whatever reason, in our emotional life, when we go through a tear or rip or something broken, we seem to just keep going without healing, without. If we go through a breakup, we don't really heal. If we go through a business breakdown, we lose our career. We just keep moving without healing. Why is healing so important for everyone at all times to be on that journey? And how do we heal trauma when it's invisible?

All right, going in with the big stuff, and it's all big stuff here, and we are ready to go there. You and I have been talking about our own traumatic experiences. And in fact, I want to acknowledge that the first time I really spoke publicly about remembering my own childhood trauma was with you. Because you made me feel safe enough to do it. Where do I begin? So we run from these impermissible feelings from our past. These are emotional disturbances from our childhood traumatic events. Trauma with a big T. Trauma with a small T. A big T trauma is being sexualized, sexually abused as a child, having some kind of violence, living through a catastrophic event, growing up in an alcoholic home. A small T trauma is being bullied. Small T trauma is being told you're stupid by a teacher. Small T trauma could be living and surviving. Covid. We've all lived through trauma way before. COVID It's just now more present for us. But the traumatic events from our past are the ones that are so impermissible because inside those experiences, particularly childhood developmental experiences, is the shame, the impermissible rage, the feelings of inadequacy and feelings of being unlovable. And so we build up all these different protection mechanisms around us to avoid ever having to face those impermissible wounds. And those protections could be achievement. They could be, they could look good on the outside. That's the scary thing, right? So workaholism can be really praised at times. Those, it can look like alcoholism, it can look like drug addiction, and we just create all these forms of protection around ourselves to never have to go there. But what's happened recently is in Covid and when we've been struck with feelings of not being safe, feelings of being out of control, a lot of our typical coping mechanisms won't work anymore.

What are typical coping mechanisms for most people?

Typical coping mechanisms, heading to the fridge, overeating, overworking, not working, like numbing out, vegging out the sofa. A coping mechanism. And I refer to coping mechanisms as protector parts. I am now trained in internal family systems therapy. And so in ifs we talk about these protectors and what are they protecting us from? Those exiled child parts, those impermissible parts that we don't want to ever touch, don't want to go into.

Protectors are the coping mechanisms, the addictive or non healthy coping mechanisms?

Correct?

That's what I'm hearing you say.

Yeah, those are called protectors totally. Exactly.

The things that we don't want to go and face the pain and sometimes.

We don't even know that they're a problem. Like, like a workaholic may not, may not yet know that that's a problem for them or codependency. So they're constantly protecting themselves by finding relationship or there's for me, there was the controller. You were in studio with the controller many times and you also even went as far as like almost pick up on that at early in our relationship where you're like, you know, it could be a little easier. You would, you noticed it for me. And there's, there's. I have one that's called Knives out. She's not out anymore. But she, she was like this like, you know, like if you with me with death row, like I am done.

So were those your two main coping mechanisms? I guess.

Well, well there was my 25 year old cocaine addict and then there was the, you know, another interesting protector part is even spirituality at times because while it's a beautiful practice to be on a spiritual quest and it's what I've been writing about for over a decade. We can at times use our spiritual practice to get above the pain. And so give me an example. You're newly sober and you're, like, in every meditation class and you're doing your Kundalini yoga, and you're just. You're getting high on your own supply, right? Which is excellent. It's much better than drinking. And it's a beautiful pursuit. But it's also another form of protecting what is deeper. And frankly, that spiritual bypassing, as we would call it, is actually a tremendous gift at times because it's too painful to go to those places. So if spirituality is what you've got, that's way better than the drugs and the alcohol, right?

But he's still masking.

But it's still another way of masking. It's still another way of getting above of what is so uncomfortable to face below.

What were the two or three biggest things that you weren't willing to face for so long? So for the reasons why you had.

These, I didn't even know what they were. I got clean and sober at 25 and became extremely fascinated by my spiritual practice and became a spiritual teacher and started writing books on spirituality and personal growth. And then all the while was writing books and on Oprah and, you know, friends with guys like you and, you know, doing my. Moving my career forward and helping a lot of people and losing it on the inside. Just cracking on the inside. By the time I was 36 years old, I was. This is about probably maybe six months before that interview I referenced. Between you and I, I was just completely overwhelmed with my reality that I had created.

What reality?

The extreme control.

Oh, okay.

So I had authored maybe six or seven books. I'd had all this busyness happening. And you remember, I had no team. I had, like, one virtual assistant running this, like, business that could have had 20 people at the time. And so I just kept just pushing, pushing, pushing. And all because I was trying to control. I was trying to stay safe. I was trying to stay safe from feelings that I didn't want to feel, but I didn't know that. So I kept looking back, saying, why was I a drug addict? Why am I such a workaholic? Why am I codependent? Why am I. Why, why, why, why, why? Until I was 36, interesting. And had a dream. And in the dream, I remembered being. I remembered I was an adult addressing that I had been sexually abused as a child.

In the dream?

Yes. And I woke up and I was like, no way. Never talking about that again. I had a talk that night. I was like, no, down.

Get down.

And a few days later, I was in therapy, and my therapist was asking me a few leading questions. And one thing that she said in particular just catapulted me into the memory. And not visual or details, but just the acceptance that this indeed did happen to me. And so it turns out that for over 30 years, I dissociated from a childhood memory because it was so extreme. And I ran from it in all the same ways that we run from trauma with the workaholism, the cocaine addiction, the love addiction, all of it.

What's the root of the. The shame? What's the root of hiding or overworking or controlling? Is it shame that I'm not enough or that it's just too hard to face this pain? Or that if people knew this about me, no one would love me? What's the core fear that a lot of us face when that event occurs?

So I don't think it's necessarily a logical fear that we have in our conscious awareness. It's a sense. It's a underbelly. And the more personal growth work we do, we can say, oh, okay, I worked so hard to be seen, or you can start to see the map. But when we're in it, it's really hard to recognize. So much so that in the book, I write this chapter about shame, and I tell this whole story about how I'm in this training where I'm teaching, but I'm also with two other teachers. So when the other teachers were leading the workshop, I was in the audience, like, oh, let me hook up my friends. I'll sit and listen. Yeah, check it out. Like, the whole workshop is on shame. And I'm thinking, I don't have any shame. 36 years old, you know, I'm succeeding.

I'm driven, I'm.

This just. I. It's such a. It's the most difficult emotion to face. And being in that room, that one exercise, I was like, oh, my God, this is what I've been running from. This is what I've been hiding from. This is, you know, decade into my sobriety, and I'm just touching into this now.

What was the exercise?

It was.

I think it was about, like, witnessing how you respond to things and being.

Aware of, like, how you react, becoming.

Conscious of what it feels like.

If someone is a triggered human being in life, maybe not every day, but something happens and it triggers them, what is that saying about the person that they haven't healed something? That's Allowing the trigger that those events have power over them, that they're, you know, they have negative coping mechanisms. What is that reactiveness or shutdown ness and not standing up for yourself or whatever it is that people do. An unhealthy reaction, let's say.

So the trigger. I'm going to speak to this in ifs language. So Internal Family Systems was founded by my, my, my new friend Dick Schwartz. And it's just the most beautiful therapy. Internal Family Systems. Yeah. And I now did the level one training. I'm going to carry on and continue training in this. It's the most incredible practice I've ever used. And I've been in that type of therapy for a decade. And then I most recently got, got it under my belt. And so what, what it is, and I could do some with you too today. What it is is the premise that we have these exiled child parts that the young boy who was sexually abused, the little girl who was sexually abused, or just the kid that was bullied or the kid. And I want to just say, just because people are committing suicide over this, you know, being told you're not good enough or whatnot, or just a little bit of neglect or whatever it is, those experiences from our childhood just get so pushed away, locked under lock and key, never to be spoken of again. Then the protectors show up and from a very young age.

Protectors, meaning coping mechanisms.

Exactly, yeah. And anytime. And the protectors actually have two different forms. There's managers which are just sort of like, you know, workaholic working. And then there's these firefighter protector parts that are like f this cannot go any further, I am going right for the drink or I gotta go right for the fridge or just the addiction, the addictive parts, right? So those are all known as protectors. When we get triggered, when there's a moment where that child part gets activated, your father just passed. There's probably a lot of triggers that came up around that. Without any deep awareness of our system, our internal system will get activated. The young part might get activated because we feel out of control, we feel unsafe. Something activates that part. When that feeling starts to creep in, the protector comes right in. The protector's like gonna work, gonna eat, gonna run, gonna run, run, run, run, run, run. The reaction, the reaction gonna control, gonna, you know, whatever it might be, scream, whatever it might be, rage, blame, jud self, attack, attack others, binge on television. Anything that that part can do to anesthetize the voice of that or the presence, even this tinge of Feeling sensation of that exiled child part. And then the beautiful good news is we all have what's known as self. And for years, as a spiritual teacher, I would have called this higher self or God or universe. And in this case I would call it self with a capital S. And self is the compassionate, calm, courageous, curious, creative part of who we are that is always, has always been there. It's the truth of who we are, it's the soul of who we are. And it's a non physical energy that is us. And when we learn to connect to that self energy and let that self energy relate to and support the protectors, then our entire system can relax. So we could demo that today if you want to.

Are you talking about being able to step outside of the emotional reactive self and saying, okay, kind of let me coach myself?

Correct, Correct, Very much so. Good listening, man. So you're such an active listener. So it's becoming your own internal parent and letting self be the leader of your internal family system, your highest version of yourself. Correct, exactly.

Loving, compassionate.

The compassionate, courageous, curious part becomes the internal parent to all these other little parts.

Yeah.

So it's the internal family system in.

Yourself, not your family.

It has nothing to do with your family.

Yourself, your own family when you're 10.

16, and when you're 30, your protectors, your exile, everything about all the parts.

All the messiness of your.

So you, Louis, are not just Louis. You are Louis the athlete. You're Louis, the. The hard worker. You're Lewis, the child who was abused. You're Lewis, the kid who lost the guy who lost his dad. But it's not just these characteristics, it's the personality traits, these different personalities of who you are. So who are some of your protectors?

Personalities, Right.

Tell me who you are. Yeah, exactly. Multiples.

So who are the protectors?

How do you protect yourself when you get triggered? What are some of the ways that you sweep?

I mean, I feel like I've done a. It's funny because I was telling my girlfriend Martha this when we first started dating. I said, I'm going to be 100 who I am. You know, I'm not going to change for you or anyone. I'm going to change for me the ways I want to improve at the right timings of my life. And I go, there's only one thing, like you can do anything and it will not upset me. Yeah, you can talk to 20 hot guys who are shirtless. I could care less. You can be. Because she's an actress. I'm like you can make out with a guy on a TV set for film, for, for art. It's not going to affect me. You can, whatever. I could care less. But I was like, there's one thing that may trigger me. Not all the time, but it might trigger me. And are you okay with accepting this about me? It's only happened twice. That actually happened like a few days ago. It's only happened twice in like nine months. But I was like, listen, this is going to happen potentially.

What is it?

It's not even really that big. It's not like I'm super reactive or something. But sometimes I can. I, I would say I've improved a lot on this, but in the past I felt like my word when I would say something. Certain people in the past and intimate relationships would not take my word when I just say, here's the truth.

Oh, see, trusting you, they were just.

They wouldn't listen to me or trust me. And then when they would keep reacting to something that was made up or imagination that wasn't happening in an event or experience, and I was like, no, this is what happened. No, this is what happened. So I'd have to repeat myself over and over again to make sure that someone was listening or someone was hearing because it wasn't.

So when that happened, when you didn't.

Feel someone create a false story about something happening and they were believing so firmly that that was the truth. And I was like, that's not the truth. Don't attack me.

What's your response in those moments?

My response is originally, you know, like, no, this is the truth. But then if it is not believed, then I kind of go in a loop of like saying it over and over again.

Okay.

If someone then like Martha is now like, okay, I believe you. But then I'll like keep repeating.

So proving yourself or it's just like, let's just say if someone doesn't feel.

Like, I mean, it's. I don't know if it's proven myself. It's just feeling respected for my word, like, this is the truth, this is how I'm feeling. And making sure that, you know, it's respected and honored is really what it is.

Okay. Yeah. So do I have some buy in to check in with that part of you?

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah.

So when that happens and gets activated, what are you feeling in your system.

Or what do you notice it happen right away? It's more like if I feel like after, like I don't know, 10, 20, 30 minutes, like it's not landing with the person, then I feel like, oh, I'm on. I need to protect myself.

Okay.

I mean, so I. I kind of loop sometimes. It's only happened twice in the last, like, year, but I'm just.

What's the loop? What. How would you define the loop?

It's to protect myself from someone not believing me.

Okay. Yeah, so.

Or my. That's my perception. They might.

If you had to define how you. Like. Like, is it. Are you trying to prove yourself? Are you trying to. Like, is there a specific name of this reaction?

I'm not sure in this moment what that would be, but it's. It's a. I guess proving myself. I don't know if it's proven myself. It's more like I just don't feel like, yeah, my word is honored, or something.

Okay.

Yeah. So I don't want someone to think I'm out of integrity.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay.

And so what do you notice about that part in your body, in your mind? Is there an image and even. Close your eyes if you want to, but just. Is there imagery or a sensation physically in your body?

It doesn't. If I think about it from the past because I don't feel like a much of a physical reaction now, but in the past, I think I did where I feel, like, tension in the heart and, like, closed throat.

Okay. Okay.

But I feel like I've done a lot of the integrating healing work where I don't feel that it's more just kind of like a habit still.

Okay, cool. Okay.

So it's just still coming physical and, like, stressful. It's more, like mental now. So it's just being aware of it. And I'm even, like. I was even telling you the other night, I was like, I'm aware I'm doing this now, but it doesn't mean I'm gonna stop doing you. Like, I'm aware in this moment that I'm in a loop in this moment.

Well, let's help that part. Let's help that part. Okay, so. So anything else that the part wants to reveal about. Is it. Does it have a gender?

I'm not sure if it does or not, but it's probably just like a. It's probably just a scary little boy, you know?

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So scared little boy, probably.

Yeah.

Beautiful. And is there anything that he wants us to know before we keep going? Is there anything that he wants to say out loud?

He just wants to feel loved and safe and protected and.

Yeah.

Trusted.

Yeah.

You know, I never felt like I was people Believed me when I was a kid.

Yeah.

This was kind of like, well, why tell the truth if no one's gonna believe me, you know, so I might as well just do whatever I want type of thing.

Right.

I broke that pattern eventually. I think I got, you know.

How do you feel towards him?

I feel very loving and compassionate towards him.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

Does he know that you are here? That you're adult resourced, undamaged stuff? He knows you're here. Yeah. Okay.

Because I practice it, like daily, you know, the integration of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What might he need from you in those moments when the loop is up for him?

Just a pause, like a break.

Okay.

Yeah. That's why I told Martha. I was like, when this happens, if you feel like I'm doing this, just tell me. Hey, I'm gonna take a pause. And that's what I need, you know?

Right. What does he need?

I think he needs a pause. He needs to breathe. He needs, you know, just to walk and clear his. Clear his mind and feel safe. Feel like I've got him, you know, like I'm protecting him. I've got him. You know, we're in this together that he doesn't have to worry.

How does he feel towards you?

I mean, he feels pretty safe.

He does feel safe with you?

Yeah, of course.

He loves you.

Yeah.

Oh.

I mean, I think he's like, wow, you're doing all the emotional work that I wish I could have had the skills or the tools, the ability from a, you know, childhood brain development stage that I didn't have those skills. It's like, okay, you're doing the work for me, so I trust we're gonna.

Be okay now if you could. So he wants to go for a walk when he's activated, right? Yeah. Where would you guys walk?

Just around the block. It's fine.

Around the block. Okay.

Just a one time around the block or just sit in some grass and just breathe and look up at a tree.

Can you just take a moment to talk a little bit more? About what. Where you might want to take him, Like a safe place that he could go with you.

We just moved into a new place, so I don't know the surroundings. Okay, the parks, but I would just go around the block in a quiet. In a quiet neighborhood. Just, you know, see the dogs walking by with their owners and. Yeah, just peaceful.

How close is T to you when you're walking?

He's inside of me. He's connected.

He's. He's in you. Okay.

He's walking with you not like, next. I'm not like, holding his hand. He's like, within me.

Oh, beautiful. And is there anything that you want to say to him? If you just sort of visualize him in that walk?

I would just say, you're safe, you're loved, you have nothing to worry about. You know, even if someone. Even if you feel like someone isn't trusting you or isn't believing you in this moment. I believe in you.

So. Good. No, just. Just one.

It's at all, you know, it's not a. And maybe, you know, I'm using the example of my girlfriend. It's not that she didn't believe me or not, but it's like.

Which just triggered it.

Yeah, it's just like. And maybe she did believe in me, but I just felt like she's not going to if I don't do this or something more of a perceived feeling than an actual truth. Maybe sometimes. Or not.

Yeah. So now we have this process of retrieval where when you notice that he's there, instead of getting in the loop, as you referred to, which it literally is, a neural loop, what if you could take him for a walk?

Yeah, literally. I started last. I was like, I'm just. I might just need a pause, you know, Let me just go take a pause.

That's right.

Nothing against this conversation.

You could, you could literally take him for a walk. You could visualize taking him for a walk.

Yeah, and I do that with. I do other exercises with the little Lewis inside of me. You know, I showed you on my phone. I still have a photo of my 5 or 6 year old self. And so I do practices on a daily basis where I'm just like, I got you.

You clearly do.

I do it all the time.

Because you. What? You have. Okay, so let me tell you what you've got going on, man.

You are, you're.

You've. You're such a testament to your listeners and viewers of someone who has done such deep transformational work. It's so profound, it almost made me cry.

Thanks.

You have a direct line of access from self energy, the compassion, courageous, caring, undamaged adult part of you has a direct line of access to him, to the little boy. Now, listen, not everybody can even go to the little boy because the little boy was in exile part. Right. Okay. And I was just trying to talk. I remember I kept trying to be like, well, where is it? Is it protection? It's like, no, you went right to him. Okay. And so you've already done so much work in your therapy of retrieving him, bringing him into your workouts, bringing him into your phone, all these things. And so he's very intertwined, and he's very much so. Has direct access to you and to self, and self has direct access to him. But in those capital.

Self.

That's right. And that's why we were so easy to get there. But there's still more work to do. The child. The triggers are gonna. So there's still a trigger that you even were so aware of that you brought it to from the get go. And that trigger, when it gets activated, gets into a protector part, which is defending myself. Defensive. That was. I didn't want to say it for you, but that's the word. So defensive. And that makes a lot of sense because it's likely you were not believed as a child. Right?

Yeah.

And that is a horrific, horrific thing.

Which, I mean, there's so much emotions around it because it's like, you know, a lot of it's all parental stuff. Right. Parents and then siblings and then peers, you know, kids and all that stuff. And it's like I was able to process a lot of this healing work in the last two weeks when my father died as well, to kind of go back and have conversations with my father, you know, it's like. And you know, and also be grateful for the transformational. It was kind of when I was 13, he started to transform emotionally to where we had a different relationship. Before then, I didn't feel like I was believed by either him or my parent, you know, even my parents.

Yeah.

Whether it was true or not, that was my perception totally. They may have, but I didn't feel it. Right.

So that little boy, while he's had so much work and so much love and so much care and therapy and so much care from Martha and so much care from Adult Resource. Louis is. Still. Has still got some, you know, some. Some unresolved suffering, and it may go even deeper. And so for now, just you. The next step would just be focus on giving him direct access to self.

Yeah.

Whenever you notice him, get curious.

Yeah.

Oh, little Louis. What do you need right now, man? How are you doing? Like, notice what you notice about him and the physical sensations. Ask him if he's aware of your presence.

That's good.

And then whenever possible, you can remove him from the situation. Take him for a walk. When a child is having a moment or a tantrum or feeling really out of control, what we do as conscious parents is we connect and then redirect, as Dan Siegel says, so Connect and then redirect. And then redirect, yeah.

Not just say, go to your room.

Or something or, or just be like, I'm gonna deal with this and just make Marta believe me. It's actually, hold on, Marta, I'm gonna take little Lewis for a walk. And so it's actually unbelievable. She's sitting in the room, everybody but, but, but really it's, it's transformational work. This is the work that my husband and I do. And it, it's life changing. When see each other as your child parts or in a protector part, then her self compassion, her capital S compassion can be a direct access for you.

Absolutely. And that's why I told her early on, I go, she's incredible because she just kind of allows me to. She's very peaceful and calm in those moments. She's like extremely spiritually advanced. And so she's able to just kind of listen and not make me wrong or judge me and kind of say, I hear you, I'm here for you. I got you.

She has a lot of self energy.

She calms it down. Even if I might go for a few more minutes, she's like, I hear, I don't want to say, I hear you. I've got, you know, and then I come on like, okay, I just need to take a break and then I can come talk to you.

That honestly is incredibly beautiful gift and.

Like saying you are bad or, you know, so it's, it's incredible.

She's in herself. She's sitting in the seat of self when you're activated.

She doesn't get trained.

And it's not always going to be like that. So the most important thing is, and not everybody's going to be a Marta in your life. You know, luckily the. One of the most intimate relationships is her. But there's going to be people at work that may not, you know, or situations where you get, you know, called out online or whatever happens, and you're going to be like, they don't believe me. And that's when we want to go right into direct access from self with a capital S right to little Lewis and take them for a walk.

Now here's the thing. You know, I started a healing journey of 30, not eight and a half, nine years ago of talking about the biggest shame that I faced, which was the sexual abuse when I was a kid. And that started unlocking a healing journey. As my therapist says, healing is not an event, it's a journey. It doesn't just like, oh, I have this awareness. I Feel good now that I released it. It's like a constant integration of exercises and practices.

My journey is right here.

Exactly. And so I. I thought I would. I was a lot better. I mean, I thought, like, okay, I figured this out because after, like, two years of talking about the abuse with, you know, friends, family therapists, and then opening up publicly. Not that I see. I don't suggest people do it publicly about their shame, but I feel like it was a responsibility for where I was at. I felt like, okay, I can talk about this, and it doesn't trigger me.

Right.

But I still hadn't healed things from intimate relationships.

Yeah.

And so the last year was really doing therapy every week.

Yeah.

Integrating the lessons, the healing that I was feeling. The tightness in my chest, my throat from intimacy.

Yeah.

And reconnecting with the little child in that part of my life.

100.

Not just sexual abuse, but now what's talking about relationships.

Yeah.

Parents stuff, everything else. And I feel like there's obviously going to be more, you know, that I'm uncovering, you know, every few years, probably.

Right.

Most people, number one, that I've interacted with don't. Aren't even aware of their traumas.

That's correct.

They're not even aware of that they have a broken bone in their body.

Or they've been running with a broken leg for decades. Yeah.

And they're not even aware.

Right.

They're just taking medicine or they're masking it or they have a cast on or whatever it is. And so I'm constantly doing the practice to be like, what else do I.

Need to be aware of?

What else do I need to be aware of? And then I'm holding myself accountable with therapy or friends or, you know, partners or things like that to be like, okay, where are my triggers? How can I keep growing? And then I'm trying to integrate the lessons I learn into a daily practice to. To heal and hopefully not have any triggers at all. Is the goal is to be triggerless or reactionless?

Yeah.

Be more. More responsive. You know, responding. For those that aren't aware, they're emotional traumas. And also those don't have tools in a healthy way to. To navigate those. What would be the process, would you say? Let's give it a framework.

Yeah.

It's healing trauma. Is there like a. If you could simplify nothing. But if it's like, there's four steps to healing trauma. Three step one, be aware. Two, like, because it's really hard to do it on your own.

So I'm going to read you the chapter titles, okay. Because this is the journey. This is my journey from recovering from trauma. In that process, I share many, many methods and tools that one can use immediately. And also introduce the therapeutic practices that changed and saved my life. And in introducing those practices, I actually give ways that you can do them in real time so that you can say, oh, this was really soothing for me, or I just listened to Gabby do some ifs with Lewis. I want to look further into ifs, but the journey looks to me like this. And then I think we all have our own individual journeys. But my hope in this book and the intention here is to help the reader, one, know that they're not alone, and two, know that there is a guided path from trauma to profound freedom and inner peace. There's no way I would put my face on that cover if I couldn't stand behind that. Okay, so here we go. So the first chapter one is Become Willing to Become free. Willing to become free means you can't even open this book if you don't have a desire to want to be free, to want to be free, to look more closely, to even just have a mustard seed of hope that there could be a better way.

How does someone start the willingness process?

Well, if they're still listening, they're willing.

You have a curiosity, you're willing.

If you're here, you're willing. And even if you tuned into this episode, you're willing. Because I'm sure there'll be trauma somewhere in the title or whatever you decide, but it'll be something that's going to be an acknowledgment. Yeah, there's something in that for me. Many, many, many more people are willing these days than ever before. I think that if I'd written this book five years ago, I'd have a half the audience that I have now. I mean, that's okay for this specific content. Chapter two is Become Brave Enough to Wonder. So in my case, I literally didn't remember and had to be brave enough to wonder what was there. And in other people's cases, they just have to maybe wonder. Not that they don't necessarily remember what happened to them, but to wonder what could be behind these triggers? What could be some feelings behind these triggers? What could be. I did a podcast with somebody the other day and she was like, I have. She's like, my co host has so much trauma and she's so open about it, and she's like, I have no trauma. Within five minutes, we were like, the neglectful father and the this and that, you know, like, it was just, like, instant. And everybody's got it.

Everybody's got it.

So you just have to become brave enough to wonder.

And it might be a little T, but becomes big T over time.

Oh, it's interesting. She's like, I guess I just have little T. Little T. And then she started to describe her story, and we were both like, that's big T trauma. So chapter three is why we run. So what is it? What is the reason that we're running? Why are we running and recognizing. Okay, we have this trigger. We have a feeling behind it, we have a reaction to it. And then what could it be?

Is it just so it's so painful for us to face it. That's why we run most of the time.

That's right.

It's just so hard for us to. What, Mentally, emotionally.

Underneath all of the unresolved traumas, big T, small T from our past, is the belief system that we are unlovable and inadequate. How. And we did not. You said beautifully that now little Louis has Big Lewis helping him process this stuff that he wished he'd had when he was little. But when we're young, we don't. And if we don't have a caretaker or a primary caretaker that has a secure attachment to us, helping us in those young moments to feel safe and seen and soothed and secure, as I talk about later, and I'll get into that, then we literally have to rely on the protectors. All those storylines that we built, the parts.

Yeah, yeah. The challenge is. I mean, how many parents have tools, are healthy in their own emotional.

So how do they.

How do you raise a kid who's healthy when so many people are struggling with their own challenges?

Read the book.

Yeah.

I'm so serious. Because then we get into. If you fast forward to chapter nine, it's about reparenting yourself. But so much of this book is. If you go through this book, you are. You will be a better parent. Yeah, without a shadow of a doubt. I mean, I've got a whole. I've got a chapter in here about hiding behind the body, that we have impermissible rage locked up in our back pain, in our headaches, in our gastrointestinal issues, in our insomnia, eczema. And I talk about the psychosomatic effects of the mental disturbances that have not been resolved and how they affect the body. And then speaking about shame and then going even further and ifs. And all of the somatic work that we can do. And then it carries on. So I take you through. This is the playbook. Yes, this is the playbook. And now one thing I'm really cautious of with the reader is not every chapter is going to be right for where someone is right now. For you, you could pick this up and be like, yeah, I could do all of that, or I've done half that, I'm going to do more. And, and for Martha at the same, could be somebody on the street, could be like, okay, I just have to read this right now and just take it in.

Yeah, I can't even get started.

I got to come back in a year to do the exercises now.

Okay. So once we're aware and once we have the willingness and we're starting to wonder and look at some of these things and we say, okay, here's two things from my past that I haven't been willing to tell. Friends, partners, husbands, wives, spouses, parents, like I've neglected to talk about these things. They're so shameful. I'm so afraid to talk about them. Let's say it's one thing, two things, whatever. What is the next step once you become aware of your trauma and you know there's something you want to heal? Is it. While there's a number of different therapeutic experiences you could go through, here's a few to try. Is it. Everyone does it differently. Some people more introspective and they do journaling prompts, Others need to speak to someone. Is there what are the best ways to heal and really integrate the healing? Because I think it's again, I don't think it's like I'm aware and I'm healed. It's like you got to integrate the practice and every time you're triggered, can you breathe and respond differently?

Integration is the word, actually. It's the word. And well, like I said, everyone's gonna resonate with different methods in this book that are appropriate for them at this time. You can trust your own internal system and intuitive force to know what's safe enough for you today. You'll feel it in your body. So for me, I wasn't going to be able to do the somatic experiencing the body based work until X period, like you know, two years ago. Because that was when I could feel safe enough in my own body and almost back in my body, like I would just departed my body and I was like back in my human body.

What somatic experiences? You mean like just body work or physical work?

So se which is somatic experiencing I write about in this Book it's invented by Peter Levine, is built on the premise that trauma is the inability to be present. And when we have deep rooted trauma, yes, it's activated in our thoughts at times, but primarily it's body based. So we have these triggers that then store the body.

The body keeps the score.

Yeah, correct. So they send these messages. These, these, these triggers send a message to the brain that says like fight, flight, freeze. And so what happens as a child is whatever you were unable to do, like in my case, let's say I needed to push someone off of me that became, I mean, I was not able to complete that, that full blown, you know, so fight flight. And then it froze, right? So if you freeze in time, that you're stuck, that energy gets truncated in your system and you become stuck in the neural loop of fight, flight. And then you get stuck and then fight, flight, stuck. And that repetition, repetition. And so the beautiful process of somatic experiencing is about no storyline, it's not about what happened, where were you? It's all about the body and going right into the body, Going right into the presence of the body and allowing the body to show you what it needs to do, do to fully reprocess the experience. And so in some cases it's very slow, right? So it could be like if you wanted to punch somebody, it's like a really, really slow movement. And I give. And this is body based work. So the practices that I give in that chapter are also things that you can do right now to start to ground your body. So a heart hold, like putting your right hand on your heart and your left hand on your belly and actually, interestingly, hugging yourself. Try this out. Put your right hand on your heart and your left hand and your belly. How does that feel?

It feels good.

Okay, switch hands. Left hand. Does that feel better or worse?

Different, because I'm used to putting my right hand over my heart.

So not as, not as soothing, not as natural. There you go. Okay, so it's important. I just learned this. I interviewed Dan Siegel and I was doing this and he's like, well, you put the right hand on your heart, but I did the left. And he's like, 70% of people put their right hand on their heart and they feel that safety. And the rest of the kind of do the left. So you have to check on which side's right for you. But the heart hold or a head hold. These practices are really profound for settling your nervous system. Breathing in for two strokes out one long stroke. If you're feeling overly Anxious and activated. So. Tapping eft, which you've talked about, tapping on the gamut point. So there's a point between your ring finger and your pinky finger. And if you're in that stressed out place and you're getting in the loop, tap, I am safe. And tap and just repeat, I am safe. I am safe. A power pose, like standing like Superman, you know, Superwoman, that can change your nervous system. So these practices are really body based practices for letting your system settle in the moment. And then of course, I say in the book, if you want to go further, find a somatic experience experiencing therapists. And here's how. And all of the methods that I was guided to for my recovery were all spiritual therapeutic practices. I can say this because I'm not in the clinical space, but I believe that they're all extraordinarily spiritual. The specific. So emdr, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, that's designed again to help you reprocess that loop.

So once we figure out which therapeutic experiences are best for us. Right. It's gonna be different for each one of us. What would you say? You know, can we fully heal something? Is it, how long does it take? You know, is it based on the trauma and how long we've said it's stored? Is there hope for people to say, I don't have this trigger for the rest of my life, I want to feel like, peaceful?

Well, let me ask you, when things.

Happen, I don't want to be reactive.

Let me ask you this in general, how do you feel?

Incredible.

Yeah?

Yeah, I feel good.

Me too.

Yeah. But I. For 25 years, I felt a lot of inner stress, you know, inner, inner conflict.

And so thank you to the 25 years for all that it offered you to get you to where you are now.

Right.

But you feel awesome.

Yeah.

So do I. So while it's been a good, committed devotional practice, we are living proof that there is a guided path from trauma to profound freedom and inner peace.

Absolutely.

We're living that. And it doesn't mean that we don't still have triggers. It doesn't mean that there isn't more of the crystal to shine. Does it mean that I still don't go to therapy every single week and sometimes twice a week, but because I want to continue to care for and honor and respect all of the parts of who I am.

Yeah. I mean, I come from the sports background, which, you know, and I'm a big fan of doing, having accountability for your goals. Right. If I'm talking with a sports background, it's like. And I know I can't do it alone in athletics.

Mm.

So why try to do it alone? In my emotional, you know, growth.

Totally.

My mental growth, my spiritual growth, I can do. I can go pretty far on my own, But I think it's just good to have the accountability for whatever that looks like for people. I'm not saying they need therapy every week or they need to invest in something, but it's good to have accountability, however you find it.

I agree.

I think it's really powerful.

It's one of the reasons that the 12 step program works so well. It's because of the fellowship. It's because you have a sponsor. It's because you have meetings. People are looking for you.

Where.

Where is that person today? You know, just got a text message from one of my friends who I've been sober. We've been sober for 16 years. He's been sober 17 years. And I was the first. First person I met in aa and he texted me today and he's like, check it in.

You still good?

Yeah, check it in.

How long were you in AA for?

I'm still in aa.

Really?

Yes.

So once you started, you never stop?

Some people stop.

So is that once a month? Is that once a week? What is that?

Well, really depends on who you are and what you need. Right. So I go to meetings now. You can go to Zoom meetings. I go to meetings in person sometimes, but mostly Zoom since. Since the pandemic, unfortunately. Right, right.

Is it hard for people who start AA to not need it anymore, or do you kind of like.

Well, I think that.

Can you transcend that?

I guess you can move into a different type of program. You can move into a different type of therapy. There's plenty of people, when they get long term sobriety, that they start to feel less resonant with some of the meetings and things. But it's suggested and I think recommended to stay close to it because you don't want to forget where you came from. I think everyone's path is different.

Sure.

I actually share a story in the book about sharing about. I believe and Gabor Mate would say this and other folks in this trauma.

I've been watching his stuff. I love his stuff.

He's incredible. Yeah.

I gotta interview him.

Yes, you do.

He looks amazing.

Yeah. What he would say is that. And I agree with this completely, is that trauma is the root cause of addiction.

That's what he says a lot.

100%. Couldn't. Couldn't agree more.

If you're not. Yeah. If you're not. You don't need addiction if you're not traumatized by something. Right. If you feel peace inside, why would you need to reach for some?

Correct. And we all have trauma, and so we all have reactive ways of acting. But the bigger the trauma, oftentimes, the bigger the coping mechanism, AKA the firefighter part.

Yes.

And that's an addiction. Right. So addiction is a way of. A huge way of putting out the fire. So.

So the root cause or the root of addiction is trauma or unresolved trauma.

It sounds like that's correct.

And so if you want to eliminate your addiction, your negative addictions, the key is to figure out where's the trauma and start healing that trauma.

Yeah, that would be the goal. But I noticed in my own, with a lot of sober people in my life that they all have had similar experiences to myself and to you and big T traumas. And even being clean and sober, it's still terrible. I mean, I was sober 11 years before I was ready to face into my big T trauma.

Interesting. Do you feel like if you would have faced it year one or two, do you think you would have.

I wouldn't have been able to. And I'll explain to you why. So I said to my therapist, when I remembered that trauma, why now? Why am I remembering this now? And she said, because you're safe enough to remember. You're. You're. And you've been enough therapy, you have enough spiritual foundation, you're safe enough support group.

You've got a good partnership.

Yeah, yeah.

Interesting.

That's right.

But if he's saying that the root of addiction is trauma, wouldn't we want to start going to the trauma first? But if you're saying if you don't feel safe enough to face it, it may take.

So that's. That's the point. So I think going to the trauma is so delicate and gentle, and it's like peeling back those layers of the onion. And anyone that's listening right now, still listening, because many people might have just been like, I'm so activated. You know, this is a lot for me. And they'll come back when? In a half a year or whatever, a year from now and listen again. But the bottom line is, is that we all have these traumas and we're running from them. And to go headfirst into them would be like ripping off the band aid or just being in the dark and all of a sudden walking into the brightest light. You've Ever seen, and it might blast you out. And that can happen. It does happen. People do remember when they're not ready to. And even when you are ready, it's terrifying to remember these things or accept things. But, yeah, you have to go slow.

Okay, so what about if someone is suffering? Do you feel like addiction is tied to suffering as well? Inner suffering. And so if we feel suffering or inner pain, then we reach onto these coping mechanisms we call protectors.

Yeah. Yeah. So I was in getting my nails done yesterday. They look really cool, right? Getting my nails done. And I was talking with the nail artist, and she was really lovely. And she said. She's like. I'm like, you're really relaxed. And she's like, yes, the building could be burning, and I would be fine. Like, I'd be like, okay, let's get out of the building. And then she said to me, the next sentence was, but I'm dying inside.

Wow.

And I said, oh, okay. So that numbed out person is your protector. Oh, like, oh, she's doing a good job. She's keeping you safe right now. And then I handed her a book. Yeah, Because. Yeah, because I always carry books around during my book lunch. I just recognized that everyone is suffering. Those of us who had the privilege of going to the places that scare us and coming out the other side and doing the deep work are suffering less because we've been through and continue to work on.

We have tools to get out of it quicker. Yeah.

And we actually have retrained our brains. So neuroplasticity shows that you can literally change your neural pathways. So you and I have the loop. You now are aware of the loop. Five years ago, you wouldn't even have known the loop was there. You know, they'll try to change me.

This is the way I am.

Exactly. It's who I am. You know, I'm gonna prove myself. Right. So we. And defend. But the more work you do, the more you change your brain and your nervous system and your reactivity and all the ways that you run. And so there's everyone's suffering, some less than others, primarily based on your willingness to go to the places that scare you.

Now, Martha was telling you before we jumped in this about, you know, I was doing pretty much weekly therapy and reconnecting to the inner child and a lot of different stuff. At the end of the year, my therapist gave me an exercise. She said, at the beginning of the year, she said, what is your intention? The first session I did with her. Love her for this session.

Right.

What's your intention from wanting this therapy, this experience, coaching. And I said, I want clarity, peace and freedom. And every time she asked me before our calls, what do you want? I say, clarity, peace and freedom. And at the end of the year, she's like, have you found this? I said, I became this.

Yeah.

I was like, I didn't find it. I didn't create it.

I became exactly right.

I integrated it, I became it. I am peace. I am clear. I am free. I haven't found it and grabbed it.

It's not something you have to find, it's something you have to release the blocks of the presence of.

And she said, great. I want you to do an exercise, you know, I want you to give yourself, you know, write in a card that you've created this, like you've become this. And put each one of those in a box, you know, tie a bow on it, and then open it up on Christmas morning to receive the gift that you're giving yourself.

So beautiful, right?

So it's this beautiful ritual. And then she said, also, I want you to. Martha was in on this conversation as well. So we both did this. She said, also, what's the gift you want to give yourself next year? Like, let's plant the seed for what you want to step into. Because this was a big year for you. You created these things, you became them. What's the gift for next year? And I thought about it for like a minute. I think I said one thing and she was like, I'm not sure if that's what it is. I was like, okay, I know what it is. It's ultimate courage. It's ultimate courage for just everything that now that I've created this foundation, it's like kind of stepping into more things, right? It's like, what. What have I been afraid of or maybe resistant to in the past? And now I'm going to step into with. With peace and clarity and with freedom and not feeling afraid, right? And so I did that ritual and that practice. And then, you know, the next week I was like, we should, you know, I was telling Martha, I was like, I think we should move in together. You know, which I would never do in the past. You know, I never was like curious about that. It was kind of a resistant. Waited as long as I could. So that was one thing that happened in the first month. And then my father passed away, which was like this 17 year journey of kind of wondering how long he would last and all these different things from his accident. And I remember I did a session with my therapist maybe two days after he passed. That was already planned on the schedule. And I was like, you know, I wanted this, but I didn't know it was going to happen this quickly.

Right.

You know, it's like, be careful what you want because the universe, like you said, will bring you things to, to see if you're actually going to step into that.

Right.

Like how you, how you respond to it. I'm curious based on. And I feel like it's been a, a beautiful journey, sadness and grief, but also like awareness of the beauty from these experiences.

Right.

My father passing, mostly I'm curious with what happened in your life, losing your child recently, what was that? How have you been able to practice and integrate the lessons you've learned through the journey of something you're just very sad to go through.

Yeah.

A big loss for you and your family.

Yeah. Well, first I'll say that I think that having been through and come out the other side on so many different benchmarks throughout my journey gave me the felt sense and the energy of knowing that that's possible.

To get through it.

To get through it. Correct.

It's just gotta be.

Yeah. So just for the listener that's not aware, I was pregnant three and a half months ago. Five and I was five and a half months pregnant three months ago. And I'd worked a year with ivf. And I say worked, it was work daily, daily grind. Right. It's a lot. And I did nine IVF treatments to get one healthy embryo. And we kept saying, all you need is one, all you need is one.

Oh my gosh.

And my son, Owen was his name, was in my body for five and a half months until my 20 week scan when I found out that he was still alive. But he was not growing because my placenta wasn't giving him what he needed. And so I had to do a dne, which is an abortion, pretty much in heaven.

Oh my gosh.

Have him. Yeah. I mean, that was horrific. And the days following, really, it was the lead up, it was the most horrific that I still have a lot of PTSD that I've. Wait, you mean the weight carrying a baby in you that's alive? Yeah. And then once everything was complete and I went home to my 3 year old, beautiful, amazing son and I had my little kitten on the way. Right. I was like in the hospital talking to the cat guy, being like, get.

Me that cat now.

And so I came home and very quickly. It was beautiful to witness all my work right there, all my personal growth work and spiritual work right there in place for me. Like this soft pillow I landed into. And there was my ifs. And it was like, oh, okay. My girlfriends would be like, why aren't you feeling more things? Shouldn't you just be upset right now? And I was like, no. I have a dissociation part that's doing a beautiful job keeping me safe right now. I don't want her to stay there forever, but right now she's doing a great. She's kicking. Okay. So I was checked out for a little bit, and then I would dip into it and check out and dip in. But I was aware of that. I didn't get to stuck in that dissociation. And then there was this faith part that is so much stronger than my fear from 20 years of spiritual development. And I just know in my heart that this soul came to me in this way at this time to experience what it's like to be with me and my body and to feel loved by me. And then that was enough for him. And I have faith that the soul will come back or can come back in a different form, different than I expected. I believe. I've always believed that we have spirit babies, and our spirit babies choose to come into our life at the divine time for them and for us. And sometimes they come to teach us lessons, and sometimes they come to just experience the love in our system or to experience what it's like to be in a body. And then they want to go. And I'm glad that I could facilitate that for him. And I feel. And I asked him for a sign, which was a blue butterfly to show me he's around. And the first thing I sat when I walked in the door with Marta's phone screen is a blue butterfly.

Oh, my gosh.

And there's blue butterflies all in my life, everywhere. So that's. Yeah, that's my sign for my son. And I do believe that an angel incarnated into my kitten, because that really helps. And having my profound child, Oliver, who is, you know, holding me, just providing me with the most incredible opportunities every single day to just be the best version of myself for him.

Where do you feel like you're at in the process? Do you feel like you're, you know.

Well, you know, it was interesting. For decades, I've had this experience of counseling women and men, but particularly women, through this type of grief. And I realized when it happened to.

Me, like you would coach other people when they would have to abort it, lose a baby.

Countless. I mean, at least in One person in every office audience, you know, women struggling to conceive, women struggling with fertility, but mainly miscarriage or loss or full term loss. Just horrific stories. Two of my longtime coaching clients, two of them that were. I mean, I used to coach 2016, 15 years ago, but two young women that I coached both lost babies full term. And so this. What I. The first phone calls I made was to them, and I just was like, remind me what I said to you.

Oh, wow.

And the truth is, is that I really looked at the grief counseling that I had offered these women, even having not experienced it, and it was spiritual counseling, and said to myself, wow, this is what you've been training for. I knew it was true. I knew it worked, but I now is really living it. And it was really profound to just be the witness of how strong my faith is and how strong my center is and how. And how I am so resilient and also so vulnerable too, and willing to just continue the journey of grief in its natural order, not force it, not forcing.

Like, what's been the biggest lesson? I mean, it's only been a few months. It's still so recent. But what's been the biggest lesson for you with taking on the grieving process that you've been teaching for others and just experiencing it all mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. I mean, it's a big physical transformation, obviously.

Yeah, that was tough. That's tough being 20 pounds overweight and not having your baby there. Right? Well, some of it has been really understanding that a journey, a path through grief could look like titrating in and out of the feeling so that you could be completely fine and normal and dissociated, or just in happy in the moment and then feel into it and then be doing great. And then I did a podcast the other day and a woman shared her story with me. It was just, you know, and then. But it was beautiful. And we were able to hold each other in that same experience and to just be able to dip in and dip out. But the biggest upper, the biggest opportunity is for me to see how my faith is so much stronger than my disbelief. It's, it's. And my fear. I have such a strong certainty that this happened exactly as it was meant to and that there's something else coming.

How do people get to that place, though, that maybe haven't had the training or the coaching or the, you know, well, you know, place of certainty and a belief and not living in fear about anything, not just of, like, it's.

Really my life's Work. Truly, my book, the Universe has yous Back is transform fear to faith. This whole book, Happy Days, is all about reclaiming that serenity that you were just speaking of. And I've always loved this quote from A Course in Miracles. I'm not here to teach you the meaning of love. I'm here to teach you how to release the blocks to the presence of love. And so we all have that core sense of self with a capital S. We have that love, that compassion, that courage in all of us. We just have built up so many walls against it. And the more we tap into books like this, listen to podcasts like yours, the more we go into therapy, the more we spend time in spiritual settings or in therapeutic processes, the closer we get to that presence of self within. And that's the answer. That is the straight up answer. Nothing outside of us is going to be the source of our safety or security or happiness or worthiness. It has to be something that is restored within ourselves. And it's a process. And that's literally why I wrote this book. Because, Louis, I care so much about this reader. I was having a call with my therapist, and. And she's like, you know, you're working so hard and you're back to back. And I said, you know, I've never felt more on mission than I do right now because I think about how much suffering I've experienced in my life and how committed and courageous I've been to come through.

Yeah.

And I just want to be a power of example for every human that wants to heal, to know that that's possible for them. And I'm so. If I spend six hours in the ISO booth recording podcasts, it's for a reason. It's not about some credential. It's about making sure that whoever needs this is going to hear about it.

What do you think your life's going to be at a year from now? From all the things you're going to go through and the process of grieving and growth and learning and service, where do you think it'll be? I guess is tomorrow 22222. Where will you be? I guess, you know, a year from.

That date, you think two 22, 23.

Yeah. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, you know, where do.

You think you'll be? So I guess I would say I'm just continuing to shine the crystals. So I would hope that the steadiness I feel now is just even more magnified and my ability to witness my triggers and smoothly transition and take my little girl to the bedroom and cuddle with her just is faster and quicker. And that direct line access to self is stronger and just more and more developed. I want to continue to educate myself. I want to get. I want to go further and potentially even see if I can get some credentials at some point. Really not really about the credentials, but just go do deeper training, therapeutic trainings.

Yeah, that's cool.

And just to really give my. I mean, I definitely want to go as far as I can with all the ifs training. And most importantly, you know, somebody said to me, like, oh, okay, what's next for Gabby Bernstein? And I said, what's next is next week. I can't wait to see my book in the hands of all these people and just witness their transformations and see them have the experiences. And, you know, so many people throughout my career have written to me and said, oh, this book changed my life, or this book changed my life. And I always say, I didn't change your life. The book didn't change. You changed your life. Like I told you a story, you did the practice, you changed your life. And so I've always felt that so strongly. And now more than ever, I feel this sense of urgency that this is so necessary. This is like, required curriculum to be living in the human condition, whether it's my book or somebody else and Bessel Van der Kolk or your book or whatever it is that you find that's your path to recovery, of whatever that means to you. And what's next for Gabby Bernstein is right now, tomorrow, witnessing people hold the book in their hands.

Yeah. I'll never experience labor or childbirth or anything like that. But I'm curious, what has been a powerful spiritual practice for you since over the last three months? Are you able to have conversations with your child's soul? Is there something you hope other moms could do if they go through this experience that you really recommend? It's been helpful for you because I don't know statistics of miscarriages or things like that, but.

Oh, they're insane. Like, it's like 80% of people have, like, have some kind of. Really? Yeah.

Do you feel like it's. I mean, I don't know, do you feel like it's possible to have a spiritual conversation with the child once the child is no longer physically there?

Is it.

Because I'm not sure if moms do that or not, or if they just kind of, like, move on to the next.

Really depends on where you're at. Yeah. Sometimes the safest thing for somebody to do is just Move forward or get, you know, get pregnant again. And that's. That's totally understandable.

Are you having conversations?

Yeah. So I hear spirit guide. I have spirit guides, and we all do. I believe, and I can hear that presence and I can feel that guidance. And I also know that my guides work through people and friends. And I was kind of. I have. Right when I lost Owen, I had this immediate psychic knowing that there was another soul, that the same soul was coming back. And then, as I mentioned to you, it was. I kind of really overly reiterated by every psychic in my life. And so that sense of knowing was so strong, and then it was really reinforced for me. And there's a path forward that doesn't. It doesn't require that much of my body, but it's a path forward to this child potentially coming through. And I wasn't really, like, taking the actions on it. Like, I like, kind of took an action, like, made a phone call to the doctor, and then just like, they're like, oh, he'll get back to you in January. They never got back to me. I was responsible, just, like, hanging out. And then out of the blue, I got. It's the same doctor that my friend used for her son with ivf. And ultimately she did a donor egg. And how has this most incredible child ever with her husband? So she loves this doctor. And she just texted me out of the blue and she said, listen, I just texted the doctor and asked him to fast track you forward. And I was just like, that is my baby in action? I was not sure. I was overwhelmed. I was feeling, should I do this? Do I want to do? You know, it was just a lot to go through. And so then God will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. And God works through people. And my spirit baby works through people. And he was like, jamie, knock, knock, knock. You know, get this going.

Wow.

And she said, yeah, no, I know. Wow.

Well, one of my. One of my triggers is I laugh when things are really sad.

Yeah, no, I do the same thing. I do the same thing.

I'm just like, this is heavy stuff, but I think it's important for us to all look at because heavy things are going to happen to all of us. You know, we're not getting out of here alive. No one's getting out alive. Like, there are things. Just sad things are going to happen. And I think it's prepare ourselves for.

Yeah.

Staying peaceful.

That's a nice point. Right? So it's like doing a. Let's say you're not having an acute crisis. Someone's an acute crisis right now is like, that's my book. I want to read that book right now. Someone that's just like, oh, like, I'm doing some things I don't like to do. Read the book now. Because it's.

Prepare yourself.

Yeah. It's setting the foundation for a steadier system and the resilience. It's creating a life of resilience so that no matter what you face, whatever it might be, you can really be present and move through things with grace.

Absolutely.

Grieve with grace. And the thing I really want to mention, Louis, is that while we talked about something, such deep stuff, and it's. We only go to big talk here with you, and it may feel like, oh, you know, that's a lot. You can have a lot of fun along the way, and you and I can both really speak to that. We've done the past 20 years, 25 years. We've been working on ourselves really diligently with a lot of devotion, but we've had a lot of fun along the way, and we've had so much, so many miracles. And someone once said to me, how do I live a miraculous life? I just said, add up the miracle moments. So all those miraculous moments of relief, when you add them up, become a life of relief.

Yeah.

I want to ask a couple more things, and we'll finish up here in a second. If someone is not willing to face their trauma, can they truly live an abundant manifesting life? If there's stored traumas, there's defensive guards, or you're able to accomplish, accumulate, achieve, but still feel a lack of inner peace if you're not willing to do the deeper work.

That's correct.

So you can manifest and accomplish, but then it's still gonna feel like something's missing.

Correct. And so you can manifest a lot. You can work your off and produce to a certain level, and you can attract, you know, attract a partner, but there. But there won't be a sense of worthiness still. You won't believe you're worthy of what you attracted, or you won't be able to keep it, or you'll sabotage, or you'll keep looking for more. So it can never be our happiness, can never be something that we get. It has to be someone that we are.

Ooh.

Yeah.

So up until three years ago, I guess, for you, because you were, you know, number one New York time bestseller, back to back to back, and building this massive business, and you've got a great, you know, marriage and Newborn son at the time, did you feel like you were able to. And you were the manifestor. You know, you're like the attraction manifestor, teacher. And you were doing it for yourself. But did you feel like you weren't. Something was still missing?

Well, I think that there is definitely periods in my early career where I was manifesting a lot, but I wasn't, wasn't. I was holding it and manifesting it because career wise it was all in the pursuit of good. But these other parts of my life were just like totally falling apart really. So in my career I always believed and I always had complete full freedom because I knew I was on a mission.

You were on mission based?

Yeah, I was. Full service and love and have continued to be. And so my career's never been. It's just you think it and it will be and that what parts of your life were kind of upside down was dramatically struggling. And my intimate relationships with friends and my. My prior to my husband, but with my husband and you know, just relationships were a struggle. Not so much. Not so much like he and I, but. But my ability to really enjoy what I had manifested. Yeah. And the. And even the struggle to conceive. And there's just a lot of things I wanted in my life that were not coming easily because there was more that I needed to heal.

You had some blocks or some traumas in that area. And so those things were more difficult to manifest.

And if they did manifest, they. Yes, they were difficult to manifest. And I believe that one will block the manifestation if we're not in an energetic alignment with it. Or we will get it and not be able to believe we're worthy of it and look for more to sabotage it. Exactly.

How do we get into energetic alignment of something we want?

Do the inner work. Yeah, it's all about the inner work. Listen, I wrote a book called Super Attractor and it's the methods for manifesting a life beyond your wildest dreams. But what is that book really? It's a book on how to feel good.

That's it.

It's a book on how to feel good.

Foundation of gratitude, appreciation, acknowledging yourself, loving yourself. In order to attract.

In every single one of my books, no matter how forward facing the promise of manifestation may be, are all books on personal development. Because if. Because spiritual development is personal development. The closer we get to that self energy, the more spiritual we are. Because we start to be able to dissolve all boundaries with the presence of that spiritual self. Absolutely. Energy.

Yeah. I want people to get the book. Happy days the guided path from trauma to profound freedom and inner peace. This is just some of the journey that I've been on the last few years that I think is helpful for everyone. I think inner peace is the. The ultimate key. You don't get to inner peace without facing the trauma, the hurt, the pain, the sadness, the resentment, the angers, the frustrations, the. Whatever it is, feelings you have about yourself, others, the world. You've got to find a way to heal and process.

Yeah.

In order to get to that place of inner peace. And I think that is the game we should all be on, figuring out how to find inner freedom, inner peace, no matter what circumstances are happening on the outside, because they're going to keep happening.

I find it fascinating that your therapist said, what are the gifts that you want to receive? And two of them were peace and freedom.

Yeah. Clarity was the other.

That was my mantra as well.

Yeah. Peace and freedom. Because I didn't feel peace. I felt peace and freedom in certain areas of my life, but not an intimacy. And so it was, how do I get. You know, why? And I'm the common denominator of all these relationships. Breaking down in some way and choosing in a certain way and attracting a.

Certain type of person.

Exactly.

So, yeah.

I don't blame anyone else. I've taken responsibility of me being the one at the center of all those choices.

And all that beautiful 25 years of work.

Yeah.

Has gotten you to a place of just profound grace. Yeah. And look what you attract.

I know. It happened fast, too. I remember when we did the interview with you, you were like, lewis, now you're like the most eligible counselor or something.

I was like the most eligible.

He's like, about that.

You know, I'm actually dating someone now, but.

Yeah, that was your outing moment.

Yeah. Well, I'm so. I'm super grateful for you. I appreciate you. I think this book is. Is very needed, so I want everyone to get a copy for yourself and a friend. Happy days are, are here and are coming. If you're willing to do the work. That's what it is. It's willing to do the work.

Do you want to know why I named it Happy Days?

Sure.

So I. When I was a kid, we would sit around the table and raise our glass. Instead of saying cheers, my family would say, happy days. And in retrospect, I really wasn't happy then. And now sitting here with you, with our. With our lights, camera, action, I am happy. Truly, truly happy.

That's good.

And, and. And living. Happy days. Happy days.

Beautiful. It's beautiful. I want to acknowledge you, Gabby, for the constant work. I think I've known you for 12 years. I remember a time when you were dating your husband. Now, but you guys were dating. I saw you. I think I met you once before, but I saw you. I think it was off of Houston and, like, Lower east side, where I live.

Yep.

There was a. There was, like, some music event, and you were at. And you were in the stairwell, and I saw you. You probably don't remember this, but you were with your husband, your boyfriend at the time. And, you know, I was going through all my own stuff. You were going through stuff. And I. And I was just like. I remember was like, I really hope a lot of good things happen to this person.

Oh, wow.

Because I knew you were doing so much good work then this must have been 2010, like, 12 years ago. So I've known you for at least 12 years, and it's been a beautiful journey to. You know, you've been so helpful for me and supportive of my growth and there for me in a lot of ways, emotionally and spiritually and just, you know, I wish we could spend more time together, but, you know, whenever we catch up, it's always a beautiful. So I acknowledge you for constantly doing the work because you've been teaching this stuff for so long, but going through what you've gone through, I don't even know what that feels like. And so I acknowledge you for the challenges you've had to face, the loss, the sadness, the. But also the profound wisdom and grace that has come from the adversities and your willingness and ability to keep teaching in a graceful way, which I think is really challenging when we go through hard times.

Yeah.

So I acknowledge you for constantly showing up. It's beautiful.

Right back at you.

Yeah.

I appreciate you. I've asked you this question, these last two questions a few times, but I'm curious where you're at now. So this is called the Three Truths. If you could only share three lessons with the world and all of your work was gone, for whatever reason, all your books were eliminated, and this was your last day on earth, and you could only share three lessons with the world, this is all we would have to remember your information. What would those three Truths be for you?

Everything you're looking for. You have. Trust in the presence of love and courage and grace within yourself. And focus on the good stuff.

Yeah, of course.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

I know. The book is so powerful. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

Freedom. And inner peace.

Yes.

Gabby Bernstein, thank you so much. If you got value from that, then go ahead and stick around for more. Coming up right now.

Now, how do we get back into manifestation mode when we have zero control in our life?

We have to use the circumstances that we're living in as an opportunity to go further in our own personal development. What does that period? Let me unpack this. For you to truly manifest means that you feel good. Feeling good means your energy's free, you're inspired, you are receptive, and therefore attracting towards you what you desire. So if we're in a place now where we feel like we're out of control, we're trying to get control, we're in the opposite of that manifestation state, which I refer to as being a super attractor. We're no longer connected to that power. So the way back to that power is to put our personal growth first to get back, not go out and try to force anything or do anything out there to find control, but to turn inward to go deeper and identify what's unresolved, work out what needs to be healed, bring forth to the surface the truth of what's up so that we can show up for it and get back to a baseline of feeling safe, a baseline of feeling joy, a baseline of connection. Rather than thinking that I have to go get control over something, we have to return to who we are. That's a lot of language. But I can further that too.

And what happens when we try to control our environments on the outer world? People on the outer world schedule, food, working out, whatever it may be. When we try to control everything on the outside, but we're constantly in trigger mode, things affect us so deeply. What's happening on the outside, internally.

Will.

That give us a sense of control? If we have everything under control, but we're still triggered by everything.

So when we're triggered, we try to find control because it's a way of staying safe. Being triggered in any form is really just an activation of a sense of being unsafe. So what we're going to do in that moment is go try to control our relationship or go try to control our food or go do something to feel safe. And that also can come in the form of addictive behavior like overeating or drinking too much to anesthetize and numb out that feeling of being unsafe. That feels feeling of being activated and triggered in a wound, in a place of fear. Ultimately, so what, what we want to really begin to recognize is the reasons that we get triggered and then find tools Self soothing tools, self help methods, breath practices for self regulation, regulating our own nervous system or our energy, our field in those moments so that we don't live from trigger to trigger to.

Trigger to trigger to trigger.

During COVID man, I mean the whole world has been triggered. So we've been, we've been in this, this constant state of hyper arousal, fight, flight, freeze, reactivity. And I said very early on, I said this in March of 2020, there's two ways you can show up for this. You can numb out and drink and use and anesthetize yourself in whatever way you do. Or you can show up. And when I say show up, show up for yourself. Show up for the unresolved parts of yourself. Show up for the painful stuff, show up in your therapy, show up on a show like this, show up in a self help book. Show up through a 30 day contemplative practice, whatever it is that you are guided to, to actually take action with it. So we had two choices and we.

Still have that choice.

Even if it's been a year of numbing out. You can choose again right now.

Yeah.

What's been the biggest internal trigger for you that still affects you today? That you haven't fully gotten over the hump or, or do you feel like you've kind of mastered that part of your life?

I am in the mastery process, but I think that I will be for the rest of my life in mastery. But I'm really, really a year ago now, a year ago today, I was in a much more triggered state than I am. Fast forward 12 months a little more because like everyone else, Covid activated unresolved parts of me. Feelings of feeling out of control. That's a big one for me. Feel like, like you said, feeling out of control, feeling unsafe, feeling not cared for, feeling like I have to do everything. So while I've spent the year really, really like, like in full blown recovery mode, like saying, hey, I see this head on the you know what? Hit the fan. I'm gonna, I'm gonna show up now. I've shown up with every ounce of my being and have really come out the other side. But to your point, it's still there. So it's not that I'm completely healed and I have no triggers. The difference is, is that I' those triggers. I said to my executive team today, said, listen guys, I said to our HR director, I would like you to go. We've been doing a lot of educating ourselves on how we want to have our company structure and team communication and I was like the exec team, which is our CEO, and our CEO and myself were kind of in our old habits, but our. Our energy isn't there anymore. Like we're not that person, those people anymore. But we were still falling into these old habits. So can you help us create the structure through which we can have boundaries and proper communication so that we can step into the new patterns of who we are? So some of it is that, you know, we have to catch up with our own growth, in a sense. And I think I've seen that personally and professionally. So it's.

It's fascinating.

When you make a commitment to your inner life, what can change and then the. The discomfort along the way, too.

Right.

What would you say is the.

What's been the biggest trigger for you in general in your life?

Feeling.

Inadequate and unlovable, really? That's the feeling. What triggers that feeling is feeling out of control, feeling like people aren't showing up for me. Because the thing is.

And when people don't show up for you or you don't feel like they're.

Showing up for you the way that.

You want them to, I feel inadequate and unlovable. I.

Even though they might be showing up for you fully in their capacity, if.

You don't feel, I do everything, no one can take care of me.

Wow. Yeah. How. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that. So how does someone. How do you learn to overcome that on a daily basis when that's been so embedded for so long?

One of the tools I've been using and studying and I plan to get trained in is IFS therapy, Internal family systems, founded by a new friend of mine called Dick Schwartz, who I will introduce you to because I'd like for you to have him on the show. I'm his new pro bono publicist.

But he. He. He's.

He's truly an amazing man. And he's created a system that is one of the most profound therapeutic systems for any human, but especially those of.

Us who have had trauma.

And. And the internal family system, simply put, is the belief system that we have many different parts of who we are, and we have these protector parts that protect these inner child parts like that he refers to as exiles. And so the inner child part is I'm inadequate, I'm unlovable. And the protector part is whenever that. That inadequacy or that fear of not being good enough or not being cared for shows up, the protector part is I'm going to control everything around me. So that's the part I call the controller.

Right.

Another one of my protector parts is knives out. Right. So that's part of me that's like if you mess with me, the knives are out.

Right, Right.

And another protector part could be for somebody even even numbing out could be a protector part. Right. Or, or drinking or addiction can be an extreme protector parts. So there's no bad parts, as Dick says. But the work is to really get to a deep connection with is what. What ifs refers to as self energy. Self could be considered in my words, source, inner guidance system, the universe, God, the part of you, the all knowing, loving, caring, parental part of you. Really the part of you that can care for those, those more extreme parts. Does that make sense?

Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah.

It's a pretty dense idea and it's quite the opposite of what we've been brought up to believe in. But I'm very clear that one of my intentions, because I've been practicing IFS for 8 years with my therapist and it has had a profound impact on my well being and my experience of other humans and my ability to witness people with compassion. Even people who are really in bad, bad ways or people who have done harmful things, but to see them with compassion, because I can see them in all of their parts.

Right. And when someone's being aggressive or angry or in knives out mode or addiction mode, when you can see it in yourself, you can see it in other people. And when you can have compassion in yourself and the way you've been now or in the past, then you can start to look at other people and say, want to agree with this? But I'm not going to scream at them and yell at them or get angry at them, But I can have compassion and learn to communicate in a way that they could connect with and resonate in this moment.

I love that you just nailed that so perfectly. Which is what is your gift?

Because you just said you.

When you see it in yourself, you can see it in other people.

Yeah.

That is such an important point to make because when we start to do our own personal growth work, one of the greatest benefits, one of the greatest gifts is that we start to have a greater sense of compassion for others because we recognize that we're all suffering.

Wow.

If I can suffer that much, then I can't imagine what that person's going through. We are all in this together.

Judgment's been something that I've been working with a lot with myself and other people, especially during the last year where politics and cancel culture and right and Wrong communication is constantly being talked about on social media and I've constantly tried to check myself and say, okay, I don't agree with this, but I don't need to judge this person for their beliefs or where they're at. And when I come from a place of non judgment, when what's happening in the world, I feel more at peace. When I'm judging, I feel lower sense of energy, I feel angry. I fixate on something like a dog trying to get a bone. As opposed to thinking more abundance and thinking about my vision, I'm focused more on right and wrong. I love your book about having a detox from judgments. And I'm curious, where do you still judge the most today in your life? Whether it be with yourself, the world, your environment, where is today prevalent for you, even though you're the expert in this? Sometimes the people that write the things that they need the most. So what's the, what's the part that's for you?

Oh yeah, man, listen, I, I wrote a book called Judgment Detox. It's very brave to put your face on the COVID of a book with that title. Because you know, whenever I'm caught out.

Judging a friend or they look at me like, isn't that the girl? Judgment Detox, right? Like, what the hell is she saying?

Just yesterday I had a, I was faced with a very big moment of is this my opportunity to be radically honest? Because I'm trying to practice radical honesty and not judgmental. But how can I be nonjudgmental in my assessment of this radical honest moment?

That's tricky.

It was because the friend that I was in this dialogue with was, she's like, I just feel so judged by you. And in my head I'm like, and my radical honesty part said, I am really judging you. But this is why. And when I got into the why. The why is backed with data. The why is backed with concern for others. The why is backed with overarching care for the world. So I felt really grounded in the why. And when you, when you practice radical honesty and you tell someone the truth, the biggest way that it is the most effective is to say it from a non judgmental place to say so.

So how could you cue that up? If you don't like something about your partner or your family member, a friend, a co worker, what can you say to them in a non judgmental way?

Honesty.

Here's how I would have liked to have said it to her.

I was still heated when I said it. So it came out as judgment she.

Was, wasn't wrong about that. But I would have liked to have said to her, by the way, just I want you to see the slippers that I'm wearing right now.

I love it.

Party on the top, slippers on the bottom. So I would have liked to have said to her, I have no intention of changing you. I welcome you to tell me whatever it is that you need to say. I just want to be able to tell you the truth first, and then you have every right to tell me exactly how you feel. I want to be honest with you so that I don't hold on to it and so that we can clear the air. And it's important for me to let you know my opinion about this matter. So here it is. And then when expressing it, speak about it honestly. And then using nonviolent communication, which would really imply, I feel, I'm noticing this, it makes me feel this way. I think a resolution could be this.

How about that?

And just coming at it from a place of human to human connection rather than trigger to trigger. So if I could do it over, I would have done it that way. Maybe she'll watch this.

Exactly.

I'll send it to her.

And why do you think most people are blocking themselves in general from having what they want? Whether it be the relationship or the financial abundance or the peace that they want, internal peace. What's the main blocker? Is it judgment? Is it anger and frustration? Is it their childhood traumas? What's the main thing?

It's.

It's all of the above.

But it, but it.

But the root cause of our blocks is unresolved programmed belief systems about ourselves that we repurpose and replay and project onto the future every single waking moment of the day. In every area. When I say every area, every. There may be some areas of your life where that belief system doesn't have a hold on you. Whereas let's say maybe your, your finances are, are flowing, everything's cool, you do great at work, but in your relationships you're just blocked. Like it's just constant. So these unresolved areas have a root cause condition that have tentacles. And it can be in all areas or it can be in some areas or can be in a specific area. And the, the blocks are the result of a energetic disturbance that is on repeat. The way out of that, the way to get unstuck is to change our internal nervous system, our belief systems, and all the energy that's wrapped up around that. That's not easy. Yeah, you're gonna say, how do you do that?

Well, I mean, say someone listening is 30, 40, 50 years old and they've.

Had a belief for that, you know, for decades of their life. Is it as easy as being aware and conscious and the belief shifting in a moment, or do things really take a long time to shift a belief?

I think I believe in quantum shifts, but I do believe that quantum shifts often come with a lot of practice and discovery.

Yeah, it's like you spend years of working on it and then all of a sudden it works.

It was funny, I was talking, when.

I was talking to Dick Schwartz, the.

Founder of ifs, I said to him.

I said, you know, Dick, it feels like it's been 10 years of hard work for overnight relationship to self, you know, and he's like, yeah, I've heard that before. Because that there was this, you know, I had been in IFS therapy for eight years. Eight years, eight years. And then all of a sudden, one day, it clicked.

I was like, oh, my God.

My internal resourced self can care for the controller and can care for the little girl and can really navigate the system internally and get those parts out of their extreme roles. And she can be so loving and compassionate, and she's not always going to be there, but she's going to be there more often than not. Holy crap. That was eight years in therapy doing IFS, and then over 15 years of hardcore recovery. So it isn't that. But here's the good news. We may not have that click, aha. Moment overnight, but we have to recognize that every moment of relief along the way is a miracle. The more we add up those moments of relief, the more we live a miraculous life. So the idea that growth is hard and we have to do so much and it's so heavy, we can unpack that by really witnessing that. We can have fun along the way. Yeah, you can celebrate the small wins, you can enjoy the moments of relief. You can even enjoy the process of personal growth. Which sounds insane, but I do.

No, yesterday, I feel like the last few months have been emotionally challenging. Ups and downs, ups and downs. I haven't felt the sense of, like, stable emotions with certain people in my life. And I've been like, man, can I just have one day where it's not, you know, wondering what's going to happen next? And yesterday was that day where I was like, man, this is a peaceful day. And even though I don't feel like I've had a lot of peace consistently for the last few months, I was like, I can really appreciate the full Day I can journal. I get to journal about this and reflect back, like, what was happening and how can I do that one more day? How can I do that one more day in my life and not think.

About the rest of my life?

But just today, what can I do to show up for myself, for peace, for my environment, for the people in my life, and continue to be in progress, like you said, and continue to work on it? And it's a beautiful thing when we can, I guess, reflect on those moment to moments and build the miracle over time.

It's not going to happen overnight, but.

It'S like build it over time like you said. Is there an exercise or process you have about evaluating our beliefs and figuring out which ones truly support us and which ones are tearing us down and then how to replace a belief that's been so ingrained in your psyche for so long?

I have a wonderful method from my book Super Attractor that I often say if it's the only method from the book that somebody applies, they can experience a miraculous shift from that alone. It's called the Choose Again method. The first step is to notice the negative thoughts that you have on repeat and notice how they make you feel. So in the moment, if you can.

Catch yourself, you can't always catch yourself.

But if you start practicing this often enough, you'll get good at it. Notice. Oh, there's that thought again.

Oh, my God.

And how is it making me feel? Step one, making me feel tight in my chest.

It's making me feel anxious.

It's making me feel like I want to go punch the wall. It's making me feel xyz. So you can even write it down. You can just think about it. Step two is really important, is to forgive yourself for having the thought. When you forgive yourself for having that thought, what happens is that you no longer identify with it. You just see it as a thought that you keep thinking. You just see it. Oh, there's that freaking thought again.

So it's not this is my thought. This is a thought that I'm thinking in the moment.

Yeah, it's just that thought that I've thought again and again. There it is. There's that thought again. I'm not good enough. There's that thought again.

I'm. I'm.

I'm bad. There's that thought again. No one loves me. There's that thought again. I can't. Can't handle this. Oh, it's just there again.

Right?

Just notice the thought. Notice the thought. Oh, forgive the thought. Forgive yourself for Having the thought and what happened. Abraham Hicks says that a belief is just a thought that you keep thinking. When you forgive yourself for having the thought, you no longer believe that that thought is you. You see it as a thought that you keep thinking. The third step is the fun part. That's when you can choose again where you can reach for the next best feeling thought. So in the moment, you would reach for the next best feeling thought being something that you believe in. So I always use the example if you're feeling. If your thought is, I'm broke, I'm broke, I'm broke, I don't want you to choose again with I'm a Millionaire because the ego part of you, the fear part of you is going to.

Be like, yeah, right.

Freaking right. Nice try. You want to reach for the thought of. I have that job interview next week and I'm excited about it. I have LinkedIn, which is an incredible resource. I can reach out to that friend who knows. So and so I have the skill set that I am really proud of. I have this education behind me. I have this resume. Whatever it is that you can lean into that you believe in, that empowers you, that makes you feel good.

And once you start to get into.

A momentum with feeling better, you reach for more. You really get to see that, oh, my gosh, it's super easy to create anything I want. Like, really so easy. Because if we have a belief it's hard, then it's going to be hard, you know? And so. And so it has everything to do with our mind and what we believe. And so if we believe a thought, it will manifest.