A transcript excerpt from a YouTube conversation between Gabby Bernstein and Vishen Lakhiani about recognizing and beginning to heal trauma. Gabby shares a personal revelation in her 30s—recalling sexual abuse—and describes trauma broadly (including 'small T' traumas), how triggers and reactive behaviors manifest, and an exercise from her book inviting readers to identify triggers and their responses.
We're all carrying trauma below the surface that we're either aware of or unaware of. But either way, we've been pushing it down the small T. Traumas are big experiences of being neglected even for a moment or a memory or one experience of being told you're stupid by your teacher. Anything like that can really have a lingering effect.
You said that in your 30s, you remembered the trauma. What. What do you mean by that? It's. Is it a certain awareness that you're carrying a trauma in the memory of where it came from?
By 36 years old, I was probably 11 years sober. I had written half a dozen books or more. I was on Oprah. You know, I was on your stages. I was. I was working and doing a lot of good work in the world and really helping a lot of people, But I was really falling apart on the inside. I was cracking. And I didn't understand why I was a drug addict 11 years ago. I didn't understand why I was such a workaholic. I didn't understand why I was so anxious, why everything I did had to be so controlled. I was having men meltdown after meltdown and hitting my knees and saying, you know, I can't go on like this. I can't go on like this. And the stress of trying to hold it all together and control my life started to really get the best of me at that point. I had a dream, and in the dream, I had this memory or this experience of really being an adult, confronting the fact that I had been abused sexually as a child. And I woke up in the morning, it was the most real feeling I'd ever known. Was like the most profoundly real experience. Whether you're aware of these stories or you're not, the first step is to just notice the ways that you're very reactive. Notice how you're. Notice the parts of yourself that are extreme. Maybe you get hooked on alcohol or drugs. Maybe you are very codependent in relationships. Maybe you're a workaholic. Maybe. Maybe you're a rager. Maybe you just. Just numb out and hide out on the couch. What are the things that you do to avoid feeling deeper feelings? That is known as a trigger. You know, what triggers you into those feelings, and then what is the response to that trigger? Right. So how do you act when you feel out of control? How do you act when you feel like someone's taking advantage of you? And those reactive behaviors are the first step to becoming curious about what's underneath. Just noticing them, witnessing them, not judging them, being at ease and just looking closely. And that's actually one of the exercises I offer up in the first chapter of the book or the second chapter of the book, which is to become familiar with your triggers and the ways that you respond to them. And I have the reader write, what is my trigger? You know, it could be like, somebody told me I'm stupid, or I'm. Or I'm at work and something feels out of control, or what triggers me? How does it make me feel? And then what do I do to respond to that trigger? How do I run from that trigger? How do I avoid it?
