105. Gabby Bernstein: Why Safety Is the Most Powerful Longevity Protocol

We track our sleep, count our macros, optimize every supplement, yet most people's bodies are still stuck in survival mode. What if true longevity starts not with another biohack, but with safety? When your nervous system feels safe, inflammation drops, digestion normalizes, and recovery accelerates. In this episode of Extend, I sit down with Gabby Bernstein, #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the Dear Gabby podcast, to explore how emotional regulation, breathwork, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy rewire the nervous system for resilience. Together, we break down how HRV reflects longevity, why "soft" tools like breath and meditation have hard science behind them, and how pairing spiritual practice with functional medicine creates lasting health transformation. Gabby Bernstein is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, host of the Dear Gabby podcast, and a leading teacher in self-help and spiritual development. For 20 years she's democratized tools like meditation, trauma-informed healing, and IFS for everyday life. In this episode, she shows us how to make emotional safety a daily practice, and why that might be the most powerful longevity intervention we have. What's Discussed: (00:00) From Burnout to Breakthrough: A Spiritual Path to Sobriety (03:39) What Safety Really Feels Like, and How to Create It (12:14) Turning Pain Into Peace: Healing Trauma Through Spiritual Practice (18:20) Meeting Your Protector Parts Instead of Fighting Them (30:42) Radical Self-Compassion as the Fastest Way to Heal (33:59) How to Reprogram Your Inner Protectors for Real Wellness (46:30) When Doctors Need Healing Too: Trauma Inside Medicine (51:22) Where Science Meets Spirit: The Biology of Belief (57:55) Faith, Energy, and the New Language of Healing (01:08:44) Manifestation as Medicine: How Your Mind Shapes Biology (01:14:49) The App That's Redefining Daily Spiritual Practice Thank You to Our Sponsors: IM8: Try IM8 today with a 30-day money back guarantee. You can get 10% off your first order with code DRSHAH at https://im8health.com/discount/DRSHAH. Function Health: Learn more and join using functionhealth.com/drshah http://functionhealth.com/drshah . The first 1000 get a $100 credit toward their membership. Visit www.functionhealth.com/drshah or use gift code DRSHAH100 at sign-up to own your health. Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram:@darshanshahmd https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ Learn more about Gabby Bernstein: Instagram: @gabbybernstein https://www.instagram.com/gabbybernstein Website: https://gabbybernstein.com/ Book: 7 Habits of a Super Attractor: Effortlessly Attract Your Desires https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Super-Attractor-Effortlessly-Attract/dp/B0FLF4M9WX?crid=ARB7ML4BLOMN&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.z_q_Vvsfg0iEb-R0Ge-FLBxAZxrhLLjic1Y426CzRWLGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.aY1kwrBvLRUQJZ0rknvNwO7BE1URkyJ969uDfjIUQCk&dib_tag=se&keywords=7+habits+of+a+super+attractor&qid=1755285611&sprefix=7+habits+of+a+super+attractor,aps,445&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=gabbybtv-20&linkId=bbfe081408fe0e1e0dc4a44b9ef06979&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaf5SL7r6TzVYMusm20PKauYcGKo9DG_p89V0xposOgQdLe6Nb1saYWgsFXFXA_aem_0Gv611qxu9jQTQ6hlRR5Bg

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We're all feeling it. We're living in an age of constant noise, where we're scrolling, stressing, and striving. And many of us are feeling more anxious, disconnected, and stuck. Even with the endless access that we have to information and many self-help tools, we're still struggling to find a clear path forward, find peace of mind. So today, we finally get some help. I'm going to be sitting down with Gabby Bernstein, a number-one New York Times bestselling author, recognized by Oprah as a thought leader, and the host of the Dear Gabby podcast. I actually was an episode of Dear Gabby where we talked about similar items, and we also talked about her journey with me at Next Health. But today, we're going to really dive in and focus on a powerful tool that she developed, called a four-step check-in method.

• 1:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And she talks about this tool in her new book that's coming out, Self Help. We're going to be exploring how simple daily practices can actually reduce your anxiety, completely shift your energy, and help you reconnect to a sense of calm, no matter what life is throwing your way. For nearly two decades, Gabby Bernstein has been positively impacting thousands of lives. She's written 11 books, including The Universe Has Your Back and the new one, Self Help. She's been featured everywhere, from Good Morning America to Oprah's Super Soul Sunday. She's the founder of the Gabby Coaching App, and this app helps you make personal growth and spiritual guidance accessible anytime, anywhere. Please join me in welcoming Gabby Bernstein to the Extend Podcast.

• 2:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yavi, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Me three. I'm so excited. This is actually my dream conversation.

• 2:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, that's so amazing to hear. I mean, every conversation we've had has been so powerful to me. And I remember so many little bits and pieces that have made a difference in my own life and how I think about what I'm doing here as well. And so I can't wait to have this conversation, mainly just get all those things out there to my audience. There's so much. And you know, I think, I don't normally do this, but I think it's so important with my conversation with you in particular is, I'd love to like actually start off with learning more about you. And I know a lot of people probably already know you, but hearing it just from your vantage point, or kind of like the journey you've been on, how did you start in the field of self-help? And how did you get there?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I think I started actually as a child because my mom brought me up very spiritual. So I would go visit the ashrams with her and was named by the guru. And I was taught how to meditate as a child. And I grew up in a home where I would watch my mom walk into her bedroom, completely stressed out and chaotic. And then I'd hear the mantra music and I'd smell the incense coming through the door. And then she'd come out a different person. So I always witnessed that there was this other way. And in my early teens, I was struggling with depression and a lot of anxiety. And my mom taught me how to meditate. And so I was really practicing meditation in my 16, 17 years old and already really feeling the presence of spirit physically,

• 3:56Speaker 01

  like starting to feel energy move through me, feeling synchronicity, feeling this great sense of peace come over me, almost like this blanket of love, really is how I would describe it. And so I had a really strong taste of that spiritual connection very young. And like most folks, turned my back on it for a while. And I turned my back on it to a major detour in the wrong direction. In my early twenties, I was really looking for my self-worth outside of myself and trying to prove myself to the world and started my first. Company twenty one was a nightlife PR business. And I thought, you know, I was really doing it, you know, Gabby, see Gabby at the door. And it was just like thinking I was pretty hot shit.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  And ultimately really got very hooked into drugs and alcohol. And I was running, you know, running in relationships, running in my workaholism, running in my alcoholism and my drug addiction and just running, running, running. And thankfully for me, that bottom hit me fast. And this is beautiful because right now, when this is airing is actually my twenty year sober anniversary.

• 5:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh, congratulations.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 5:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Incredible.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Twenty years.

• 5:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  So October second of two thousand and five was when I hit my my knees and I hit my big bottom.

• 5:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  And it was a beautiful moment in time because it was my choice to get clean and sober. I walked myself into that twelve step room. I woke up that day, I said, I need a miracle. And I actually heard an inner voice say to me, get clean and you will live a life beyond your wildest dreams.

• 5:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  And I listened to that voice. I got sober and in my sobriety, I immediately took the stage. I started speaking about my recovery. I started speaking about forgiveness. I started teaching the spiritual truths that I'd been studying and longing to live for so long. And then speaking authentically and vulnerably about it. And I started taking the stage in in different arenas in New York City. I lived across the street from the Gay Lesbian Transgender Center in the West Village. And so I'd go and I'd show up and I'd set up all the chairs and I'd rent the room for a hundred dollars. And I would be like, you know, say Gabby at the door, but in a new door. And, you know, charge twenty dollars, walk in the door. And I was like, you know, what was a hundred people became three hundred people, became five hundred people and thousands of people. And it just became my path.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  And I knew it was my life choice and my soul's path to democratize spirituality, to demystify these principles and to be a spiritual teacher for a new generation of seekers and now for multi generations. It's been twenty years now that I've been working as a spiritual teacher and a self help book author. And it's the greatest work in the world. And I'm sure you feel about yourself, too. It's the greatest work in the world.

• 6:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's incredible. And, you know, like, I think. From my perspective, changing people's health, but from your perspective, changing their relationship to themselves, to God, to spirituality. It's just, it is an incredible journey for people when they have great health.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And just like it's an incredible journey when you have a great connection to your spirituality and to your, to your inner peace, right?

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. I, I would say that when you have a spiritual relationship and you have a personal development practice of some kind, and you develop faith, ultimately what those tools offer you is a sense of safety inside.

• 7:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  And so what is safety inside? It's the opposite of hypervigilance. It's the opposite of stress response. It's the, it's the parasympathetic response. You're living in a much more relaxed state of ease and presence and breath. Okay, so what's gonna happen? Your health will be better.

• 7:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  You will see less inflammation. You will have better gastro, you won't have gastro issues.

• 7:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  I mean, literally, once I healed my traumas from my past, and once I really started to feel that inner shift, my gastro issues that I dealt with for 20 years disappeared.

• 7:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Just disappeared. I could digest perfectly.

• 7:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  And for years, you know, I was doing all the supplementing and all of the, which definitely was necessary. I don't think I would have survived without it, but I kept falling back into the SIBO, or falling back into the, into the, the IBS, or falling back into the candida, or whatever it was. Why? Because I was in such a state of hypervigilance for so long.

• 8:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. And most of us live in that state of hypervigilance all the time, and it just kind of sneaks up on us, I think, a lot of times. You get busy with work and kids and

• 8:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  mortgages and everything, and you're just living in this state without even realizing it. And I always say, like, you know, I wonder, like, our caveman ancestors, right? Obviously, they had to run away from predators, but not all the time. They lived in these beautiful communities, and they didn't have much to do all day, except worry about where they're gonna get their food from, right? And staying warm. But most of their day was probably spent just walking around, hanging out with the other people in the tribe, and they were not in a state of hypervigilance.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  They probably slept really well and had perfect poop.

• 8:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly, exactly. And now we've evolved into never sleeping and not pooping.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly, exactly. No, it's exactly right. I think that, that we have so much that we have to optimize physically, which is why you exist, which is why we need to rely on, on services like Next Health. I mean, I'm going to go off on Next Health. I'm the biggest, I am the poster child for this, for this work. But, and all that has to be done, but I actually lived, lived with a lot of these tools. I always saw functional doctors all throughout my twenties and thirties. And I was really mindful. I knew everything about how to help your microbiome. And I was really educated, but no amount of that support was going to really get me to the safety that I needed in my body because I wasn't safe in my nervous system.

• 9:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. Yeah, that safety component is so key. And, go ahead.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, I'm sure you see this with patients that you might, they might be doing all the right things. They're doing all the optimization, but they keep coming back and the inflammation's still high or the gut, the gut issues are still there. And things get better because without a shadow of a doubt, the, your health will get better when you do these, when you practice these principles, without a doubt. I mean, even, even when I was in my worst state, like I said, I think that it was the functional medicine and the awareness that saved me, that kept me alive in those moments. But, but ultimately, I think that, that with, one without the other, it's just, it's going to be much more difficult.

• 10:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. And, and one without the other also leads to poor health in the long term. And so, you know, I think the way I've been thinking about this lately is that we're always trying to hack this safety sensation, like breath work practices to get more into a parasympathetic state. People are even buying like vagal nerve stimulators and things. And they're trying to create this state of safety, really, and spirituality within them by trying to hack it, right? And the reality is, if you just develop the, the safety and spirituality, you don't have to hack it all the time.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  It's exactly right. That's exactly right. I, I'm grateful for all the hacks, but the hacks without the inner sensation, the felt sense. Safety.

• 11:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Will just be Band-Aids for a moment in time. They're they're a moment in time. And they aren't sustainable because we we and and it's not like you're going to to heal your core wounds overnight. But if you're in the devotional practice of of being well, then you're healing internally. Your inner world has to be part of the equation.

• 11:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  It has to be fifty percent of the equation.

• 11:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Because anything the the physical healing without the spiritual and emotional well being is going to always fall short.

• 11:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely, absolutely, and it can not just fall short, it can also lead to more disease.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 11:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Heart attacks, lead to cancer, lead to all the things that we're suffering with. And I think this is a big piece of the equation that is missing right now in this longevity conversation.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  It is. It's a huge piece of the conversation that we I'm so grateful to be able to break it out right here, right now. This is a breakout moment because this body of work that we call mental reconditioning or spiritual development or self-help. This is equally as important and it is also the path to intuitive recognition. So as you know and teach and guide folks, you can have all the biomarkers, but you also have to trust your gut. Right? You also have to listen to your inner wisdom. You have to know, okay, is is now I have this information, what feels right inside? You know, we can't be so reliant on our doctors. We have to really take our health into our hands, which is really a lot of what you teach.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  And so how do we do that with the most empowered state? We do that through having a greater sense of intuition and inner wisdom.

• 12:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  And so that only comes with that sense of inner safety inside. And actually, my my latest book, which which you have right here, Self-Help, this book is based on a therapy, a trauma therapy called Internal Family Systems Therapy that I have undergone in my own therapeutic processes with my therapist, but also have become trained in. And I'm actually quite blessed to have be one of the last people, probably the last person, to get the. The teacher training, the practitioner training that wasn't a therapist. So I'm not a licensed therapist, but I'm trained in this model. And my beloved friend, Dr. Richard Schwartz, created IFS. And what it's all about is actually creating safety inside.

• 13:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Really? Can you break it down for us? I want to hear so much more about this.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Because this, matched with everything next health, is like the magic bullet for health.

• 13:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's the magic bullet.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  This is the magic bullet for health.

• 13:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  So we need to create safety inside in order to allow our nervous system to rest and relax so that it can restore itself. And then we optimize with all of our supplements and all of our biomarkers. We do all that too. But how do we get to safety inside?

• 13:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, let's recognize why we don't have safety inside. We don't have safety inside because we are running. We are running our asses off.

• 13:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  To run from impermissible feelings from our childhood.

• 13:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hmm, okay.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  All of us. And you even shared some of this with me personally. You shared some of these things last night that were so vulnerable and beautiful. And all of us have big T trauma or small T trauma. And all of us, no one is immune to this. The big T could be, you know, the alcoholic parent or growing up in poverty or, or, or trauma, big T trauma, like abuse. And those are big T traumas that we just are like, okay, that's trauma and we're aware of it. But what about the moments when someone was bullied as a child? Or a teacher told you were stupid? Or you felt different because of the color of your skin?

• 14:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  All of the above. These are moments in time as children where we experience feelings of being inadequate, unlovable, not good enough, and in some cases, terror.

• 14:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  And so those experiences as children, we did not likely have a therapist or a caregiver who was equipped to pull us aside and say, here's how we can help. We probably had parents that in their best, most well-intentioned place, in the best case, were probably like, you're, you're okay.

• 14:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  So with the most well-intentioned parents, they were probably saying to us, you're okay, move on, you're, you're fine. That left us alone with these impermissible feelings. Terror, extreme fears of being inadequate, unlovable, not good enough.

• 15:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Okay, no one wants to feel that, especially a little child.

• 15:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  So what do we do? We immediately start protecting ourselves. And how do we protect ourselves? We protect ourselves by, if we're a kid who felt like nobody was looking at us, nobody was paying attention to us, maybe we start people pleasing.

• 15:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Or in my case, everything felt out of control in my life. What am I gonna do? Start controlling every detail of my life. Or we feel like I'm not taken care of, is another one that I had. Nobody's there for me. I built a belief, if I don't do it, nobody else will.

• 15:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Or if we feel like we are not being seen in the world, we're gonna do everything to have success. Or if we're feeling like we're, there's a million, a million different reasons, right? So we build up these patterns and beliefs and behaviors. And in IFS, these are called protector parts.

• 16:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  And they're protection mechanisms. And they're often the parts of us that we might say, you know, when my wife says X, a part of me gets outraged. Or when my boss challenges me, a part of me flips out and wants to fight back.

• 16:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Or, or when I feel like I'm not, not, you know, not connecting to people, a part of me starts to prove to the world how great I am, right? So we have these parts.

• 16:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  And we oftentimes, they're the parts of us that we like the least.

• 16:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  That can feel the most extreme, and very extreme cases, they can become addicted, they can become suicidal, they can, in my case, you know, I just, I had to numb out so hard to just push down the suffering.

• 16:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  And, and I, you know, I mentioned I got sober 20 years ago, but it was only in 2016, so 10 years ago, in 2016, that I actually knew why I became an addict.

• 16:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ah.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  In a dream, I was here in LA, actually, and I was staying at a friend's house, and I had a dream about abuse as a child.

• 17:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, wow.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  And I woke up in the morning, and I remembered this, and it was so, it was the biggest truth I'd ever known.

• 17:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  And I just was so shook by it that I said, Okay, never, we're not talking about that. I'm gonna push it down. I didn't even mention it to my husband. And just a few days later, I was in my therapy and my therapist said something and it just triggered it and I just flew off the sofa and remembered this abuse from my childhood that I had dissociated from for thirty six years. I had dissociated or thirty years at that point. And so there was, there was equal parts extreme terror and equal parts relief because the terror was, oh my God, I'm being thrown back into this trauma. But the relief was, that's why I was an addict.

• 17:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's the reason.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  That's why I was a workaholic. That's why I'm so hypervigilant. That's why I have gastro issues. That's why I have fear of abandonment. That's why, that's why, that's why, that's why, that's why. And that began my journey, which has been a decade now, of trauma recovery.

• 18:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  And spiritual trauma recovery.

• 18:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  And in that trauma recovery, through this type of work, through the self-help work and through IFS, I have healed my nervous system. I have healed the patterns and behaviors that held me back, the beliefs of if I don't do it, nobody else will, the controlling mechanisms, the rage, a part of me that I called knives out. I've healed my gut. I have healed my skin. I have healed my vitality. I have gotten closer to God. Because trauma is the inability to be present.

• 18:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  And so when we heal the trauma, presence emerges naturally and the body can heal.

• 18:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I'm so looking forward to reading your book and participating in this because

• 18:47Speaker 01

  I actually want to train doctors in this.

• 18:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You should. I mean, I'll be your first one that gets trained.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  If, I mean, it's gonna make me cry. Like if you were practicing this, which, which you will because you have it in you and it's an intuitive nature to be able to do this, and I'll teach it to your audience.

• 19:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Please.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  If you were with your patients and, and you were able to use these tools, right? It would open up. When does a doctor typically say, what happened to you? Looking at this person and they're like, okay, you have gastro issues, you've got TMJ, you don't sleep at night, you have anxiety, you're on antidepressants. Okay. When would the doctor actually say typically, what happened to you as a kid?

• 19:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, never.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Never.

• 19:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's not part of the conversation.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Never.

• 19:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But this is so critical. I mean, I just, I have goosebumps about how critical this is. Because I think about all the patients where we're not making the progress that we should be making.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Or things might be going in reverse, or they just stop showing up.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because, because they don't see any results. I think this is so critical to add to medical practice. Because I do try to spend time with my patients. I spend like an hour, sometimes more with them. And I do uncover little bits and pieces of a traumatic childhood. Or trauma sometime even, college. It's there, I know it is, but I don't really know what to do with it.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  This is it.

• 20:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And this is it.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  It's also, the cool thing about this is that it's science-backed, right? This is a therapy, this is a trauma therapy that's been studied, that has data behind it. And with the blessing of the founder, who's a beloved friend of mine and my mentor. He had given me the gift, the greatest gift, which is to take his 45-year body of work that has healed countless people through their trauma recovery, and to democratize it.

• 20:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  And to make it a four-step practice. That a doctor like yourself could say, okay, I'm not trained in IFS, but I can do this four steps with you.

• 20:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Or I can, you know, teach you about this idea, and then maybe you can go on and get IFS therapy, or you can read the book, or whatever it is.

• 20:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hi, Dr. Shaw here. I want to take a minute to talk to you about cellular health. So in my clinics, I've actually seen 30-year-old people with cells that look like they're pushing retirement. And I've also seen 60-year-olds with cells that look like they're 40 years old. So what's the difference? It's really about how fast their telomeres are breaking down. Your cells, you see, are like phones, and they have limited cellphone battery. Poor sleep, stress, processed foods, all of these things can drain that battery way faster than it should. So this is the reason why I partnered with IMA. IMA powers that cellular battery. It's not just another multivitamin. It's a comprehensive 92-ingredient formula, designed specifically for cellular health and longevity.

• 21:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I'm talking 900 milligrams of vitamin C. That's like 20 oranges worth of DNA protection. The clinical dose of CoQ10 that you need to power your cellular engine. You also get zinc, selenium, vitamin E, alpha lipoic acid. All of these work synergistically for cellular repair and protecting your telomeres. So instead of taking a handful of pills every day and all these supplements, IM8 actually gives you everything that you need in one scientifically formulated system. And this isn't just a theory anymore. IM8 had partnered with Oxford University, the International Space Station, San Francisco Research Institute, and they've done studies. And they've gotten this NSF certified to truly power your health.

• 22:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Most people are aging twice as fast as they should, unfortunately. You don't have to be one of them. Try IM8. I actually have a discount secured for you if you go to drshah.com/IM8 or go to im8health.com/discount/drsah and you can get 20% off with my discount code, DrShah. You can also find the link below.

• 22:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, one of the big things I've been struggling with with our program that we put our patients on, we have this wellness wheel that I've showed you. And you know, we start off with the basics, nutrition, movement, sleep. And then we move on to functional medicine, gut health and hormone health and detoxifying. And then I have this section called emotional health, right? And I know it's important. And I've just never had the tools to really implement it at a level where it can make a physiological difference in someone's life. And so I feel that this might be finally that piece that I've been missing.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  We could do a study with it. We should talk to Dick Schwartz. We should do a study with it because, because first of all, let's give yourself a tremendous amount of credit, right? And all doctors, really. You're very busy studying other things, right? And the medical, and medical school is not teaching this, right? So, so you guys are doing the absolute best you can to think about this from the physiology.

• 23:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  But we can't disconnect. And, and, and functional doctors like yourself, I mean, you guys are very tapped into the nervous system. You're not ignoring the nervous system, but what isn't taught and you haven't been Given, how do you actually create sustainable change in the nervous system?

• 23:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Not, okay, here's a breath practice, or here's, or go meditate. Everyone's like, go F yourself. I don't know how to meditate. Or they may, may meditate.

• 23:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 24:00Speaker 01

  But that's still not healing the core wound.

• 24:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No, it's not.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Because you're going to be just spot checking all the time.

• 24:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, I had Dr. Bland on this podcast a few days ago. He's the father of functional medicine. He basically invented functional medicine and wrote a book about it and taught millions of practitioners. And, you know, what he said was that there's two really core important systems of our body. And those are, number one, our immune system, and number two, our nervous system. These are the two systems of our body that has constant and consistent interaction with the outside world, is interpreting everything going on in the outside and bringing it internally to you, right? And so the immune system, we have medications to modify it. We can measure it with blood tests. We can do, you know, immune globulin levels, interleukin levels. We can check inflammation, et cetera.

• 24:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But the nervous system is a lot more difficult. We just don't have the tools to really understand the state of our parasympathetic versus sympathetic. We have HRV now, which is really great. At least we finally have something.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And what you know is-

• 25:03Speaker 01

  A lot of apps testing it too.

• 25:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, a lot of apps, a lot of, you know, wearables and stuff. But this feels like the missing piece in all of medicine, which is, how do we really understand where our nervous system is at? And how do we fix it for the long term?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  On a sustainable basis?

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is, we're sitting right here, I believe, on the precipice of some major conversation in the world. Because to have doctors starting to say, not just how do I change, help my patients with their nervous system through breath work or through, or through meditation, or through exercise, but how do I help them heal core wounds?

• 25:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Because the core wounds are like a engine that is revving all day long. And all we're doing all day long is trying to turn off that engine. With the YouTube or with the alcohol or with the sexting or whatever it is or the porn. Or we're just trying to shut down that revving that's always underneath it. And so how do we heal the revving? You don't go straight to the revving. You go to the protectors first. You go, so this is what I want to teach you.

• 26:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, please.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  This is, I mean, this is such a gift to be able to teach this to you.

• 26:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love this.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  So we don't, in this book, because I'm not, I'm not a therapist. I'm a trained IFS practitioner, but I didn't want to, I'm not going to go to that exiled traumatized child.

• 26:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  I want everyone listening to take that to their therapist, right? To their trained therapist, ideally an IFS therapist. But what we can do to start, whether you have therapist or not, is tend to the protectors. So these protection mechanisms, the people peaser, the alcoholic, the addict, the workaholic, the, even, even good qualities, right?

• 26:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  So sometimes, sometimes we have these qualities like, like we're perfectionism. We get praised for it. That's still a protector.

• 26:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  It's still overriding our well-being. And so going to these protectors and first and foremost, recognizing them, recognizing these beliefs and patterns and behaviors as protection mechanisms. That's step one, okay? So the extreme patterns.

• 27:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  And then checking in with them instead of checking out. So what happens? We get triggered and we maybe run to the computer to do the work because we don't want to feel it. Or we get triggered and we start to rage. Or we get triggered and we start controlling. Or we get triggered and that's what, we just do that all day long.

• 27:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  From protector to protector to protector.

• 27:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  And sometimes people are far more extreme than others, but we're always doing it.

• 27:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yep.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  And so instead of going and checking out, we check in instead. So it's the moment that you notice, or it's after too. Maybe you don't have enough awareness in the moment, but it's, oh, I feel that controlling coming on again. Let me check in. Because maybe you have to separate yourself from the room or maybe you just sit down and you just, you just go to the bathroom or you say, I'm going to excuse myself. Or even three hours later, you do this. But the first step is to choose to check inside. So instead of checking out and avoiding the feeling, you check in with it.

• 27:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  The second step is curiosity. These are four Cs.

• 28:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  The second step is curiosity. And so that's when you start to ask questions inside and you're talking to this part of yourself. So the controller or whatever you notice is activated.

• 28:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  And or anxiety even. And you start to say, where do I feel that in my body? And what do I know about this? Are there any thoughts or feelings or sensations connected to it? And you start to flesh out some information. And these parts of us will start to say, you know, I feel like a tightness in my jaw or in my chest. Or I know that there was, or maybe you'll see an image of yourself at six years old on the playground. And that's the moment you were bullied. Or maybe you'll hear the inner voice that say to you, I'm freaking out, I'm scared. Or you'll get, you'll tease out information. And as soon as you have a little bit of connection, that's when you set the third step, which is compassion. And you compassionately connect to the part by just asking it, what do you need? So you're asking this little child inside.

• 28:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  What do you need? And that part will blow your mind. It'll say, I need to dance, I need to play, I need to rest. It wants to be childlike. It doesn't want to be in this extreme burdened role. I need, I need to take a nap. And then, once you have that compassionate connection, the final step is to check for self, to check for these qualities of what is called self-energy. And self-energy is our adult, undamaged, resourced self. It's our, it's the spirit within us, the God within us. And so self is calm, courageous, compassionate, curious, clear, confident. It's, it's, it's creative. And so we start to check in that fourth step and say, do I feel a little bit more calm?

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Do I feel clear about this part inside? Do I feel a connection? Do I feel any compassion towards this part? Do I have a little creative energy buzzing through me?

• 29:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  If you notice even a molecule of one of those qualities, that self-energy is starting to emerge.

• 29:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  And so what is self? Self, there's a beautiful quote, self is like the sun behind the clouds. And when the clouds, which are the protectors, when the clouds dissipate, that sun begins to emerge naturally. And so self is the inner healer. Self is the Darshan dad. You know, it's you as the dad. Self is you in this moment. You're in self. You're curious. You're connected to me. You're confident. You have complete courage to talk about big things. That you're in self right now. And so we don't live in self. We live in typically, most people live from protector to protector.

• 30:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Protector to protector, right?

• 30:32Speaker 01

  So by checking in with the protector, self starts to emerge and self is what regulates. Self energy is the regulatory energy.

• 30:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  That's the energy that calms the nervous system. That's the energy that allows for empathy and compassion and connection. Self is inspired. Self is clear. Self is when we can be in that creative force.

• 30:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  And so that's why it's called self-help.

• 30:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  It's letting that energy be rebirthed out of you because we're blocking it all day long.

• 31:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so powerful.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  And so, okay, let's think about it. Let's unpack this a little bit more.

• 31:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  So you've got a patient. They've got their chronic IBS. They're not sleeping. They've got, you know, all these different imbalances. Their biomarkers look like shit. Okay, you're addressing all these issues. They're probably hormonal or this thing in age or whatever. But you're also going to ask, okay, what are you feeling on a day-to-day basis? Or you might say to the patient, are there any patterns or extreme behaviors that are kind of, you know, running the show in your life? And you can even give them examples. Like, are you controlling things? Are you, you know, working too hard? Or maybe are you numbing out with YouTube? Or what are the ways you might be running? Yeah, like what's extreme for you? And they may say, oh, well, sometimes I'm like this or sometimes this happens to me. And then you can say, okay, well, you know, let's get a little curious about that. How long has that been around?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  And what do you know about it? And you're just dialoguing with the patient, right? What do you know about it? And so what is that part of you need to feel a little bit calmer? What does it need? And maybe they'll say, well, maybe they'll be a little freaked out. Or maybe they'll just, if it's a casual conversation, you speak, well, I kind of need to just, you know, let myself off the hook or, you know, kind of need to rest more. And then you can say, okay, you know, maybe you could just put your hand on your heart and just let that part of yourself know that you're going to look into it a little bit more and take a deep breath with that part of yourself. And they'll do it. And then you might say, okay, how do you feel? And they might say, I feel a little bit more calm. And you might say, do you feel a little bit more clarity about that, that belief or that energy that might be running the show here? Yeah, I feel a bit more clarity, doctor.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Or do I have a little bit of compassion? You know, you've been working really hard to, to keep things together. And I just want to, you know, extend, you can extend as, as the leader in that conversation, your own self-energy, that compassion. You know, even your curiosity, your curiosity to the patient is self-energy.

• 32:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Just saying, you know, what's, what's running the show in your life right now?

• 33:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  What beliefs or patterns are working their ass off in the background for you? That question, who asks people that?

• 33:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's almost never.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Never.

• 33:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Never does someone take you down that pathway, right?

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, unless it's a therapist.

• 33:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. And even, I feel like, you know, I've seen therapists before. So first of all, I want to just take a step back. You gave me chills with this entire process because I'm thinking about what are my protectors right now and why do they exist? What are the traumas that created these protectors? And then while you were talking to me, I was quiet because I was putting myself through this mental exercise about the protector, why it was there. And then when you got to the end of that fourth step, I did feel better. I did feel more of a sense of self come out, you know? So, you know, I shared with you last night during dinner that I was bullied a lot in school, like extreme amounts of bullying. And I've never sat down and unpacked that trauma because I've repressed it.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, I'm typical guy, like I'd just rather leave it repressed than...

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Typical human, actually.

• 34:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  And repressed is exile. Those are exiled parts. You're shutting the door on it. Yeah, go on.

• 34:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. And so, you know, I do live in this state of constantly running, like you're saying, and for me, being on this podcast is, I told you last night how much I love it, right? It's because when I'm sitting in this chair, I feel relaxed. I feel my parasympathetic. You know, this is, this is what I love to do is have these conversations, feel connected. But it's the only time I get to do that. There's times when I'm with my children, I also feel that way. But I would love to live my day in this state.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  I want you to live your day in this state and I'll tell you why. And it's gonna make me emotional because you helped me so much with my health that if there's anything I can do would be to to teach you more of this. To introduce you to Dick, to get you to get you hooked up in this. Because for yourself first, right? Because when you start to feel what you feel in this moment more often.

• 35:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Self begets more self. So you start to want more of that. And you're gonna say, I'm gonna go do a self-help check-in meditation. Or I'm gonna go for a walk with that little boy that feels bullied. And I'm gonna go just let him walk with me. Or I'm gonna do some journaling with him.

• 35:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  And the more it starts to expand and expand and expand and expand. The things that you want to create in this world, which I know I'm looking at a man who's creating big things in this world. They become far less effort and more effortless.

• 35:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  And you do less and you attract more. And most importantly, you just feel good.

• 35:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  You don't, you're never gonna stop. The part of you that's working, this is a beautiful thing. There's no bad parts. This is what Dick says.

• 35:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  So the the parts that are working so hard, the part of you that's hustling and working and going and moving, it is a protector, but it's also doing extraordinary work in the world.

• 35:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  My controller wrote 11 books in 14 years, right? We're not gonna say that, we don't want to shut that down.

• 36:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  But what we want to do is help the part be less extreme.

• 36:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  So this work does not get rid of the part. It helps that part of you get back to its natural state, which that childlike wonder.

• 36:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  So imagine you were doing everything that you're doing in your life right now, but just in a state of childlike wonder.

• 36:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  In a state of just purity and freedom, unburdened from the from the bullying.

• 36:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Mm-hmm. Exactly.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  It will take everything that you're creating as a father, as a husband, and as an entrepreneur, and as a healer in the world, and it will just skyrocket.

• 36:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. I agree.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  I'm living it in real time right now. And I've been doing this, you know, for, for, for a very long time. I've been, I've been on this healing path. And really in the last year, it clicked big time.

• 36:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  And I don't even think my career has begun.

• 36:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's like you've rebirthed almost a new career from a new place of understanding yourself and

• 37:01Speaker 01

  And marriage. You know, last night you asked around the table at dinner, you said, what are everybody looking forward to? What are you most excited about? And I said, my marriage.

• 37:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I know.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  I said that to my husband. And I was like, and we've had a lot of struggle because of parts, right? Parts hitting parts and the lack of testosterone, which we can talk about here.

• 37:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  So between my self-help work and you guiding me on my, my healing path, we are in a good place, you know? So, yeah.

• 37:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Think about people that get healthy, right? Like I've seen this now hundreds of times, people are getting healthy in their life and they, maybe their weight comes off. Maybe they have more energy, they're sleeping great. And it's almost like they get, you know, addicted in a good way to feeling healthy, right? I almost see this like being in yourself.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Once you feel a moment of that, you get addicted and you want more of that.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  You want more.

• 37:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But just like health, like once you start the ball rolling, it snowballs.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know what the good news is, is you fall off and you have that sugar, but you go back the next day. And that's the same thing with this. It's, it's, it's not about how much self we're in all the time. It's how quickly we come back. And that's why I wanted it to be four steps, one minute a day, or more ideally. But if you just made a commitment to that one minute a day of four steps, that's a, that's a habit that you can stack that is now part of your wellness routine.

• 38:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 38:21Speaker 01

  Is okay, now I'm going to just really get super grounded in my wellbeing through my inner world. And then I'll drink my juice. And then I'll go for my runner. Then, you know, or do it at the same time, right? Be on your, on your power walk while you're doing self-help.

• 38:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm going to give you something. I'm going to give your, your audience, I'll, I'll put together a self-help check-in meditation and give it to them because then they can just practice it and practice it and practice it. Yeah.

• 38:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And this book is not like a giant book to read. You can read this probably on a plane flight.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  On a plane. Yeah.

• 38:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And what an Incredible tool to give to people because you know, I think a lot of people out there and I I see this all the time. They're very hesitant to go see a therapist because number one, they feel like they don't need one.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, can't afford it.

• 39:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They can't afford it.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Can't find a good one.

• 39:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No time.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  All those things, right? But it seems like through this practice, you can make a lot of headway on your own.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Huge headway and even better, I wish I'd had this book 10 years ago when I was first starting IFS.

• 39:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  This would have skyrocketed my my therapy.

• 39:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  So huge headway on your own. And then if you do enter therapy, or if you are in therapy, or you decide you want to go deeper with exiles, you've done so much self-soothing that you're in such a better, more receptive place to go to the exiles.

• 39:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sure.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  The exile is that that little boy that I'm going to introduce you to some some therapists that can maybe Dick Schwartz would even meet with you.

• 39:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That'd be amazing.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  I mean, he would, and this is a connection we have to make. But that that kind of deeper work, I would only advise somebody do with a therapist.

• 39:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Because the exiles, and I say it at the very beginning of the book.

• 39:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  The exiles need gentle care and you can't just rip that Band-Aid off. These protectors, they work really hard, Darshan, and we need to love them. And we need to say thank you to them. And I can look back at my my 25 year old self and 20 years ago and say to that that cocaine addict, girlfriend, you did a good job. You did your best to keep me safe. And I'm grateful for that. And I'm glad we stopped, but it's making me emotional, but like I'm I'm grateful that that was there when I didn't have, I could not face what I was so afraid to face.

• 40:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow, yeah, I see what you mean. Like your protectors are protecting you.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  They're literally protecting you.

• 40:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Protecting you.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  They have a valuable role.

• 40:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  But then they become extreme. And so we don't want to shut them down. We want to help them. We want to get into relationship with them. We want to let them know that self is there.

• 40:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. These protectors are hyper vigilant and they're always running.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  They're on high alert.

• 40:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  High alert all the time. And think about that, like all the things we talk about in functional medicine, your inflammation, this imbalance between your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Gut issues, all of this is due to that.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  It is.

• 41:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  This this living in the state of constant running, hyper vigilance all the time.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  I want to do, I just got a hit. I want to do, I did some of this work with Robyn Burson, our mutual friend.

• 41:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, I love Robyn, yes.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Just working with her parts.

• 41:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  And she felt the same kind of benefits that you were starting to feel. And Robyn's the reason we know each other.

• 41:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  And I feel like with people like Parsley patients or Next Health patients, and you know, I feel so clearly, there is a part of me that wants to give this to these high-level doctors and to do some of this work with you guys. Because if I could teach you how to use this, even on the most, even as like a journaling prompt that you hand somebody.

• 41:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Or, you know, even something as simple as that, like, hey, you know, when you're feeling stressed, why don't you answer these four questions in your journal? Just even, or just even to be able to speak about it.

• 42:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  I mean, it's game-changing.

• 42:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I could commit to you that if you're willing to train our doctors

• 42:07Speaker 01

  I will.

• 42:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  or our medical practitioners, or at least give them a taste of this.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Yes, definitely.

• 42:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We will incorporate this, and this will help thousands of people

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Done.

• 42:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  at all of our clinics, you know?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Done.

• 42:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because it's a missing piece. It's so powerful. It's something that we need to figure out.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How are we going to address this?

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because it is, it's a major block in our health that really doesn't have a great modality around it. And, you know, this takes it way beyond the breath work and the meditation to like really getting to the core of the issue and healing it permanently.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And think about it, and healing it permanently, permanently, I can no longer do things that my controller part did every day, all day. My nervous system, because talk about neuroplasticity.

• 42:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  It's legit neuroplasticity.

• 42:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It is, right.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Your brain becomes rewired. You create new neural pathways. This is what you know and teach. And you literally cannot do the things that you used to do. I, even today, I'm on with my most beloved employee who's worked with me for 12 years. She's my sister. I won't do my, I'll quit my job if she's gone.

• 43:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What's your name?

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Her name is Jessica.

• 43:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, I just emailed Jessica today.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  She is, she is, she's my right-hand, left-hand every day. She's my, and she's also just like my number three. My son said to me, I'm number one, daddy's number two. Who's number three? And I say Auntie Jessie. You know, she's number three in my life, right?

• 43:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's awesome.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  One of the most beloved humans and we work so closely together. So of course I can take things out on her and it's like a sister, right? And something was going on that my controller part was getting a little activated and I didn't like that some video wasn't edited the way I wanted and I was sort of getting a little bitchy about it. And in real time, I heard the part, this is all happening while I'm talking to her on the phone. I heard the part starting to get controlling and be a little bit bitchy. And then in the moment I started to hear self say, Gabby, she is so devoted to you. So doing everything in her power to make this right for you. Let's take a breath. And I started to change this alchemy, alchemy started to happen inside and the protector started to soften. And I said, thank you so much, Jess, for this hard work.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  We can go slower. We can take our time and thank you for your hard work. Because the protector, in her extreme role, would have been super bitchy to Jessica, then get off the phone, felt hung over from the conversation, extreme guilt and shame for treating her most beloved person that way. Then text Jessica five minutes later, say, I'm so sorry for how I acted. I can't believe I was being so controlling. And I'd speak for the part, rather than as the part, I'd speak for the part. I'd say, I'm sorry I was acting that way. But who wants to be cleaning up their mess all the time? So in the real time, I'm having this moment of like, unwinding and correcting.

• 44:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's probably because you practice this every day.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  I live it.

• 44:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That you can create that space to make this happen. First, it's just first knowing that this works and there's a methodology around it. And then number two, practicing it to create the space. And then doing it frequently enough for long enough that it becomes automatic.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then it's a permanent change.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  It's a permanent change.

• 45:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  And it's the felt sense of safety that trauma and that all people, all people are traumatized. Let's remember that. That the trauma parts need, that felt sense of safety. And once you start to have a taste of that, you know you have spiritual proof. Okay, that's real. I want a little bit more of that. And I'll go for a little bit more. And then it develops and self gets bigger and bigger and larger and larger and expands. Because self never left us. It's just been blocked. We're just dismantling the blocks to the presence of self. And you know, the, the thing I really think also here is that the parts of us that are the most extreme, they might be resisting this a tiny bit too.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  So just keeping that in mind, you know, I'm thinking about how I would talk to doctors about this. Oh, you'd have to be real MacGyver about it.

• 46:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  You know, can't be like, well, there's this thing in your parts and they're going to be like, no way. You know, it's about the curiosity, it's about you getting into self as a doctor too.

• 46:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Right?

• 46:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Because if you're in self, then you're curious, then you're connecting, you're compassionate, all of us.

• 46:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's so true. I think the key for my profession, I don't want to speak for all doctors, but I think kind of the, the key unlock here is understanding this concept of safety.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And also this concept of overactivation of our sympathetic nervous system.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because I think we all know as physicians and medical practitioners that this is a problem.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We just want to have a tool to address it.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so we kind of like make that the last thing on our list of things to talk about.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  And it's something you're like, this is the thing.

• 46:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, because you just, you feel disempowered because you can't offer anything.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, it's like, the only thing you can offer is like, oh, you need to see a therapist. But it's like, we all lived through traumas ourselves as practitioners and we don't see therapists.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  Yes. And you as practitioners have seen some of the greatest traumas in the world, right?

• 47:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You're right.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Think about the, I think about the, the wounded healers, right? Doctors, particularly those who have seen extreme stuff, which is most doctors, you guys have a very big dissociative, dissociative part.

• 47:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  A part that can just easily, and it's, it's a beautiful, brilliant part because you wouldn't be able to do the work you do if you didn't have it. Right? But why? Why?

• 47:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's super extreme in me because I did trauma surgery for a long time. And when you work in the emergency room and you see traumas, I mean, it's not just, you know, like, I cut my hand and I need to get it sewn up. It's often horrific stuff.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 47:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Drunk driving accidents, like. Killed the husband.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Sitting in the passenger seat, you know, like children, like stuff that you can't even repeat because it is so traumatic that it makes you just emotionally even just thinking about it.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You have to wall it off.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Or else you'd be like a crying, blubbering mess, walking down the street all the time.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know?

• 48:02Speaker 01

  That's why protectors are very valuable.

• 48:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Very valuable. But the other question is, what is it about? So what if all these doctors, even before trying to teach it? What if they just applied it?

• 48:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  To themselves.

• 48:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that's the key. That's what I was gonna say.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  That's the whole thing.

• 48:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The doctors will use it themselves. Maybe they'll heal. They'll feel more safe. And then they can see the value and then start talking about it.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  And the other thing that they can do. One, that's how it has to happen. Because if they're just talking about it, it won't land.

• 48:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  It has to be integrated. That doesn't mean they have to be like the perfect self, you know, doing all the therapy. It's just having the experience. You had an experience. You're like, oh, that was interesting. We read the book, right? And having the experience of it allows you to speak about it from a place of truth and a place of authenticity. And then I think that the thing is, is that you guys are the first responders. So folks oftentimes are not gonna think about their mental well-being. They're gonna say, give me the pill, give me the thing. So you guys are seeing the full picture.

• 49:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  But there's a huge part of the picture that needs to be seen even more, which is the emotional well-being. And to be able to say to somebody with curiosity and compassion, what is the belief that's on repeat right now?

• 49:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  You know, and let's just get curious about it.

• 49:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  But the biggest part is to bring your self-energy to the person.

• 49:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's true.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. And with this, practitioners can bring their self-energy because they've experienced it. They know what that's like and they know the benefit of it.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  For themselves. And so then they can talk about it with patients as well. So.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I'm super excited about, you know, making this a modality that's finally a tool in our toolbox.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know?

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That can move the, that can move the needle.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  I have full body chills.

• 49:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Me too.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 49:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I knew this conversation was gonna be incredible.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  It has to happen. I think, and the other thing that's really beautiful is that there is the science back, there's data behind it, right?

• 49:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  And I can get all of it. We should put it into the show notes. I want, you know, I want the doctors and the people that are so data-driven here to know that this is based on a therapy that has a lot of studies and a lot of, a lot of trauma recovery proven steps behind it. And that's incredible.

• 50:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 50:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Let's take a quick break to talk about something that I see people are using to completely change how they approach their health data. So at Nex Health, we're seeing tons of patients every day. These are people that have struggled with fatigue, losing weight, or brain fog. And they're going to the doctor and they're getting their annual blood work. But most of that annual blood work is coming back normal. The problem is they're only getting about 10 or 15 different biomarkers checked by their normal physician. And what they're doing instead now is they're taking their health in their own hands and getting their blood work through a company called Function Health. I love it when people come in with their Function Health results because they have over 160 different biomarkers. Now, normally this would cost about $10,000 out there if you did it with your insurance.

• 51:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But to get your hormones, inflammation, toxins, and nutrient levels checked, all under one platform, and even have access to scans, you can do this all now with Function Health for about $500 a year. And what I love most is that Function Health doesn't try to sell people supplements or pharmaceuticals or anything. They're just giving you the data. So doctors like us can look at the data and interpret it for you and help guide you with a health plan. It only costs $499 a year. That's just $1.37 a day. And it's a really cost-effective way for you to get a lot of your own health data into your own hands. And like I said, doctors love it because now you have a ton of data that you can come to us to and review with you. You can learn more by using Function Health and going to

• 51:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  functionhealth.com/drschah. And if you're the first 1,000 people, you get $100 credit towards your membership by going to functionhealth.com/drschah or just using my gift code for you, drscha100.

• 52:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Can I ask you a question? What percentage of people do you think out there have some level of trauma and protectors that they're using in their life?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  100%.

• 52:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I agree with you. It's 100%.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  100%.

• 52:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And the more I talk to people, and sometimes people will say to me, like, I don't have any traumas, I had a great childhood.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then five minutes later, they'll be like, my dad, you know, not but, I had a great childhood. My dad was an alcoholic. He left. My mom was single for 14 years and had no money. You know, it's just like, it's dissociation.

• 52:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  And that's actually a protector, but also a trauma response, which is to, to sort of just simplify and, and play down the trauma.

• 52:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  And to actually create other stories. You know, I would always say, oh, I had a great childhood and a perfect upbringing. I literally believed that story. Oh, no, it wasn't.

• 52:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. Yeah. That's, that's incredible. I think this is gonna be so, such a great beneficial episode. I have a lot of practitioners that listen to my podcast as well. And I think hopefully all of them that are listening picks up one of these books and self-help the book and they start practicing this on themselves first, right? And prove the value to themselves. And I can't wait to do it myself because I'd love to maybe do another episode with you where we can go through my journey.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Yes. If you want to do that, yeah, let's do it.

• 53:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I would love that because I think, you know, I definitely, when I look in the mirror, I know I need this. And if I need this, then every doctor I know needs this because we all trained together. We all went through the trauma of medical school and residency and seeing patients and not feeling like you're good enough because of many different things. You know, it's just, it's just.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  I would go, I would love to look at some data at some point, or if there is any, and I don't know that there is, but this would be an interesting study is, is how many doctors actually experienced big T traumas as children.

• 53:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  The ones, all the ones I know.

• 54:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Big D.

• 54:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And you know, doctors have some of the highest suicide rates in, of any profession, the highest burnout rate of any profession. And it's not just the doctors, there's also all the other people that are practicing medicine. The PAs and the nurse practitioners. I mean, I think we all feel also that we're fighting an unwinnable battle with health too. You know, it's just people are getting more and more unhealthy and struggling more and more. And I think a big missing piece of the equation, maybe 50% of the equation is the emotional mental wellbeing.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  It is.

• 54:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That is not being addressed.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and doctors are angels and nurses are angels and you guys deserve so much inner safety.

• 54:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah. And you know, the psychiatrist can't do all of it.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, there's therapists, psychiatrists, they're one to one.

• 54:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  And I feel very blessed that I've chosen a path of one to many.

• 54:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Because one to one is not my gift. That's, that's a gift. That is not my gift. I can do one, we can do a check-in together and I can give that to you. That's not what I am here to do.

• 55:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  But the one to many, I think, is recognizing that all humans have this presence of being a miracle worker, particularly nurses and doctors. Not because of the miracles they perform on the operating table, which is a miracle, but the energy that they bring. So if you think about it, those moments when you're in dire straits and you're in the hospital, that nurse that walks in with presence and peace, or that doctor that walks in with that bedside manner that makes you feel calm, that is contributing to the healing.

• 55:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  And because you have faith and you're trusting.

• 55:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  You guys are doing, you guys are doing God's work.

• 55:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hmm, yeah. And so you do the self-help program, you get used to it, it starts changing your life. When do you know it's time to address the exiles?

• 55:53Speaker 01

  I think that's a really excellent question. I would say, once you start to feel self-energy begin to emerge kind of naturally. So let's say you have spontaneous moments of self. So you're about to maybe have that same argument that you always had, and the triggered response is there, but you're able to speak for the part instead of as the part. You will say to Nancy, "Oh, there's that part again, you know, let me just speak for it." And you're teasing it out, and you have enough space, so you're unblending from the part. Because what's hard to get to exiles is when you're so blended with the protectors.

• 56:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  So I've seen people almost physically change. Like, when I go to knives out, that part of me that wants to like fight back so hard, my physicality changes, my face changes, my vocal cords change, my language changes. It's like this like shape shifting, right? I mean, literally, like my hands will go like that. So, you know, when you start to-

• 56:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like Incredible Hulk or something?

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Literally, literally.

• 56:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like, your whole body changes.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Your whole body changes. And so I think when you start to feel that unblending start to happen, and that's just awareness, right? Being the nonjudgmental witness, like, oh, there's that part. Instead of being taken over by it and blended with it, you can witness it. That might be a good sign that you can go a little deeper.

• 57:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So true, because I think a lot of the hesitation to deal with traumas or see a therapist that can help you with them is the fear of how you would react once you start ripping off that Band-Aid.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And that's why I was thinking this book would have been extremely supportive for me or in my trauma recovery. Because it, one would have given me the language around it and helped me understand it. And that in itself is soothing to the system. Because once you start to even just be able to, having this conversation with me today, to see the little boy as a protector, and to see all the protectors protecting the little boy, that's healing.

• 57:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  That witnessing is healing. So that's even a first step.

• 57:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's a great first step. Wow, this is so encouraging and powerful. And I can't wait to dive in more with this. I had other, so many other questions.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  This was where we had to go.

• 58:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  This is where we had to go.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  This is the beginning of something major.

• 58:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I agree. I'm so looking forward to doing this with you and bringing this to what we do at our clinics. But also just spreading this to the medical community at large. Yeah. Giving them finally, it seems like a pretty simple to learn.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  An implement tool.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Which we've not had.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, the simplicity is very important. It's very important.

• 58:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Because a lot of what happens with therapists, very high level therapists, it's a lot of therapists talking to therapists.

• 58:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  And they have the same lexicon and they have the same education. And therapists talking to doctors, just it's two different conversations, two different dialogues. There's intersection, of course, but it can be very different. And so I think it has to be very simplified.

• 58:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, this is gonna be fantastic. One of the questions I had for you, I'm gonna change the subject a little bit.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Let's go there.

• 58:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's very important we answer this question. I, myself, I was raised Hindu. I went to a Catholic school. I then learned a lot of Buddhism on my own, met the Dalai Lama and studied that for a while. And I struggle with this question in my own life. And I see so many people either struggling with this question, or they just don't even address it or think about it. And they've, once again, walled this area of their life off. And that's the question of spirituality. And I've never had the opportunity to really define what spirituality means to me.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 59:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And I've seen so much of it, you know?

• 59:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So many definitions of it. And I know this is where you have an incredible body of knowledge and you're able to break this down for people simply. And so I'd love to, I would love for us to spend some moments on spirituality.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  I'd like to begin first by acknowledging your humility. Because I think a lot of people, particularly people in the healing arts space or the healing space or the doctor space, will sort of say, oh, yeah, I have a spiritual practice. But to be able to truly say, what does it mean?

• 1:00:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  I don't know what it means to me. And I think that's awesome. That's amazing that you were able to just notice that. Because it's actually the, the thing that we block most.

• 1:00:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I feel that way intuitively, right?

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Because spirituality and self are interconnected. So our spiritual essence is our is self. So those words can be used interchangeably. So we've just talked about all these protectors. The protectors are just blocking the presence of spirit. There's a metaphysical text that I'm a student of called A Course in Miracles. And the course teaches that that the course says, I'm not here to teach you the meaning of love, meaning spirit and God. I'm here to teach you to release the blocks to the presence of love within you. So that's the work. It's not, how do I get spirituality? It's how do I unlearn all the fear-based beliefs that are blocking me from the spiritual truth that never left me?

• 1:00:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  So it's in the unburdening that the self and spirit emerges naturally. But I would also recognize that we all have had these spontaneous moments of self and spirit. Right? So I think you're in spirit right now.

• 1:01:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  In this conversation, you're not overthinking things. You're super inspired. You're very engaged. You're super connected. You're very clear. This is spirit. You're in spirit right now. This to you, you said last night, I want to be hosting dinners and doing my podcast. Because that's spirituality to you. That feeling of flow, that feeling of connection, that feeling of open-heartedness, that feeling of love, that feeling of extemporaneous conversation. That's spirit. That's what currently, that can be your definition of spirituality.

• 1:01:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That can be my definition of spirituality.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  Currently, it is, right? My definition of spirituality is I know that there is an ever-present energy within me, around me, and all of us, guiding us and supporting us at all times. I know that there is more beyond our physical sight. I know that the vibration that we put out is reflected back to us tenfold. I know that we are the co-creators of this life. Now, I know this because that is 46 years of spiritual conditioning and faith building. But again, you could be doing 46 years of spiritual conditioning and faith building and have a different concept and it doesn't matter. I am not here to teach people what faith means to them. I'm here to teach them to release the blocks to the presence of a faith of their own understanding.

• 1:02:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  And my mission right now, and you're on your mission, right? My shared mission, my healing mission for this time, where we are in shaky times. And we talked about this last night, is to help as many people establish a spiritual connection of their own understanding. Without it, it's going to be hard.

• 1:02:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  It is imperative that we have a faith right now.

• 1:02:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  A lot is happening and a lot more is coming. We have to have a sense of unshakable faith.

• 1:02:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  For our nervous system, for our health, and for our future.

• 1:02:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. And I would say, you know, and I was speaking for, I don't want to speak for everybody out there, but I would say that if people really look at themselves in the mirror, very few people have a sense of faith right now.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  Very few.

• 1:03:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Very few. And you even look at the events of today, and it's faith shaking.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Faith shaking. In fact, that's where, it's funny that these are the two books that we sent you. The Universe Has Your Back, it's called Transform Fear Into Faith. That is a direct line to establishing a spiritual faith of your own understanding. So this book you're going to read and you're going to unlock it. And then that book's the next one. So do this one first. Everybody, self-help first and the universe second, because this will clear the path and then this just, just grounds you in a spiritual faith.

• 1:03:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  And these are my two most important books, I actually believe. And so, we're going to need it, we need it now, actually. It's imminent. We need it. And, you know, you've lived through it. You've just recently lived through it. Anyone, you know, in Los Angeles, but particularly those, I mean, you live in Malibu, right? With a faith, we can, we have to train our faith. We have to train our faith.

• 1:03:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  And I will share a story, but I'll share it briefly. So I, I went through IVF when I was 41 years old for a second pregnancy. And I had nine rounds of IVF, no embryos the whole way, until one embryo at the very end, one embryo, only one after nine rounds. And it was a healthy, tested embryo.

• 1:04:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  And I carried that baby for five and a half months. And at the five and a half, 20, a little over the 20-week scan, we were in the office and the doctors were kind of freaking out and they're saying, you know, what's going on? Okay, there's something going on. And they're like, hey, do you have any other embryos? And my husband says under his breath, you know, all you need is one. And that was our mantra, all you need is one, all you need is one. Unfortunately, that baby was not growing inside of me. He was, he wasn't going to survive. I wasn't going to survive. I had to have an abortion, late stage abortion. And very late, I was almost six months. It was just like the cutoff line, really. And I remember my friends gathering me around me after this, this procedure. And they were all like, you know, why aren't you losing it? But I was like, first of all, I have a dissociative part that's helping me right now. And that's good.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  But second of all, I said, I knew in the moment, my faith is holding me like a blanket right now. My faith is what I, this is what I've been training for.

• 1:05:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  That's what I kept saying. This is what I've been, the every, the daily practice, the daily devotion to my spiritual connection. The knowing that obstacles are detours in the right direction. The recognition that I'm always being guided, even in the most difficult circumstances. I believed that in that moment. Three years later, I'm sitting with you right now. And I can tell you with full conviction, all I needed was one. My one healthy little boy, Oliver, who was two years old at the time that this happened. My system, my nervous system, my career path, my life path, my mission really required one child. And I had to go to those lengths to get to the place where I could know in my heart that all I need is one. And so was it fun? No. Was it, was it easy?

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  No. Was it heartbreaking? Yes. But I knew even in the moment of that heartbreak that I was being guided.

• 1:06:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  And that, that is what happens when you have spiritual conditioning.

• 1:06:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  You're in the belly of the trauma and you know you're being guided.

• 1:06:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. Oh, that's so powerful. And again, something else that would benefit every human listening to this podcast is to have that level of faith. Where even in the most difficult circumstances, you pull through.

• 1:06:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  With your faith.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  I've worked with, I've counseled many people with, with, with diagnosis, with, with late stage cancer diagnosis or, or some kind of, you know, chronic illness or critical condition. And the spiritual guidance is often the thing that really moves the needle for them. Because the guidance is, is lean into your faith practice. Practice. Bring appreciation and joy into the office of the, into the doctor's office. Make the process of the healing part of a ritual for you. You listen to your mantras while you're in, getting, getting your chemo. These kinds of belief, these, these belief, there's, there's science, they're science backed, right? There's, there's data on this that the level of your thoughts can massively impact your recovery.

• 1:07:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. Yeah, it's, it's incredible how much your thoughts can impact your recovery. Your thoughts, you know, at the very minimum, we talk about placebo effect, right?

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:07:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Placebo effect is really your thoughts creating recovery.

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  It is, it's real.

• 1:07:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? And so there's a small percentage of people that do this. I'm sorry, not a small percentage of people that do this with pills. There's like, I think a 20% placebo effect with pills. And when I look at the placebo effect, these are people that are not intentionally using their mind to create recovery. It just happens by itself 20% of the time. When you apply some intention to it, imagine how much that could really accelerate, right? How much your mind controls your physical.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  It's exactly right.

• 1:07:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right? And there was just some research published a few months ago of how thoughts can directly change your immune cells. Just thoughts and emotions can directly change your immune cells. And this happens like in the brain and it's, it's mind blowing, right? I mean, we've never found any direct relationship between how the brain can affect our human body. Until just recently through, um, you know, through the brain gut connection, we started talking, right? And now we have this brain immune connection that is, um, that we're finding. And so we're going to find much more about how much the brain affects every system of our body.

• 1:08:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Now we know that HRV is a biomarker of how our emotions are affecting our cardiovascular health and more beyond that, right? It's all connected.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  All the more reason why we need to find safety inside.

• 1:08:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, safety and spirituality practice.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Safety and a spiritual practice, which I think go hand in hand. I mean, these two books are perfectly aligned.

• 1:08:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They are. That's why they're here.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:09:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's exactly, and like, you know, I, you have many books, right? And so, but these two ended up here because we needed to talk about.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. These are the ones that landed here.

• 1:09:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. And I'm a big believer in manifestation and this connection that we have to multiple dimensions of the universe that exist that we don't feel or see, but live right underneath us all the time, right? And so you talk a lot about manifestation as well. And I'd love to hear kind of your updated thought process around manifesting.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  Well, we're always manifesting. Manifesting is natural. Miracles are natural. When we're not manifesting what we want or goodness, we're manifesting what we don't want and not such great stuff.

• 1:09:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  So we're always manifesting because we attract into our life who we are and we attract into our life what we believe. So all the more reason to heal our belief systems.

• 1:09:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Because it's going to help us attract more and more and more of what we need as well, not just what we want, but what our soul's purpose and our highest purpose needs.

• 1:10:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  And the other thing is, is people think, you know, I need to do this thing called manifesting. No, you need to unlearn everything to remember that you are a super attractor.

• 1:10:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  And to live in that way.

• 1:10:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  And just to live in the awe and the wonder of that magnificence. And it's fun, man. It's so much fun.

• 1:10:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It is. Yeah, you know, whenever I talk about manifesting to people, they go, oh, what's your manifesting practice? And, you know, people have vision boards. They have other ways of like, you know, visualizing what they want in life, et cetera.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And for me, it's never been that. Like, manifestation happens for me when I'm not thinking about it.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. Because it's the doing, doing that's actually in the way of the receiving and allowing. It's the art of allowing. So when we're in that parasympathetic state and we're in that joy and we're in that safety inside, we're just chilling. We're having fun. That's when you randomly meet that guy on the street because that, that fun joyful vibe is happening and that guy becomes your husband. Or that's when you find your way to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. Everything unfolds. So we're always manifesting.

• 1:11:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Always.

• 1:11:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so true. And they're great tools. Like, I'm not discounting vision boards. I think they're great. At least it gets you into the mindset of thinking like, what is out there for me?

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  It's a step. Yeah, it's a step. You know, to compare it to the wellness journey, maybe it's sort of like the equivalent to starting to take a probiotic, you know what I mean?

• 1:11:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Like, it's a step.

• 1:11:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's exactly right. It's a step, right. Exactly. You know, and maybe it's a quick win when people need quick wins to understand that they can win.

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a step that works, yeah.

• 1:11:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. And also another very powerful thing that you talk about a lot. There's so much, this massive body of work that you've created, Gabby, and I find all of it so interesting, so beautiful, and so needed.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so I just appreciate you so much for putting all of this out there.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Right back at you. I love you. And everybody needs to know that you, and that's why I feel very, actually, really called and excited to do some of this work with you, if you feel that you're comfortable with that.

• 1:12:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I want to, right.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  Because you've gifted me so much. And I want everybody to hear me say that, because you looked at my biomarkers, we looked at it in February, and you know, you did actually talk about the psychosomatic, too. You saw some of my levels and were like, this is weird. And it was weird. And you were kind of like, well, were you in a stressful period? That was a beautiful curiosity question. I was like, oh, yeah, I was. That was helping us figure out the... And it was actually at a period when those biomarkers were so messy, was when I was kind of bottoming out with a part. I was like hitting bottom with the part that was, if I don't do it, nobody else will. And so at the same time that we looked at the blood work, I took all the guidance that you gave me, plus did a lot of more

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  recovery on that part. And really wore the glucose monitor, took the deliverance, and worked on the liver, changed my diet to work with the glucose, worked on the stress levels, just all of it. I took all the supplements that you guided me to, and three months later, everything's normal.

• 1:13:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Everything's really good now.

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  It's really good in three months. And that was the other thing that you did that was actually very self-led, which was you gave me hope. You weren't like, oh, this doesn't look good. You were like, you were very honest with me. These numbers aren't great. But you also said, but you can reverse all these things in three months. And this is what you can do. And then I did it. And I did it.

• 1:13:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And you did it, right? Exactly.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, you're you're an incredible patient, first of all.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  I take I take I follow the rules. Yes, yes.

• 1:13:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But also, I think you came at it with a sense of belief that you can do it.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:13:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that it will work. And because of that belief system, that it will work and you can do it, you led yourself in that direction. And that, at its core, is what manifestation is.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. And self-led leadership, right? So leading your inner world.

• 1:14:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  You become your self-energy becomes the leader of your inner world.

• 1:14:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  And your and your health.

• 1:14:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love it. You're creating such incredible change in the world. And I'm so grateful that you'd work with me. And I promise you that I will take whatever work you do with me, and I will magnify it even further. And so this one of a thousand that you want to achieve, like, we can make that happen.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But, you know, I I think it needs to happen. Like, like we talked about last night, this is a moment in time where if we don't put into place some emergency measures.

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  It's emergency time, yeah.

• 1:14:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  We're gonna have a really bad problem in the future generations.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  It's an emergency.

• 1:14:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm glad you said that.

• 1:14:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And our kids are about the same age. And, you know, like, they they are headed into some very uncertain times, just the way we just see the world unfolding. And I think it's an emergency for us, in our status, in our place in the world, to do this now.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  For them and and for ourselves, too, because we're gonna see it. Yeah.

• 1:15:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, well said.

• 1:15:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So awesome.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:15:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Gabby, I'm excited to do more and more with you.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Yes, it's just the beginning.

• 1:15:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And this has been such a fun conversation. I thank you so much for coming on here today and being a part of the change this world needs.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:15:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, how can people find you?

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Everybody can find me at deargabby.com, my YouTube channel. I'm doing a lot of how-to videos now on my YouTube channel, Gabrielle Bernstein. And of course, the books are all on Amazon, and yeah.

• 1:15:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, no, I love it. And I was on your podcast as well. And thank you so much for having me on there to prepare for your podcast. I listened to your podcast, many, many episodes of it. And wow, so many great episodes.

• 1:15:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  On your podcast.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and and they're they're getting even more how to, right? So it's it's exciting. It's a lot of teachable stuff and and then and then it goes deeper inside my app. And yeah.

• 1:15:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, tell us about your app, by the way. I want to talk.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  So the app is cool. The app, actually, the self help check in. I have multiple processes where I lead people through it. So there's that inside of it. But there's manifesting challenges and trust the universe challenge. And and there's my AI clone that's entering this app in the next month, which is Gabby AI. And it's it's extraordinary. You it's been fed 20 years of my content. So you're going to open the app and you can literally just talk to my AI. And my voice speaks back to you and gives you my wisdom and has deep dialogue and coaching. And it's spiritual coach in your pocket. It's the thing I've wanted forever. And I was always wanting the app to be that, which it is. It's lots. It's hundreds of meditations and workshops. But now it's interactive.

• 1:16:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  So that's epic. People people can try it for seven days. They can go to deargabby.com app.

• 1:16:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Incredible. So someone can literally have the same conversation I had with you.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:16:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  On their own, which is so powerful, right? And take and do it for as long as you need and keep coming back to it.

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  As long as you need, it's right there.

• 1:16:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, wow. Thank you so much. I'm downloading the app.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  I'm keeping it here.

• 1:16:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much, Gabby. See you. We'll see you again on here soon.

• 1:17:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best, and it's always important to seek their guidance.