Gabrielle Bernstein ON: Childhood Trauma & Why You Must Be the One to Heal Yourself From the Inside Out

You can order my new book 8 RULES OF LOVE at 8rulesoflove.com or at a retail store near you. You can also get the chance to see me live on my first ever world tour. This is a 90 minute interactive show where I will take you on a journey of finding, keeping and even letting go of love. Head to jayshettytour.com and find out if I'll be in a city near you. Thank you so much for all your support - I hope to see you soon. Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on Calm Jay Shetty sits down with Gabrielle Bernstein to talk about how past trauma affects our daily life. Within us is our protector self, that part of us that takes over when we face fear, danger, sadness, longing, and feel hurt. And our protective self can sometimes stop us from taking chances, from taking risks. It can possibly hinder our growth and healing. Let’s tap into this inner version of us and make peace with our wounded self. Gabrielle Bernstein is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Universe Has Your Back, Super Attractor, and has written six additional bestsellers including her latest book, Super Attractor. Gabrielle was featured on Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday as a “next-generation thought leader,” and The Oprah Winfrey Network chose Gabby to be part of the “SuperSoul 100,” a dynamic group of 100 trailblazers whose vision and life’s work are bringing a higher level of consciousness to the world. The New York Times identified her as “a new role model.” Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/ What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:02 What is happiness? 05:27 The concept of being present 11:54 We’re all running from trauma of some form 15:43 Our greatest protector part is to dissociate 19:25 “For my husband, Zach…” 22:18 How do you help someone help you? 29:36 Opening up something and not getting stuck in one place 32:40 Our physical conditions are psychosomatic 36:08 Carrying around shame 39:10 How do you fall in love with yourself again? 46:27 Dealing with your protector and exile parts 48:48 It’s not about getting out of it overnight 52:45 Thinking of trauma as a mother 55:38 Getting through postpartum depression Episode Resources Gabby Bernstein | Website Gabby Bernstein | YouTube Gabby Bernstein | Instagram Gabby Bernstein | Twitter Gabby Bernstein | Facebook Gabby Bernstein | LinkedIn Gabby Bernstein | Books Dear Gabby Podcast Happy Days: The Guided Path from Trauma to Profound Freedom and Inner Peace See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:41Jay Shetty?

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• 1:24Jay Shetty?

  Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. This episode is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. One of the best investments you can make is in your own strength. The choices you make today can help shape how you feel for years to come. Orange Theory Fitness provides a one-hour workout to build strength, burn fat, and build muscle, with an expert coach guiding you every step of the way. Head to orangetheory.com/onpurpose to learn more and get your first class free. Orange Theory Fitness: helping people live longer, more vibrant lives. Terms and conditions apply. See webpage in studio for details.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  What we're running from first and foremost is we're running from trauma. Even the subtle moments in time, someone tells you you're stupid, or you were in the best of environments growing up, but you were fat-shamed by a friend. Those tiny moments that are seemingly insignificant dictate the rest of our lives.

• 2:25Jay Shetty?

  Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you who come back every week to listen, learn and grow. And I am so excited to be talking to you today. I can't believe it. My new book, Eight Rules of Love, is out and I cannot wait to share it with you. I am so, so excited for you to read this book, for you to listen to this book. I read the audiobook. If you haven't got it all ready, make sure you go to eightrulesoflove.com. It's dedicated to anyone who's trying to find, keep or let go of love. So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book.

• 3:07Jay Shetty?

  And I'd love to invite you to come and see me for my global tour, Love Rules. Go to jayshettytour.com to learn more information about tickets, VIP experiences and more. I can't wait to see you this year. Now, today we have on a guest who has already been on before. We don't do that very often, but I have to do it for this special guest, a dear friend, an incredible author, number one New York Times bestseller, multiple international bestselling books, the one and only Gabby Bernstein. Gabby, thank you so much for coming back to On Purpose. Thank you. We've loved each other from the moment we first met. Totally. And that was six years ago now, believe it or not.

• 3:50Jay Shetty?

  And we've talked about this multiple times about how we just instantly connected and we found a way to stay connected with me moving from New York to LA through to not being able to see each other. We just said, hadn't seen you for three years. Yep. But you wrote this incredible book called Happy Days, The Guided Path From Trauma To Profound Freedom And Inner Peace. And I want everyone who's listening right now to go and order your copy because you're going to love this conversation and you're going to want the book even more. So go and grab your copy right now. But Gabby, you wrote this book at a tough time. Yeah. You know, at a really tough time in the world. And I wanted to kind of take a step back because when we're doing this work

• 4:33Jay Shetty?

  that we do, and you've served millions of people for years now that you've been doing this. Like this has really been a labor of love for you. You've brought joy to so many people over, over a decade. And my question is, what is happiness? Like, let's really talk about what is happiness? Because we keep chasing these words.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:55Jay Shetty?

  People are chasing mindfulness, or happiness, or joy, or success. But it's like, when you've thought about happiness from all your learnings, all your wisdom, all of your journey, what is happiness?

• 5:05Speaker 01

  My answer today is quite different than it would have been six years ago when we first did our first interview. The difference is, is a greater understanding of what happiness is not. I had to really go to that place to come through and be on the other side of what it truly is. And I began to really deepen my awareness and understanding of what takes us out of that presence of joy. And as Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing, he says that trauma is the inability to be present. And trauma is often the root cause of most of our unhappiness. Whether it's big T trauma or small t trauma.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Big T, like, uh, living through a catastrophic event, or having kind of violence in the household. Or small t trauma, being told you're, you know, not good enough, or being bullied. But we all have it in some way. And when we have it and it's not resolved, we build up all of these defense mechanisms against it. And that creates the inability to be present and to really experience life with all of its moment-to-moment richness. And right here, right now, looking at you and really taking you in. And really just feeling into the thrill of what it's like to be back in the same room with a very dear friend and somebody I love. And even when I came in and I hugged you.

• 6:31Jay Shetty?

  It was the best time.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  You know, six years ago, I would have been like, hey, Jay, and like, very like, not in my body and not in the present moment with you because I was still stuck in that, that truncated trauma. And so coming through the other side of that, what happiness means to me now is the ability to be fully present. And I'm not using that language as like some woo-woo, but to be fully present in the moment with whatever is going on right here, right now. And that is how I'm living today. And it's epic. It's wonderful. The fact that I could be in the Uber on my way here, having a really awesome conversation with the woman driving me and getting to know

• 7:14Speaker 01

  a new person, and then walking in a room and just being able to hug my friend and feel that. So that was a really long answer, but it's important to really recognize that I did not know what true happiness was until nine books later. I know, 16 years as a spiritual teacher. And I knew what it was for myself along the way, but now I really feel like I've gotten to a place where it truly has transcended sort of these obvious descriptions.

• 7:46Jay Shetty?

  I really like that definition, and I really like that approach, because I think that presence is so over-talked about, but undervalued and under-applied. We hear about it a lot, as you said, but we don't really know how to live it, because presence to us often actually means judgment, or presence means I'm present right now, but now I'm gonna critique that, or I'm gonna see that. Tell us how you think about presence differently, because often people say, well, when I'm present, I just spot everything that's going wrong right now. Or when I'm present, I just start highlighting things that I don't like, or do like for that matter. So how do you see presence as being beyond judgment and

• 8:30Jay Shetty?

  criticism and observation?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  That's an interesting outlook on it. So the concept of be present, it's just thrown around, and it's this concept of just sort of, you know, when you meditate and you quiet your mind, you're present. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fine. But really, what I believe is when you go on the journey of undoing the storylines of your past, and to such a point and level, that they no longer have a hold on your nervous system, and you begin to reorganize your reactivity and your relationship to yourself, and how you respond to the world, then you start to establish what is known in S E somatic experiencing as a felt sense. It's a felt sense of, and what that means is, I can stand outside my house in the country

• 9:17Speaker 01

  right now, at this season change, and smell spring.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  I can look in my son's eyes and feel the most insane rush of oxytocin move through my heart when he just looks me in the eye. And that's actually not the human experience typically. Typically, we are moving so fast, so dissociated from, so checked out from. We are, we have disembodied. We're walking around like, you know, without our heads on. And, and I could only say this because I've lived like that for many, many years and had to work really hard with my meditation and with my spiritual practice to keep coming back to groundedness. And so there's a lot of that yo-yo of like, I'm out, I'm in, I'm out, I'm in.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  But what if you could live life just fully in the presence of, of where you are in every given moment and truly taking it all in? And that was always sort of like, oh, that would be so, you know, that's where we're going. That's what we're talking about in my, in spiritual books. But I know that now. And I know that you, as my friend, who's known me for six years, I'm sure you can feel that in being with me in this room right now versus six years ago. And so, and I've, and I've had that experience even through writing this book, my ninth book. That presence came through the, is infused in every imprint. And so I didn't think this was where we were going, but it's actually, it truly is what happiness is to me.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  It's, it's being in the experience of things.

• 10:49Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  And actually being able to experience life.

• 10:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love what you said there. To me, it really felt, that example of you looking into your son's eyes. Like when you said that, I think what I love about that experience is that it's so immersive. And then you said to take it all in. And I feel like that's really what presence is, is the ability to take it all in. Through all your senses, right, that we don't even use. I often, when I'm teaching meditation and we're activating people's senses, we start recognizing how we over-rely on our eyes. The only sense we actually observe through is our eyes. And maybe then our ears. But our nose, our sense of touch, is fairly unconscious, right?

• 11:35Jay Shetty?

  We're not always aware of temperatures, textures, scents and things like that, which I find is we're not taking it all in. One of the things you just reminded me of is I read a study recently that was talking about the awe effect. And it was saying that we're happier and we have more pro-social behavior when we experience awe.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 11:58Jay Shetty?

  And when you spoke about your son's eyes, I was thinking about the idea of awe. So awe is generally nature, beautiful landscapes, views. But someone's eyes could be awe. And it was saying that the reason why we love awe is because we simultaneously feel tiny but a part of something bigger.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 12:18Jay Shetty?

  So you feel a sense of insignificance but connectedness at the same time. And I think that's what presence is to me.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  I love that. And I think that someone listening right now might be like, what are they talking about? How could I, you know? Because the truth is, is I probably, I get that. I understand that. You know, what does that even mean to be present? What does it even mean to be in awe? Because we live in such a protector mode. We have this huge buildup, almost like a wall built up against the presence of that energy, of that awe. And from a spiritual perspective, it's almost like we have to dismantle each of these bricks on this wall to just reconnect to and return to that presence within ourselves.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  And truly, even in the midst of this experience of not being connected to that awe and that presence for many, many years, I was still able to touch into it. It was, I was on a path and a journey towards it. And I think that that actually really benefited my readers and it benefited the journey that I was on because that's where many people were with me. And so. This stage of my life, forty-two years young and with much, you know, sixteen years of being in this field, I have this experience right now of having kind of upleveled my well-being. And that's actually what my hope is for my reader right now with the, if you open this book, right, or if you are even listening to us

• 13:51Speaker 01

  right now have this conversation, you've unconsciously or consciously raised your hand and said, yeah, I'm ready to up-level. And the gift of having this global crisis that we've all just lived through is that so many of us just started to crack open to the reality that we couldn't just pretend anymore. And this is the journey of kind of unearthing why we have been running and how we've been running and how to stop.

• 14:14Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. What are some of the ways you think, we're not even aware, you have a chapter in the book called, you know, like, Why We Run Away? And it's like, what are some of those hidden ways of running away that you think stay with us? Because I almost feel like there's the obvious ways we know we run away. Then there's the middle, like, in-between hidden ones where we kind of convince ourselves that we're not running away. And then finally, we raise our hands, as you said, and say, I'm ready to level up.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:40Jay Shetty?

  What are some of those hidden, confusing places where we're running away or excuses that happen that block us?

• 14:47Speaker 01

  I'm gonna come out straight with it, Jay. What we're running from first and foremost is we're running from trauma, period, end of story. And that word has such a loaded stigma around it. And I'm just wanting to bust through that now. Because we are all traumatized. You can't be alive in this world right now at this time, or even decades ago, without experiencing trauma in some form. And like I said, some of us may have been brought up with a totally secure attachment, so much resilience, so much grace in our life. And we've experienced trauma, but maybe you're able to move through it with more ease because you had that safe, secure experience. But it doesn't mean that it's,

• 15:28Speaker 01

  you're unscathed. It doesn't mean that you have missed, you know, the life's lessons. Because even the subtle moments in time, someone tells

• 15:39Speaker 01

  You're stupid, you're six years old, right? Or you were in the best of environments growing up, but you were fat shamed by a friend. Those tiny moments that are seemingly insignificant dictate the rest of our lives. And so that's what we're running from. The bigger T, the trauma, as you mentioned, you know, well, actually, we haven't gone there yet, but I reveal really big T trauma that I had remembered in my, when I, when I was 36 years old. The bigger the T, the trauma, child abuse, or living with an alcoholic parent, whatever it might be. But regardless of how big or small the T is, there is something that needs to be undone. Because ultimately, that's what we're running from.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  And how are we running? We're running with drugs. We're running with alcohol. We're running with food. We're running with judgment. We're running with work. We're running with rage. We're running with control. And these, all the, the lists that I just identified are protector parts of us. So let me just simplify it even more. I am now trained in internal family systems therapy. And the simplification of this is that we have these moments in time where we disembodied, we've been, experienced some kind of trauma. We check out. And then we say, oh, I never want to feel that shame. I never want to feel that terror again. We just lock it up. And those are called exiled parts of us. They're often young parts. And then we build up all these ways of protecting ourselves. And that's the control. That's the, the drugs.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  That's the addiction. That's the workaholism, whatever it might be, to protect ourselves from ever experiencing that pain again. We all have exiles and we all have protectors. And this journey that we need to go on is to really relax those protector parts so that they can remember that there is a source of love and an internal parent within us that can take care of us.

• 17:30Jay Shetty?

  It's incredible, isn't it, that what you're saying are these protector parts are actually causing us more pain?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:37Jay Shetty?

  So we think we're protecting ourselves by running away. So we have this protector part. But that protection is not protection. It's actually deepening the wound.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  That's correct.

• 17:48Jay Shetty?

  But it looks and feels and sounds like protection. I've, I've been speaking to a lot of people lately who are saying to me, Jay, I am too sensitive and empathetic towards this world and I don't feel like I belong here.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:02Jay Shetty?

  Right, like there's this feeling of like, I just want a world full of love and kindness. And I don't feel like I belong here.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:10Jay Shetty?

  It can feel scary to look at the trauma, right? It's scary, like there's a big fear around, whether it's a small T trauma or a big T trauma, as you said. It can be really tough and you said, after doing so much of this work, thirty six, six years ago was, when you were able to look at it, what do you think blocked you up until that point? From looking at it, even though you were doing so much work? Or how did your work that you were doing actually open that up as well?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Both, yeah. Well, dissociation. So similar to what your friends are saying, it's like, it's too scary to live in this world. And so you know what, often, one of the great protector parts is to dissociate, to check out, to even meditate above, right? To, to just, just try to in some way numb that out. And for me, I, at thirty six, in a dream, remembered sexual abuse from my childhood. And I had such a huge aha moment when that dream surfaced because this is why I was a cocaine addict. This is why I was an alcoholic. This is why I was a workaholic. This is why I was controlling the shit out of everything in my life. So there was relief in knowing, okay, this is what I've been running from.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  And it was so extreme in my case, that my brain literally just, you know, it's a beautiful brain response to say, oh, this is so overwhelming to the system, that it's going to be totally checked out and dissociated from. But even if you dissociate from a memory, it still shows up in your body. It still shows up in your gastrointestinal issues. It shows up in your sleep. It shows up in your relationships. It shows up in your addiction. It shows up everywhere because you may not have the, the actual claiming of the memory, but the memory is still in your nervous system. I remembered at thirty six because by that stage, I'd already written about, I'd been eleven years sober, probably written seven books. You know, I'd been really on this very

• 20:03Speaker 01

  big quest to my own spiritual awakening. And all the work that I had done, everything I'd written about, got me to the place where I was safe enough to remember. You know, everything's in the perfect order. There's no accident. I'd done a tremendous amount of spiritual work, a tremendous amount of therapeutic work. I got to a place in my life, also, this is important to recognize, where there was a lot of new things happening around me. So, control was one of the ways that I kept that exiled story at bay. But a lot of things in my life at that time were falling out of control. So, I was, my husband was leaving his job at JP Morgan to come run our business. We were talking about family planning. We had just gotten married. So, these big life moments are often when people do remember traumas.

• 20:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Or if it's a trauma that you're aware of, it can really get activated and come to the surface. So, just something for the listener to consider. And it was so horrific and so scary to remember that, but the journey that I've underwent since that time is what allows me to put my face on this book cover and have it say, "The guided path from trauma to profound freedom and inner peace," and mean every freaking word of that. And to be able to stand behind that with full integrity, authenticity, and, and power, to be able to say, you know what, so all these people are so traumatized, everyone's so traumatized.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  And I can say, "Go do this." And it's, it's, it's a gift to be able to live to tell.

• 21:35Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate what you said about being safe enough.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:40Jay Shetty?

  Because I think that when you start this work, it's not that all of it happens at the same level, and it's not that the work looks the same every year. And so when you start doing personal growth, self-development, spiritual work, whatever it may be, it's going to look different every single year. New things are going to be unlocked and opened and unearthed. And so I think people can feel comfortable that if they're on the journey.

• 22:05Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 22:05Jay Shetty?

  There will be a point at which it's safe enough, in your words,

• 22:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:09Jay Shetty?

  to feel that you can be revealed to that. And I wanted to say something here because I love this dedication. And when you said that about getting married and trauma, you actually dedicate this book to your husband. For my husband, Zach, thank you for loving all of my parts and helping me feel safer than I ever thought possible, which I thought was beautiful.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. You reading that is like really emotional for me. Because, you know, it was a trauma for him to be married to me. And you know, Jay, I opened this book by saying that my publishers came to me. And I sent them the manuscript, and these are publishers I'd worked with for so many years. And I'd written books and they would just accept the manuscript. The universe has your back, ready to, ready to print, you know, super tractor, ready to print. And I send them this manuscript and they write back like, we need to talk. And I get on the phone with them and they're like, we're really nervous for you, Gabby. Because you're revealing so much. And it's one negative story after the next, and we don't think that you're showing your true strength.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  And my response was, my ability to be this vulnerable is my true strength. But it wasn't just them, it was Zach. Like when my husband read this book, he edits my books before they go to the publisher. I have an editor, then it goes to Zach, and then it goes to the publisher. And when he read this, it was really triggering for him, super activating. And there was moments when he would say to me, I didn't even know this was going on. And it's so emotional for me because when you're living in that kind of recovery, in that crisis. There's so much shame wrapped up in it. And especially when you're the self-help book author, you know, that the shame is so extreme that you feel so alone in the journey. And I just have such a deep gratitude for my husband for holding me in that.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  I have gratitude for the whole team of therapists that helped me in that. But particularly for my spiritual connection, because without that, I would have been really alone. Yeah. And so that's really what I want this book to do for people is to help them know they're not alone in this journey and that we all have a lot that we can look at and gently and slowly and safely begin to peel back the layers or take the bricks off the wall. And yeah, but just hearing you read that acknowledgement out loud and that dedication out loud is just, it just says a lot about what it means to hold another person in their trauma.

• 24:37Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by Amtrak. You know that feeling when you're already tired and you haven't even gotten there yet? That's where Amtrak comes in. Leave the driving behind and settle into a comfortable seat with plenty of room to stretch out. Catch up on work with wifi, grab a snack at the cafe car, or just sit back and enjoy your favorite podcast. Choose a seller or Northeast Regional and get there without the stress of getting there. Visit amtrak.com to plan your next trip. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps find quality candidates when you need the most.

• 25:21Jay Shetty?

  You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location. In fact, people are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. Home should be a place that feels like a sanctuary,

• 26:05Jay Shetty?

  a space that truly reflects who you are. But it can be challenging to balance style, budget, and endless options. I was looking to create a dedicated, calm space for my morning meditation and reading, but I was struggling to find pieces that felt grounding but could also stand up to daily use. I went on Wayfair and found a beautiful, solid wood accent chair and a bookshelf. Now that corner is my favorite place to anchor my day. The quality is incredible, it's built to last, and it completely shifted the energy of the room. Plus, you can shop with Wayfair Verified, where product specialists carefully vet items for quality and functionality, so you can shop with more confidence. And if putting it all together sounds like a headache, Wayfair can handle delivery, installation, and assembly.

• 26:48Jay Shetty?

  Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. The reason why it touched me is because, again, I think a lot of listeners, a lot of comments that I see, a lot of story tags that I see, and people that I speak to in my personal life, trauma can break partnerships.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 27:19Jay Shetty?

  Massively.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Oh yeah.

• 27:21Jay Shetty?

  And we see either people struggling in shared trauma, struggling with their individual trauma being passed over to each other, wounds being shared. Explain to us how someone can hold space for someone during their trauma journey and work and as they're on this path. And actually, more importantly, because you do tell us the guided path from trauma to profound freedom, how do you help someone help you?

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:51Jay Shetty?

  I'm really interested in that.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:53Jay Shetty?

  Because I find that so often we expect someone else to help us, but how do you help your partner help you rather than expecting them to be a therapist, which is really unrealistic?

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Totally unrealistic. Well, there's a lot of answers to that question, so. The best way you can help them help you is to just tell the truth to the best of your ability. So even if it's the trauma that you're facing, actually, on my podcast, I workshop people. And I Dear Gabby'd someone yesterday and she was talking about how this book is bringing up a lot for her. And she's starting to face into it and her partner just doesn't understand. And I said to her, listen, yeah, and I said, listen, you may not feel safe enough yet to let him in on your full journey or even what you're facing into, but it would be extremely valuable for you to go to him and say, hey, a lot of stuff is coming up for me right now. It's old stuff from my childhood and it's really scary for me.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  And I'm reading this book and I want to assure you, I'm doing this really beautiful work on this. And I'm committed to maybe seeking out therapy and going deeper. And my intention is to really create a safe environment for myself and for our relationship. But that's the truth of where I'm at right now. And that may be the only truth that you can tell because it's just too much shame wrapped up in telling exactly what's up. That comment, that truth, that extension of vulnerability, even in that slight way, is extremely soothing to the other partner because if you just leave them completely in the dark and they don't understand why you are so reactive, they don't understand why you might pick up the drink. They can't understand why.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  And so giving them a little look behind the why is a very valuable thing. Another thing I recommended to her was to have him read the book because any, you know, when you've got unresolved trauma, big T or small t, the patterns are just textbook J. You know what I mean? Like if you were to look at all of my symptoms, you'd be like, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. I now, having done my research and having studied this and having lived it, I can spot it in humans everywhere. I'm like, big T trauma, small T trauma, big T, big, big, you know, I can see it. Like I kept asking Zach at times to read this one book that was about women who had lived through childhood abuse. And it was a little bit too much for him, but handing him a book like this or handing a partner a book like Happy Days

• 30:20Speaker 01

  allows the partner to be like, oh, wow, this whole story sounds just like my partner. Or, oh yeah, my partner does that too. And it gives you an insight of like, one, the opportunity for the traumatized person to say, look, I'm not alone. And then for the partner to recognize, oh, this is a real thing.

• 30:38Jay Shetty?

  I think those are great answers. I love both of those. I would highly recommend everyone who's listening and watching. If you're reading Happy Days right now, make sure you share even paragraphs of it. You may take a picture and send it to your partner or to a friend. And of course, if you're not reading it, make sure you grab a copy of the book as you're listening right now because I do believe that what Gabby's saying is so deeply true that if we have not healed our traumas, we're going to carry them with us into every workplace, relationship, scenario. And it just gets harder because that trauma gets tied up in more people's trauma. And then you can't even tell the difference between yours, someone else's and collective.

• 31:22Jay Shetty?

  And so I feel like the earlier we can do this work, the healthier it can be for us. And I love what you just said about the idea of informing someone, hey, this is what I'm going through. This is why this week I might be really irritable and why I'm really struggling. This week I'm going to need your support. And I think I do this with Riley often even about small things where I'm like, I've got this really big thing on Thursday. I'm really nervous about it. Like just know that

• 31:50Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 31:50Jay Shetty?

  This week, every gap I get, I'm going to be super silent because I'm going to be preparing my energy for this thing. That's a small thing of just something coming up instantly. But what about when you're doing something internal? So I love those and I would encourage people to, even if someone can't read a book, that you send them screenshots and pictures.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 32:08Jay Shetty?

  And it's going to get them moving. And this book does a great job at breaking those areas down.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  I like that idea too of being like, hey, read this page or listen to this one section of the audiobook because or just listen to the conversation between Gabby and Jay because what it does is it just gives a little insight and then that also helps you as the reader, as the person on the journey to take away the shame. There's a chapter in the book actually that's called Speaking the Unspeakable. And it's all about shame. And you know, here I was, Jay, I was 36. I was just facing into this. I'm at a retreat, leading the freaking retreat with two other women. And it's a retreat on, you know, women facing their trauma and transcending their

• 32:52Speaker 01

  past. And I'm about six months into my own recovery. So I had no business teaching at that time, but I didn't realize that. And that's actually, you know, part of some of the vulnerable things I share in this book that my publishers were like, do you really want to say that?

• 33:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yes, I have to say it all. So here I was and I'm teaching, I'm leading this retreat. And so in the other teacher's session, I'm sitting in the room doing the workshop with them. And the workshop's all about shame. I'm like, okay, like, you know, I'll partner up with somebody. I'll just like hold space for them. Right? And here I am in this dialogue about shame. And I realized at 36 years old, seven self-help books, 11 years of sobriety, you know, over a decade of work on stage, speaking about spirituality. And I sit there and I'm like, oh my God, shame. I didn't realize I had it.

• 33:43Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  It's so buried. It's the most impermissible emotion that it is the exiled part. It was so, so unsafe. I mean, I was like, of course I'm lovable. Of course I'm adequate. I don't have shame. You know, we all do. But it was so buried, so deep, that facing into that, you know, is a very gentle process. And so one of, so another intention here is in this conversation, in this, just speaking of trauma, just giving voice to trauma, is to just end the stigma and shift the shame. Because that shame is why we don't open up to our partners. That shame is why we don't even open a book like this.

• 34:19Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And that's, and that's actually what I was gonna say, that I think one of the biggest things I hear is, oh, no, I have no trauma. Like, no, I don't, I don't have any shame. Like, no, no, no, I'm, you know, and I've, I've even led people I've worked with through inner child meditations and, and, you know, work and

• 34:39Jay Shetty?

  They don't allow themselves to go there.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:42Jay Shetty?

  And one of the biggest things I also find is people don't want to go there because they're scared they'll get stuck there.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Totally, totally.

• 34:48Jay Shetty?

  Right? And so tell us a bit about that path of opening up something but not getting stuck there. What is the difference between someone who opens up a book like this? Obviously, you've given the whole path and it's in here. But I mean, like, that difference between someone who opens up a part of themselves, then just feels like their whole life is collapsing, versus someone who opens it, has the courage to look at it, but then is able to pass through. What have you noticed of the difference?

• 35:14Speaker 01

  You have to titrate in and out. It's not, you cannot, when you're dealing with big wounds, big T or small t, I'm going to keep going back to that because some people listening are like, oh, you know, nothing's ever happened to me. And if I were sitting with you right now, I could find thirty things that you're running from, you know, or one major thing you're running from. So wherever you are on the spectrum, the first thing to really identify is that you can't just rip the Band-Aid off right away. And you have to go slow. And there are plenty of people that I have right now that in my world, girlfriend just recovering from postpartum depression, I'm like, do not read the book right now. You know, put it on the shelf and wait. If someone's opening the book and it's super activating to them, the answer could be, you know, go back into your therapy and then use the book when you feel safer.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Don't put yourself in a position where you're going to blow out your system with too much digging too fast. Now, with that said, inside this book, I hold you by the hand. And I walk you so slowly through these steps. Over and over again, I say, if this is too much for you, please skip ahead, read the next chapter, go back to chapter three, the body-based work. There's a whole chapter on how to settle your nervous system through body-based practices. And that in itself can just be so soothing to someone as they start to open up to the possibility that there's something that they need to face. And so through breathwork, through physical somatic work, through, through body talk,

• 36:42Speaker 01

  and just even getting in touch with what's going on in your body, there's so much relief. And so it's just a very slow process. I don't think people can just rip the Band-Aid off at once. It's not, it's not possible.

• 36:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I think a lot of people think they have to, or they think that that's the only way. And I was actually gonna talk about that. I love this section on hiding behind the body. And there's a beautiful quote here that you have that says, "I came to accept that I didn't have a gut problem. I still had a subconscious emotional problem."

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:11Jay Shetty?

  And this whole chapter for everyone who's reading along or is gonna get the book is called "Hiding Behind the Body." And that, to me, was huge because I think today, we're all trying to be healthier, hopefully. Everyone who's listening to this podcast, at least I know is. People are changing their diet. They're changing their sleep routine. They're changing the vitamins they take and the supplements they take. But then they're still wondering why things aren't getting worked out. And I think a lot of people who are listening can relate to that. And then you start to recognize that the body is just a window into what's actually sitting behind there. What have you found? Because you've been researching this, studying this, you give a guided path. What were other useful resources?

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:57Jay Shetty?

  On that journey that you kind of recommend to people in the book to say, "Hey, check this person out," or "Think about this idea or area of your work."

• 38:04Speaker 01

  In that chapter, I really referenced the work of Dr. John Sarno, who wrote Healing Back Pain. He wrote The Mind Body Prescription. And all of his work was really based on the premise that our physical conditions are psychosomatic. And by no means in my book, in my work or in his work, was there any reference of, "Don't get that medication," or "Don't go on that therapeutic path physically," whatever it might be. But to really look closely at what are the belief systems and the impermissible feelings that are not being met behind the physical sensations. So for me, in the book, I reference how I had decades of gastrointestinal issues.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  And what I recognized through my healing journey is that I didn't have gastrointestinal issues. I had unresolved trauma. I had impermissible rage. I had impermissible terror. I had impermissible shame. And as I began to become safer in my nervous system, safer in my mind, safer, you know, reprocessing memories.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  I have zero gastrointestinal issues.

• 39:12Jay Shetty?

  I love hearing that.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  I didn't have to change, you know, I did for decades, you know, SIBO diets and this thing and I had, you know, this supplement and all of that is necessary when you're having acute problems. You need medication, you need vitamins, you need diets to just get back to baseline and for sure. But all of it goes away. So many of our, so people are like, well, how do I know if I have trauma? And I'm like, well, do you have a sleep disorder? Do you have gastro issues? Do you have TMJ? Do you have, so go to the body first. Do you have acne? You know, and then it goes even deeper. Do you have panic attacks? Do you have depression? Do you, but the bottom line is, is that our body is a first responder. And our body is such a beautiful way to reveal to us what is, what is needing to be healed.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  And in fact, we talked about protector parts. The physical body actually is a form of protection, right? So we send, from the Sarno perspective, we have a nervous system response because our traumas are triggered. Our body gets tense. We go into that fight, flight response. So that tension shows up in the stomach, that tension shows up in the migraine, that tension starts to, you know, block oxygen from flowing to these areas. From a gastrointestinal perspective, it stops the GI tract from actually, you know, moving, moving bowel, our bowel movements. And then what happens? Bacteria builds up and then you actually do have a real diagnosis of SIBO or IBS or whatever. Well, if you actually relax your nervous

• 40:36Speaker 01

  system, your whole system can start to move. You can have that perfect digestion begin to settle because you're relaxed and in that relaxed state, your body can heal. And so we have to really look at the psychosomatic effect of our physical, the physical conditions from a psychosomatic perspective.

• 40:54Jay Shetty?

  Phew, that already relaxes my nervous system going like, oh, wow, like that's where it is. Like, because I think a lot of people right now are just, we're tinkering with so many parts of our life and then we're wondering, why do I still not feel the way

• 41:05Speaker 01

  I feel? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 41:06Jay Shetty?

  Right? Like, I'm doing everything right. And I've, I've been in that position myself. I'm like, I'm doing everything right. Why am I still not feeling good? And sometimes it is biological if you're psychologically done some of the work. And then it's the other way around as well. What were you surprised by when you started doing this work? What was one of the big surprises that came along as you started to do the work on yourself? That you actually thought, wow, I didn't expect this. Like, I didn't think this was gonna happen.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Well, I was surprised by the shame. I was like, wow, I have shame. What is that, right? That was so strange, right? I'm like this spiritual teacher, I didn't even recognize my shame.

• 41:42Jay Shetty?

  What was the shame for?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  I mean, the shame, when you experience sexual abuse in any form, whether you're particularly as a child, the shame is, it's my fault. The shame is, I'm wrong. And, you know, underneath all of this is the belief that we're inadequate and unlovable. My therapist taught me that, and I remember her saying that. And at the time, I'm like, I'm very adequate and lovable. Like, what the hell are you talking about? You know, decade later, wow, that is absolutely a core belief that I carried for so long. And another big thing I realized was how my spiritual practice actually really saved me and was the through line of all of the guidance of the work that I was led to. And I, in the book, reference very spiritual therapeutic practices for trauma.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  So I reference EMDR, which is eye movement, desensitization, and reprocessing. It's bilateral brain stimulation that allows you to reprocess memories. I reference SE, somatic experiencing, which is a body-based trauma therapy. IFS, which I went as far as to get trained in. And IFS is all about the caring for your inner child parts. And these specific therapies are all very spiritual. In the clinical space, they may not be referenced in that way, but I can say that, right? And I can be the spiritual voice for them. And I believe it's spirit, that my spirit guides, that my connection to God very, very, very clearly laid out this path for me.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  And not just for me to live it, but also for me to share it. And then I would say the one of the biggest surprises, though, was when I would meet these different therapeutic practices, each time I was blown away. I was like, oh, my God, what, you know, I was carrying that. Oh, my God, next level. That is so present in my body. Oh, my God, you know, and just witnessing and witnessing. And I think that the big, one of the biggest surprises also, Jay, is that when you live with trauma, you think that's who you are. You just think I am a workaholic. I am a control freak. And you don't know that there is a way out. And I am so proud, the greatest gift I'll give this world is my bravery to go to the places that scared me and come out the other side

• 43:53Speaker 01

  so that I can live to tell that this works, that you can survive trauma and that you can thrive.

• 44:00Jay Shetty?

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• 44:44Jay Shetty?

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• 45:10Speaker 02

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• 45:38Jay Shetty?

  I feel it, the confidence in your space. And I also just appreciate how you were able to push back your control parameters and protectors. Because like you said, you've been doing this work for a long time. You've been teaching this work. You're helping people. You're changing people's lives. And then going, well, actually, there's another layer. What layer of love was that work in the trauma? Like when you said, we have that deep held belief of I'm unlovable and I'm...

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Inadequate.

• 46:14Jay Shetty?

  Inadequate. How do you fall in love with yourself again? When you realize that's at the root of it? Because really, you're not trying to fall in love with yourself. Before, you're trying to protect and fix. And then all of a sudden, now you're saying at this stage...

• 46:26Speaker 01

  You return to.

• 46:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you return to, yeah, exactly.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Well, I'm gonna answer that from an IFS perspective. And when I use the acronym IFS, it's Internal Family Systems Therapy. And it's not actually about your family, your outside family. It's about your inner family. So you've got your exiled parts of you and you've got your protector parts of you. And then we all have self. Your language, you might call it higher self, or God, or the universe. And I did that as well for many years, inner guidance. And self is self with a capital S. And what self is, is the internal parent. It's the undamaged, resourced part of who we are. It's the man that I'm sitting with here right now. You show up to your podcast in self. And that's actually why it's so resonant with people.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  Because they feel that there's no ego attached to it. There's no, you're not showing up with like a presence of neediness or anything. You're showing up, this is me. This is what I'm here to do. I'm on my mission. But when your wife triggers you, your protector parts might show up. And you might start to get into an extreme pattern. And that's for all of us. So we all have access to this undamaged, resourced part of who we are. Self qualities are courage, compassion, calmness, creativity, curiosity, connectedness. And when we are in that presence of self, like you and I are here right now, anything's possible. I could say to you right now, something really difficult for you to hear.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  But you would hear it with love because I'm grounded in that self-energy. And so the main way to fall back in love with yourself is to let self become the leader of your inner system. So it's not like we want to control or push down or manage these protector parts of ourselves. There's no bad parts. We just want to help them be less extreme. And how? We want to let them know that there's an internal parent. Let me give you a really clear example, okay? So I, let's say, something triggered me last week. I was like in a conversation with some friends and I was like, oh my God, they don't like me.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Like an old exiled part was there. And when the exiled part comes up, you don't want to feel it, right? So then one of my protectors tries to numb it out. And the protector is the judger in that case, like, well, they're wrong, right? And I go into like all the reasons they're wrong because I don't want to feel that shame. And then I'm like, well, oh my God, no, I'm wrong because, you know, so we attack others, we attack ourselves. And so those are protector parts and the judger came-

• 49:03Jay Shetty?

  Someone has to be wrong.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Somebody has to be wrong, right? So the judger was there to protect me from feeling that impermissible feeling. And then because I have this great through line to self, I was able to notice, oh, okay, I noticed there's a protector up. Okay, notice. Where do I feel that in my body? Notice. Is it, does it have a color? Does it have a shape? Is there, is there something that it wants to say to me? What do I know about it? Okay, I know it's young. I know it's a young girl who, you know, doesn't feel like she is understood in high school, right? And I know that she's just wanting to blame others because, because she's so scared. And what does she need right now? She needs a hug. She needs to breathe. And I can let her actually speak to me.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  And I can listen to that part. And then I can give her what she needs. And so it's literally a practice of becoming your own internal parent, creating the secure attachment that we did not get from our parents with ourselves. And there's no greater form of self-love than letting self with a capital S, lead your entire system. And you have to see the thing here, Jay, is I didn't shame that part. I wasn't like, oh, that judger is there or that young child parts showing up like you're a loser. I actually really got curious about it. I was compassionate toward it. I brought a calm energy to it.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  And so the goal here really is to begin to soften and relax the protectors. Because frankly, Jay, you know, the protectors are not bad, right? Like, the controller wrote nine books in 11 years. You know, she did a good job.

• 50:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  But we just want her to be less extreme.

• 50:46Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  And so she can keep producing and keep creating, but not in that extreme way. It's a lot of density. In chapter seven of the book, I go deep into IFS. But I want to just reiterate for the listener, notice, know, need. In the moment when you can, if you have enough awareness to notice that you're triggered, notice it in your body. What does it feel like? Is there a color? Is there a shape? What do you know about it? And then what does it need? And give yourself a moment to try that out.

• 51:12Jay Shetty?

  Even though there's so much depth to it, I felt that was very clear. Because I think that's what we're ultimately avoiding is accepting that we have an inner child need.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 51:22Jay Shetty?

  Right? It's like, that's ultimately what we're running away from is that we do have a gap internally. And it isn't going to be solved through something in the external world. It's not going to be solved through someone saying something to us in a nice way or someone changing.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:38Jay Shetty?

  Right? Like, it's not going to be-

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, my husband changing his tone is never going to heal my wounds, right? It may make a, create a world where I'm less activated, less frequently.

• 51:49Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  But like, someone else's behavior cannot change your reactivity. And that doesn't mean the other person shouldn't show up as well. But like, you have to be your internal parent. Your partner can't be your parent. Frankly, in many ways, your parent can't parent you back to that, you know? You, especially if you're, you know, 42 years old or whatever it is. As a little child, the expectation is you'll have that, but most don't.

• 52:11Jay Shetty?

  That's so powerful because I think most of us, what we're yearning for is to live in a less deactivated state. So ideally, what we want is if everyone was just nicer and kinder, then things would just feel better. Right? But the reality is that not everyone's just going to be nicer and kinder. Uh, and if we can be in that environment, that's beautiful. It's a great environment to grow in. But what you just said was so brilliant. You were like, you know, if my husband changing his tone is not gonna solve the wound. And, and I think that that's why the path that you just laid out is fantastic because we're constantly checking in with everyone else's needs. We're trying to be pleasing to other people's needs.

• 52:56Jay Shetty?

  I don't know the last time, most people, if we're honest with ourselves, and I want everyone who's listening to truly be honest with yourself. When was the last time you checked in with yourself? And not just yourself, your inner child self, the younger self, as Gabby was saying, and said, what do you need? I just, I mean, even me, I'm, I'm listening, I'm going, can't remember the last time I did that for myself.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  And the distinction here too, is that you're asking the protector part what it needs. Because the exiled parts are really locked up, Jay, like they're like locked in a basement. And to start to touch into the exiles, I would recommend doing that with IFS therapy, like with an IFS therapist. You can learn more about it. I do an interview with Dick Schwartz on my podcast. And then obviously in this chapter, there's a whole dialogue about IFS. And we can give some resources links as well in the show notes. But more importantly, that you would go through that deeper exiled child part journey with a trained therapist, particularly in this system. But that you right now, right here, can start to just be a parent to those protector parts. And that's the first step.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Because the protectors are really the ones that you can see. The child's activated, but the protector sweeps right in.

• 54:09Jay Shetty?

  I see what you're saying.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  The protector's like, oh, I'm gonna lock that door. Like, there's a little activation. No, thank you. I'm gonna put that fire out by picking up a drink. I'm gonna put that fire out by raging, you know? And so you wanna work with the alcoholic. You wanna work with the rager. And the more you softened your relationship to those protector parts, the closer you can get to the exile.

• 54:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Because the protectors are there, first responders. Like, no way, you're not gonna get behind that door. And so you have to start to soften those relationships.

• 54:33Jay Shetty?

  That's good. That's a good distinction for me. Because I was, yeah, I think my space was still with the exiled part. But as you said, for a lot of people, those may be too locked up.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And for some, it's less so. You know, for some, for some people that have done a lot of personal growth work, like, if you and I were to do a session in IFS right now, we could get to your child parts and you'd be very safe there. You've done a lot of work. You're safe in your system. We could go to an exile. But I would never, like, the average person that hasn't done a lot of personal growth work, it's not, it's not safe to go.

• 55:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Without the therapy, yeah.

• 55:04Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yeah, absolutely. And that's a great distinction to make, again, that we don't want people going off and trying to do something that

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:11Jay Shetty?

  isn't gonna serve them.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:13Jay Shetty?

  You, you talk a lot about, you know, in the book, the, I think, one of the last chapters, or the last chapter is "Love Every Part." And, and I think, just as we believe we're unlovable and inadequate, we somehow believe that that's not possible. Right? Somewhere inside of us, there's a belief that it's actually not possible to be happy.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:36Jay Shetty?

  Or to love ourselves. Like, it just exists there somewhere. Do we develop a belief that it exists before we find it? Or do we start looking for it and find it along the way?

• 55:47Speaker 01

  Hmm. I was looking for it and found it along the way. And I remember being... In the early stages of remembering the trauma and waking up super depressed, waking up so down, so scared, totally disembodied for months. When you actually remember dissociative trauma, you kind of go back into it. So you're living in terror, like everything is just danger. And I was just like, there's no way out. But I was so committed. And so I think the most important message is it's not about getting out overnight. In AA, when you get sober, they say, I wish you a slow recovery. Because that means that you're doing the work.

• 56:27Jay Shetty?

  Wow, I love that.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  It means that you're going under the surface and peeling back the layers. And so the same goes, addiction, addiction really is a root cause is trauma period. So it's really going back slowly into the trauma. And so I would say that to the person that's recognizing trauma is, I wish you a slow recovery. Meaning that every small layer that you peel back is a miracle. And the more you add up those miracle moments, the closer you get to living a miraculous life.

• 56:56Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  So you can celebrate your successes along the way. So for today, maybe you pick up Happy Days and you just read the first chapter. That's a success story. Maybe you just listen to this podcast episode again. That's another layer. Maybe you practice one of the breath practices in the book. That's another layer. And it's a very, very gentle process. And you have to be fully celebrating every step of the journey. Am I done, Jay? I'm not done. I still go to therapy every Wednesday. I still have sometimes two additional sessions a month. I still am deep in EMDR. I'm still doing my own IFS on myself. I'm going to be going forever to shining the crystal.

• 57:38Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  And so, but there is really freedom on the other side. There really is.

• 57:42Jay Shetty?

  Well, that's that presence again, right? In being present in the process, as you just said. But I think that's what's so hard right now is that because of the way the world's going, everything's become more instant, more fast, fast recovery, quick fix. And I mean, that's always been the way, but it's become more and more and more and more and more. And then when you're being asked to do slow recovery and the real work, which is what we know genuinely has the reward during and at the end of the journey. I find that that Collision is so hard for people because they wake up with resistance again. So it's like just when you had that moment, when you felt you had a breakthrough, you wake up the next morning and the resistance is fully back.

• 58:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's actually why I think it's valuable to build up your toolbox of self-regulating techniques. And they're in here. And the reason that's valuable is that you can still feel relief along the way. You can still have fun along the way.

• 58:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's not postponing the journey.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  You've known me for six years. Six years ago, I was like totally in a very different nervous system than I am now. But I still had fun.

• 58:51Jay Shetty?

  Oh, 100%.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  You know, I still could be with you and just have a great time. It was a different kind of fun. And it was a different kind of experience because I wasn't in the presence that I'm in now. But it's not like you can't live your life and have joy along the way.

• 59:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Especially if you're on the journey. That's why it's called a spiritual path or a spiritual journey. If you're on the path and the journey, every step of it's an up-leveling. And so, and especially if you have this arsenal of these self-regulating tools. Okay, I can be going through some big stuff. I can be slowly getting sober. I can be slowly recovering from trauma. I can be slowly going through therapy, but at the same time have these amazing meditations, have these amazing breath practices that soothe me, have these great breakthroughs in my therapy or in my relationship and just celebrate those miracles along the way.

• 59:36Jay Shetty?

  Tell me how you think about trauma differently as being a mom.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, if you've got unhealed drama and you are about to become a parent, particularly, I would say, for both parents, but particularly a mother that's going to carry a baby and deliver a baby and in the first early days be the food for the baby and the whole thing, you want to do this work. Because if you don't, you know, even if you do or you don't, it doesn't matter, it'll all come flooding in. In my case, not only did the trauma flood in, but I also was hit with really terrible postpartum depression, suicidal postpartum depression. I write about it in the book because it actually often, if you have unresolved trauma, can be very activating, even with the biochemical condition of postpartum, it just can take it to the next level.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  So for me, having my son was one of the biggest trauma responses I've experienced in my life was postpartum. That's a beautiful blessing because when you make the commitment to have a child, you are having to ask yourself two questions. Am I going to do this the way it was done for me? Or am I going to show up big time? And how do you show up? You show up for yourself. Because the more you reparent yourself, the clearer the path to parenting your child. There's a chapter in this book called Reparenting Yourself. It's all here. It's just almost a joke. And it's a chapter called Reparenting Yourself, where in early 2020, I'm like, you know,

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  running my business, like, everyone's in this like storm. My kid's at home. He's two years old. He's napping twice a day. And Zach are the only ones with him at that time, because everybody's home. And I went diving deep into the parenting books, particularly Dan Siegel's work. And he has a lot of methods. And one of them, I loved the four S's. Seen, Soothed, Safe, Secure. And I started applying this with my kid. And I was making sure I was really seeing him and soothing him, not just physically, but like really energetically and creating a safe environment, not just that he won't fall over on the, you know, but a safe energetically. And that creates a secure attachment bond. Now, I was looking at this experience with Oliver, and I was like, no one ever did this for me. You know?

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  I was like, but why can't I do this for myself? And so I wrote a whole chapter. I did it for myself, and I wrote about it. And so the best parenting advice I have is to do the work on yourself.

• 1:01:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  This is a parenting book, as much as it is, because it's reparenting yourself to be a better parent.

• 1:02:05Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yeah, absolutely. And with that, I mean, it's again, the shame again, right? Like, from the mothers that I know well, who are open and honest with me. If you go through that post-giving birth, it's like, there's shame and guilt in that.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:20Jay Shetty?

  Because it impacts. So it's again, another opportunity to choose shame and guilt. And then you don't tell anyone, because as a mom, mom guilt is even harder to share. What did you do in that period? I mean, obviously, you're doing all of this work, but what did you specifically do to move through that?

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  So here I was now at that stage, had...

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Published maybe seven or eight books, something like this. And I'm just sort of showing the world of where I was, a self-help book author, very entrenched in the wellness space, brought up homeopathic, really believing in natural medicage, medicine, never had fulfilled a prescription at a pharmacy. And in many ways, probably was a part of the stigma around mental health because I would be in my audiences and people would say to me, like, I'm depressed. And I'd be, try this meditation. And I didn't realize, if you're having a biochemical condition, it doesn't work if you're having a biochemical condition. And so I was having a biochemical condition, but not fully giving it voice. And I got to the point where I was having insomnia. I had insomnia for four months. And when you don't sleep, you get extraordinarily depressed.

• 1:03:27Speaker 01

  And for me, it became suicidal. I opened the chapter talking about how I'm driving to Mother's Day brunch and I'm in the backseat with my son and under my breath, they say, I want to kill myself. And so that's where I was at. And I did not get help for four months, maybe longer. I was undiagnosed because of the stigma and the shame of what mental illness is. And, you know, we have to really begin to look at the shame and the stigma around it. And so for me, in my experience here, I was in this wellness world and, you know, finding that ashwagandha wasn't going to be the answer and melatonin wasn't going to be the answer and L-theanine for my stomach wasn't going to be the answer.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  And even in the therapy, the therapeutic tools were no longer working. The meditation was no longer working. And finally, I hit a massive bottom, just four months of not sleeping. I actually missed a talk, a live talk. It was the first time in over a decade that I didn't show up because I hadn't slept the night before. And then I finally reached out to a friend who was a psychiatrist and I said, I need help. And he put me in touch with a postpartum psychiatrist. I saw her the next day. She diagnosed me within 10 minutes. She said, you have postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, you have to get medicated. And she saw all that resistance in me and she looked at me and these were the words that helped me.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  She said, this medication will give you a safer baseline so that you can do the deeper trauma work. And those words just punctured me. I just heard everything she said and I said, "Okay, all right, I'll do it." And I took that prescription and I went down to the pharmacy and I stood in the pharmacy with my husband. I was like, "What do I do? I don't even know what to do. I've never even fulfilled a prescription." He's like, "You hand it to the pharmacist." And I held that medication in my hand and the placebo effect just set right in and I was like, "There is a way out of this."

• 1:05:28Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  And I was having a biochemical condition. You can't mess with that.

• 1:05:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  You cannot meditate your way out of that.

• 1:05:34Jay Shetty?

  I agree.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  And so here I am now, you know, a voice for really ending the stigma around mental illness. If you have a proper diagnosis from a psychiatric, from a psychiatrist and you have that psychiatric support, there is no shame in following the medicated path. Yes, of course, we live in a culture where medication is overly prescribed and unnecessarily prescribed. And there are a lot of things you have to know and educate yourself on when you get on psychiatric medication. But when you need it, you need it.

• 1:06:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  To survive.

• 1:06:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  And it is, and it is exactly what she said. That medication created a safer baseline in my system so I could unearth the deepest, deepest wounds and come out the other side.

• 1:06:18Jay Shetty?

  Gabby, thank you so much for shedding your soul in this book, in this episode. And what I love about this book is that it has your story and your journey. It has really practical tips and steps for people to actually follow. And it has these real methodologies and approaches to guide them as well. And, and I think it's masterful in the way it's kind of like the tapestry of all of that together. And I think what underpins it is just your ability to go all the way and be so vulnerable as you have been today in today's episode, but in also in the book. And so if anyone who's listening, if you know for a long time, you've been shying away, you've been protecting yourself, you've been putting it off, postponing it.

• 1:07:03Jay Shetty?

  You know it's there. Maybe a physical response is really triggering right now. Maybe something that someone says is pushing you over the edge. Then please go and grab a copy of Happy Days today. The link is in the comment section and everywhere else. And make sure you follow Gabby. Her podcast is called Dear Gabby. Go and listen and subscribe to the podcast. You can also follow Gabby on social media across all platforms, Gabby Bernstein. Make sure you go and do that. Gabby, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking out the time to do this because I think you've made me ask so many questions that I'm going to go back to after this episode. I'm like, what do I need to take a deeper look at? What have I really not worked through?

• 1:07:47Jay Shetty?

  Or what am I avoiding or ignoring or putting off? And I'm just grateful for that. I'm really grateful that you've given me this space to do that, given us all the path to do that through this book.

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  Thank you for your presence and for seeing me, even when I couldn't see myself. And it's such a privilege to be your friend. Thank you.

• 1:08:07Jay Shetty?

  Thank you, Gabby. Thank you so much. Everyone who's been listening and watching, make sure you tag me and Gabby on your posts so that we know what resonated with you, what connected with you. I just want to point out that a lot of my guests have said this to me recently. It makes me very happy. Our on purpose community is amazing. And I've been getting messages and speaking to a lot of my friends who've been on the show saying that they just felt the love, like the flood of love from our community. So please show that to Gabby as well. Thank you for doing that for all the other guests. Before, I wanted you to know that I've been hearing about you personally from so many people. And let's start living some happy days. So take care, everyone. Thank you so much for listening.

• 1:08:57Speaker 03

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• 1:09:26Speaker 04

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• 1:09:52Speaker 05

  Mr. President, my company tore me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd.

• 1:09:57Speaker 06

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:10:02Speaker 05

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:10:09Speaker 07

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You stall, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 1:10:13Speaker 05

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:10:16Speaker 07

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:10:18Speaker 05

  Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R, under 17, not a middle without parent.