On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Gabrielle Bernstein: The Simple 4-Step Method to Heal Anxiety, Stop Overthinking, and Stop People-Pleasing for Good

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Have you been feeling anxious lately? Do you notice when your mind starts to spiral? Jay welcomes back his good friend and New York Times bestselling author Gabrielle Bernstein for a deep and inspiring conversation about true inner healing. Together, they unpack Gabby’s latest book, Self-Help, which reimagines Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) as a practice anyone can bring into their daily life. Gabby shares how the parts of us we often judge, the anxious part, the perfectionist, the people-pleaser, the one who needs control, aren’t our enemies. They’re parts that have been trying to protect us, even if they sometimes get in the way. As the conversation unfolds, Jay and Gabby unpack why so many of us get caught in cycles of burnout, self-criticism, and emotional disconnection. Gabby shares her simple four-step “check-in” practice, a way to pause, look inward, and start building a kinder relationship with ourselves. Through this process, she explains, we can start to recognize our patterns, meet them with compassion and find peace even in the midst of life’s noise. Together, they unpack powerful questions we can all relate to: Why is it easier to comfort others than ourselves? Could our inner critic actually be trying to protect us? And how can we set boundaries without losing our empathy or warmth? In this interview, you'll learn: How to Befriend Every Part of Yourself How to Recognize Your Inner Protectors How to Heal Through Compassion, Not Control How to Calm Your Inner Critic How to Create Boundaries Without Guilt How to Self-Soothe When You Feel Triggered Healing doesn’t mean fixing what’s broken, it means learning to see every part of yourself with compassion and curiosity. The parts of you that once felt heavy or hard to love are often the same ones that carried you through the toughest moments.  With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here.  Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast  What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 03:29 What is Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy? 06:00 Healing Deep Trauma Through IFS 08:38 Where Real Healing From Trauma Begins 10:17 Blending Therapy with Spiritual Connection 13:38 Strengthen Your Own Spiritual Foundation 16:57 The Four-Step Self Check-In Practice 20:32 The Journey Toward Feeling Truly Great 25:39 Finding Peace Without External Validation 26:46 We All Have An Inner Spiritual Power 31:00 Seeing Self-Judgment as a Form of Protection 33:40 Stop Being So Hard on Yourself 36:24 Connecting with the Parts That Protect You 41:45 Why Facing Yourself Feels So Hard 47:33 Healing Starts When You Do the Work 49:54 The Power of Forgiving Yourself  55:57 Every Part of You Serves a Purpose 57:46 What Changes When You Befriend Your Inner Parts 59:00 The Truth About High Performers and Inner Peace 01:01:45 How to Set Boundaries with Love and Clarity 01:08:47 Gabby on Final Five  Episode Resources: Gabrielle Bernstein | Website Gabrielle Bernstein | TikTok Gabrielle Bernstein | Instagram Gabrielle Bernstein | Facebook Gabrielle Bernstein | YouTube Dear Gabby Self Help: This Is Your Chance to Change Your Life Gabby's 21-day Manifesting ChallengeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. For the next era of gaming.

Upgrade to smooth, high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the psychology podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome.

Avoidance is easier, ignoring is easier, denials easier, complex problem solving, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. You may even know me as the People's Princess. Every week on my new podcast, Fud Around and Find Out, I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHart Women's Sports and Partnership.

with Unanimous Media on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The aspects of ourselves that cause the most drama and most chaos in our life or the most hated aspects are actually the parts of us that are working so hard to protect us. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest is one of my dear friends, one of my favorites, and someone that is so deeply important to me, and I'll tell you about something special in a second. Today's guest is the one and only Gabrielle Bernstein, number one New York Times bestselling author on multiple occasions, spiritual teacher and speaker known for making personal growth

accessible and practical. Gabby has written multiple New York Times bestselling books, including The Universe Has Your Back. Her latest book, though, Self-Help, brings internal family systems therapy into everyday life. If you have no idea what that is, I promise you it's going to change your life. Stick around for this episode because Gabby is a leading voice on wellness stages around the world and continues to inspire millions through her talks, courses and online community. Please welcome my dear friend Gabby Bernstein. Gabby, it's so great to have you back. I love that we were just talking about how the first time we met was literally nine years ago to a couple of weeks from now. And I remember I had just launched this brand

new show at HuffPost called Follow the Reader. You were at the top of our booking list. You said yes. And I must have interviewed you in like my second week at the job. And we became instant friends. You became such a dear mentor, someone that I turned to for advice. And I'm so grateful to you because from day one, when I literally had nothing to offer you, you were supportive, kind, helpful, you're the real deal. And I love saying that about people because it's very rare. So thank you. And thank you for being here. I walked out of that interview and I looked at my publicist and I said to her, first, I'm going to be friends with that guy. Like, that guy's my friend. And second, I'm like,

he's a superstar. I was like, just watched his career blow up. And here we are. So I love you. So grateful. And I'm so grateful you put this book together because my wife, actually interviewed you on her podcast and the first thing she said to me she was like oh my gosh I had no idea what internal family systems is and I have no idea how powerful it was until I spoke to Gabby and she was raving about like she couldn't I was like yeah I love Gabby obviously but yeah she couldn't it was something that really impacted her and I think that's what this book has done I think that's what you sharing of IFS has done please for all of us who may not be familiar with it, what is internal family systems therapy? How does it work? And what's the goal?

Internal family systems therapy, which is also known as IFS, is the therapy that changed my life. And it is a practice of befriending the activated parts of ourselves, the aspects of ourselves that often we might like the least. So the parts of ourselves that can be hypervigilant or addicted or extreme in any way, or the belief systems and patterns that hold us back from what we really want, oftentimes we want to just shut those parts of ourselves down, right? Oh, I hate that part of myself, or I don't want to be there again, or how did I end up in that situation again? It's about befriending those parts of ourselves and healing and accessing this relationship to these parts rather than making them bad or wrong, but starting to get into

relationship with these aspects of ourselves. Because really, Jay, they're just little children inside. You saying that, and me hearing that just now has literally given me goosebumps because it's so profound because I feel like most of our self-help efforts or most of our self-work efforts as of now are all about never feeling that way again. Exactly. So it's like how do I never, ever feel anxious ever again? How do I completely block out the inner critic? How do I I never experienced this ever again in my life? You're nailing it. Pretty much what happens is as young children,

we have these experiences of trauma with a big tea or trauma with a small tea. We all have them. It doesn't matter how big or small we've all had them. Maybe you were bullied on the playground or maybe you had extreme trauma, like an abuse or a parent that was alcoholic. No matter what that a moment in time was as a child or multiple moments in time,

those experiences of feeling terror or unlovable. or inadequate, not good enough. Those were such extreme feelings that we would do whatever it took to protect against them, just like you said, I never want to feel that again. So what we did was he started to build up protection mechanisms. And those protection mechanisms could be like controlling, or they could be people-pleasing or perfectionism, or in my case, control was a big one, or rage, or then addiction. And these protection mechanisms become these aspects.

of ourselves that really run the show. They're called protector parts. And so in IFS, the whole intention is to start to get to know these protector parts, soften to them, recognize them, and these protection mechanisms that we've been living with for as long as we can remember, to recognize them as young little children inside who need the care of our inner self, of our higher self. And that's what in IFS is called self, which is why the book is called self-help. And I mean, go on and on about the inner workings of self-help, which we'll do today.

But really, my intention with this book, Jay, was to democratize and demystify and simplify this extraordinary therapy that my friend, Dr. Richard Schwartz, created. And I went on to be trained in the model. And after doing the therapy for a decade for myself, with my own therapist, and then getting trained in it, it was very clear to me that I was going to do what I was. do, which is translate and simplify. And that's what this is. This is a self-help practice based on the principles of IFS. It's so counterintuitive to what I think we've been told for so long. And so it takes a second. But you said something at the start of the interview a few moments ago about how it

actually changed your life. And what was it that took you and drew you to IFS? How did that come to be in your life? And where were you at in your life when this became something that was relevant for you. It was a real accident. I didn't know that it was there. I was with the same therapist for about seven, seven or eight years. And midway through my therapy, I actually remembered in a dream trauma from my childhood, extreme trauma, big T trauma. In that journey of undoing that trauma, she began practicing IFS with me. I didn't know that we were doing it. I just was doing the thing that she wanted me to do. And it's actually really hard for me to do at the time because she was wanting me to start to tap into these aspects of myself and start to get to know, get into relationship with

the addict or the anxiety or the extreme patterns of rage or the controller, which were all protection mechanisms that have been blocking me from remembering that trauma. And I remember it was about 2020. I was at home, as we all were, and I'm watching this YouTube video with this man, Dr. Richard Schwartz. I just stumbled upon it. And I'm watching this video and I'm like, this guy's talking about this therapy he created. And as I'm hearing him talk about it, I'm realizing that's the thing I've been doing for all these years with my therapist. And it was so exciting to me. And it was just around the time that I was starting my podcast. So I reached out to him and he was one of the third people I had on the show because it was

just my mission to uncover as much as I could about this therapy that was really healing me. And then Dick really encouraged me to go on and get the training. And so I was one of the last people to be able to do the facilitator training that isn't a therapist. It isn't a licensed therapist. So it was definitely divinely timed. And I think when you get trained in something, and you know this, when you do the training and you undergo what it would mean to be a facilitator of that work, it starts to get into your system in a way that it benefits you even more. I think we borrow the benefits as teachers. We start to experience the work in a different way, it becomes so integrated. And that accelerated my experience of IFS, which then made me realize,

I can't just expect that everyone's going to be able to get to this therapy because they won't be able to afford it or there's not enough therapists out there or they won't even know that it's there. So I've got to make it easy and accessible for people to use. And particularly right now, people need resources and they need tools to access on the fly. And we need an inner sense of safety inside. So where do people start? To start, you have to just first recognize that there are parts of yourself that are activated to just if you've ever said something like there's a part of me that gets really angry and rageful when my wife does X or a part of me checks out when I'm around my parents or a part of me is really defensive at work when I'm

around authority figures those parts of yourself are not who you are they're parts of who you are and they're protection mechanisms and so having this experience of being the witness without any judgment of these aspects of yourself that may actually be aspects of yourself that you've really judged and really hated for a long time, but being that non-judgmental witness of these parts of yourself and recognizing how long has that part been around? Every time you're going to say, as long as I can remember, since I was a kid, since that was five, and then asking yourself, okay, well, what is that part really trying to do here? It's trying to protect you.

And so that's the first step is to recognize that the aspects of ourselves that cause the most drama and most chaos in our life or the most oftentimes hated aspects are actually the parts of us that are working so hard to protect us. And you know, I've been sober now 20 years, 20 years right now. And I can look back at the cocaine addict part at 25 years old and just look at her with so much love and so much compassion and just say, thank you for work. working so hard to keep down these impermissible feelings that I was not ready to face. So it starts by spotting a pattern that you see repeated that you don't like about yourself. A belief, maybe a belief, a pattern, a behavior that you find to be extreme in some way that's causing

some issues in your life or oftentimes the parts of ourselves. And I'll just give a bunch of examples. So for me, you've got the controller, we've had the anxiety, the addict. There was a part that I named called Knives Out. It was really like, if you mess with me, the knives are coming out. And she's a really unburdened part. Now that part is doing okay. But for a long time, it was like I could be the greatest person. But if you messed with me, it was just like this defensiveness was going to just come out

in such an extreme way. And even parts of ourselves that might be praised. For example, for years, I was just sort of a workaholic. And people would be like, wow. Gabby, you write a book a year and you're doing so much and you'd be praised for these aspects of yourself. But meanwhile, it was destroying me. And you've known me through that time. You've seen me through those sort of destructive eras of my life where I was just pounding and grinding. I was running. I was protecting against deep feelings that I wasn't ready to face.

And so these aspects might not necessarily be perceived as bad, but they're causing and creating chaos nonetheless. And the thing that's really important for me about this work is that it's very spiritual work. And as you know, all my work up to this point has been really grounded in spiritual beliefs and faith, in my own faith, in my own truth around my spiritual practice. But what's gorgeous about this is it's really marrying therapeutic processes with a spiritual experience. And I can get to that. That's what self is. Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about that. I mean, I was going to ask you that. You're saying a lot of these protection mechanisms, they ultimately bury their self.

They are blocking self. They're blocking us for itself, yes. Because there's this beautiful quote by an IFS practitioner, and I'll just, I'll share it. It's that self is like the sun behind the clouds. And when the clouds dissipate, the sun begins to emerge naturally. So anyone watching has had experience, anyone listening or watching has had experiences of self. moments when you're just in complete flow, when you're playing pickleball with Lewis, when

you're cooking with Roddy, when you're in self right now. You looked me in the eye before this show started. You asked me one of the most beautiful questions. I almost started crying before we began. That's your self energy. It's calm. It's courageous. It's curious. It's connected. It's clear. Creative, I think I said, and confident. It's these see quality, compassionate. And it's almost an oftentimes very childlike wonder. It's just and the reason actually I think that you're such an excellent interview is because you interview with a lot of self, the curiosity, the connection, clarity. You know, that's also what comes through. That's what people feel even healed in the presence of self. And so that self energy all

of us have, but we blocked it. We blocked it with all these protectors. But the good news is it never left us. Yeah, and that's what you're saying. We've all had these glimpses of our compassionate self, our creative self, our kind self. And you're so right that all of our triggers block that. Even, I was thinking about this just how, trying to think of someone I spoke to the other day who, you could tell there was this almost fight inside of them where their insecurity about something was unlocking their ego when in reality they wanted to follow their highest self

and be compassionate. And I think that's what we all go through. I think the truth is, Gabby, that, and we can both speak to this, you've done this work for so long now in helping so many millions of people across the world. People are exhausted right now and doing this work requires a lot of effort,

and energy and time and courage, how do people bring themselves to actually do this to unlock their self when it just feels like it's so far blocked and it's so far removed? And we feel so far away from feeling that creative, compassionate, powerful self that we all have and that we all are. Well, I think if someone's coming to this with that energy of, I don't have time for this or this is too much, or I'd ask that person, well, how is it all working out for you this way? Because we think it's hard. We think that self-help practices are hard or spiritual practice is hard. But the truth is that not having that foundation is much more difficult. And not having that foundation in this critical time. This is a very critical time. If we don't have a faith

of our own understanding or a therapeutic or a spiritual or a self-help practice of our own understanding or a tool of accessing some kind of inner connection to inner wisdom, inspiration, intuition, inner guidance. If we don't have that right now, we're going to be like a fish out of water. We're going to be flailing around. We're going to feel really unstable, really uncertain, really anxious, and really scared. And I think that's most people right now. Anyone watching or listening you to this interview is on the track of wanting more. So they've already begun the first step. They would not be following you if they weren't interested in seeking their ability to self-soothe, to self-correct, to feel a sense of safety inside. So they're already 90% of the way there

because they're listening. But the practice that I've created that I've outlined here is taking this big body of work that does oftentimes feel like a lot to go into therapy every single week, to sit down, to open up to some of those deepest, most vulnerable parts of ourselves. And so this is really a way to scratch the surface and to do it safely. Because I'm not going to those exiled parts. I'm not going to that little traumatized child. We're going to the day-to-day protection mechanism. Yeah, yeah. And it's a four-step practice. It's a simple four-step practice. So what do we do once we've identified this pattern? So whether it's anxiety, people pleasing, avoidance, control, what do you then do once you've found this pattern that has

been a protector, but ultimately is a blocker from self? Yeah. So these patterns are the way that we check out. And so the practice in the book is called the four-step check-in process. And it's checking in with the part. And so if you have enough space between that stimulus and the reaction, so let's say you are at work and your boss triggers you and you're like, okay, I got to get out of this office right now and I got to go into the bathroom and I got to check in with myself because otherwise I'm going to do something I'm going to regret. So you step away or you typically stepping away is very valuable or you maybe the next day you want to check in because it's still lingering. You get out of the instant of the trigger and then you choose to check in

instead of checkout. So it's focusing your attention inward as the first step. Just just looking inside. Just even closing your eyes and focusing your attention inside. The second step is curiosity. So that's where you start to just tease it out a little bit and you'll say, okay, where does that part of me live in my body? Where do I feel it? And you'll notice it's in my jaw or it's in my stomach or my chest or my shoulders or wherever it lives. You'll ask a few more questions. Are there any thoughts or feelings or sensations attached with this belief or pattern? And then you'll hear, you know, I'm not good enough or I can, or maybe you'll have a an image. You know, I see myself and I'm five years old and the bully on the playground is

yelling at me or whatever that storyline was. Or, you know, my dad just left or whatever the experience, maybe you'll see the image or you'll hear words. So you just keep teasing it out, just noticing thoughts, feeling, sensations, what's happening inside. And once you have a little bit of connection, remember, that's self, you're going to connect deeper with compassion, which is the third step. And you're going to ask the part, not yourself. You're asking the part of you, the activated part of you, what do you need? And Jay, you'll be blown away. The part will say, I need to dance.

I need to rest. I need to play. Because what do these parts need? They need to be kids again. They need to return to that natural role of being innocent. Or I need love. And then once you have that third step, the fourth step is very easy, and it's really checking for self.

So you're going to check in for those sea qualities. Do I feel calm? Do I feel more compassionate? Do I feel connected? Do I have some clarity? Do I feel a little courageous? Do I have creative energy buzzing inside of me? Oftentimes, you'll very quickly feel calmer. You feel some courage. And clarity is a big one that comes through quickly too. And so those four steps, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. And I've prescribed this. I've looked at my audiences and I've said, okay, listen, what about one minute a day four steps is bothering you? And everyone's like, nothing. I can do that. And so that's it. One minute a day,

steps. Because the thing is, once you do this one time, then you can realize, oh, wait, I can do this maybe in an hour from now, or I can do it before I'm going to bed when I'm having anxiety, or I can do it after that deep conversation with my partner that really activated me. I can keep coming back to this really simply without feeling like it's a burden. It can be as little or as much as you want. But I've always taught, as a metaphysical teacher, that the miracles that we experienced in our life for the experiences when we change the way we experience something, not that the things outside of us change, but that our experience of our experience changes. And that's what this will offer.

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I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about exploring human potential. I was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills, and I get eye-rolling from teachers or I get students. would be like, it's easier to punch someone in the face. When you think about emotion regulation, like, you're not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to use

unless you think there's a good outcome as a result of it if it's going to be beneficial to you. Because it's easy to say, like, go you, go blank yourself, right? It's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore, to suppress, seeing a colleague who's bothering you and just, like, walk the other way.

Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials is easier. drinking is easier, yelling, screaming is easy. Complex problem solving, meditating, you know, takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When news broke earlier this year that baby KJ, a newborn in Philadelphia, had successfully received the world's first personalized gene editing treatment, it represented a milestone for both researchers and patients. But there's a gripping tale of discovery behind this accomplishment.

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a sparkling adaptogenic drink made with powerful ingredients like Ashwaganda and Lionsman. It's designed to boost your mood, support your focus and give you natural energy or without the crash. Get your daily mood boost with Junie at Whole Foods Market or head to drinkjunie.com to find a store near you. What I really appreciate about it is that we're going back to being guided from within. Yes. And I feel that's somewhere where we've.

lost in society where it's constantly being what your parents thought or your friends thought what your family thinks now what social media thinks and we're so overexposed to everyone else's opinion and it's so common for us to ask questions about what we should do with our life in the group chat you know trying to get someone else's opinion to give us the answer and i think we've lost the ability to understand that all of the answers are right there within if we were simply to sit with ourselves. Your body will tell you, your heart will tell you, your mind will tell you, and this practice really allows you to do that again. So it's not like here's a fix it all situation. It will tell you something different every time. When someone does it for the

first time, how can they do it in a way that they have an experience where they get a taste that it's real? Because I think when we hear these things, and you know what the truth is today, I've been thinking about this a lot, and you're the right person to ask this because you've shared so many great pieces of advice over the years, I feel everyone knows what they have to do, but we don't actually do it properly. And so we never have the qualitative experience that convinces us we should keep doing it.

Whereas when you've had that qualitative experience, whether it's an amazing meditation, whether it's the four-step practice, once you've had that qualitative experience and you've felt the impact, you'll do it again and again and again. But the first time, how can someone really lock it?

in the first time they do this. Self begets more self. So the first way to step in is to look at your life and ask yourself, is this what I want? Is this it? I think that those are really magic words. Is this it? Is this all I've got here? You know, I want more than this. Even just saying, I want to change. I want more. Everyone listening is in some way, shape, or form wanting some aspect of change. And that desire is there. And that desire wouldn't be planted in your heart if it wasn't ready to come forth, if it wasn't ready to be birthed. So I think that that's the responsibility that we have to give ourselves is to ask ourselves, this is our, that beautiful Mary Oliver quote, this is our one simple life. This I'm botching it. But this is this one beautiful

life that we have. And am I going to take it to the max? Am I going to live to the highest and the best. And that's one question, and that's one place to come to this. Or the other place is that there may be people listening that are hitting a massive bottom in their life. And for those folks, Jay, it's going to be a lot easier to pick up this book and start.

A lot easier. Because when we are, there's that beautiful roomy quote, the wound is the place where the light enters you. I love that one. When you are in that moment of hitting some kind of bottom or you're having that addiction come to an end or you're in the divorce or you're having a crisis at work or you've lost the job or you've gotten the diagnosis, those are the moments when the light enters you.

So the question you want to ask yourself is, am I willing to do whatever it takes to get to great? Am I willing to do whatever it takes to feel great? And that's the path I've been on. I've been on, I want to get to great. I've lived through a lot of different difficult experiences as all of us have. And I've just been on a pursuit of feeling great. And this is interesting thing that I heard in a 12-set meeting early in my recovery was if they want what you, if you want what they have, do what they do. So sometimes that's just enough to be listening and be like, well, Jay and Roddy did that, you know, or if you want what they have, do what they do, there's a reason that somebody is in, and when I say what they have, I don't mean the external things. I mean the inner piece. If you want what they have, do what they do.

And the thing that happens that you said that was also quite interesting is that why this is a spiritual practice is because when you start to reflect inside and start to tend to these protection mechanisms, these burdened parts, they start to feel seen. What does a child need? Child needs to be seen, soothed, loved, cared, common compassion to energy. So it starts to feel like you have this internal parent inside. And you realize, as Dick Schwartz says, that you are the one you've been waiting for, that all of the external validation or love or connection or support, all that outside stuff that you've been seeking to find completion and safety is actually inside of you. And I know that's something people always say in spiritual, you'll really

experience that with this. What's the balance, do you think, Gabby, of how much external validation and how much self-validation we need? Like, does external validation play any part in our ability to self-validate? Or do you believe it's a full self-validation process and external validation should be irrelevant at some point? I can really speak for my own experience. The more self I've accessed inside, the more self-connection I have to that inner parent, that inner wisdom, the less external validation I need. I don't need it. And I'm a human, so it's not like I, honestly, Jay, I don't really think I need it. I don't feel like I'm grasping or looking or needing. And I think the other irony is that the more self that you have access to, the more

self you attract. So the more calm, connected, compassionate energy you bring into your life. So you do get that love and that connection because you are always receiving back what you are vibrating out. Yeah. And so the more you access self, the more you become that point of attraction for more self in your life. Yeah. No, I love that answer because I've been talking to a lot of friends about that recently about this idea of if you have the power to self-validate and self-soothe and self-regulate and honor your hard work and intensity, then you won't crave it from others. And what I was explaining to someone was that any time I've wanted someone to validate me externally, they can never fully satisfy my need for it because they haven't lived my life.

And in the same way, I haven't lived theirs. So I can't validate them effectively either because I haven't been up with them on those sleepless nights. I haven't gone through the trauma that they've gone through. And so even if I'm to say, well done, you did great. That's amazing. It will still never fully satiate their desire for validation because, as you just quoted Dick Schwartz, that you're the one you've been waiting for. It's only when I sit with myself and I cry at the thought of everything I've been through and honor myself for every way I've showed up for myself, whether it's my body, my mind, my heart, or my soul. That's the only time when I'll actually be satisfied. And I've noticed

that again and again. So I completely agree with you. The point isn't that I don't appreciate external validation I do. The point isn't that I'm not inspired when I'm validated externally. I am. But the only type of validation that really, really, like, affects me deep in my heart and my gut is when it's coming from me. That's right. Because I have all the details. I have the record books. I have the files and the notes on every difficult moment I've been through just as you do for yourself. We are the ones we've been waiting for. I had the experience just yesterday, a really epic experience where I was, my son is a six and a half years old now. And so we belong to this really sweet lake club in our community in the countryside. And it's like 1950s. And

There's these docks and grills, and it's kind of like the dirtier your sweatpants are, the better, the cooler you are there, and clay tennis courts, and it's just really idyllic. And my kids at the age now where he can just, like, run around and do his thing, and I'm not, and he's a great swimmer, and I'm not stressed out about what's going on. So I'm like, go do you, man. And I'm sitting on the dock by myself. My husband was out for a drive. I'm sitting.

I just played some tennis. I'm sitting on the dock. I've got this new book in my hand. I'm in my, you know, my red bathing. soon. I've got my ice coffee next to me. It's like, it's dirty all over the dog, but I didn't care. And I was just sitting there on this, like, cozy chair. And I'm looking out at the water. And I had this incredible energy just pour through me. This energy that was just like, just spirit. It was spirit coming through. I mean, that's the way I would just define this. And it's just self-energy,

just so connected, so in the moment, so present. There wasn't anything else that I was. thinking about or trying to get to or trying to do. And it was just this moment of, whoa, this is what we've been training for. It just flood in. And that isn't a fleeting moment. That's how we can live our lives. We can live not all day, every day. Are we going to be in self? We're going to get activated. We're going to get triggered. The best of us are going to get triggered. But the triggers become less, less, what was years would be days or minutes or or five seconds and we start to access more of that presence and that taste of that, that energy, that self-energy, you want more of it. And also I think that there's this thing I always call

spiritual proof. When you have an experience of something where you say, oh my God, I just did that four-step thing and I actually feel a little bit calmer. And Gabby said, all I need is to be a little bit calmer. And then I've done the job. I've done this. If I even feel the slightest molecule of self, I've done the work. That experience of that molecule of self, is something you crave. You want more of it. It's like going to the gym. You want more of it. Yeah. To keep practicing it. Yeah. One of the ways people experience a protector or a trigger is self-judgment and self-criticism or the inner critic. How do you even reconcile the fact that self-judgment is a protector in some way? Self-judgment's a huge protector. I actually wrote a

book called judgment detox. Yeah, I remember. It was a little bit ahead of myself there because it's very much what this work is about. It's, it's, judgment is a way of, judging ourselves is definitely a protector. Because if there is something big, too uncomfortable to access that's being activated, feelings of being inadequate, unlovable, we are going to do anything we can to numb that pain. So one, we're going to judge others so we don't have to feel the pain inside. or two will judge ourselves, start nitpicking and judging ourselves, because it's easier to judge and attack ourselves than it is to feel the pain. And what happens with this beautiful practice is that as you start to tend inward,

you recognize that you don't have to re-experience the pain. You can just be present with what the protector needs in that moment. And in that moment, it can just soften. And it's these moment-by-momentings of the pain of that you, you've held on to for so long. So what do we do with the self-critic through this four-step practices? Great question. So you'd notice yourself in that self-critic or that attack or judgment, and you would have,

again, you have to have enough space between the attack and the response to it. And sometimes it might not happen until the next day when you have a little bit of a judgment hangover or whatever it is, but you notice it. And you say, okay, you know, I'm going to check in. And so you'd check in with the judgment and you'd focus your attention towards that judgment inside. So instead of being in your head, you'd get into your, and internally. And I like to close my eyes with this. I can also suggest that people do this with journaling. So at the top of the page, you could say, I choose to check in with my judgment. And then the compassionate, the curious

connection, that curiosity coming inside, you'd ask the judgment, you know, what are you trying to tell me? What are you trying to reveal? Because the judgment will then speak. And this is really helpful you asked earlier what's a great way to start journaling it's a great way to do this because if you're just journaling with it you'll let your pen flow and that stream of consciousness will start to come forward onto the page and you'll be blown away what the part will start to say just journal with the part so you ask you what do you need and then you'll just journal journal journal journal and then it's going to you know carry on with the four questions so check in curiosity compassion and what do you need and then start to journal more how do i feel now yeah it's almost starting to treat ourselves you

You said this earlier, and it's resonating more as you explained the practice, this idea of treating those parts of yourself as small children. Yes. And it's like if a child was crying, the first thing you'd say is, hey, what's up? Like, what's going on? Like, how are you feeling? Like, what happened? Are you okay?

Whereas when we see the parts of ourselves crying inside or kicking up a fuss, we're just like, go away. Go away. Go away. I don't want to talk to you. This is an actual. question I ask my audiences is, you know, if a little child in your life was having a hard moment or saying I'm really scared or I'm really activated, the first thing you would do is calm

connection. Your self-energy would rise to the occasion. Calm, connected, curious, what would you need? But the way that we speak to ourselves is insane. It's horrible. We just are so mean to ourselves and so aggressive with ourselves and wanting to shut it down. That's exactly right. Why do we find it easier to soothe others but not suit ourselves? Well, because we need, we believe, or unconsciously, I don't think we know this, but we unconsciously believe that we need these protectors to stay alive. So I'll give an example. I had very severe codependent addiction before I was a drug addict.

And in that codependent addiction, I literally had a belief that if I'm not in a relationship, I will die. it wasn't i could i wouldn't say that out loud but it felt like that it felt like death you behaved like that you're literally like oh my god if i'm clinging and fawning and if that that does relationship to work i want to find another one and i was actually talking with a woman yesterday who's um who identifies as a codependent and and has a very serious addiction to this one partner that she's been trying to to release and she keeps going back and she keeps going back and and she's like it's just such a drug and and i said well what does it feel like if you were to end it and she's like i literally

really feel like I would die. And that's the thing with these protectors is that we don't realize it, but they actually are protecting us from feelings that we think and believe inside, unprocessed trauma feelings, that we believe will take us down. We believe they will take us down. And it's only when we start to self-soothe and access a little bit of that self-inside that we can start to realize, no, no, no, no, actually, there's some safety here. I feel like I can actually be a little bit more resilient than I thought, or it's not that terrifying to go there. I can go there and I can be okay on the other side. But we have to have that spiritual proof in order to actually have even any desire to keep going. Yeah, I think that's that part where I'm like, the first time

you do this for anyone who's listening and watching, really give it your role because you can experience spiritual proof early and as soon as you have that you just set because you now know what you're working towards not that you want the same feeling or the same emotion will be different but you know the process works and I think sometimes it's almost like everyone knows they need to work out and everyone knows they need to take supplements and vitamins but when you don't do that properly and you don't do it consistently you don't have the proof that it works let's give them the proof right now let's give them the experience right now because one of the things I don't love about this sort of therapeutic book, is that talking about it?

Yeah. It's like, people are just like, like, you know, and also protectors get up, like, other protectors, like, literally like, you're going to have to bleed me, but they're like, this. I don't want to go there. Yeah. And so that's why it took me years in therapy. And I wish I'd had this book because I think it would have been a more gentle access

to it. So I don't, let's stop talking about it. I'll give it to them. Okay. And you can do it for yourself. I think, I think everyone listening, maybe you close your, while we do this if you want to. And for your own sake, Jay, just think of a protector that you might be aware of. And you don't have to say out loud what you're working with unless you want to

later, okay? And everybody listening, check in right now with, at this point, maybe you're aware of a part of yourself that is a little activated at times or maybe very activated at times, to the parts that are controlling or addicted or maybe the part that runs through a refrigerator or checks out with YouTube or the aspects of yourself that you want to check in with and choose one right now. And once you're aware of that part, if you're not driving, you can gently close your eyes and focus your attention inward and choose to check in with the part. and now noticing inside with a little curiosity where does that part of you live in your body where do you feel it inside and does it have a shape or a color or is there any words or thoughts

or memories attached to it and give it a breath take it a deep breath in like Jay just did, breathe in with it and just be present with it and let it know that it's safe to let you know more. So any memories or feelings or sensations and don't judge anything that comes forward, just let it come through. And now that you have a little bit of access and connection to this part, you can ask it one last time, is there anything else that you want me to know. And now, with that access to the part, I want you to check in a little bit more closely

and offer it a little bit of compassionate connection. Asking the part, what do you need? Just listen. Don't overthink it, don't judge it, just listen. and now take a deep breath in and maybe place your hand on your heart and your other hand on your belly and just breathing in and just let that part know that you've listened that you're here and take another deep breath in and now just check in and notice how you feel Do you feel even the slightest bit more calm?

Do you feel a little bit of compassion towards that part? Are you curious? Would you like to know a little bit more at some point? Are you willing to get to know more? Do you feel connected? Do you have more clarity about it? Can you creative energy buzzing through? You feel a little buzziness.

Just notice those C qualities, courage, be confidence. Just take one last deep breath in. Just let it go. And then whenever you're ready, you can open your eyes. see how you feel I watched you go there it was great what I really liked about it

the part that really helped me was being able to approach something head on, which we don't do. Yeah. And then to actually sit with it with compassion in a good way. So my normal reaction to it would be, God, why do I do this? Why am I doing that? God, it's so annoying. Oh, I know this came from something in my past.

or that's the kind of energy that it often has and to not have that energy for that protector was new because the energy that I have for the protector is most likely negative or condescending or some sort of kind of derogatory kind of feeling whereas this was it was really pleasant to sit in oh like you're not all that bad you've been needed you've before formed a purpose. You've been useful and it's not perfect, but I'm grateful. Yeah. Yeah. And that was quite new. I'd never done that before. There's a lot of clarity there. Yeah. That's a lot of self, Jay. Yeah. Yeah. That clarity. So if you're walking for the listener who's walking out of this or experiencing this just for the first time, and they're like, oh, I learned something new. That's

that self. Did you feel a little bit more calm? Yeah. Self. You felt some compassion towards itself. So anyone that's listening, even the slightest, like I said, the molecule of calmness or compassion or connection, you've done it perfectly. Because this is perfect. And if you're like, I actually feel worse, that's fine too, because you tried. Right? You did that, you went through the journey. This is just the first baby step in. The experience, like I shared earlier, is about getting into relationship with the part, not pushing it away, shutting it down, blaming and shaming.

It's getting into relationship with. And here's the cool part. The more you do this, the more you can actually speak for your parts rather than as your parts. Yes, wow, that's really powerful. Say that again, because that's really good. The more you practice this,

the easier it is for you to speak for your parts rather than as your parts. I mean, that's it. Right. I'll give you an example yesterday. I have a part that she's doing okay. She's called Knives Out. She's been really at bay, and the person that she likes to bring the knives out to you

with my husband, Porzak. So she loves to bring those knives out. But we've been so good. Like my husband and I do IFS therapy for couples therapy. So like we are, we're in a great, we're a rocket. I mean, it's amazing that marriages can get that much better over time. And we have a language around it. And I said to him, something happened where he said something that was really triggering to me.

It was like something that were like, I did something with my kid that he didn't like and he was kind of shaming me, but not on purpose, but I felt shamed. Because when does Knives Out come out, Jay? When I feel shame, right? Like, I don't want to feel that shame. So instead of feeling that shame, I'm going to literally bring the knives out, go and become completely overtaken. If anyone that read my book saw me, they'd be like terrified and cry and run in the corner. and Knivesout comes out and she's like cursing and she's like, go after yourself, you know, and like outraged. And later that night, Zach was just like, I don't know what to do with that

part. Like what the hell was that? Why did you, we've been so good. Why did you have to act out like that? And I said, I was triggered in the moment and I was taken over by the part. And I want to speak for the part. There's that part, again, that when she feels shame, she goes into a, she checks out, become blended with the part. You literally could take on like a different physical form. Your face can change. Your voice can change. And I just said, I'm, I'm really sorry for how I acted and I want to take ownership that that part gets really, and I'm not, you know, saying, oh, it's just a part, so get over it. I'm saying, that's that part that I'm still working with. I'm going to speak for the part. The part got really activated.

she felt shame. When she feels shame, she can't, she goes crazy. And so I'm going to keep working with her, and I'm sorry that she acted out. Yeah. But I'm speaking for her that rather than as her, as her would have been like, still in that rage, I'm protecting no matter what. Yeah. Fighting for the part. And this is really cool in work environments. So if you've got co-workers that you work with or a boss that pisses you off, you can start speaking for the part. You can go to the boss and just say, hey, listen, depending on the environment. But you could, in your own way, say, hey, listen, I just want to let you know that when I get really flustered when I don't know the answer. So I just wanted to let you know that, that a part of me

gets really activated when I don't know all the answers. So if you see me acting weird in those, I just want to let you know because I'm not trying to bullshit you, but I actually just get really flustered. Yeah. And just imagine living like that or starting a relationship with somebody and you have this language and you're like, listen, a part of me is like a very anxious attachment style. And I just want you to know that like, like, I might act a little nuts at times because this is a part of me that gets activated. If I was dating a guy early in a relationship and he said, that's me, I'd be like, bro, let's, let's take this further. And if they can't, then that's not your partner, right? But speaking for these parts just makes you so much cooler.

Yeah. It's like the animation inside out. Well, inside out is based on IFS. Yeah, right, right. It's based on IFS. Yeah. That makes so much sense. And that's why I love it for kids. Because then I'll talk to my kid about that film And I'll be like, oh, remember the anxious guy? And you know? Yeah, yeah. They can speak for these parts of yourself. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you.

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Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Lenovo. Lenovo. I just think the process and the journey is so delicious. That's where all the good stuff is. You just can't live and die by the end result. It's scary putting yourself out there,

especially when it's something you really care about and something that you hope is your passion in life. and you want people to like it. Let's get delicious and put ourselves out there. I'm Simone Boyce, host of The Bright Side, and those were my recent guests, comedian Phoebe Robinson and writer Aaron Foster. On this show, I'm talking to the brightest minds

in entertainment, health, wellness, and pop culture. And every week, we're going places in our communities, our careers, and ourselves. It's not about being perfect. It's about going on a journey and discovering the bright side of becoming. Few people know that better than soccer legend, Ashlyn Harris. It's the journey, it's the people, it's the failures, it's the heartache, it's the little moment.

These are our moments to laugh, learn, and exhale. So join me every Monday, and let's find the bright side together. Listen to the bright side on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart. How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke. And he got down, and I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power.

Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing. where you're, like, super charming all the time. Being more able to look people in the eye. Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to Heavyweight on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Talk to me about how you've been using IFS in those two ways.

ways, so you talked about with your husband, Zach, and with your son, let's talk about IFS in that context of being in a relationship and a romantic relationship and then having a relationship with your child. Let's start with romantic relationship. If someone's starting to do this work and they want to encourage their partner to be included in it, how do you do that? How do you go about that conversation in a way? I feel like so many people today are like, I don't want to date someone who hasn't done therapy. I don't want to date someone who hasn't healed. How do you actually have that conversation in a healthy way? I'm going to answer that with a story, okay? So, because I get this question all the time. When I first started this yoga practice

almost a decade ago, and I was so deeply into it. And I was like doing the sadna and I was wearing the turban. You remember. And I was like in the whites. And I was like every day, all day, going to the teacher training. I'd come home and I'd be like, Zach, you have to do it. You have to this like, you know, five-hour breathwork practice with your hands in the air with me. And he was just like, go F yourself. Like, no, I'm not doing that. And I kept being like, well, why isn't he doing it? And I went to my teacher and I said, listen, my husband isn't doing the practice with me. He doesn't want to do it. And she looked at me and she said, the second that you walk in the door, when you get home, she said, take off the turban

and shut up. And that was it. That's my answer for everybody. You know, take off your metaphorical turban and shut up because if your partner's not ready for it, they're not ready for it. You do the work. You are the one you've been waiting for. You get to work. You start tending to the parts of yourself inside. And when you change, everybody else around you has the opportunity to rise up with you. And that's in relationships.

If you start to rise and they don't rise with you, then that's your sign. Okay, it's time to move on. But when you rise, you give somebody the opportunity to elevate with you alongside you. But you've got to do the work. You can't, yeah, you can say I'm attracting a partner that wants to do the work, but their work might be different than your work. And so I've been on my own path. Zach's been on his own path. We find intersection, but he's not sitting and going to ashram or he's not going to go

and do a two-hour meditation, but he will do self-help with me. He'll check in with me. But this is a journey. You've got to do the work for yourself. Yeah. What about when your parts, even when you learn to speak for your parts and not as your parts, what happens when your parts have pushed people too far away? So, for example, with your knives out, Zach is an understanding person who's doing the work with you.

He's also trying to figure this out, I'm sure. He has his version of whatever it is. What do you do when your parts have acted out and you've realized too late that they've actually pushed people quite far away? Is that repairable? The word is repair. I think that that depends on the relationship. We, as an addict, I know very well what it means to make an amends. a lot of times we as addicts can have those are addicts are very extreme parts they're called firefighter

parts that are that are literally at wits end I have to do whatever it takes to put out the fire and the flames of this impermissible feeling and so that's why addicts deserve a tremendous amount of compassion because oftentimes we're traumatized people who do not have the resources in that moment to actually heal and help ourselves so in the in the scenario of an addict let's just say they may have pushed a lot of people away they might have they might have created a lot of wreckage. And so it's first in the inner work of the self-forgiveness. There's a chapter in the book called self-forgiveness in the inner work of getting in relationship with those parts and recognizing that that was a part that was working really hard and forgiving

yourself first. Because you won't really be able to even be in an energy that could be resonant with someone to receive their forgiveness if you don't forgive yourself first. because then you're needing them to make it right for you. You have to make it right for you. And when you do that, that's when your amends will really land. So I can look at Zach now and say, I know that this part needs me. And I'm working really hard with her.

And so I'm going to forgive her and I'm going to ask for your forgiveness as well. And so I think that's the answer, Jay, is that if you've pushed, if your parts have created a lot of wreckage in your life, then you have to really, no one has to. My suggestion is to go deep into your own inner healing and forgiveness of yourself and forgiveness of the parts and acceptance of the parts. And then you'll be shown, self will guide you, you'll be self-led, self-is spirit. So self is God, self is the energy of love inside of you.

It will show you, okay, when you feel that you have access to that self-forgiveness inside, you're going to know that it's time to go and make amends and maybe you get the forgiveness or maybe you don't, but you don't need it, but you're there to ask to really to make amends. I think that all relationships, if there are two parties that are interested in this, this is an extraordinary practice for a couple, extraordinary. It's an extraordinary practice for a parent. Dr. Becky Kennedy is a good friend, and she's also very good friends with Dick Schwartz, and she practices a lot of IFS in the work as well.

And it comes through in her work a lot because think about it, it's curiosity. You have a DFK, a deeply feeling kid like I do. And the child needs your self energy. And in the case of my child, so to answer the second question, how do we do this with their kids, some kids might like the four steps. Some kids might like, you know, they're really activated and you're like, okay, let's check in. You know, let me check in.

And you actually could go through the steps with them. Let's check in with that part at. Where do you feel that in your body, baby? and just checking in, okay, oh, and then what do you need? And how do you feel now that mommy's giving you a little bit of breath? And remembering that our children are always co-regulating with, they're regulating with our energy. So we're not co-regulating.

They're regulating with us. And so our self-energy, the more we do this, the better a parent we will be. Because what does a child need? A self-led leader in the home. The child doesn't need a lot of child parts parenting them. They need the adult, resourced, undamaged, self, as often as possible, as the parent, because that's what's safe. And so that self but gets more self. In the case of my child, if I start trying to go through the four steps

with him, he's like, are you kidding me? He is so allergic to, you know, this kind of conversation or like, how are you feeling? He's like, no, mommy. So I have to do a little backwards ways. You know, I'll just be very casual. Like, yo, bro, how are you feeling? Like, what's going on? Like, what happened today? You know, just really cash. Really cash. I know your kid. Yeah, yeah. The kid is like, don't try that on me, mommy. Yeah, and that's the beauty of it, though, is that it gives you a language to speak to the other people in your life as well.

Yes. So if you have friends or other parties involved, it gives you a collective language. So it's really funny. Whenever I'm around my friends in the IFS community, I did a call yesterday with Dick Schwartz and his wife. We were talking about AI stuff, and I was giving them some guidance. they were getting activated by it because it's new and it's like what do you mean i need like a clone like what are you talking about right and um and and i looked at them and i was like so guys you know i have a really aggressive part that likes to get really excited about things so just warning you as we

enter this guy and so we all speak for our parts in these relationships and it really is quite funny when you're around as i fs people because we're all just like my part feels this but it's beautiful i mean imagine the whole we're all just walking around being like hey just want to speak for a part of myself before i act like an asshole yeah yeah yeah it's incredible it's a totally different way to live. Do people use it as an excuse, though? Like a false disclaimer? Definitely.

You don't want to start being like in that sort of wounded place. It's kind of like that, no offense, but. And that happens in all practices, right? You're going to be like, well, I just needed my four-hour meditation or I didn't do enough mantras this morning or whatever, you know. But in this instance, I think that we, this is about taking ownership of our parts, but not in a way where we're judging them, but where we're befriending them and speaking for them and taking care of them.

Is there ever a time, we've talked to a lot about self-soothing, self-regulating, self-help overall, is there ever a time where being hard on yourself is actually useful

and effective? You ask the best questions. You're so good at this. You know, I think that there's, so this is actually a beautiful question. There are protectors that also have really valuable, they all have valuable roles.

right so let's think about it from the standpoint of my my workaholic really create a lot of drama and chaos in my life and gastro issues and just constant hypervigilance but she also wrote 10 books in 14 years right and she's helped served a lot of souls so we didn't want to shut her down or blame her shame her she was doing the best she could and she also did a lot of good along the way and we can we can be in difficult times and still be doing great things in the world so I think that that a part that is sort of beating us up or not even beating us up,

maybe like an encouraging part that's like, you know, push harder, go more, it's a self-like part. It's not self, but it has more self-aspects than protector aspects. And the real question isn't,

is that bad or good? It really is, is it extreme? Because if it's extreme, that's when you really need to start to tend to it. Because remember, we could be very praised for our perfectionism. We're very praised for our work ethic or very praised for how hard we hit

the gym or how much we practice that tennis. And we could be really praised for that. And it looks like a great quality. And in many ways it is. But when it's extreme, it's oftentimes a very extreme protector. Yeah. And that's why you've got to approach it in the same way. You can't judge that part of you that is hard on you. No, check on. Check in with it. Yeah. And the thing that's happened, Here's the miracle. When you start to check in with these parts and you start to befriend them and you start to self-soothe and you start to create this relationship inside, it's not that the parts have to go away, Jay, is that the parts now become the best versions of themselves. They've been returned to their natural roles. So my workaholic part, look, I've got you

today and then I'm going off to the next thing. I've got three more podcasts tomorrow. I'm still showing up, but I'm doing it in a less extreme way. You know this. You've known me for almost a decade. My energy is different. I'm not doing, I mean, I'm not doing less. I'm just more intentional and I'm more aligned and I'm more resource and I'm having more fun and I'm more childlike. I can't tell you how many friends like you and like you and like brothers of mine have been like Gabby, you're like so, so youthful and childlike. You guys said that to me when we had dinner. And that's just the unburdening because it's going to make me cry. It's like you return. to this child, like, presence inside that was always there.

Yeah. It just got taken from you. Yeah, I mean, when we were at Lewis as well, I didn't actually tell you this. I told you at dinner, which I think we had like a year ago, but when we were at Lewis's wedding earlier this year, I was just thinking about it a lot. And I was like, wow, Gabby's just so at peace. Like, you just have this ease about you these days that, not that you weren't. And you were like, when I first met you, you were like, you were buzzing and you were like,

you had all this good energy. You always have. I've never felt anything different. but I could feel that like ease and grace and peace from you. Yeah. And that's a really beautiful thing when you experience it in someone because I think we're used to being around high performing people who have big goals and targets and things like that.

And that's not a fun energy to be around. It's kind of, it's not like, it's not attractive that energy. And we're all ambitious and stuff. So there's nothing wrong with that. But if that someone's overarching energy, it's not the same as when you're around someone who's kind of just at ease and peace. even though they are driven and ambitious. Talk to me about that kind of paradox,

because I think we think that if someone's at peace, they're slow. Yeah. And if someone's ambitious, they're fast. Talk to me about slow, fast, peaceful, ambitious. Yeah. Yeah. Well, oftentimes high-performing entrepreneurs do have a lot of shadow parts. 100%.

But oftentimes that is the reason for so much of their successes. Yeah. And it's when those folks begin to, to alchemize and start to recognize and do the work, however that work shows up in their life, that they're real successes, not external, but that they're actually able to achieve what they're truly capable of. And so achievement is not a sign of self-energy at all. Achievement is oftentimes the sign of a lot of protectors working their ass off to get something going to protect you. What happens when we are in that self-energy, when we're

in self, is that it's not that we, if we are a high performer just by nature, certain people just have different energies, right? We're born with different frequencies. If that's in your nature and that's a part of you, it's not that that goes away. It's just that you can do it in a more sustainable way. You have more boundaries. You have more ability to say yes, say no. You are clearer, so you're making better decisions. You're clearer so you're not surrounding yourself with the wrong folks you're so you can actually move even faster and create even more because you're not burdened so it's it's not fast or slow it's what is the energy that's moving through you yeah when you have self energy you can move real fast but it's so intentional that it has so much

more power and you actually can do a lot less and attract a lot more In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search.

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let's talk about boundaries yeah because i mean i feel like boundaries is at the heart of every human issue today in the sense of when we think about interpersonal dynamics whether people having issues with their friends their family members it's all boundaries based and many of us are willing to break our boundaries because we care more about people pleasing we care more about you know living up to everyone's expectations we care more about everything else yeah and we think we have a boundary we say we have a boundary but we don't really keep up to it yeah so i'll give an example i was talking to a friend the other day and she said she wanted to she only wanted to hang out if all of the friends were invited and another one of her

friend said, no, I only want to hang out with you. And she was like, well, if we hang out, then everyone's going to find out we hang out. And then they're going to be upset that we hung out. So I think we should invite everyone. And the other friends said, no, I just want to hang out with you and a couple of other friends, but I don't want to invite everyone. So you had these two boundaries that were almost at odds with each other. One boundary was, we should always invite everyone because it makes everyone feel included, which almost was people pleasing, not even a boundary. And the other boundary was, no, I think it should just be a small group of us. And the person who wanted to invite everyone ultimately gave in and said, no, okay, fine, we'll just

have a small group of us. Yeah. Now, this is a very small example, but to me, it's at the heart of all the problems that we have. It's like people being upset that people didn't invite them to their wedding, people being upset that they invited them, but didn't give them an important role, people being upset that their family didn't prioritize their birthday, people being upset that they're always the ones organizing vacations and no one else does. Like, these are the real challenges in life that we're all going through every day. What do we do? How do we set boundaries that we actually stick to and that we're okay with letting people down, it seems? It sounds like in the case of your friends, the one that was wanting

to invite everybody to big people, please their part. And it might sound like the other one probably had a pretty clear, like good boundaries. I'm good or bad. I mean, listen, boundaries are only good if they're led by self. Because you could also be really like, I've got all these boundaries, but that's a protector too, right? So whether it's boundaries, whether it's control, whether it's anxiety, whatever the protector is, if those parts of you are happening in extreme ways that are misaligned with that calm, clear, curious, compassionate, confident, courageous energy, then it's a protector. Then it's a protector. It's across the board. When When it comes to boundaries, I find that the more we do whatever type of personal development

or spiritual practice that we have, and the more we start to access self inside, the more precious we realize our energy is, the more connected we feel inside. So we begin to know, I can't do that anymore. The more access to self that I have acquired, the easier it has been for me to be very boundary with the people who work for me and literally speak things that in the wrong tone could be very upsetting, but with the self-energy are fine. So saying, nope, I won't do that anymore. That's not my thing. Or look at somebody in the eye and say, actually, that's your job. I want you to do that. That's no longer my job. I had a part for many years, Jay, that was, if they don't

do it, if I don't do it, nobody else will. That was a really big part. If I don't do it, nobody else will. And that was lingering for up until maybe a year ago or less. It's really recent that it's been kind of out of my life. And not completely, but pretty much. Pretty much. How you worked on that one? Because that's a great one. I just kept working with that part.

That part was probably one of the parts I worked with most in my life. And it was really creating a lot of chaos because, one, it made me just be the one that would take the burden of all of it and do all the work. Two, it wouldn't let people rise up. And three, it would put me in a position where I wasn't ever asking for what I wanted. and I did not have the clear boundaries around where I started and I ended. And so it burned out. And so I kept working with it and working with it and checking in with it and noticing it and witnessing it and bringing it to my IFS therapy and bringing it to my meditation practice and checking in with it.

I checked it with every single day for at least a year through my journaling. I literally wrote with it every single day for a year. During COVID I was working with it like crazy. So it's been maybe a decade of working, two decades of working with that part. but really heavily in the last year. And man, I have come out the other side. I'm literally looking at people and I'm in a different nervous system. I'll look at somebody and I'll say, oh, no, no, no, that's your job. That's your job. That's not my job. And I actually don't come across. I was probably much more of an asshole before because I was doing it and then mad that I was doing it and then taking it out on them energetically, right? So now I'm just like, oh, no, no, no. You know, that's, that's your thing. Or I'm going to ask that you do this thing. This is my clear clarity and boundaries.

You know, as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as someone who wants to be a leader in your home with your child, in your classroom, in your business, whatever it is that you do. This is the most important book you could read as a leader. And I wish I actually, you know, it's easy for me to say that because it's based on Dick Schwartz's work, right? So it's this or any IFS practice work is the most important thing you could do as a leader. Because Dick talks about self-led leaders. We need to be showing up, particularly right now, what's happened is everyone out there, out there, it's all just a lot of damaged parts all over the place. This country is insanely divisive all throughout the world.

And that's just parts chaos. Yeah, we're leading through a knives out part, a... Exactly. Addicted part and an anxious part, whatever it may be. Think about the activists. They're like fighting, fighting, fighting. Look, that work is incredible. It's life-changing.

It's necessary. But if we're in that constant place of fighting, that's another protector. So how can you lead and activate from a place of self? How can you come from that? It doesn't mean that you don't get angry. It doesn't mean that you don't have rage. You use it. You infuse the self-energy into it.

And it's really important right now. Yeah, it's incredible. Gabby, I can't wait for people to read this book. Everyone, the book is called Self-Help. This is your chance to change your life. Go and grab your copy if you haven't already. I love that this book actually has a practice within it. It's built around the practice, built around the therapy. So it's not a book that you're going to read. It's a book that you're going to live and it's a book that you're going to practice. And so I highly recommend if you appreciate our conversation today that you go grab a copy. Gabby, we end every episode

of On Purpose with a final five. And these questions have to be answered in one word. to one sentence maximum. Oh, no. Okay. So I'm going to ask you these final five. Gabby Bernstein, these are your final five. Question number one, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received? Befriend the parts of yourself inside. Yeah, I love, I actually love that advice. It's so, because as humans, we're so good at using something for when it's useful. Yeah. And then as soon as it's not useful, we condemn it. Yeah. So it's like, oh, yeah, I hate this job now. And it's like, well, no, this job paid for the last three years. of your family, your life, everything.

Learned all that. Even if you didn't love it, don't hate on it, but we kind of use it and we hate it. And it's like, oh, I love this partner and now that things didn't work out, I hate them. And it's like, well, no, no, no. Like you learn so much. And we don't only do that with jobs and people.

We do that with ourselves where, hey, there was this part of me that I hate now. And it's like, no, that part of you helped you survive college and kept you alive and- I want to speak to that before we ended because when I wrote, I wrote this book, the year that I I wrote this book, I was a fellow at a recovery center. And every month I would go and teach, and there was about 100 new folks entering the

treatment center each time I'd show up. So they'd be one, two, three, four days sober. And I'd walk in the room and I was teaching this. I was practicing what I was writing about. And so I'd look at this group of people who are all literally at Witshamming, who knows what kind of destruction, they'd just two days into recovery. And I'd say to this group, well, listen, let me ask you, how many people in this room of experienced trauma, they'd all raise their hand.

Wow. And then I'd say, and wouldn't it make sense that you would do whatever it took to put out the flames of that impermissible fear and experience? And a lot of them would be like, okay, yeah, yeah, I get that. And then I'd say, well, wouldn't it make sense that the addict had a purpose, that it's been working really hard to keep you safe? Yeah. And I want to really, really let people hear that, that the parts of yourself. that you're the most ashamed of that have caused the most chaos in your life, they've been working really hard to keep you safe.

Yeah, it's so, so real. And if we were able to get that way, you'd be so much more positive and healthy about what's possible in your life. And able to move forward because you could forgive yourself. Yes, yes. And able to move forward because you'd take all of that experience and learning and that energy onto the next. and you'd be willing to let go as well.

Yeah. Like you could easily let go of that part, knowing that it's served its purpose, whereas sometimes we probably stay too long in parts that are no longer serving us. Our whole lives. Yeah. Yeah. Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received? Stop doing YouTube and start blogging.

Did someone say that to you? Yeah, like 10 years ago, it was the biggest mistake of my life. I'm rebuilding my YouTube now. Oh, wow, interesting. Like, sorry that was like career advice, but it was the worst advice of my life. I was like, where's Jay Shetty when I needed him? It sounds like the stupidest thing to answer, but it really might have been, that wasn't the, was that the worst advice of my life? No, it's, I mean, yeah, I think, in this moment, it's the thing that's top of mind.

Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, I mean, I think there's. Should we expect something more profound than that? No, no, no, I love, we, that's the whole point of the podcast is to be fully authentic. Yeah. No, no, I'm reacting because I think what's really interesting is that there's a lot of people who say they're experts, but really the only people you can trust as experts are the people that are actually doing it. And I feel like there's a lot of bad advice. I see all the time, like there'll be someone on Instagram saying, this is what to do on Instagram, and someone will show it to me, my friend or something saying, oh, Jay, and I'm like, check how many follows that person has, check what their engagement is, like check how many comments they get. yeah don't trust them like it's just someone saying something and it sounds really convincing

and it sounds really well put but they don't have the they don't have the engagement or anything to follow it yeah exactly and the thing i think that that that was a bad choice for me because and it was bad advice that i took because for me i'm i'm an orator i'm a rock and tour i needed to be storytelling yeah in on i guess youtube really being the greatest as i'm looking at your YouTube plaque right there. So here I am. I'm rebuilding my YouTube now. But then the other thing is, is, you know,

forgive the advice that you took that was wrong and start again. Here I am. I'm like literally like I might as well be like a bro in Bushwick and like a studio apartment like hacking, you know, making my YouTube channel with all the packages. But I'm having fun with it. Yeah. And that, you know, that creative force is self. Yeah.

Yeah. How do we do that part? Like that's, let's take that really practical thing. Like often we got bad advice. We took a wrong turn. A relationship took us off track. How do you use this to get over that? Because that is like one of those things that could just be a thorn forever that you're just like, God, that person, if I didn't date them for three years, if I didn't take that advice, I wouldn't have wasted those six years in my life

blogging, whatever it is, how do we apply that to this? Oh my God. I think I'm a master, I should write a book about this. I'm a master at self-forgiveness. And I think that I have been, because it's like a flip that I just switched for myself, particularly in my sobriety, where I had to just choose. I think that it's a choice you make to carry the burdens of your past or to choose to step into what could be your opportunity in the moment.

So someone right now could have a quantum shift right here right now. We could give them a quantum shift right here right now. If they choose to start to say, I forgive myself, I forgive myself, even if you just fake until you make it, I forgive myself. Okay. And I like to kind of speak to myself like this, Jay. I'll do something that's kind of wobbly, maybe not the greatest thing.

And I'll say, I'll talk like this. I'll go, okay, okay, we did that again. Okay, we did that again. How do I need to clean it up? What do I need to? Who do I make amends to? Who do I check? What part do I check in with?

And then very quickly, how do I choose again? Yeah, how do I choose again? That question shifts it completely. Because it was a choice. You had the power. Yeah. You made a choice. And yeah, I agree.

I mean, I've pivoted so many times in my career and my life and so many things. And it's only been because I've followed self. Yes. And that's where I know when I'm not living my best life is when I'm not following self. Totally. And I think the challenge is that self can get very quiet for people. And you talk a lot about trusting yourself ultimately. And it's, you can't trust yourself and you can't hear yourself and you can't hear yourself

because you haven't listened to yourself for so long. That's right. And this book is helping you get back to that so that you're not making decisions based on rationale or logic or pros and cons lists, but you're actually having clarity from within, which is such a gift. And if you think about that, clarity from within. Yeah. Okay, so if you're struggling to change a relationship, this will guide you to that clarity.

If you are struggling to forgive a past behavior that's been holding you back, this will help you release that behavior and start to connect to that clarity. So that essence of accessing the energy that we need, we all, anyone listening wants to create in this lifetime. They have visions, they have dreams, they have desires. It's not about how often you say it. It's not about how many vision boards you create. It's not about how many affirmations you say. it's about how you relate to yourself inside. Because you're always attracting who you are.

You manifest and attract who you are. Question number three. What are you feeling really clear about right now? Very clear about YouTube. I'm really clear about where I want to put my energy, where I want to focus my energy. I mean, what a great place to be. Question number four, what's something you used to value that you no longer value?

External validation. I mean, I value it. Like you said earlier, it's nice, but it was something that was very important for me. And I needed it. I don't feel it that way anymore. Switched, yeah. Fifth and final question, we asked this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

To get to know your parts. Yeah, heal on the end. side. I actually do really believe that. I believe that if everyone was doing this type of work, that we would be living in a very different place. Yeah, because we wouldn't, yeah, because we wouldn't be throwing our wounds all over the place. We'd be help, self-help. Yeah. We'd be helping ourselves. We'd be living, accessing more self. And what really, the only way to change the, the frequency or change the, the, the trajectory that we're on is to actually, on an individual level, start to heal and in that inner healing we start to lead in our own corners with that self-led energy

and it's community right now I mean this is what I've been channeling in my meditations it's it's getting inside doing the inner work and then bringing that self-led energy into your local community and that will have a ripple effect ever on the book it's called self-help this is your chance to change your life Gabby Bernstein going follow her on YouTube on Instagram TikTok I subscribe to all of Gabby's channel so that you don't miss out. And please, please, please, go and grab a copy of the book to do the work yourself, to save yourself so much time, energy,

money in the long term for your own good, the good of your family, your partner, whoever else may be in your life, your friends, your community. Thank you again, Gabby, for coming on the show. It's great to have you back and have this conversation. And thank you. I'm so grateful for your work. I love you.

Thank you. I love you too. Thanks, Gabby. If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, You're trying to build more. I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success

and the secret to genuinely loving what you do. If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you. Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value. Like, as an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value. That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you.

Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking.

Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Do we really need another podcast with a condescending finance brof trying to tell us how to spend our own money? No thank you. Instead, check out Brown Ambition. Each week, I, your host, Mandy Money, gives you real talk, real advice with a heavy dose of I feel uses. Like on Fridays when I take your questions for the BAQA. Whether you're trying to invest for your future, navigate a toxic workplace, I got you.

Listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. It's important that we just reassure people that they're not alone, and there is help out there. The Good Stuff Podcast, season two, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. One Tribe saved my life twice.

Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast.