Sex With Emily - Manifest Your Best Sex Life w/ Gabby Bernstein

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

In today's episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with #1 NYT Bestselling author Gabby Bernstein. As a spiritual leader and motivational speaker, Gabby shares how you can manifest the sex life you want but through a practical, less woo, lens and how to work through sexual trauma and change your core beliefs around sex. We also get into Internal Family Systems therapy and how young women today speak about sex differently than our generation. In today’s episode, you’ll learn: How spirituality can enhance your sexuality How to boost your confidence (in and out of the bedroom) Tools for working through trauma See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com. Show Notes: My appearance on the Dear Gabby podcast! More Gabby Bernstein: Website | Instagram Happy Days The Universe Has Your Back Self Help (coming 2/31/24) SHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $99) The only sex book you’ll ever need: Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure Want more? Sex With Emily: Home Let’s get social: Instagram | X | Facebook | TikTok  Let’s text: Sign Up Here Want me to slide into your inbox? Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular.

Sex with Emily is looking for a new senior podcast producer. We are sorry to say goodbye to Erica, but she is leaving to pursue her music career and I know she's going to have much success. We are looking for a senior producer right now that can start and help us with content production. You have technical expertise, you know how to manage a team, you can collaborate, and you have experience working in production with audio or podcasting and video. And you're also familiar with the content because you're listening to the show. Send your cover letter and resume to jobs at

sexwithemily.com. We'd love to have you join our growing team and we have a good time over here. Thank you. So much of our lack of sexual pleasure is because of sexual trauma. The beliefs of a trauma victim are, I have to override myself. I don't have value. Sex is shameful. I have to do this. It's not up to me. Very powerless. Clearing those beliefs, the first step is to recognize them. You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily, and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Today's guest is a woman I've been following since being inspired by her work on the O4 Winfrey Show years ago. And it's been incredible to see the impact her work has had on just so many people around the world. Gabby Bernstein is a spiritual

leader, a New York Times bestselling author, and a motivational speaker with over two decades of helping people achieve and manifest the life they dream of. What I really love is that she also shares how you can manifest a sex life you want, but through a more practical lens. You know, this is the kind of stuff I love to unpack, how to work through sexual trauma and find out what's holding you back so you could really understand your core beliefs around sex. And then you get to keep what works and leave the rest. And there's no one better to do it than with a person who really gets it. Also, we'll add a link to the incredible interview I did on Gabby's podcast this week called Dear Gabby. We'll put it in the show notes. Please rate and review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show. My new article,

How to Deal with a Low Sex Drive and What You Can Do to Boost It, is up on sexwithemily.com. All right, everyone, enjoy this episode. Drugs get a bad rap, and many for a good reason, I get it, but not all are created equal. Psilocybin, aka mushrooms, for example, when taken thoughtfully at sub-hallucinogenic levels can sharpen your focus, hone your mental clarity, unleash your creativity, expand your mind, open your heart, and ease your anxiety. Now listen, I've been studying the research on this for a while now, and they've shown to be extremely effective for so many people experiencing a variety of mental health challenges.

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happen here. I think that the research and the studies have been incredible. So if you've been looking for a way to help with your anxiety, your mental health, head over to schedule35.co and use the code SWE to enjoy 15% off your first order. That's schedule35.co and code SWE at checkout for 15% off your first order. Gabby Bernstein is a motivational speaker and a spiritual teacher and a number one New York Times bestselling author. For nearly two decades, she has really pursued her mission and reached millions of people through her bestselling books that you've probably heard of. She's got her podcast, live talks, and so much more. I actually just went to hear her speak in Los Angeles. It was completely sold out. There was 2000 people there. It was incredible. New York Times also called her a new

role model. And she's the host of the Dear Gabby podcast. And most recently, she has a new app. It's called the Gabby Coaching app. And a few months ago, she sent it to me and she's like, download it, see what you think. And I download a lot of apps and I don't always stick with them. But there's something about this app, you guys. I really have used it. I open it up and there's just like one minute motivations. It's fun because she breaks it down to like, are you stressed? You can't make a decision.

You want to know what to do next. Do you have anxiety? And it's just these little clips and her voice is just so soothing that I've loved this app. And then she also has lessons and courses. And I found it really, really helpful. I did a 21 day challenge and it was about getting clear on something in my life. And it completely worked. And I'm so clear. And I actually feel shifted. She's not a paid sponsor. I just love Gabby Bernstein. We do get into manifestation this episode real quick. But even if you are a skeptic,

I think you're going to really understand it and be a believer by the end of this show. Hope you enjoyed this talk with Gabby. Let's get into it. Gabby Bernstein. I've really wanted to be here for a long time. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited you're here. I've wanted you here for a long time too, because I've just been following your work for a long time, because spiritual work has always been a really important foundation for my work. And a lot of people listen to my podcast because they want the tips. We talk a lot about the brain-mind-body connection. We talk about understanding our bodies and empowerment,

a lot of stuff that we talked about in your podcast. But there is an aspect of the spirituality and manifesting that I have found is such a powerful tool to really getting what we want, whether it's the partner that we want, the sex life that we want. And we keep getting into situations where we're, why do I keep dating the assholes? Why is my sex life so bad? Why do these relationships keep showing up? How would you explain the process of manifesting? Manifesting is kind of a hot topic these days. And that's cool. I mean, that's a good trend.

It's a better trend than lip gloss or whatever. But I think that really understanding that manifesting is actually our natural power we all have within us. I wrote a whole book called Super Attractor. We are all super attractors, but we forget. So it's not like this is some woo thing that we have to just activate in our life. It's actually who we are. We are an energy field. We are a aligned intention. We are creating what we believe. It's not necessarily about manifesting. It's about undoing. It's about undoing the beliefs that hold you back from really attracting the life that you want and being a magnet for what you want rather than a magnet for what you don't want. It's core beliefs.

You know, it's like you want to have good sex. You have to believe that you are safe in your body. You have to believe that you're worthy of love. You have to believe that you're cared for. You have to believe that you're connected. Bringing this back to sex because that's where we're here, right? But the more aligned you are spiritually, the more valuable you will feel, the more physically embodied you become as well.

And I don't mean like a spiritual alignment from the standpoint of sitting on a meditation pillow and getting above your stuff. I mean being in the world, but having a spiritual perspective. Because when you have that spiritual perspective, you're in an attunement, like a positive energy, a positive belief system. And that guides you to all the things that you need to really stay healthy and happy in this physical body as well. So then it really sounds like it's our beliefs and our thoughts that's getting us off track. Like that is the problem. Same with sex too. Our beliefs and thoughts around sex, everything, right? Everything. But think about it. It's like, if you don't believe you're worthy in some way, then the universe will reflect

that back to you. You'll continue to experience these sort of moments of, oh, that could have happened, but it didn't happen, or resistance, or people literally saying like, well, you're not worthy of that. So if you don't believe that you are good enough, that's going to be reflected back to you. If you don't believe that you are valuable, you're going to create more relationships that lack your value. And so the belief systems, the core belief systems that we hold, this isn't just a spiritual author. And so they go hand in hand. Personal development, therapeutic processes, and spiritual development are the mixture. You can't just sit on your ass and meditate and think that you're going to heal your trauma. Well, that's what I love about you because you really do bring it down to earth. I think that you were one of the first ones that

resonated with me personally probably 18 years ago when I discovered you. Was that like, oh, she's someone like me, but I get it and she's not making it too wooey. It's actually you make it accessible. So for example, through a manifesting process, we go there, like let's say somebody, because how could we like work this and apply it? So we get all these questions. I keep meeting the wrong people. What am I doing wrong? The same patterns. How would we use like if they took your manifesting challenge, which I just took. I have a lot of friends who've taken it over the years.

You're known for many things, but this 21-day beginning of the year manifesting challenge. So let's say my goal, if we could, like, role play is I want to find or somebody wants to find the right partner. They're tired of dating. They're sick of the apps. Dating's become, like, just awful. There's no one great in their town. They live in the worst place. But they want to manifest that partner.

So, like, what's the difference between the difference between writing a list and manifesting? Well, the first question when you ask yourself is, what do I believe? OK. What do I believe about me finding someone? So if I believe, let's say maybe I believe that there's no one great in my town. All the good ones are taken. And maybe if you go further than that, it might be that I'm not lovable, right? I like to prescribe people with my books, like the I'm not lovable, I'm not good enough. That person, I would say there's deeper work to be done. And that work is the personal

growth and spiritual development, but really the personal growth work. I believe it's about recognizing and connecting to the younger parts of us that were taught that at such a young age. Parts of us that had parents that told us we were not good enough. The parts of us that have had experienced trauma. The parts of us that have experienced a parent or if you're a woman, your father left your mother or alcoholic parent and you keep reinforcing that same pattern over and over again in different bodies. So the reason that the relationships have continued to stay in the same pattern over and over again in different bodies. So the reason that the relationships

have continued to stay in the same pattern over and over again, and you keep attracting the same thing, or you keep lacking the same thing, is strictly because the beliefs that you've been carrying from your very young age. And those beliefs also have with them a lot of protection mechanisms. And those protection mechanisms, and I'm writing a book called Self-Help. It's done, And those protection mechanisms, and I'm writing a book called Self-Help. My book, it's done. I completed it. My book Self-Help is out on December 31st.

And it is all about healing those core beliefs, but you could also call them young children inside, that hold and carry the burdens from our past. And all the protection mechanisms that built up around them to feel safe, even though those protection mechanisms can be oftentimes very detrimental. So those protection mechanisms are things like even just that judgment. There's nobody great in my town. That's a protector, okay? You know, being like always judgmental. There's nobody great in my town. The apps suck. You know, this isn't working. That's sort of naysayer. This isn't going to happen. There's protection mechanisms of like, I'm going to enter a relationship and then I'm going to bail, like lacking that desire for a true connection.

The desire is always underneath it, but the fear of it is the driving force. And what are all these behavioral patterns doing? They're protecting us from ever experiencing the impermissible experience from our childhood. So I unresolved sexual trauma from my childhood. I dissociated from it for 30 years. And when I was 36 years old, I remembered that sexual trauma in a dream. And then I had a journey of undoing that since that time. I'm 44 now. So it's been eight years, eight years.

Wow. And in that journey of undoing that, I'm undoing the core beliefs that I have to override my body, that I have to override myself, that I have to make it right for everyone else, that my desire doesn't matter, that I'm not safe in my body. I actually did write a whole book about this. It was Happy Days, which is the journey of trauma recovery, which I think we united to start sending our books out together in a package. Literally. I'm so glad to have them to prescribe to you. We have to prescribe them together, exactly. Because so much of our lack of sexual pleasure

is because of sexual trauma. The beliefs of a trauma victim are, I have to override myself, I don't have value, sex is shameful, I have to do this, it's not up to me, very powerless. Clearing those beliefs, the first step is to recognize this. It's not up to me. Very powerless. Clearing those beliefs, the first step is to recognize them. When you say overriding it, like you overrode your body, how I'm hearing that is like you would just maybe have sex because I had to do it, but maybe you were numbing or disassociating a little bit. I always liked having sex early in the beginning of a relationship, but when I was using drugs, I got sober at 25, but there was a long period where I would be using drugs and I'd be high or be drunk and I would just have sex just to get it over with.

Like these days, the thought of that is so fucking sad. And to think about the physical trauma of that just to your nervous system that you're mentally checked out and dissociated because that's like a special skill of a trauma survivor. And then your but your body's having experience that's like, I don't want this, but I'm doing it just to get it over with. And that 20-something girl that did that, it's not nothing. It's so relatable. If people had any kind of trauma, it could be sexual trauma for sure. But even any kind of trauma where you didn't feel safe and shut down, it's all in your nervous system. And people say reactions to sex could be that disassociating, shutting down, leaving their body when they're having sex. The average age of remembering a dissociated trauma is 50.

But a lot of women particularly remember at very big turning points in their life, like marriage or particularly around birthing. A lot of women remember in the birthing experience. For me, I was newly married. We were family planning. My husband just decided to leave his 10-year job at the bank to come run my business. So it was just a really big shifty time, and I was cracking into it. So you have this awakening at 36. You have this membrance. And then what's the next step? after that was survival mode. When you remember a trauma, you can go back into the exiled part. I was living for several months in that exiled little girl. So like waking up was a struggle. This is when I was writing my book, The Universe Has Your Back. And I think this is why Universe

is my biggest book and has had such an imprinted effect on so millions and millions of people. That book in particular, because I was healing myself while I was writing that. That was all I was doing at that time. It was kind of a miracle. Like I didn't have to go out on the road. It was like, I didn't have anywhere to be. I was living in this mountain house. I'd wake up in the morning, completely depressed. So down. I was like 98 pounds. I had extreme gastritis because I'd just come out of this remembering period of just such stress to crack open to it. And the only thing that brought me grace was sitting down to my desk to write. And I would just sit in this tiny little white room. It was like this little perched office. I love it so

much. I think about it all the time. In this mountain house, I was on a mountain with the most epic view on the planet. And I had this white floors, white walls, white desk. And I was just sitting in there and I'd sit down to my computer and I would just heal myself through the writing process. And you were writing about what you were- Trusting, transforming fear into faith. So for me, that was healing. I was doing deep dive therapy.

I went headfirst in. I was doing EMDR twice a week. I was doing somatic experiencing. I did a lot of SE work, like really getting emotional freedom technique. I had a therapist that was working with me that does EFT and she was weekly working with me tapping. Yeah, tapping is a great one, okay.

Major, major, major. I worked with my therapist who's an IFS, internal family systems trained therapist. I'd love to know more about IFS. I feel like I'm just learning about it. Well, guess what? There's a whole book coming out. I think the nice thing about happy days for the folks, and then I'll get into IFS, it's the guided path from trauma to profound freedom and inner peace. I mean it, I say it, I've lived it. And what I tell in that book is the journey that I've underwent spiritually, therapeutically, and even personally and professionally to get to profound freedom and inner peace that continues to expand and expand every single day.

And so I introduce, it's kind of like the body keeps the score, but on a, because you know how he introduced, I don't know if you know that book. Yeah, yeah. That's a better book. He introduces all these different trauma modalities. This is like the patient, not the therapist or psychiatrist introducing it. It's the patient introducing the different trauma recovery, even speaking about medication and how to use medication in a spiritual way. And if you're like, oh God, I've got, I have serious trauma, I don't know where to start. Then read that book because that will give you the guidance. It will introduce you to it. And then you'll know you have an inner

guidance system. You have archangels, you have people guiding you. You read that book and then you'll get a hit. Wow, I really like what she was saying about EMDR. Let me go look that up. Or, okay, it is safe to be on medication while I'm doing therapy. Or, okay, I can go try internal family systems. I'm going to read her next book, whatever that is. You give it permission too. Permission and guidance. Guidance. Because I didn't have a playbook. I just remembered this shit. I had every resource under the planet. I could like, you know, Deepak Chopra on speed dial, you know. I didn't know what the steps were. And so I figured it out for myself because I don't sit in my shit.

I wanted freedom. I was after it. And now that I knew why I had been so anxious, why I was a cocaine addict, why I was a codependent, why I was a workaholic, I had the answers. But now it was how do I heal it? Do you think a lot of it goes back to that early trauma? It all was because of that exiled trauma. The exiled experience.

So that experience linked to your, you think that that was the one that propelled the life of addiction? All of it, yeah. Oh, wow. Addicts have trauma. Addicts are survivors. Don't go away. Gabby and I will be right back after a quick break for our sponsors, so stick around. right back after a quick break for our sponsor, so stick around.

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This brings us beautifully to IFS. I'm really going to talk about it. So internal family systems therapy founded by Dr. Richard Schwartz, one of my dear, dear friends, mentor, friend, guide, blessing in my life, changed my life. I've been doing this therapy in my own therapy for a decade. I've gone on to have the practitioner training level one and two. I'm not a therapist, but I am trained in IFS. And the thesis is this. We have these extreme

experiences in our childhood. They could be big T trauma like mine, sexual abuse. They could be small T trauma, being bullied or having a parent that's constantly not available or anxious attachment style, whatever it might be. It might not even look that bad, but it was bad. It was harmful for you. That young little part of you is called an exile. And that feeling of being unlovable, inadequate, not good enough, terrified, traumatized, super activated, we didn't have the adult figures in our life at that time to process those things. Now, if we did, the exile can really be healed. It doesn't become exiled because there was a caregiver or someone that was adult that helped us process that experience.

Most of us did not have that. Even if there were well-intending people, they weren't knowing what to do or didn't have the skills or didn't even know it was happening. And so we've had this experience. We say, no fucking way. I'm going to shut it down. This is little children, right? We don't consciously do this unconsciously. They're like, I have to survive. Immediately pick up these defense mechanisms, protection mechanisms at a very young age. So it's like, I don't feel good enough. I'm inadequate. I'm going to people I can even see to my kid, like if he sees me and my husband fighting, he starts sweeping, like he'll clean. You know what I mean? Like we do these, these things to just like, but why is he cleaning? Because he wants to make us feel good, you know, because my husband's love language is cleaning the house, right? So like he'll start cleaning

and, and it's, it's really, it's just, we can see these protection mechanisms. And so, you know, we have these right away build up these defense mechanisms so we don't have to feel that impermissible pain that as children we can't process. And so those are called protector parts. And those protectors are the people pleasers. They're the dissociative parts. Like, you know, maybe you just check out. You know, I had a big protector.

I had an extreme trauma. And I dissociated. That's a protector part. I literally went, my brain shut it out. That's a protector part. I literally went, my brain shut it out. And so dissociation became my superpower. I could check out of my body at any time. I could check out of my mind at any time. I could just check out. We become controlling. It's a big one. Controlling can lead to other addictive patterns, right? So our workaholism, alcoholism, drug addiction. We're trying to control the suffering.

And there's two kinds of protectors. There's the managers that are typically with us on a day-to-day basis, like the controller or the judger, just doing things to manage the feelings. The cleaner, the things that we do sort of obsessively, the things that we do just like on high alert all the time, just kind of managing our life. And then there's the firefighters. And so let's say something gets super activated, super triggering, and you can't manage it anymore. You go to the firefighter. The firefighters, the alcoholism, the drug addiction, the dissociation, the numbing out with the TV, the porn.

It's the more addictive extreme. It's suicide. It's I can't handle this anymore. I can't manage it anymore. So I am going to blow myself out of the water so I can just put out the fire of those weights. Because there's so much suffering. My controller wasn't working anymore. My manager. Yeah, but a controller is a manager. Exactly. Oh my God. Okay. And so you're living in this way where you have this internal family system of all these different parts of you that are completely at odds with what with one another that there's no bad parts that dick schwartz says because my my addict

part right she was so extreme she brought me to my knees with cocaine addiction she almost took my life but at the same time that addict part was so extreme. But at the same time, that part also wrote 10 books in 13 years. It's prolific. She gets shit done. She runs a team. She's been of service to the world in a big way. So these parts are not bad. They just get into extreme roles.

And so our work in my book, but IFS work, is about befriending these parts of us so that we can give self to them. And self is our adult, resourced, undamaged, internal parent, all-knowing, loving, calm, compassionate, connected, creative, courageous, the part of us that is the God within us. We all have got it. And when you start to access self with a capital S, that energy inside of you can start to heal the parts that are young. And so that's why my book is called Self Help. I love it. It's a relief to know that for me, it's like people pleaser, controlling, disassociating or distracting. And then knowing that coming back to self compassion, I have to learn to soothe myself. I have to learn to do pull up a Gabby meditation.

In the book, I have my own IFS-led, IFS-informed practice. It's a process of noticing that there's a part up, right? Oh, I'm in my controller part or just noticing I'm agitated. Something's going on. I want to, I know I have awareness. And choosing to check in is the first step. So choosing to focus your attention inward and not be like, oh, I'm going to go fix it with a drink or I'm going to go

enough to do more of the controlling. And choose to check in. And then the second step is to become curious. So notice how it feels in your body. Notice the thoughts and the sensations and the beliefs that are attached to it. And just ask it questions. What's going on? Tell me more. How old are you? Do you have a gender? Just be as curious for as long as you want to be. Once you start to sense into a little bit of a connection and you start to notice that there's a part inside of you that's activated, you would compassionately connect by saying, what do you need right now? And then the fourth step is to notice and check for these qualities of C qualities of self. So if you've done that process and you've done it with some intention,

it's very likely that you might feel a bit more calm or you might feel a bit more connected or more curiosity comes up or compassion comes through or courage starts to come up for you. You feel like, oh, I could be a little creative right now. And as you start to check into those, you check for these C qualities. If you notice any one of those C qualities, your self is present. And so the more you go- Compassion, curious.

Compassion, curious, calm, connected, courageous, creative, curiosity. And there's one more. Confidence. Confidence. That's always the one that I forget. Isn't that funny? But I am like the most confident person I know. I don't know. I am, I think, the most confident person I know. Genuinely. But that's self. Have you always been that confident? I've had some sense of confidence in certain areas, but now I'm confident in most areas. Fully, like thoroughly. So this helps you, I guess. Because I have more self. I've acquired more and more and more self. Self, the capital S self, right. But I've developed and developed and developed,

and I live in this self-led way. So I can trust that I have a healing resource inside. I can have some conflict and I can turn inward and I can listen. And self can say, I hear you. I'm curious. Let's learn more. Self can say, let's go breathe. Self is an energy. Self is a present energy. It's not an inner knowing.

It is spiritual energy. We all have these things in us in childhood. But I think people are finally getting to the place where they realize you didn't have a perfect childhood. There's no such thing as a perfect childhood. So this is the kind of work that could really help people almost, I mean, it takes time, but almost instantly to identify. I'm telling you, I'm feeling this like relief around it. And I'm thinking, and I remember doing some back, you know, years ago, like inner child work is what

they called it then. But it wasn't as, it didn't have such a, so many steps to it. It wasn't as nuanced. And I like the nuance. It's a practice also of getting, tuning in, being attuned. You got to do the practices often. I hate to say do anything every day because that's always like hard, I think, for many people. But even if it's just you build the muscle over time. Yeah. And you don't want to go straight to the exiled part. You can't. That's where therapy comes in. You want an IFS therapist to help you with that. On your own, it's getting to know these managers and these firefighters, a little bit of the firefighters, but really working with the managers. And that's what the whole book will be.

But it's, and whoever's listening, you know, maybe you can decide for yourself right now that there's like, just like the relief that you're having, like recognizing, oh wait, those behaviors that I don't love about myself, they're actually just trying to protect me. It's all defenses. How do you feel when I say't love about myself, they're actually just trying to protect me. It's all protection. It's all defenses. How do you feel when I say that your controller part that you identified

is just trying to protect you? It felt like I don't have to do it because I don't want to be. I know that there's struggles around it. When I become more compassionate, when I become more confident, when I become more all the Cs, I realize once I do the work of grounding and being in touch and journaling and when I do my breath work, it's funny. Those are the feelings that come up. Compassionate. I want to be, but also the generosity. I guess it's the same thing, compassion. I'm like, I want to feel connected. I want to give. I want to feel like there's permission because it just sort of everything else melts away. Like it doesn't matter anymore

when I'm truly connected to myself. It's almost like the most important work. And that's why in the work that I do around sex for all these years, it's like you could get all the tips and the tricks. And I can tell people all the right positions and the toys and the things to do. end of the day, if your body is in this kind of place where we don't have a lot of understanding about the patterns that aren't serving us, it's going to be really hard to excel. It's like the inner work has to happen first. It has to. Because if you haven't, it's not that you have to be fully healed.

Or simultaneously. Like it can't be said not to go cold turkey and don't have sex. You're right. Because actually some of that inner work is using your scripts and saying, here's what I need. Here's what I want. That is inner work. That is neural reconditioning. But going hand in hand, because what can happen at times is if we're all in that pussy power conversation, it can override the younger parts. It overrides the parts that are still there. No matter how much pussy power you do, shame is really override the younger parts. It overrides the parts that are still there,

no matter how much pussy power you do. Shame is really underneath those younger parts. It is. Shame's a big one. And this would really help with the shame. Now, Gail, what do you do if you're in a relationship with someone and your partner's like, you're into all that stuff, I'm not into it, and you want your partner to join you on this journey? I like to answer this with a story. So I was at one point head first in this yoga journey for a period of time. Some of it was really about kind of getting above the suffering, you know? So it was like in this journey and it offered me a lot, but also in reflection, I can see that it was a little bit of like spiritual bypassing a bit, right? Because it's like, oh, I can feel my body again because

I'm vibrating, but it's not dealing with the deeper stuff so anyway but i'm in this and when i was in it i was so in it and i was like wearing the turban and i was like wearing the whites and i was like so like deep deep in it and this is like you know a decade and a half into my career and you know i'd come home and i'd be like honey like we have to do this kriya together we just like meditate together like let's do it and i went to my teacher who's just such a beloved person and i went to her and i said my husband won't do it with me like he doesn't want to meditate with me and she looks at me and she grabbed me by the hand and she goes the second you walk in the door take off your turban and shut up right i was like thank you thank you thank you

thank you because it was the best advice ever and i give that same advice to to all the metaphoric turbans out there that you know the people that are all into their spiritual path and they're doing all the Gabby and they're pushing it onto them or they're doing all the whatever work they're doing. No one is ever going to be able to receive the gifts of the experience you're having without grace, without freedom. The greatest experience of the gifts is to be in your presence of it. So the way to carry the message is to be the message. Which is so easy, right? The fit, well, that would be another part of ourselves. The part that's always trying to change others is another distraction from ourselves, right?

It's another mechanism. That would be a protector, fixer. So identifiable, Gab. This is great, Gabby. I so appreciate all this wisdom we're throwing down here. I was listening to your podcast with Hannah Berner, a comedian. I've been on her podcast a few times. She's amazing. We love Hannah. She's just like so out there, talks about sex, talks about her wrinkled vulva. And you guys were having a

conversation about how our generation, Gabby, was much more like we were getting hit on in really inappropriate ways. It was sort of the price of doing business. Like when guys were like, you know, making advances or grabby, we'd be like, okay, I know you want to sleep with me, but we're going to get this deal done. And we just kind of like brushed it off price of doing business then. And then we see these other women now who are outspoken and they're like talking about sex. And we were just kind of saying like, what a difference these generations are. What do you have to say about that? Well, it's so interesting. I mean, I brought this straight to Hannah and I was like, you know, I see your generation and I'm like, these are my gurus because like they're so

embodied in their sexuality and they're, we've got Hannah and these beautiful women. But then there's always this story and this isn't directed to any one of these specific women, but I'm always also, there was other piece of me that was super triggered by them. And I'd be like, like, I'm fucking like, I don't have that. I don't have that, you know, ability to speak in that way. And I don't have that ballsiness and that power sexually. And then it was like so like overwhelming to me. And then there was this other part of me that was like, well, is there something else underneath that too?

What other stories are in that story? Right. And so, you know, Hannah and I went there and we really brought it to such a beautiful space of hearing that, you know, that that these young women are like, we took one for the team kind of, but they're showing us that we can take our power back. And that by talking about it, we gain more power sexually. Yeah. But then there's, you know, there's so many layers to this. Yeah, exactly. Because I was like going, yeah, that's amazing. They're talking about it. But then I look at all of us.. Yeah, exactly. Because I was going, yeah, that's amazing. They're talking about it.

But then I look at all of us. I look at them. I look at me. I look at all the generations is that now we're talking about it and we're talking about our bodies in ways that are very empowering. But yet I think the part that we all collectively need to work on is the embodiment part and is the part of what do I actually want? What actually feels good to my body? How do I get

into my sexual energy? I'm responsible for my own orgasm and my own pleasure. And I can be up on stage and say all the things, but have I learned, have I done the work yet of sinking into what feels good in my body? What do I want? And then advocating for our own pleasure. So that was the part of it where I was like, the pendulum swings with every generation. We've got to come back to the center. The center is really the feminine, really, and like the healing and the masculine too. And I think it's taking from both, you know, it's like this, like our generation of, it's like all like the goddess energy, you know, and this generation is like the pussy vibes and it's coming together and bringing this conversation in a way where it's integrated

and you can say i'm doing my therapeutic work on it and i'm doing my spiritual work on it and i'm opening up and i'm speaking about it and i'm taking my power back simultaneously and so it's not it's it's it's not so extreme like our generation where we're just like just shut it down and walk away and just like pretend like nothing ever happened and just ignore it and be performative forever. And then there's other generation that's just like, I'm a motherfucking, you know, daddy, right? Exactly. I have a lot of respect for her. She's so fucking cool. And I have a tremendous amount of respect for these women. But then there's this like merger, I think, between the two. And it's a conversation that hopefully we could maybe one day you sit at the table with them and and dialogue

this would be really interesting yeah um to see to sort of see where that marriage comes where that center point is and maybe create it because what is the balance of being gentle inside and soft with yourself and really supportive of the parts of you that may have had sexual trauma or any form of sexual aggression and then also own the power? Yeah. And that is the work right now. It's all come together to that point. I think we're ready. We're going to lead a movement, you and me.

I feel that, Gabby. We are. So whenever I'm sitting with people, I'm like, oh, we should add this to my app. I feel like I should put something in my app that's like your – and I'll do this. I'll do this for your listeners. I'll make like a get into your sexual energy meditation. Yeah. How about that?

I would love that. Yeah. I'll put it in there. I'll call it the sex with Emily. This is for Emily's crowd. Or really my crowd too. It's true. It's the breathing into your pelvic floor, whatever it is like that, the creative.

But for me, I think I would make it even about just like full blown body scanning, relaxation. Okay, Josh, write that down. He's writing it down. I love it. No, that's an important part of it. I mean, I really think, but it's been the missing part. But I think people are ready. But some of the language, which this is what I think that you've made spirituality all these years accessible manifesting accessible you do it in a way that i think i have

done for sex in some ways but looking at you like it's just i think that all of this that you do you're allowing people to not be turned off by the language and they got to go pray and wear the turban but it's like everyday practices which i think that's yeah everyday practices that's right so yeah the best place is the app. That are accessible though. You're so accessible and real. So it works. And then we could do it on sex and they won't feel bad about it on the app. Exactly. Gabby Coaching Membership app, that's the place to go. And then we've both done, I'll say it for myself and then I'll say it for you. And you were on my show. So head back over and listen to that episode because we get to hear the, our two sides

of this dialogue and the journey that you went on and the expertise that you have. And then marrying that with my guidance here is like the recipe for sexual success. Oh my God. That's it. I love it. You got to check out both episodes and we will put the links in the show notes. We asked five questions, quickie questions. They're quickies, right?

Don't overthink. It's like the first thing. Okay. What's your biggest turn on? A hug. Biggest turn off? A negative attitude. What is something you would tell your younger self

about sex and relationships? You'll find your way to safety. What do you think everyone should know about sex? We'll talk to the women. It starts in you think everyone should know about sex? Well, talk to the women. It starts in your brain. What makes good sex? Strong bond. Find more Gabby Bernstein at GabbyBernstein.com,

her new app, Gabby Coaching, and her podcast, Dear Gabby. All social media is Gabby Bernstein, and you'll find links in the show notes, including the episode I recorded with her on the Dear Gabby podcast. We share tangible tools that will help

you strengthen your sexual confidence, deepen your self-awareness, and align with your sexual power. Check all that out in the show notes. That's it for today's episode. See you on Friday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to like, subscribe, and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Sex with Emily. Oh, I've been told I give really good email.

So sign up at sexwithemily.com. And while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating, or relationships, call my hotline 559-TALK-SEX. That's 559-825-5739. Or go to sexwithemily.com slash askemily. Was it good for you? Email me feedback at sexwithemily.com.