That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Gabby Bernstein

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Gabby Bernstein joins Gaby for a chat about all things joy! She explains the therapy system (Internal Family Systems Therapy) that helped her heal the trauma from her childhood, which had led to addiction in her adult life. They discuss why we shouldn't be afraid of the term "self help" - and why more people should be looking to heal. Gabby believes her purpose is to provide people with the tools they need to do the work themselves, which led on to noting the importance of fame for good and to help others, and not to fuel the need to be seen. We hope you enjoy the honest and frank chat - and the joy that comes from it! ***Trigger warning*** Please note child sexual abuse and addiction are referenced in this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gabby, this has taken me two and a half years to get you here at last. Gabby Bernstein, you are fabulous in every single way. I've read your books, your app, your reels, your stories, your talks. You want to make a difference in the world. You want people to feel better. And for me, that's what life is all about. But it's tough for a lot of people and you make it better. Well, so do you. And we met officially for the first time today. And I have to tell you, I felt like we were instant friends. I feel like I've known you 100 years. A hundred years. It's so weird. A hundred years. And you know when you know. Yeah. You know when you know. And I felt that connection. And I also felt very much your mission and your commitment to people and to human kind. And I just have to reflect that back to you. Well, that's really cool. That's very lovely. But this is about you.

Well, you know, yeah. This is about you. It's about you. So I've, obviously, I know so much about you. I feel I know you so well, and you're very open, you're very open book. But so people who see you now and you've had so many books out, you've got a brand new one out, which I've read, self-help. My first reader. Which we're going to talk about. But it's your story of how you got here that I think will also help so many people because it's going to resonate.

And right now with a lot of people. Because life is tough. Life's very tough around the world. We're aware of it. The news feeds that come in. But your story is incredible. Yeah. Thank you.

I do believe that we all have our own personal stories. And our stories, when transformed, become how we heal. Because through our transformation, we can tell the story and help people recognize themselves in us. And that has been really my whole mission in my work and in my life is to be a power of example for people. because I have been on a very devotional path to my own personal recovery and my own spiritual development. And most of it started when I was really a kid. My mother brought me to visit ashrams and taught me how to meditate and gave me. So how old were you? Oh, it was probably like five and six years old. And did you know what she was doing? No. I mean, for me, it was just what you do

because it was what was brought up, what was in my home. I knew that it was weird for the people around me, like I would sort of hide it or be like, my mom's just a hippie or whatever because it wasn't cool then. Now it's like very in the zeitgeist and kind of hip, but it wasn't then. And so I, but I was taught to meditate as a child and it really was a foundational gift for me to have that, that experience of knowing that I could turn inward for answers and knowing that there was a spiritual solution to my problems. And I had a lot of problems when I was young. I suffered with depression and anxiety and ultimately that led to addiction, which you're very familiar with my story.

I was very addicted to drugs and alcohol when I was in my early 20s and turned my back on my spiritual path, at which point when I got sober at 25, I made the commitment myself to get sober. And I'm coming up on 19 years of sobriety. Congratulations. Amazing. It's not wild. 2005.

I got sober, October 2nd, 2005. But was part of the turn to addiction and the drugs and the drink? Was that to throw away the moments of calm? Or was it to do with the anxiety that you'd maybe put in the back? Well, at the time, Gabby, I didn't know what it was or why. And I had a very bizarre storyline of what my life was. I had a dissociated story of like, oh, my life was fine. Why would I become an addict?

It actually took me 10 years of sobriety. and big life bottoming out to actually realize why I was addicted. And I'd already been at this stage, I was 36 years old, and I was 10 and a half years sober. I had been on Oprah. I had several book of seven or eight books out already. I was the spiritual teacher, and I was melting down, waking up every single day saying, I can't go on like this, having such extreme symptoms of, serious, serious anxiety and depression, leading me to have just physical psychosomatic effects

and just extreme, extreme bottoming out is the only way I could describe it. You were giving it to everybody else and not giving it to yourself at all? Well, I was actually all of the spiritual practice that I had at the time was what kept me alive actually. And when I hit this bottom, I was 36. I hit a bottom. And I remembered in a dream that I had sexual abuse from my childhood. Wow. That's right. And then when I woke up from that dream, I was like, that is the most horrific, scary, and real memory I've ever had in my life.

And I really accepted that memory the next day in my therapy session. And that began my journey of trauma recovery. I mean, that's a huge thing to come to terms with. And there are a lot of people that are exactly in the same boat. I mean, I met somebody the other day, a 75-year-old man, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely man, a great teacher, although he wouldn't call himself a teacher, a medic, who said that he realized two years ago

that he had been abused when he was eight years old. Yeah. And that's somebody in his mid-70s. The common age to remember a dissociated trauma is actually in your 50s. Wow. Isn't that insane? It really is. And it's heartbreaking.

We'll talk about the new book, right? Yeah, yeah. Talk about a protection mechanism, right? A protector. Dissociation in itself is a form of protection. It's the brain's way of protecting you from impermissible extreme trauma that your child brain can't handle process or even function with. And so I'm grateful for the dissociation, but it's what led me to become a drug addict and a love addict

and a workaholic and all the extreme parts of me that have served me greatly, but really weren't going to be sustainable. And it's when I remembered that trauma that I really began to truly start living. That's such a huge thing to say that you truly started living. So at that moment, did you feel massive change, or was it a slow process? So slow. So slow in my world, I do things about it. very quickly. But for me, I think it was about six years later, seven years later that I came out

with a book called Happy Days, the guided path from trauma to profound freedom and inner peace. And I wasn't going to be able to come out with that book unless I had lived through the healing process first. And I still am living through the healing process. I have two different therapists and I do extreme beautiful work on myself, just amazing work. I'm constantly a work in progress. But I am really free now. I do feel very, very free. And a lot of what I write about in self-help, the new book, is about that freedom. But for me, it was six or seven years before I could write about it. So it was a journey of beautiful trauma healing and therapy, somatic experiencing, spiritual practices, internal family systems therapy, which we'll talk about today,

all kinds of which is what you're about which is incredible if I'm mad I want to pick up on something that you said this morning when we met at your breakfast that you said about

embracing the inner child so and I think for everybody it resonates I think when we think I you know I always talk on this podcast all the time about one of the things

people don't discuss is extreme shyness which I had and I still get it every so often that teenager comes back and I go I can't walk into that party.

But I'm aware of it. I'm going to talk about it. Very open about it. And that child who wanted to be a TV presenter and a radio presenter, I will happily, I've gone back and I visited her and I said, look, we did it. We did it. And it is we. We did it together.

But for you going back and visiting that child who you now know about what happened, that must be an extraordinary hug. Because you talk about hugging that child from when you were eight. when you were five, however old, that hug between you two, between you, just for yourself, that must be an overwhelming feeling. Well, I think that we're kind of just diving in right here because I think that what happens is that in order to access that little girl,

the traumatized exile little girl inside of me, I had to do a lot of work to calm down all those protection mechanisms. that were blocking me from the little girl. So when we have these extreme experiences from our childhood, like abuse, neglect, even just being told you're stupid or being bullied on the playground, these extreme moments are so extreme

that we don't have the ability to process them. And if there isn't a safe adult in our world helping us process it, whether it's a therapist or a family member or a teacher, which most of us don't have that safe person, We become alone in that extreme exiled feeling, and we push it down, we numb it out, we dissociate from it, in my case, and we build up all these protection mechanisms. So for you, a protector, a protection, I'll call them protector parts of us. A protector for you is the shy part, right?

The shy part's protecting you from something. Or for me, that was control and that control led to addiction, or it was so many kinds of protectors. It's just, you know, rage was a protector. addiction was a protector. And so I built up all these protection mechanisms. And so upon remembering that trauma, I couldn't go straight to that little girl because there was too much protection in the way. Huge. And so the way that I got to the little girl, the exile little traumatized girl, was to soothe and support and connect to with compassion the protection mechanisms, the protector parts of me. And so as I started to tend to the control part, and I started to tend to the addict part,

and I started to tend to the part that felt inadequate, they started to, I'm speaking of these parts of me as different personalities, because that is kind of how it, how, that is what it is in this, this therapy I'm referring to, it's IFS, internal family systems. So I started to relate to these different parts of myself with compassion, and they could settle. And as those protection mechanisms settle, what happens? we can get closer to that young child inside of us. And they're all there in us. Every so often we just need to skip in the street as well sometimes.

Well, that's the beautiful thing, Gabby, is that when we actually start to bring our self-energy, which is why the book is called self-help, when we bring this energy of, it's almost like having an internal parent, right, that is an inner leader and an inner friend, but really a parental energy. And it's a compassionate energy and a calm,

presence and a courageous energy, creative. Anything beginning with C? It's eight C's connected. So when we access that energy, we start to free ourselves from those burdens of those past experiences. And then like you just said, we become more childlike. We start to skip in the street. We start to just like meet friends like you and I and be like, we can be best

friends right now. Like, why do I wait? You know, like let's jump in. So what fascinates me about you is that. You're looking after everybody. And you very openly look after yourself as well. So these books, they're endless books. And they are, each one is utterly unique.

But each one, and I said it to you this morning, is none of you don't lecture. You hold the hand. You hold the hand of the reader. You hold the hand of the listener for your podcast. You hold the hand for the app. You're there alongside everybody. You're not saying to everybody, here's your self-help book.

Now, we've got to talk about the title because here in the UK, Self-help. When I brought out my book, people are, oh, is there self-help? It's sort of, whoa, but it's exactly the right title for your book. I mean, it couldn't be more right. And you said this morning about throwing off the cover. Don't throw off the cover. Be pragmatic. Sit on the tube here in London. Get on the, get on the subways up and down here in the UK. Wherever you are, get on the trams and have that cover. And everybody can then go, oh, okay. It's okay for me to. want to help myself. So all the books that you've written, for me, this one is so different from the others. Yeah, it really is. Well, first of all, I write my books for myself first. So when I wrote Happy Days, I had a chapter about internal family systems therapy because it was part of my healing journey. After I wrote that book, I went and I got trained in it. So I was one of the last people who was not a licensed therapist to receive this practitioner training. So I am a, a, level one and level two, IFS practitioner, but I'm not a therapist. And so now they only offer

this training to therapy. No, practitioner. That's good. And it's okay, because actually, I'm glad I'm not a therapist because it would actually block me from so much of the freedom that I have in my teaching. But I, and I'm not in any way, in any form trying to do one-on-one work. It is not my gift. Yeah. I am a one-to-many person. So, so, but I got trained in this therapy because I wanted to, I knew intuitively that I wanted to demystify and democratize. this life-changing work that my very dear friend Dick Schwartz, Richard Schwartz,

who invented internal family systems therapy, I wanted to be able to take it out of the therapist's office and give it to humankind, to just anyone who may not ever, to all the Brits who will never get a therapist, right, or that want to, you know, or even a phase of self-help. People are scared and it's expensive, so they're scared, it's expensive,

it's not really in the culture. Yeah. It's just what it is. And even today I was talking to one of the women at the event, And she's like, I will not get a therapist. And I was like, okay, then just do self-help. Just do my book. Do the book.

And the reason that it's called self-help is because in internal family systems therapy, I'm going to break it down very simply. It's a big idea that I'm going to break down simply. There are these parts of ourselves, the exiled little children that have the extreme experiences, no matter big or small, big T or small T trauma, we experience it. We exile those little parts of ourselves and we say never again, don't want to see you ever again. And then how do we keep them down? We build up protection mechanisms. So control, addiction, people pleasing, shyness, all the ways that we, all the parts of, if you've ever said something to yourself,

like a part of me gets outraged when my husband speaks to me that way. It's a protector. It's a protector part, right? So we can call it a protection mechanism. And then there's extreme forms of protectors, which are the firefighters. And so there's two types of these protection mechanisms. one is sort of the managing one that kind of keeps things straight. And then it gets really extreme. If things aren't really working with the manager, it goes into the firefighter mode, which is like the addict, just has to put out the fire. So we live in this way where we're constantly pushing down that exiled feeling

through these protection mechanisms. If you're listening and you're like, I've lost you, think about the parts of your life where you're like, wow, I wish I didn't, you know, wasn't so extreme in that way, or I wish I could let go of that addiction to food, or I wish I, you know, or I know that there's a part of me that gets very shy in certain situations. These are protection mechanisms. And so in IFS, there is also self in this therapy. It's called self with a capital S.

And self is the internal parent. It's the adult resourced part of you. And it's a part of you that is always available to you and it never left you. And the more you can connect to that self energy, the more self can help the inner children, can help those inner parts. So that's why it's called self-help. Because when we live and we lead from that self-energy, we are compassionate. We are calm.

We are connected. We are curious, creative, confident, courageous. And we have this essence of, you know, those people that walk in the room and you're like, you just feel good to be around. Yeah. And I love it when you don't know why, but even you haven't seen them, but you get that feeling and you turn around and you think,

there's a good person. Like our guy out here, right? Yeah, who works here. He's just fabulous. Yeah, that's self-energy. What fascinates me is that do you ever have any switch off time? Do you ever have time where you, because you're such a giver?

Do you ever get a time where you just go, okay, I'm hiding under the duvein now. Nobody's going to, are you good about that for yourself? You know, you said earlier like, oh, you're taking care of everybody. And actually, I think that's not true necessarily because I don't actually take care of everybody. But you don't know you're doing it. You're doing it. Correct.

My job is not to take care of everybody. My job is to give people the tools to take care of themselves. And so when people come up to me, they're like, oh, Gabby, you changed my life. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I did not change your life. You held a hand. I held your hand. I held your hand.

I virtually held your hand because I actually do not want to literally hold hands with the world, right? Then I will be depleted. I will be boundaryless. I would be just done. And so my work is to spark that light within the individual and give them the tools. I'm a rock and tour. I'll tell them the story. I'll give them the tools.

I'll awaken that light within them. And then they can really do the work. So the books, this is what fascinates me about people who come up with. write a lot of books as you've done. When you sit down and you think, okay, time for another book. Time for another book. Obviously with this one,

and I love the introduction from Dr. Schwartz, I love the introduction. It's just the innocence of him, just saying, she wanted to do this. Oh my word, she suddenly took my thing

and she's brought it out to everybody. I love his introduction. It's so warm and loving. Did you just say the word innocence? Is that what you said? Yeah. Yeah, that's self-energy. So you could feel Dick Schwartz of all the people in the world, and this is like a 70-something-year-old man, is so embodied with self because he's lived this model for 40 years, 42 years, that he is just an energy of self. You felt his self-energy, that innocence. It's like a child-like energy. You felt it through his forward. Yeah. That is, first of all, you're so tuned in, but that's pretty, I'm nosy. I'm nosy. But also, I just, I love, I just love the idea that you just sit there.

and you say, right, what's next? Is that how it works for you? Do you go, do you think, I mean, are you already thinking the next book? Of course you are. Yeah, and I'm not thinking about it. It comes. It's given to me. It's what I'm living.

It's what I'm living. It's whatever is coming through me in the moment. I think that my, I have a lot of next books in me. I'll probably be like my friend Deepak Chopra. He's written probably 100 books by now. There's a line. There's a line. My friend, Deep, I mean, I know you've done stuff with him.

And I know you know him. Oh, my word, there's a line. Yeah, no, no, Deepak's probably written about 190-something books now. He writes about a book or two a year. And I think it's not about how many books, but I think I'm in the same place as him. It's that when you're inspired, you're just awakened to what needs to come through. And so, boom, boom, boom, all these ideas that I, my publishers have to slow me down. I was going to say, I can imagine people saying, okay, and slow down.

Yeah. But all the things that you do. So when Oprah named you, what she named you and such, you've got huge influence and people listen, does that feel, and I'm going to put it in the simplest of terms, does this feel, do you feel very, I'm thinking of a very British, sort of very chuffed by this? Does chaffed mean? How do you explain chaffed, Rich? Who works it? Do you just think, oh, wow, this is, this is, this is, this is not. Nice. This is cool. This is good. This is, makes me feel good as well that I'm making people feel good.

I think I know what you're saying. Reflective, kind of. Yes. Yeah. But in a sort of in a humble? Humble. Yeah. And honored. Okay. So I feel chuffed. Yeah. I think what I feel most chuffed about is when people come to me and tell me that they've, they've had these great healing experiences. because having the world reflect back to you know being on Oprah or having lots of followers on social media that's a bunch of i mean the Oprah thing isn't bullshit but but i think that the followers is bullshit it's like it's like that stuff outside of you is meaningful and that it can support your mission and that um having somebody like Oprah you know endorse you is is a is a gift because she is so connected but the the sort of like being seen of it all the fame the fame of it Well, it's bullshit.

That is crazy. I agree. The only reason it has, the only reason for me at this stage of my life, and I wasn't always like this, but at this stage of my life, the only reason I would desire more fame is to be in the service of more people. Yeah. Because you use it in the right way. That's my point.

It can be a very negative thing. And it's, celebrity these days is a, is a, that's a C word. Let's not use that one. Yeah. I think it's a negative word. Well, I think that it has, I think that it is a beautiful thing when it's used for good. For the right reason. And I'll give you as an example, like Fern, Fern Garten.

Oh, I love Fernie. Like Fern is one of my close, close friends and is a beautiful power of example. I love Fernie. Of a human who is doing extraordinary work and using her celebrity for good. Absolutely. See, I wouldn't, isn't that funny? I wouldn't call Fern a celebrity because for me there's, Fern is bigger and better and it's not about that.

You're right. She uses her fame. Her fame for good. Her fame for good. And I think that there's plenty of people out there that are doing this. And then there's a lot of people that I think get stuck in the need to be seen. And if you need to be seen, you might, so I guess that was where I was going. These sort of accolades may happen because you've done something cool or whatever, you just like, you know, went viral on TikTok. But that isn't actually making an impact. The impact is the one-to-one conversation. The impact is the energy infused into the pages. The impact is your energy infused into this microphone. It's, it's that how, that's how you create an impact. That's actually what I think my next book is going to be about. About creating impact? Yeah, self-impact. Wow, I like it already.

I'm buying it. It's for you. When's it coming out? It is for you. When's it coming out? I have to go write it. I don't know. My publishers will be like, no, we can't do no book yet. Like, what publisher tells you to slow it down? Are you any good at patience? I get the feeling. Oh, you are? I'm really good at patience. Are you? I'm very impatient. If you have an idea, don't you want to go, well, let's do it now? So yes and, right? So when I have an idea and I want to get something done, I'm so impatient. I'm like, let's go. We've got to do it now. But when it comes to like letting something marinate and become what it needs to be, I have so much trust because my spiritual faith, I just trust that the universe will take it. And I can be completely patient

in the knowing that what is of the highest and best is unfolding naturally. That's just how I live. even toasted cheese if you're watching if you're watching yeah if you're watching food I'm one of those people like okay come on because I love I'm a feeder

and I'm like come on I just want it all to be there I don't care what it looks like I want to go hey look let's have some cid salmon and vegetables can we just right here it is it's that I mean it's I'm putting it in the simplest I think I might be impatient about toasted

cheese yeah I just had a feeling yeah crazy I cook fast I was born two weeks early like I'm just a fast mover. Yeah. So all you're traveling as well, let's just talk about that before we finish.

You travel to incredible places. You do amazing things. You meet amazing people. I have this picture of you on an airplane. This is this morning, when I was walking to the breakfast this morning, I had this picture of you on an airplane thinking that you have a silk eye mask

and you try to take some time and then you get excited about the next. thing you're doing. Yeah. So maybe that's the impatience part as well. Yeah. Yeah. Is that? That's an accurate thing. I've actually written many books on planes. Yeah, there we go. I'd be on

the plane for the... I'd be on a plane doing a book tour. Writing the next book. Yeah. I think you're wonderful. And I love that you just want to help people through yourself, but it comes from so deep within you. And you're just a good soul. And I

like good souls. And I think the world, there's some awful things going on as we're completely aware of. And this is obviously called Reasons to Be Joyful. And we all need to look for those moments. And your books bring that. Thank you for letting me be the first person to read Self-Help. Oh my God. Thank you for reading it.

I loved it. And for taking it in. I really, it's so different from your other ones, but for all the right reasons. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, some people... Make me think. I mean, I literally were sitting there. there just really. And I sort of stopped and I thought about, oh yes. Went on to the next bit.

Yeah, and the subtitle is really accurate. This is your chance to change your life. And I want to leave people with that, which is we, as you mentioned, are living in very, very, very uncertain, uncomfortable times. We feel out of control. We feel powerless. But our true power lies in our ability to really consult with ourselves, to be compassionate towards ourselves, to connect to ourselves. And there is a path, and it's a very simple four-step process.

Thank you, Gabi. Thank you, my love.