The Resilient Mind - Healing from Within: How to Release the Grip of Your Past - Gabby Bernstein

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Let Gabby Bernstein help you manifest the life of your dreams! As a world-renowned spiritual teacher and bestselling author, she has inspired millions with her transformational approach to mindset, manifestation, and inner healing. Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Download_JournalGet Gabby's new book, Self Help: https://amzn.to/3ZZqIOpSpecial thanks to Lewis Howes, subscribe to his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/lewishowesWatch the full interview on Lewis's page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5xV9BTYXL4&t=96s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to How to Release the Grip of Your Past with Gabby Bernstein. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. Three things you just said. Patient, setting the intention and not settling for something that you don't want. Yes.

Those are huge qualities of a superattractor, which of course you embody, but patience is probably the biggest one. Yeah. Because it's when we're sort of, when we're thirsty or we're inserting ourselves or we're controlling, it's just completely the opposite of allowing. I think that as impatient as I am, I'm also really in just tremendous faith. I think as like 20 years being a spiritual student, really my whole life, I feel like I've been a spiritual student. I have such a strong ingrained knowing and trust in timing. We manifest what we believe. So if we are stuck in a core wound, traumatized story, a neural loop of fight, flight, freeze, we're living in a way where we're so afraid or blocked because of those core belief systems, what ends up happening is that no matter how hard we try to manifest,

matter how much we deepen spiritually or how much we hold the vision, like you said, right, and have the intention. Things may show up because your focus is redirected, but then it may show up and you can't keep it, or it falls apart, or things just aren't in the flow. And that lack of flow is often truly because of the core wounds from our very early, early, early years. And so my, it's funny, this is my most therapeutic book. I went and I got trained in internal family systems therapy. It's a therapy that I've used for a decade.

And with my own therapist, it's about, it's coming up on a decade, maybe nine years now. And then I got trained in the model and I was so moved by it that I wrote this more therapeutic book. Now, while this is my most therapeutic self-help book, it's very spiritual. too, but it's probably the most important manifesting book. Mm. Not because it's got lessons on manifesting, but because the secret to truly manifesting what you desire is to heal the beliefs that block those desires.

Well, most people, I think, are walking through life with beliefs of being unworthy, unlovable, inadequate, not good enough. Maybe they feel worthy in one area of their life, but they're completely blocked in another. And so the areas in our life where we lack that confidence and that clarity and that connection and that calmness that you talked about when you were manifesting the house, sort of like just relax, knowing it'll come if it's meant to be. The places in our life where we don't have that are the places where we have the most wounds. If you were to be, if you were to say, okay, I'm really great detracting things into my career, but my relationships, I'm just a show. Okay, well, what is the core wound that's tied to those relationships? what happened to you as a child. What do you know about relationships? Was there trauma there?

And this is sort of self-help 101 or therapy 101. We all kind of understand this on a kind of in the periphery. We're like, oh, yeah, I get that. This thing happened to me and then I'm going to hold on to it. But this book is like, no, no, no, no. The life you're experiencing is a result of the roles that you play, the parts that you play each and every single day. The world is like this theatrical event that we show up for on a day-to-day basis. And the parts of us that show up are different characters in our life. These extreme parts, these addicted parts, these fearful parts. So we're like lots of different actors in the show that is our life.

It sounds like every human being is kind of schizophrenic or as multiple personality types. So in IFS, internal family systems therapy, I'm going to break this down. So we just talk around it. Let's just break it down from the get-go. Okay. So my gift in this lifetime is to just simplify big ideas. And so, and my gift to Dick Schwartz, who's one of my cherished friends, the founder of IFS, is to take his extraordinary body of work that healed my life and to translate it and demystify it from people.

And simplify it. And simplify it and democratize it. So here we are. Internal family systems therapy is not about your external family. It's about an inner family of parts of us. So we have these lots of little children inside. So let me keep it simple, right? you ever said a part of me gets really outraged when when Marta does this or a part of me flips

out when I can't control something. Sure, sure. Yeah, yes, you're kind of familiar with those parts of yourself. You've even said it earlier. A part of me is really, I don't even know if you said a part of me, maybe, but you're like, I can be really impatient. Yeah, of course. That impatience is a part, right?

And these parts of us, often the extreme ones, are protection mechanisms. So the controlling aspects, the managing of the day-to-day things that we have to get done, the perfectionism, the overthinking, the playing small, these extreme roles that we play in momentary situations in our life, or really sometimes all day, every day, are protection mechanisms. So the extreme, so if you look to your life and you're saying, okay, there's parts of me that I don't like or there's parts of me or ways I act out that feel extreme or there's behaviors that I have that I just can't kick addiction, overeating, drinking. And you see these things that

you do, these behaviors that you just don't know how to change. It's because they're very, very young parts of yourself. They've been around for a very long time. They never got a chance to grow up these parts of you. So let's keep it simple. So very young. We grow up where we come into this world. We're like these perfect little people. We're so happy. Everything's beautiful. Hopefully we enter the world in a safe, peaceful way.

And from a very young age, we start to experience the burdens of the world, a parent that doesn't have a strong attachment. In the case for you and myself, having sexual abuse as children. So sometimes it could be extreme traumas like that. Or it could be something along the lines of being bullied in the classroom or being told that you're stupid by your teacher. These moments in time are so extreme for our child brains to process. We don't have the resources. We don't have the brain capacity. And oftentimes we don't have the parents or caregivers to help us process these extreme disturbance.

And so what do we do? We build up protection mechanisms. For me, one of those protection mechanisms was straight up dissociation. Like, left my body. like dissociated from reality. For others, it could be, and this is young, at a young, young age, you know, it could be, okay, this thing happened to you as a child and all of a sudden you go into this extreme protection mechanism of trying to be perfect because you had this shameful experience.

So perfection makes you feel safe. Or you give my son, for an example. I have a six-year-old son. When he was three years old, he was in a Montessori program, and so it was three to six-year-olds. There was a six-year-old in his class, and he was just out of diapers. And that six-year-old was sort of like, you know, who is this three-year-old? I want to make me do with him. I mean, it was just like kind of bossy to him.

And at a very young age, all they learned, like, I got to be the boss because that was so extreme. This kid is bigger. I want to be like him. He hates me. He tells me he hates me. He tells me to leave him alone. It's just kids are mean. But my little boy has this thing of I got to be the boss.

So he's got this misguided belief. I need to be a boss. So what does he do? He walks around with his nerve gun, you know, and he walks around. Like with his shooter. He's like, I'm the boss. You know, this is like a little innocent six-year-old. But he wants to be the boss.

because he's protecting himself from that feeling from three years old. Okay? I watched this whole part develop in a person. So an extreme thing happens, big or small, in the case of Ali, it was a six-year-old, right? In the case of me, it was something much more extreme. Hopefully Holly never has to experience that. But whatever it is, we have extreme experiences and we exile them. We exile them. Those are called exiled parts of us. These are the little young, traumatized children that have had nowhere to go, no one to care for them, no one to support them. And we said, I'm going to lock that up. They send them into the basement. Don't ever talk to that person, see that part of me ever again. And at three years old, five years old, whatever it is, we start to decide, I'm going to do this to

protect myself from feeling this. So Ollie's the perfect example. I got bullied. I'm going to start to be the boss so that I never have to feel that fear again of that bully. We have, and then lots of different protectors and there's two types of protectors. So you're still tracking with me here. I know you are. I just want to make sure that the audience is still tracking with me. I'm going to take this slow. So exiled parts of the young traumatized little children don't want to feel those feelings. So they're too extreme, right? Lewis, it's like how could a child, you can't understand it. Your brain's not able to process it. Most adult brains don't have the ability to process that. Or most parents would say, you're fine, you're fine. Just get shut down.

Yes. If you even did bring it to somebody, you'd be shut down. Right? Especially with or in cases of, you know, real extreme trauma, you don't feel safe enough to talk about it. Shut it down. Then you build up these protection mechanisms, protector parts. And there's two types of protector parts. But in my book, I really just focus on one type. So we'll stay close to that. There's managers and firefighters. And so the managers are who we talk about in the book. Because the firefighters are who I want people to go to therapy to work with. But the managers are, the control-free, you know, for me, I'm just going to name my managers, you know, like, one would be like, knives out is another one I named, like, if you're with me, I'm like, knives are out. Like, you know, destroy you. Yeah, that's a manager.

He's a manager for me. Just sort of like anxiety was kind of a manager for me. Think about it. Anxiety, right? If I'm anxious and I'm, you know, moving, moving, moving so fast, like when you first met me, totally out of my body, hadn't remembered the trauma yet, totally scared. when it's going to cry when I think about that time, you know? That anxiety was actually a form of protection.

Of course. Because if I'm an anxious state, I don't have to feel the horror and the fear and terror of that other state. So that's a manager, the parts of us that are with us all day long, managing the big feelings of the exile. Okay. And then when the managers don't work anymore, like let's say something very big happens to,

your life something extreme and the managing is no longer working, that's when the firefighters come in. The firefighters will do whatever it takes to put out the fire of those impermissible feelings. And that's when you pick up the drugs, pick up the workaholism, pick up the alcohol, the sex, the porn, the binging, the extreme addictive parts of ourselves. And those are the most extreme parts of us are the ones that are, the ones that are working the hardest to keep us safe from those feelings. And then there's good news. You ready for the good news?

Yeah. We all have an interparent inside of us. So those are all the young children inside, right? The exiles, the managers, the firefighters, right? The protectors and the exiles. They're all like running our world, right? Or like one trigger happens, this protector shows up. Another trigger happens.

It's like protector to protector. It's like a boxing match all day long, walking through life. Exhausting. Exhausting. Why do people have burnout? Why do people have stress? Why do people have chronic pain? Of course. There's a whole chapter in the book called body parts. How the body, like physical pain is a protector. Yes. Like if I have a back pain, I don't have to feel my childhood wounds. We're going to get into that. The good news is that we all have what Dick Schwartz has coined is self with a capital S. And self is our adult, undamaged, resourced part of who we are. It's the. the truth of who we are, it's the spirit of who we are, it's the God within us. It is an energy and self has eight C qualities. Compassion, calm, connection, creativity, courage, clarity,

commitment. I'm missing one. I don't even know, I always miss a C. They're all in there. So, and connectedness, I think I got to them. We'll find the eight Cs in the book and we'll get at least. Yes. Curiosity, compassion, calmness, clarity, creativity, connectedness, courage, and confidence. You know, it's so funny. Confidence is the one I always miss. But it's the one that I often feel we're quite connected to. So I won't forget confidence anymore.

There you go. So I'm going to really try to keep this simple. So just think about it like you have an inner parent. You know those times in your life when, let's say, Marta came to you and she was really struggling with something. And you just, your heart was filled up with compassion. no matter how extreme the thing that happened to her, you just felt connected to her. You were a calm presence for her.

You had deep compassion for her experience. You had clarity on how to communicate. You felt like you had the courage to speak up for what was true. And that really just, it wasn't even what you said, but it was that presence alone that helped her. Yes. You know what I'm talking. Yes, of course. That's self-energy.

With a capital S. With a capital S. And the thing is, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's your true self. Yes. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's your essence. There's a really beautiful quote in the book that I share that's, that's, that's about how self is like the sun behind the clouds. And it's there, but the clouds are just in the way. So self is always been there. Right? You feel self in shavasana. You feel self, the, you feel self. the after a long run you feel self you're in self right now like this is our creative force right we're in the flow like we have so much connection we have so much creativity right we have clarity about what we're talking about this is self energy right here like if you're watching and you're feeling elevated excited calm soothed that's because our self energy is coming through the screen or through the audio and so we all have it it's that we've we have to release the blocks to the presence of

So what I've done is I've taken this huge therapy, internal family systems therapy, super in the Zikeis right now. God bless, it's the most valuable healing modality, particularly for trauma. And it's the kind of thing that I felt only people that were going to find their way to an IFS therapist were going to get this. And I was sitting at a dinner with Dick Schwartz. I hosted a dinner for him. Just again, he's the founder of IFS, started this about 43 years ago, 44 years ago. And I was sitting next to Dick, and this was short. Shortly after I'd taken the training and we'd become friends and I looked at him and we're at dinner.

I'm hosting for him and it's like having Lady Gaga at my house. And I look at him and I'm like, I don't have to tell you something. I'm like, I'm scared to tell you this. But I want to write a book called self-help. Self-help. And I want to make IFS self-help. And he looked at me. His eyes just like widened.

And he was like, I've always wanted somebody to do that. And in the foreword, he says, you know, I've always been looking for that person with the self-help spiritual bona fides and then Gabby's here. Wow, that's cool. And so that's one of the greatest privileges of my life is to take someone else's body of work and translate it. Right. And you created the four-step process for us. The four-step is not IFS. It's an IFS informed self-help practice. And that's really important for me to say, Lewis, because if you're going into IFS therapy, you have a, you have a therapist with you. You're doing a six-step inquiry, almost like an interview with the parts. It's like an unburdening

You can work with firefighters and exiles. And I am not doing that. I am not a therapist. I'm a spiritual self-help author and teacher. I am trained in internal family systems therapy, but I'm not a therapist. So it was really important for me to take this and make it IFS informed. Yes. So there's four steps.

IFS approved. IFS approved. IFS informed. It's it's backed, you know, with Dick's blessing. And it's the way that you can take this model into your own hands. Safely. Safely is a really important point. Yes.

Because I'm not trying to guide you to those exiled parts. The book is not trying to work with firefighters. That would be, and I say all throughout the book, like if this happens, if you want to, you're with a firefighter, there's an exile, go. Here's an IFS therapist registry. Go find somebody. but I'm trying to help you access these managers, the extreme parts that are with you all the time, day to day. And through a four-step inquiry, let's self-help. How many personal development programs have we sat in where someone's like, oh, you have limiting beliefs and the limiting beliefs are blocking you?

Then you're like, how the f do I get rid of these limiting beliefs, right? Like, you never leave and you're like, okay, I know the playbook, right, for changing. Maybe you have a little tip here or manifesting tool there. And look, you know, I've written, this is my 10th book. So I have nine other books with other practices, which all work, all are valuable, all have their own purpose, right, particularly spiritual practices in these other books. And they all are bringing you to self for sure. But this is addressing the actual neural redirection in the brain.

because when you practice this four-step method, what's happening is you're rewiring your experience and your relationship to these parts of who you are. You're taking all these little people inside of you that have these belief systems that are holding you back and you're bringing the internal parent of self to them to help them. Well, because think about it like this. Like my controller part, I've done so much work with her. You can gender these parts of you. They have no gender. They can have the opposite gender. It doesn't, like sort of whatever is intuitive for you. I mean, you. My parts are female. So I have that controller part that you knew for so long, or the anxiety part, right? Even to think about where we were maybe 10 years ago in these

conversations to where I am with you right now. And how much more self-energy you feel in this moment. It's so much to me that you've been there with me. It's been like, what, 13, 14 years? 14 years. 15 years, maybe since I've known, yeah. 2008 I met you. And when you first met me, like, I was like parts on fire, right? Like, literally on fire. I was working. I was working. Both of us, yeah. Really extreme, really extreme. I was sober, but like workaholism. I was just extreme anxiety.

Didn't know that I had trauma. So I was living in hypervigilance. I was so scared all the time. I was so controlling. I was just like, I was doing, you can still be going through hard things and do beautiful things in the world. Yeah. You still get results in life.

Yeah. And do good. But you can, but you might be having a lot of struggle, right? And so as a result of this, this model and what I'm going to teach everybody today and living this and developing this and practicing this and every day being checking in with these parts of me checking with these parts of me i've unburdened them and so it's not that they go away is that they're not extreme anymore interesting so the parts that were wounded are still inside of you they're no longer wounded they're they're in their they're in their beautifully developed chrysalis their new for

instance the part of me there was a controller i mean that part did good things right she wrote books in 14 years, right? Took action, got things done. Yes. But now she can be in the flow, right? Like, now she can be like, I don't have to force my way to, like, get this thing to there. I'm like, oh, you know what, Lewis?

Like, I'm going to be in L.A. Like, does that work? I'll be there. Like, I can show up with an energy. She's, she's, she's on top. But she's, but she's trusting. She's not forcing. Not forcing anything.

She's just relaxed, like in the presence. So it's still like, so it's like a really. great quality to have that control part present because she gets things done but without craziness everybody has a few minutes to check in right or a few seconds to check in throughout the day and the simplicity of it being this four steps of checking in with the part makes it such that you can have this relationship to the part rather than why are you doing this with why the pain right that that's why the pain right that's that. That's like what Gabbermata always says, not why the addiction, why the pain.

And so by every moment when you notice a trigger or you have this space in your body to like see, oh, you know, I'm out of alignment right now, in those moments checking in are these moment to moment experiences of presence with bringing self to these parts. So I'll break it down for you. So the protector that's freaking out, right? She's freaking out because something isn't going the way she wants, right? So she's the freaking out protector. Actually doing a lot of work with her in therapy right now, so it's nice.

And I do IFS therapy, so of course. And she's having a freak out, like, you know, some email isn't good or like the things aren't working as fast. It seems not working as fast as possible or if she feels like she has a burdened belief, right? This freak out girl, her belief is, if I don't, don't do it. Nobody else will. And so she is maybe just like, and she also has another, and I'm cursing a lot, but just bleep me, okay? But she has another phrase that she says. She's like, what the fuck is going on here? And when I think about her, I think about, okay,

so let me give you the check-in process. So let's say I noticed she's coming in. She's showing up. And I'm like, oh, oh, I notice her. I have enough awareness to be like, she's here. She needs help. So I need self to help, self help me. I'll say that again. I need self to help, self help me. I, you know, have that awareness. I choose to check in. Step one.

Choose to check in. Because, remember, parts are like little children. So if you try to force something on a little child, like if I try to go to Ali and say to him, bro, what the hell is going on? You seem upset. Let's talk about it. He's like, no, mommy. like get away mommy right so there has to be some buy-in okay so there's some buy-in and i'm going to

choose to check in choose to check in so you have this awareness that the parts triggered and you're saying okay i'm going to choose to check in right now so you you step one that's it choose and if you know that you feel that buy-in like okay the part's ready to go we can get we can keep going right choosing to check in is also just sometimes even having the awareness that you need to check in because that's like step one Step two is curiosity. Become curious. These are all C qualities, remember, right? So it's like acting as if. And so the curiosity is start. So I'm in this place where this manager is up and she's like, what the fuck going on here? I have to do everything. Nobody else will do it. And so I choose to check in with her. And they become curious. And I start to notice the feelings and the thoughts and the sensations inside as you're asking her questions. Like where do you feel that in your body? and she's like, I'm not breathing, and there's tension in my chest. And I start to say, you know, what kind of thoughts or sensations? And her thoughts are like, what the fuck is going on here?

Why is this happening? And I ask her for any images or visions. And she shows me my six-year-old self in my dining room with my pigtails, and I'm screaming, no bumps, no bumps. because the only way that I could find control in this out-of-control life that I had was to control the bumps in my pigtails. To make your hair look perfect or whatever. Right. And so she's, so this girl that's now, this adult that's screaming, what the fuck is going on here is the little girl.

This is the vision she shows me. The little girl is screaming no bumps with the pig tail. So I start having all the, I flash out this information about her. You can see I'm like, I could tear up as I think about her. And that connection, can you feel that connection? I'm having with her right now. Yes. that connection shows me that there's some self-energy here, okay?

And so as soon as you start to feel some kind of connection to that part, the third step happens. And by the way, you can spend as much time as you want in curiosity. You could just ask more questions. Let the part speak. The parts want to speak. Step three, compassionate connection. So I can look at that little girl and I can ask her. little Gabby, what do you need right now?

And right away, she'll speak back. She'll say, at times she said things like, I need a mom. Or I need to rest. Or I need to play. I need to scream. I need, you know, they're just speaking for what they need, right? I need to speak up. I need to be heard.

And so the little voice gets to speak up and say what they need. And once that response comes through internally, the fourth step is to check for C qualities of self. So you scan your inner system and you ask yourself, do I feel any connection? Yes, right now in this moment, I just did the check in with Little Gabby and I feel connected to her. Do I feel compassion? Holy, right now I feel so much compassion for her. Do I feel clarity? Yes. She just showed me. It's a little girl, right? She showed me exactly where she was. I feel clear what she needs. Do I feel? I feel calm. I feel calm even more calm right now, just having done that check-in process out loud with you. Connected. Oh, yes. Courageous. Much more courageous. Clarity, I think I said.

Confidence. I got confident. The one that you're remembering now, confidence. Creativity. Yes. Check for C's, even if you just have one C quality of self show up, you feel a little bit more calm. You feel a little bit more compassionate. You feel a little more connected. You've done the four steps. you've done the four steps even if you just get to check in to choose to check in just even the decision to check in for two seconds is the check in process because if you're not starting step one then you're just going to stay in fight or flight yeah you know control freak anxiety or whatever your manager is is doing your manager won't have enough of a pause to pivot because the manager is we can become

blended with the managers which means we believe that we are that right those times in your life when you get so worked up, right? And you're so, that you're like, I am the only one that can do this. Or, you know, the only way to live life is to fight back and tell everybody else that they're wrong. It's the only way to live. And if anybody challenges that, like, they're gone. Right. So we're blended with these parts. Right. So the only way to start this check-in process is to slightly unblend by choosing to check in. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes. Download the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes.