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We all experience a time in life when we feel that nothing is in our control, where our memory and emotions tend to have too much control over us. Every person has a different trigger that sends them spiralling into oblivion, and that is when it becomes crucial to pause, reflect, and identify these triggers.
Some people take this as a challenge and set out to take back control, but others simply are too overwhelmed and struggle with negative beliefs. In order to manifest your dreams and attract abundance, you have to be the former. There is nothing wrong with finding yourself in such a situation — it’s natural. The important thing is to rise back up with a bang!
Bob Proctor said, “Thoughts become things. If you see it in your mind, you will hold it in your hands.” And to add to this, I want to quote Henry David Thoreau, who said, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
To help you find your mojo, I have the perfect guest with me on this episode of The School of Greatness: Gabby Bernstein. Gabby, who is an international best-selling author, a world-renowned speaker, and now a podcast host, finds her mission to share her story with the world so that other people can be healed.
“Vulnerability is a muscle that has to be exercised.” – Gabby Bernstein
Gabby has been on my show a few times previously, and I am always grateful to have her here because she brings so much clarity and wisdom. So without waiting any longer, introducing the one and only Gabby Bernstein!
Gabby or Gabrielle Bernstein is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of eight books. She has been featured on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday as a next-generation thought leader, and the Oprah Winfrey Network chose her to be a part of “Super Soul 100,” a group of 100 trailblazers who are aligned on a mission to bring a higher level of consciousness to the world.
Gabby has also been featured on the Forbes “List of 20 Best Branded Women,” besides being named as one of Mashable’s “11 Must-Follow Twitter Accounts for Inspiration,” and as one of YouTube’s 16 “YouTube Next Video Bloggers.” Gabby has even hosted the Guinness World Records’ largest guided meditation with Deepak Chopra.
“When you meditate, you change your energy. When you change your energy, you change your life.” – Gabby Bernstein
Gabby also has her own weekly podcast, Dear Gabby, where she offers real-time coaching, straight talk, and BIG LOVE to her listeners. And her latest book, You are the Guru, is exclusively available on Audible. In this audiobook, Gabby talks about the six messages that can help you move through difficult times with certainty and faith.
If you found all that to be powerful, just wait till you read the rest of this post or tune into the podcast. You are in for a treat, my friends!
Over the past year, because of COVID, many people have been stuck and feeling lost, uncertain, and out of control. In the midst of it all, for us to manifest our dreams, Gabby believes that we have to use the circumstances that we live in as an opportunity to go further in our personal development period. But what does this really mean?
“For you to truly manifest means that you feel good [because] your energy’s free. You are inspired [and] receptive, therefore attracting towards you what you desire. So if we are in a place now where we feel … out of control, we are trying [hard] to get back [that] control. [But this way] we are in the opposite of that manifestation stage, which I refer to as being a ‘super attractor.’ … So the way back to that power is to put our personal growth first, to get back, not to go out and try to force anything or to do anything to find control, but to turn inward, to go deeper and identify what’s unresolved, [and to] work out what needs to be healed.” – Gabby Bernstein
What makes me curious is — how do we find that control while we are constantly triggered by things happening on the outside?
“During COVID, the whole world has been triggered, [and] … there are two ways to [deal with such triggers]: You can [either] numb out and … anesthetize yourself in whatever way you do, or you can show up … for yourself, show up for [your] unresolved parts, show up for the painful parts, show up in your therapy, … whatever it is that you are guided to, to actually take action with it.” – Gabby Bernstein
Being triggered in any form is just the activation of a sense of being unsafe, and we try to find control because it’s a way of staying safe. We really need to recognize the reason for those triggers and then find self-soothing tools and self-help methods like breath practices to regulate our nervous system and our energy so that we don’t live from trigger to trigger.
Have you ever caught yourself wondering about having an exercise or a process for evaluating your beliefs and figuring out which ones genuinely support you and which ones are tearing you down? It also becomes essential to replace a negative belief that has been ingrained in your psyche for so long.
“I have a beautiful method from my book, Super Attractor, … [it’s called] the ‘choose again method.’ The first step is to notice the negative thoughts that you have on repeat and notice how they make you feel. … You can’t always catch yourself … in the moment, … but if you start practicing this enough, you will get good at it. … Step two is … to forgive yourself for having the thought. When you [do that] … you no longer identify with it. … The third step is the fun part. That’s when you can choose again [and] reach for the next-best-feeling thought, … [and] being something that you believe in. … Lean into [something] … that empowers you … [and] makes you feel good.” – Gabby Bernstein
That’s a wonderful way to have a better grip over your thoughts. The idea is to observe your negative thoughts from a distance while allowing positive thoughts to manifest within you. Once you gain momentum with your feelings, you reach for more, and then you choose again. And when you notice your thoughts regularly and start calling them out, again and again, you end up honoring the feelings behind them because the feelings are backing up your belief system. You must embrace new feelings with thoughts so that your body starts to believe them.
“One of the great practices for releasing unresolved emotional disturbances is … called Emotional Freedom Technique … or EFT. … What’s beautiful about this practice is … that you can take a thought or a belief or a feeling … and you can tap into it. … And what it does is that it releases the amygdala’s fight-flight response. This stimulates your vagus nerve … and allows your nervous system to calm down and settle. And then, when you are in a more settled state, that’s when you become safe enough to start to redirect and move into a more elevated way of thinking. That’s one method.” – Gabby Bernstein
When I feel overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious, instead of staying in that pain, I really try to connect my body to my breath and breathe through my entire body so that I can calm myself down. Then I ask myself if this feeling or thought is connected to my past that I haven’t worked on yet. So breathwork is another technique that I think has been helpful to me. You can try out multiple techniques and find the one that works best for you and use it to elevate your thoughts and feelings.
Many of us struggle with finding financial security and attracting a calm, peaceful, and connected presence of love in our lives. But once you are on the right path with the proper techniques, you are not too far away from your goals.
“The underlying root cause of our triggers is … feeling unsafe and insecure. … A vast amount of people have some kind of insecure attachment, whether it’s from trauma or [it arises] from the feeling of not being seen. So the real work to gain that confidence, to believe you are worthy and deserving of the love [and abundance] that you long for, is to develop a healthier sense of safety from within.” – Gabby Bernstein
There are thousands of self-help books in the world that have offered people miraculous change without having decades of therapy. There are other ways too, by following the guidance of spiritual teachers and personal growth leaders. There are a lot of resources out there, but the first step is to become grounded in the belief that you are worthy of what you desire.
“You start with loving yourself [by] recognizing … nice things to say to yourself because you are the only one listening. So speak to yourself with compassion, letting yourself off the hook, forgiving yourself in the moment, releasing yourself from the storyline you have held on to. … You have everything that you could ever contemplate. So begin to speak to yourself as if you would speak to … an innocent child.” – Gabby Bernstein
On the surface, it seems very easy, but you have to practice to learn how to do that. No matter what you create and achieve in the world, you may still feel less loved. But the clearer you are on the inside, the things on the outside just come to you so much more easily because it’s all a reflection of your internal condition.
So the moral of the story is that we have to focus on our inner selves. Think about all the energy and time we focus on earning and selling or finding that perfect relationship. But what if we took a fraction of those hours and put them into our personal development? How different would we be? Wouldn’t our lives be much easier and more effortless?
Thanks for listening to this conversation, folks. Personally, I always feel inspired and pumped up whenever I speak to this incredible lady, Gabby Bernstein. There were far more meaningful things that we talked about that I could not cover in this post, so I would recommend that you watch the rest of the episode here.
Gabby has a massive social presence, and for regular updates and doses of inspiration, you can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. And to find out more about what Gabby has achieved in her life, go ahead and check out her website, and also, don’t forget to subscribe to her podcast, Dear Gabby.
If you enjoyed this conversation, please make sure to spread the message of greatness and inspire someone else in your life by sharing this episode with your friends and family. It would be really great if you could also tag Gabby, @gabbybernstein, and me, @lewis howes, on Instagram with a screenshot of this episode and your greatest takeaways from it.
It’s kind of customary for me to end my podcasts with the guest’s definition of greatness, and here’s what Gabby had to say, “My definition of greatness is being at ease and steady in the moment. That is the greatest gift, the greatest expression that we can give the world.”
Gabby just made success sound so easy, and it is something that we should all consider while we are on our own paths to abundance and glory. Until next time folks!
To Greatness,
Music Credit:
Kaibu by Killercats
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