Gabrielle Bernstein is on the show this week. For over fifteen years, Gabrielle has been transforming lives—including her own. She is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, having penned eight books including The Universe Has Your Back, Super Attractor, and the latest, her first Audible Original, You Are the Guru.
She joined me to discuss some of the tools and practices she uses to relieve anxiety and restore energy, including EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and cord-cutting meditation. I love it when conversations organically move in their own direction and this one did not disappoint.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- Cord-cutting meditation – what it is and how it can be used to help someone get some closure. (6:10)
- Gabby walks people through the steps of judgment detox using a technique called Emotional Freedom Technique. (11:04)
- Methods or tools for relieving anxiety. (17:07)
- Postpartum depression, time and place for psychiatric support, and why you can’t spiritually override it. Get medicated support to get back to safeline and feel safe enough to live. (20:07)
- Manifesting is not about getting things, it is about feeling good. (22:55)
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Gabrielle’s website
Gabrielle’s new book
For over fifteen years, Gabrielle Bernstein has been transforming lives—including her own. The #1 New York Times bestselling author has penned eight books including The Universe Has Your Back, Super Attractor and the latest, her first Audible Original, You Are the Guru. What started as hosting intimate conversations with twenty people in her New York City apartment, Gabby has grown into speaking to tens-of-thousands in sold-out venues throughout the world.
Gabby was featured on Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday as a “next-generation thought leader.” The Oprah Winfrey Network chose Gabby to be part of the “SuperSoul 100,” a dynamic group of trailblazers whose vision and life’s work are bringing a higher level of consciousness to the world. The New York Times identified Gabby as “a new role model.” She co-hosted the Guinness World Records’ largest guided meditation with Deepak Chopra, and appears regularly as an expert on Today and Good Morning America among other publications. Gabby connects with her community through her books, her Miracle Membership, the Spirit Junkie app, social media, podcasts, masterclasses, digital workshops and e-courses, and live events. To learn more and experience it yourself, visit gabbybernstein.com.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Gabrielle Bernstein 00:00
Resolving whatever is right in front of you is also resolving what is behind you. It's so cool. Like you don't have to get into the story. You don't have to remember anything. You don't have to dig stuff up. You can just allow yourself to tap and talk about the disturbance, guide yourself to have an emotional release, and then begin in the second round to tap on more regulating thoughts and more centering, grounding perspectives.
Andrea Owen 00:30
You're listening to Make Some Noise Podcast, Episode number 391 with guest, Gabby Bernstein.
Welcome to Make Some Noise Podcast. Your guide for strategies, tools and insights to empower yourself. I'm your host, Andrea Owen, global speaker, entrepreneur life coach since 2007, an author of three books that have been translated into 18 languages and are available in 22 countries. Each week, I'll bring you a guest or a lesson that will help you maximize unshakable confidence, master resilience and make some noise in your life. Are you ready? Let's go.
Hello there. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I am so glad that you are here joining us today. Hey, if you're not following me on TikTok… Well, wait, let me back up if you haven't downloaded the app yet, I've mentioned it several times over the last few months or so. It's not just a bunch of dancing teenagers. Yes, they're on there. But the, one of the things I really like about TikTok is that it figures you out fairly quickly based on what videos you watch all the way through, what you're scrolling past, what you're liking and commenting on. And probably some other like, weird algorithm magic, spying on you that I don't know about, nor do I really want to know about. Anyway, all that to say, they quickly figure you out and show you all the best things that you want to see. One of those best things might be me giving out life advice. I'm over there making videos regularly. They're very short. Between, I don't know, 15 seconds, no longer than one minute, because that's the limit. And it's really fun. I'm having fun over there. Please follow me. @HeyAndreaOwen, on both Instagram, and Tiktok. It's super fun. Come and say hi, over there. Leave me a comment, say hello.
The other thing I wanted to tell you is that if you haven't heard, pre-orders are available for Make Some Noise, which is my new book coming out in August that I spent most of 2020 writing. And if you head over to AndreaOwen.com/Noise, you can pick where you want to grab a copy. We also have a special bonus for anyone who orders both the print version of the book or the e-book and the audiobook, because I think that y'all needed a special bonus. That to me, like I only do that with my most favorite books or my favorite authors. So I am so grateful and honored when people do that. So you all get a special bonus. There are bonuses for everyone, even if you just buy the one copy, which I'm incredibly, incredibly thankful if you just buy the one copy, whichever you choose audiobook, print. And this book is about the subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways that we have been conditioned as women, that we have been socialized to think, to act, to react, to believe about ourselves about other women, about the world around us. It was very interesting to do research on this. And I'm not done. I know that my next book is going to be an extension of this one. That tends to happen sometimes I'm currently obsessed. I'm not I'm not going to say too much. I'm not going to get ahead of myself, I tend to do that. AndreaOwen.com/Noise. And yeah, I'm also doing a free workshop for anyone that pre-orders that's coming up next month in July. So thank you again, for preordering. I have a special series coming up so many fun things around making noise and what that means to you the listener what that means to other women, colleagues of mine, etc, etc.
Alright, so Gabrielle Bernstein is on the show. I'm excited for you to hear this conversation. I like it when conversations sort of organically go in their own direction, and this one did not disappoint. So for those of you that don't know her, let me tell you a little bit about her. For over 15 years Gabrielle Bernstein has been transforming lives, including her own. The number one New York Times bestselling author has penned eight books including The Universe Has Your Back, Super Attractor and the latest, her first Audible original, You Are The Guru. Gabby was featured on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday as a next-generation thought leader, and the New York Times identified Gabby as a new role model. She co-hosted the Guinness World Records largest guided meditation with Deepak Chopra and appears regularly as an expert on Today, and Good Morning America, among other publications. So without further ado, here is Gabby.
Gabby, thank you so much for being here.
Gabrielle 06:07
Oh, it's great to be with you. So nice.
Andrea 6:10
I am so excited to talk to you because I have a variation of questions based on the work that you do. I want to start with cord-cutting meditation, because I know this is one of the free meditations you have on your site. And I think everyone listening has a past relationship that they would like some closure on whether it's romantic or not. So talk to us about that. What, first of all, what is cord cutting? And how can it be used to help someone get some closure?
Gabrielle 06:07
We all have, whether we realize it or not, energetic ties to people, people that we don't even necessarily know that this is very important. It's a clear, it's obvious when it's a breakup, and you kind of can't stop thinking about that person 10 years later, and that you feel their energy in your field and you just like it, there's nothing you can do about it. So that's one example of like a energetic cord attachment to someone. And that's an obvious one that I think that even if you're not a very spiritual person you could kind of identify with.
But we also can have cord attachments with people that we don't even know for instance, if you're, let's say like a celebrity has a bajillion people following them on social media, and there's all this energy on them and people hooking into their field and to their energy. There, there's almost like daggers sent over there, right? There's like good energy, bad energy, it's like sort of this wide open. And that's actually not just for a celebrity, that's all of us, because we all have our own media profiles these days. So even if you have 15 people following on social media, or 15,000 people following on social media, it's still a lot of people thinking about you all day long, and in some way. So these, the thoughts and the energy that people project onto us can be like a cord attached to us from millions of miles away. It has nothing to do with time and space, it has to do with it energy.
So if we feel in any way that we're drained, or we feel that we are anxious, and even at times, that's often an indication that there's an opportunity to cut some energetic cords. Particularly if there's any kind of turmoil or tension within a relationship, the the cord cutting process can be very valuable. Now what it is, is it's a metaphysical process that happens through spiritual practices like meditation. And, as you mentioned, I have a cord cutting meditation that I offer, and there's all kinds of cord cutting meditations in different books that I've written. And what you would do is you visualize yourself in the presence of the other person or in this in the case of people that you don't know you can just almost envision where the cords may be. And in your meditation, if you allow yourself to open up your creative visualization in your meditation, you can actually start to see like, oh, the cords are in my neck or they're in my back. And you can identify that the deeper you go into your meditation. And what you would do in a cord cutting meditation is invite in a spiritual presence to cut the cords. That could be a visualization of angel like Archangel Michael who has a sword can cut it, come in and just cut that cord with the sword or you can almost envision if you wanted to, I like to vision, envision myself at times, this is just a vision that came to me, where I was holding like a big scissor. And I was just chopping down like almost like, you know, if you're chopping on a bush like those like, like, like just, I don't even know what you what you'd call it.
Andrea 09:09
Like hedge clippers? cutters?
Gabrielle 09:10
Yeah, I was just hedging all those freaking cords. That that is something that I actually do religiously. I do it at least once a month. I do it on my own. And I also do it with an energy healer named De Rosa who is a dear friend of mine. She don't just work privately anymore, but she has a book coming out so want to plug her but um, but Wendy will cut my cords and really clear me because she's sort of like my energy energy doctor.
Andrea 09:36
Mm hmm.
Gabrielle 09:37
I think it's extremely valuable to start to build these kinds of practices into our life because, look, we take showers every day, but we don't take energetic showers. And a practice like cord cutting is indeed a energetic cleansing. Particularly when you have a riff with someone. There were some people that are particularly, just people you work with, or people that you're entangled with romantically. There's a lot of cords, there's a lot of chords attached.
Andrea 10:04
It's so interesting because the way I used to look at it when I first heard about it, I thought it was this sort of one and done, you know, thing that you do and then you're and then you're so much better and you can go skipping through your life. But I love that you mentioned that you do it once a month because we're constantly in relationship with people, you know, whether it's the UPS driver or a partner, or, everywhere. And what's what I also found interesting, I recently interviewed someone who came on the show who she works with realtors to do that in homes that realtors are trying to sell, which I was like, oh my gosh, that's so smart.
Gabrielle 10:40
I do that too. Every new home I purchase. I work with a woman who, every time I've moved home, it's not like I'm out there like purchasing millions of homes but like, every time.
Andrea 10:56
I’m like damn girl get it with the real exactly like as I build my real estate.
Gabrielle 10:58
But But anytime I've moved, I've had the person come through and sort of look through the house energetically cut the cords and clear out any stuff that doesn't need to be there.
Andrea 11:04
Got it. Okay, well, let's let's switch gears a little bit and talk about people pleasing and judgment because you walk through people through the steps in judgment detox, with EFT Emotional Freedom Techniques. So I'm super curious if you could tell the listeners, what does your EFT practice look like? And like, actually, let's start from the beginning. And can you quickly explain to people what that is? If they've never heard of it?
Gabrielle 11:28
Yeah, I also just want to acknowledge that your leading questions are awesome. Like, let's just get right to it, girl. Okay, here we go.
Andrea 11:33
I just jumped in the deep end.
Gabrielle 11:35
I know that's how I like to do. It's like the only big talk. So here we are. EFT is called Emotional Freedom Technique. It is a practice that in many ways has saved me through and help me through PTSD, helped me through the recollection of dissociated trauma, and remembrance of trauma. It is a tool that I use for phobias, bad habits, changing my nervous system in a minute. It is similar to EMDR. If someone has heard of EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, that's a therapeutic process that you would need to do with a trained EMDR specialist. But what's so fabulous about EFT Emotional Freedom Technique, otherwise known as tapping, what's so valuable about it is that you can do it for yourself. It's very helpful in the beginning to do it led by a video on YouTube or my friends at The Tapping Solution or one of my free videos of tapping, it's very helpful to have that person leading you. But once you get the hang of it, you can be self-taught, and you can start to tap on your own.
Andrea 12:42
It's not that complex, I've done it before.
Gabrielle 12:44
No, the actual process is quite simple. It's just the value of having some guide through a free resource on YouTube, like Brad Yates or someone like that. The helpful benefit of that is that there's a container that you're being held in, rather than taking yourself into an emotional disturbance that you shouldn't necessarily be going into. So, what happens is, is you tap on these different energy meridians, the karate chop point, the eyebrow, the side of the eye, under the eye under the nose, the chin, the collarbone and under the arm right on the bra line, and you tap in this cycle doesn't matter what side you could tap both sides, but you have to go in that cycle. And as you tap on these different energy meridians, you are stimulating the vagus nerve to help you regulate out of that sympathetic state into a parasympathetic state. You're calming your nervous system, you're also really sending a message to the amygdala, that fight flight response that it's safe to settle, it's safe to step back, step aside. And in that more resourced place where we're not in that heightened level of hyper arousal and fight and flight, we can all we can begin to allow our nervous system to process unresolved energetic disturbances.
So, an unresolved energetic disturbance could be something as minor as my son had a tantrum this morning, and I'm annoyed by it to I'm resolving a PTSD. It doesn't mean that the the tantrum might clear a lot faster than the PTSD but you will get relief in the moment from both with EFT most of the time, 90% of the time, I think you'll get real get relief. And when you practice EFT, you actually identify what's the most pressing issue.
And so let's say it's someone that's struggling with PTSD, but they don't want to talk about the trauma, they can just tap on the most pressing issue that they have gut issues like their stomach is messed up, their stomach might be messed up because of the trauma. So just tapping on the stomach, that being the most pressing issue in the moment, actually is working on the trauma. Resolving whatever's right in front of you is also resolving what is behind you. And so it's it's so cool. Like, you don't have to get into the story. You don't have to remember anything, you don't have to dig stuff up, you can just allow yourself to tap and talk about the disturbance, guide yourself to have a emotional release, and then begin in the second round to tap on more regulating thoughts and more centering, grounding perspectives. It's something that we could do together today to just experience it. And it, tapping is one of the most powerful techniques for anyone who is devoted and committed to feeling better and wants to see a fast solution that they can turn to and use on their own when they're in need.
Andrea 15:43
I highly encourage people to use it because I first heard about it in the 90s. So my dad got sober and was being treated for depression and chronic anxiety. And we were having coffee, and he told me about it, that his therapist had recommended it. And then you know, I was in my early 20s. And I was like, that is weird. And he even kind of thought it was weird, but he was like, it's working. And so fast forward 15 years later, so, and I was my my daughter was five at the time, and she was hospitalized for appendicitis and had to have an appendectomy. And at the same time, I was dealing with somebody who was who was infringing on my trademark. And I was going back and forth with my trademark attorney trying to figure this out. It was just so stressful. And I was in the shower, my daughter was still in the hospital, and I and I was like, I can't, I can't with this anxiety and stress. And so I'm like, I'll tapping, so I tried it. And I'm not kidding you. It felt like I had taken like half a value. And as someone who loves value, um, who's been sober, I was sold. Yeah, yeah, it really is amazing.
Gabrielle 16:45
I mean, you're making a nice point to I think tapping is a beautiful resource for people in recovery. Because most people who have dealt with addiction are traumatized. They, trauma is, I believe the root cause of addiction. So those of us who are clean and sober, can really use a resource like tapping and it will be very beneficial along that sober recovery journey. I want to make sure I mention that. Yeah.
Andrea 17:07
For sure. Thank you. Well, speaking of anxiety, you know, the last year has been rough on most people. So what are some of the methods or tools that you teach about and or use in your daily life for relieving anxiety pandemic, or no pandemic.
Gabrielle 17:24
I tap, I meditate, I meditate listening to binaural beats. So it's funny, it's like, I really like bilateral stimulation, because I'm a big a big EMDR practice, I practice EMDR in my therapy, when I'm being therapized. What I would do is like listen to by binaural music, which is music that goes from different sounds in either ear, right, left, right, left. And what it does is it stimulates the bilateral brain functioning, which allows us to open up our window of tolerance to feel and process unresolved unconscious emotions. In that meditative state that I can guide myself into with the music, I find that that that the combination of meditating and getting into a deep restful state, listening to binaural beats, really grounds me tremendously. And it's actually something that I've upped big time in the 2020/2021 era. I do 40 minutes a day of meditating with a bilateral music and I have been really grounded and safe. As a result of using that practice.
I have mastered the art of self-regulation because I am a survivor of trauma, I am a person who has recovered from PTSD, and I also, with a lot of gratitude can express that I have recovered from postpartum anxiety and depression, which was, for me very severe as suicidal depression and insomnia. And so I had to become the master of self-regulation in order to survive those experiences. And I'm really proud to say that there's freedom on the other side, that you can go through these very, very difficult moments in life and you can resolve the anxiety but it's no small thing. And, and there's lots of levels of support that are required and sometimes those levels of support for one person may be deep therapy or it could be EMDR could be tapping or somatic experiencing or I'm just naming different, different therapeutic practices but the types of things that really helped me were, were tapping we're listening to the binaural music. I would love to do a hold like putting my right hand on my heart and my left hand on my belly and just repeating the the affirmation ‘I am safe’, and breathing in deeply and exhaling completely, ‘I am safe’. And that alone was so valuable for me.
Andrea 20:07
I appreciate you mentioning that I also experienced postpartum anxiety. I had been diagnosed years before that. But when I had my first child, I had severe postpartum anxiety and also paranoia, which was terrifying as someone who hadn't experienced that side of anxiety before. And for me, I wasn't, I wasn't far enough into my personal development journey to to ask for help, because I was so afraid that I would be deemed a bad mother. And I, because I was struggling with paranoia, I was afraid that I would get my child taken. Yeah. And and which I know for for new moms can be very, very scary. So I appreciate your transparency.
Gabrielle 20:53
Yeah. And I also really want to say that, because getting medicated saved my life. And, I have to say that on interviews like this, because in our space, in the wellness world, there's a lot of shaming around antidepressants. And I think that's, that's fucking bullshit. And I have, because and I'm, you know, very emotional about it, because I spent five months in daily, not sleeping at all complete insomnia, complete panic attacks, agoraphobia, and suicidal depression. And all of that could have been five months of my life that I could have been enjoying with my son, had I had not felt the shame of medication. And it took me to have my therapist literally staged an intervention where she said, I have to get medicated for me to finally see the light.
And, I just have to be a voice in the spiritual wellness space that says that what that there is a time and place for for psychiatric support, and that you absolutely cannot spiritually override that or be too, you know, too, too green to go there, whatever the fuck you want to say. Because that will will destroy you. And if you someone said you have a heart condition, you should be taking a blood thinner, you'd fucking take it. Okay, hopefully, right. But you know, we're seeing a lot of people’s opinions and theories that are impacting the livelihoods of others. And so I have to be a voice for the other side, which is that when you are having a biochemical condition, it is imperative that you seek psychiatric support. That doesn't mean that that's the only answer you have to do. But you have to be devoted to therapy, you have to be devoted to meditation, you have to be devoted to your well-being and your exercise and your food and your consciousness. But sometimes you have to get that medicated support to get back to baseline and feel safe enough to live
Andrea 22:55
Here here. I just yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that. And I appreciate that so much. Last question. You have new book, Super Attractor: Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams. So I'm curious what you would say to someone listening who hasn't really started or ever done the practice of mani…like maybe they've heard of a vision board or like the movie, The Secret, which actually was a book before it was a movie, you know, what was that 12 years ago? 13 years ago? So what should they know?
Gabrielle 23:25
I think that the most important thing that someone should know about manifesting is that manifesting isn't about getting things. It's about feeling good. In my book, Super Attractor, the subtitle is Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams and so people like yeah, sign me up for that. But the real major, important promise of that book is that when you feel good, you will attract your desires. And a lot of people have it backwards. They think, when I'm, when I'm getting what I want, I'll feel good. It's quite the opposite. It's when you really attune your energy, your nervous system, your thoughts towards what is of the highest and best for you in the world. That's when you begin to become a super attractor, or embrace your super attractor power. We're already super attractors, we just forget. So bringing in the awareness that it's not about getting but it's about being is probably the most important adjustment that I would make to anyone that's on the path of of embarking on a manifesting journey.
Andrea 24:37
That's a huge lesson. I think often that people forget and then get frustrated when they're quote unquote, ‘manifesting isn’t working’.
Gabrielle 24:47
Totally, they're like man, I call the manic manifesters, there like I'm doing everything right? Why am I not getting it? Why am I… Doing the action from a place of being pissed off about it is the opposite of attracting what you want. And so it's important to an important distinction, like don't do anything unless you're in full bodied alignment with it, because it's when you're in that what I refer to as spiritual alignment and I have a whole method in the book called The Spiritually Aligned Action Method. If we're in that place of spiritually aligned action, then we can be sure that what we desire will manifest.
Andrea 25:21
I love it. Thank you so much for being here. And listeners, thank you so much for your time, you know how grateful I am for that. All of the links will be in the show notes. Okay, everyone, remember, it's our life's journey to make ourselves better humans and our life's responsibility to make the world a better place. See you next week.
Hi, there, swinging back by to say one more thing. You know, I'm always giving advice over here on the show and on social media. And a couple of those things is that I'm always telling you to ask for what you want, be clear about it, and also ask for help. So I am taking your dose of my own medicine and I'm going to do that right now.
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