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The Goal Digger Podcast Episode 839: Self-Help, Demystified with Gabby Bernstein
Episode Summary In this episode, Jenna Kutcher engages in a transformative conversation with Gabby Bernstein, a motivational speaker and author, centered around her newest book, *Self-Help: This Is Your Chance to Change Your Life*. Bernstein introduces Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, a self-help technique that enables individuals to connect with their inner selves and heal emotional wounds by addressing their internal parts.
Key Concepts
- Understanding Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)
- Definition: A therapeutic approach that recognizes various internal parts of oneself that require healing rather than pathologizing behaviors or traits.
- Practices: Encourages individuals to interact with these parts compassionately, leading to personal growth and emotional healing.
- Releasing Protective Mechanisms
- Protection Mechanisms: Developed from childhood experiences, these can manifest as habits such as overeating, controlling behavior, or perfectionism.
- Self-Awareness: Individuals must first identify these undesirable patterns to begin the healing process.
- The Role of 'Self'
- Inner Guidance System: Gabby describes 'Self' as an inner energy that embodies qualities like calmness, creativity, and compassion.
- Emerging Self: The book promotes practices to reconnect with this inner self to live a more authentic life.
- Healing Childhood Experiences
- Compassionate Connection: The practice emphasizes befriending one's inner child and addressing the needs of that child, allowing for healing and self-acceptance.
- Visualization: Gabby suggests using childhood photographs to connect with and understand past experiences and emotions.
Key Takeaways
- Healing is Possible: Healing does not have to be difficult; it’s a commitment to personal growth and self-love.
- Practical Steps: The book provides a simple four-step process to engage with one’s internal parts, encouraging readers to check in with their emotions and needs.
- Empowerment through Self-Awareness: By recognizing and addressing protective mechanisms, individuals can unlock a more authentic version of themselves.
Action Steps for Listeners
- Identify Patterns: List undesirable patterns or beliefs and question the willingness to heal them.
- Explore the Book: Read or listen to *Self-Help* for a structured approach to personal development.
- Check-In Practice: Implement a daily one-minute check-in to foster connection with your inner self.
Community and Resources
- Goal Digger Facebook Community: Connect with others on similar journeys.
- Follow on Instagram: Stay updated with insights and additional tips.
- Free Resources: Visit Gabby's website for free meditations and additional content related to her teachings.
Conclusion This episode encapsulates the essence of self-help as a journey of self-liberation rather than simply another obligation. Gabby Bernstein's practical insights and the introduction of IFS therapy provide tools for listeners to transform their lives through understanding and healing their inner selves.
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Note: For a deeper dive into these concepts, it is encouraged to grab a copy of Gabby Bernstein's book and explore the exercises it contains.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
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2:21I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a$300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven-figure online business that feels even better than it looks all from my house in small town Minnesota with my family. Here, we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work, and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality, and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain.
2:57Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Have you ever felt trapped by patterns like self-judgment, people-pleasing, or even outright burnout? If so, today's conversation is going to be your lifeline. Gabby Bernstein is a friend of mine. She's a motivational speaker, a spiritual leader, and a best-selling author.
3:38Companies like Google, Pinterest, and Goldman Sachs have invited her to share her personal growth methods and manifesting practices with thousands of employees. She even co-hosted the Guinness World Records largest guided meditation with Deepak Chopra and was named one of Oprah's Super Soul 100. In Gabby's brand new book, Self-Help, This Is Your Chance to Change Your Life, she introduces us to internal family systems therapy. It's a revolutionary practice that's not just for the therapist's office anymore. In our conversation, she shares how she turned this powerful tool into a step-by-step process anyone can use to radically shift core beliefs, heal your emotional wounds, and connect to what she calls the ultimate inner guidance system, which is the energy of self.
4:24I am so excited to sit down with Gabby to talk about how you can unlock this incredible resource within yourself, tackle the patterns holding you back, and find relief anytime, anywhere with a simple check-in. This is more than self-help. It's self-liberation. Gabby, I am so excited to welcome you to the Gold Digger Podcast. Picture this. You're at a party and someone asks you what you do as a marketer. Like how do you even begin to describe it? You have to generate leads, score them, contact them, create content, gather data, and tomorrow you have to do it all over again. And you also are spending time wondering if all that you're doing is even working.
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5:41Okay, Gabby, we are diving off the deep end and we're not apologizing for it, but I want to know what is the biggest misconception about self-help that people that might be listening are believing right now? That it's hard. Let's talk about it. I always say to people, you know, people that say like, oh, I don't have time to do personal development or it's too hard. My response is usually, well, do you have time to feel like shit? And also asking, well, how's it working out for you this way? Yes. Yes. Yes. There's a level of commitment and devotion to healing our inner experience, but there's also so much effort and struggle that goes into living without that personal development and not tending to the experiences that we have inside.
6:36Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like choose your heart, right? Choose your heart. Yeah. And I think it's so interesting. One of my family members recently started therapy for the first time and we were checking in afterwards and she was like, oh my gosh, that was like way harder than I thought it was going to be. And I was like, healing is hard, but at the same point to, the not healing is hard. And I totally agree. And I think that a lot of people avoid it because they hear it's like doing the work, right? Like we're doing the work, but it's like the most impactful work. So I'm really curious, walk me through what is internal family systems therapy and how did you discover it?
7:19What was that process? So this book, Self-Help, This is Your Chance to Change Your Life. This is my 10th book is based on the core principles of a therapy that changed my life. And I had been practicing this therapy for now it'll coming up on about 10 years. And it became such a clear shift for me. The healing I was experiencing was so exciting for me. When I first started my podcast in 2021, my third interview on my podcast, Jenna, was the founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy. Then I'd been practicing this with my therapist, right? So I was like, I love this therapy. It's changing my life.
7:58I have Dick Schwartz, Dr. Richard Schwartz, Dick Schwartz on my podcast. Within seconds, we were instant friends. I proclaimed my desire to demystify and democratize the work. And he's like, slow down. He's like, if you want to do that, let's make sure you get trained in it. And then I went on to become a level one and level two practitioner in internal family systems therapy. And now to be very clear, I'm not a therapist, but I was trained alongside therapists. And so I have this level one and two training and with that have done exactly what I set out to do originally and have taken this therapy that changed my life and turned it into a self-help practice.
8:37How is it different than regular therapy that people might know? Sure. So internal family systems therapy is completely non-pathologizing. So the whole premise is that we have these internal parts of ourselves that need healing. So whenever you've said, okay, a part of me gets really outraged when my team doesn't do the things I want, or a part of me wants to punch the wall when my husband says this thing the exact same way that he says it every time, right? Those parts of us are actually very young. And they've been around for a very long time. And they're not just reactive, they're habitual, right?
9:18So addiction, or maybe we have patterns of overeating, or we have patterns of avoiding or binging on Netflix or drinking or the rage that always takes over. These are patterns, behaviors, and belief systems, truly, that have been around for most of our lives. And so what IFS does very differently than other therapies is instead of trying to go back and sort of analyze what's happened in your past, you're actually going back to help heal those young parts of yourself, treating those aspects of yourself like little children inside, going and doing the healing connection that those parts of us never got from our parents.
9:59Wow. This is just making me think because we have children that are very similar in age. I think we had our kids right around the same time I remember texting you. And it's so interesting, especially at this age where I think that Coco just turned six. And so that is - I'll turn six in a week. Yes. And it's such a pivotal age where I think I see a lot of myself in her. And I see a lot of the areas in my own life where like I maybe needed something different at that stage of life. And so isn't it interesting too, how our kids can be a mirror for us of those wounded daughter aspects of our own life and how they can show up.
10:43Let's use our kids as an example, actually, because this is sort of how this book is actually going to give you as the human, but also as parent, the tools to really help save your kids thousands of hours of therapy. Yes. And you will save your child thousands of hours of therapy and yourself for that matter. Although you may decide you want to go deeper with IFS therapy after you read this book. So my son, for instance, when he was three years old, he was in a Montessori program with six-year-olds in his class. So he was three just out of diapers and there were six-year-olds in the class, three, four, five, six in the same class.
11:17And that was very extreme for him because as a little three-year-old, almost four, he really just wanted to be like the big kids. and there was a big kid in his class that was sort of a bit of a bully at the time, or maybe he was just doing his own thing. Just like, I don't want to be with three-year-olds. Totally get that, you know? And so he was, uh, was sort of giving this energy of my kid, not feeling left out, feeling not good enough. And so as a very, very little person, Ollie built up this protection mechanism of I'm going to be the boss. I'm not good enough unless I'm the boss. I'm not good enough unless I have a Nerf gun in my hand, unless I'm putting down the other little kids.
11:53I'm going to show the world I'm the boss. And I witnessed that immediately. This little boy wanted to be like the big kid. The big kid didn't want to be around him. He said, if I'm not a boss, I'm not good enough. I saw it in real time happening, Jenna. It was very extreme for my personal development mind to witness this. So that moment in time, while may seem seemingly insignificant for my son, was it could actually have been one of the biggest turning points of his life because it could have taught him that if I'm not the boss, I'm not adequate. Thankfully for him, he has a mother who's devoted to personal development and the most amazing father in the world.
12:30So we've been able to really process this with him and help him learn a new way. But none of us had that parent. No one had Gabby Bernstein as their mom or Jenna Kutcher as their mom. Most of us did not. Most humans did not. And so we were left in these little experiences with these moments of being bullied or maybe very extreme moments of abuse or neglect or attachment breach. And in those moments at young ages, without the resources to process these experiences, we built up these protection mechanisms, just like Ollie did, where he said, I'm going to be the boss and we've been unwinding it, but no one helped us unwind it.
13:07And so what happened was we got stuck in those protection mechanisms and those protection mechanisms have been the behaviors, patterns, and beliefs that have kept us small, held us back, and blocked us from living the lives that we truly want to live. So my question is this, because I love this. And it's really interesting because I have two daughters and the oldest is literally a mirror to me. She has tendencies where I'm like, it's wild to see where I'm like, oh my gosh, that is so me. And then my younger one is so different from who I was as a kid. And I feel like what's interesting, and my question is this, is like, how do you access those parts of you?
13:49And how do you like get back to like even understanding like, oh, there's an eight-year-old of me that was afraid of death, or there's a 10-year-old version of me who was embarrassed by my leg hair and had shame around my body. Like how do we even access those parts? Through the book, through self-help. It's all laid out for you. So the premise is that we had these extreme experiences from childhood and we exiled those little parts of ourselves. We say, I never want to feel that again. And we built up the protection mechanisms. The protection mechanisms are overeating, raging, workaholism, controlling, trying to avoid or playing small or perfectionism, just the list goes on.
14:29And so the first step is to just witness what pattern, belief or behavior do I have in my life that's been around for a long time or that just really kind of running my life that's undesirable, right? Like for me, it's the controller. Like the controller at times in my life was so extreme that she became a cocaine addict, right? The controller is, I'm working with her every single day and she's finally starting to soften. And how? How is this part of me softening? Because instead of judging myself or forcing myself to stop controlling or making myself feel shame about it, I've become friends with it.
15:07I have befriended the part of me. And we do this through the four steps inside self-help. The first real step is just to notice whether there's a belief, a pattern, a feeling, even just a feeling of anxiety, Jenna, like let's say you walk around with anxiety. That could be something you could work with here. Okay. So just identifying what's undesirable in my life right now. And that would be your point of focus for this four steps. And then the first step is instead of checking out from that pattern, right? Instead of checking out and going to the refrigerator or checking out and staying stuck in the anxiety or checking out and picking up a drink, checking out and going into the behavior, you would check in.
15:45That's the first step. So it's choosing to check in with that protection mechanism. I call it a protection mechanism. For right now, you could call it a belief or a habit. I don't care. Okay. But it's really just protecting you from having to feel that impermissible feeling from your childhood. Do we get that part? Mm-hmm. Yes. I'm tracking. So we're called the protector part. So choosing to check in with that part. This podcast is brought to you by Mercury, banking that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money. Okay. I remember in the early days of my entrepreneurship journey, clients would literally mail me checks and then I would have to drive all the way to the bank to deposit them.
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18:23So you would focus your attention inward and you just ask a series of questions. How long have you been around? What do I know about this part of me? And just let it reveal what it wants you to know. So if there's any thoughts or feelings or sensations or images that this part of you wants to reveal. And oftentimes you might see images of yourself as a little kid or you might feel a feeling of tension in your chest and start to describe the somatic experience. So that second step is curiosity. Instead of judging that behavior or pattern, you're witnessing it as a protection mechanism and you become curious about it.
18:59And so once you have a little bit of a connection to it and you know that it's there, the third step is to compassionately connect to it. And that's when you ask this part of yourself, what do you need? and the part of you will always reveal, I need to dance. I need to rest. I need to have more fun. I need to ask for help. It's a little child inside of you that just wants to speak up for what it needs. And the fourth step is to check in and see how you feel now. And this is the step where you check for your energy of self. And self is like an internal parent. Self is calm, courageous, connected, clear.
19:40It's your most resourced energy. It's like the God within you, the spirit within you. And so in that fourth step, you're going to check in. Do I feel more calm? Do I feel more connected? Do I feel more curious? Do I have compassion towards this part of me? Is there a courage that's coming through, a creativity coming through these see qualities. And even if you notice the slightest bit of those changes and those shifts inside, you've done the practice because what's happened is you've gone from the extreme protection mechanism and reconnected to your true self with a capital S. So we all have that self inside of us, Jenna, we have self.
20:22And there's a beautiful quote from Stephen Kranz in the book, and he's the IFS practitioner, and it's about how self is like the sun behind the clouds. And when the clouds begin to dissipate, the sun can be revealed. The sun's always there, just the clouds are masking it. So instead of judging these protection mechanisms, when we connect inward, become curious and compassionately ask, what do you need? The clouds begin to dissipate and the energy of self begins to be revealed. This is so good and so powerful. And something that I think about as you're sharing this is that our society, and I think to especially people that listen to this podcast, it's a lot of high achieving women who are always on the go.
21:10It requires us to slow down enough to notice, right? Like the first step is noticing. And I often think about like, you know, most people these days won't even like go to the bathroom without their phone in their hand. And we've kind of detached ourselves from the sun, right? Like if you think of that metaphor, like we have just like tethered away from that connection and we almost avoid it because we know that when we confront it, we're going to see things. But I think that what's so beautiful about this is that when you notice it, you can heal it. And it's just interesting to me because I feel like that attention is the hardest thing.
21:54So if somebody is listening to this and they're already feeling that conviction of like, dude, I need to do this. I'm so triggered or just one little thing can totally set me on a spiral, but they're not making the time to even notice? What would you say? Well, this process is actually designed to be done anywhere, anytime for probably a minute or two. So once again, do you have time to feel like shit? Yeah. And the second thing is, is listen to the audio book while you're driving. Yeah. Yeah. Just let it sink in. Don't even practice this right away. Just if you're that busy and you're that high achieving and you've got all this going on, just listen to the audio and let the practices.
22:34Every chapter of this book is a check-in process, right? So there's a check-in. This is called the four-step check-in. There's a check-in for anxiety. So if you have anxiety, this book is for you. There's a check-in for body pain. So sometimes even physical pain can be a protection mechanism, protecting us from feeling young, impermissible childhood experiences. So if you have that body pain, check-in. If you're experiencing that you're blocking yourself, upper limiting yourself, which it could be a big issue for your listeners, then follow this book. So every chapter will guide you. If you're lacking forgiveness of yourself.
23:08This is your book. It's a four-step practice is simple and it's laid out in every single chapter. So I think if you are that person who's super busy, super high achieving, can't really even get their attention span straight, which is everyone, which is all of us, then you could listen, you could read whatever you feel is best, but listen and let it take it in, read it and take it in, and then go back and start to apply it one minute a day. And if you have a little bit of a moment, a little bit of space between the trigger and the reaction, just a molecule of space, Jenna. Yeah. Tiny. You know what?
23:44Okay. I'm about to go rage my shit on my partner or whatever I'm about to do. I'm about to go and listen, I do that. I have to practice this all goddamn day, but I'm about to go, I'm about to go, you know, light my world on fire right now. But instead of doing that, I'm going to listen to Gabby and I'm going to choose to check in. Okay, great. Choose to check inward and give yourself one minute to focus your attention inward. Step one. Step two, be curious about the feelings and sensations and stories that are attached to this desire to rage or desire to eat or the desire to numb out, whatever it is.
24:17Compassionately connect and ask that part of yourself, what do you need? And then just check in to see for the fourth step, do I feel a little bit more calm? Do I feel a little bit more clear? to have more creativity moving through? Do I have a little bit more courage? Do I have a little bit more compassion towards myself, connection, curiosity? And can I sense into something different? One of the things that I love about this is like, I think about even my kids. And this morning, we were like trying to get everyone ready for school. And one kid had a tummy ache, and she's laying on the couch.
24:49And the other kid is upset that I'm with the one kid. And And it's just this moment and it's like, oh my gosh. And so I was split in a million directions and I was like, okay, I have the time and the space to just sit with all the feelings in the house. There's a lot of feelings. And what's so interesting to me is that oftentimes we don't have the same compassion for ourselves that we have for other people, right? We can see like our children. Yes. Yes. And it's like my kid isn't giving me a hard time. They're having a hard time. I can see that. But then I think a lot of times we have a lot of shame and judgment for ourselves.
25:24And so I love this practice because what it reminds me, Gabby, is when you start to familiarize yourself with those versions of you and you can see and envision that view at that age, I would even argue like get out a picture of you at certain ages. Wait, let me show you something. What? Do you have a picture of yourself as a kid? I just did this, Jenna. It's my locked screen on my phone. Yes. Yes. And when we can see that version of ourselves and remember what it is that we needed, I think that that is what's so powerful is it's like, I love how you teach this because it's like familiarize yourself with that version of you.
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26:03And it'll be so much easier to have compassion than to be upset about the 36 year old version of you who's always late or never finishing projects or, you know, like all those different things. And so I love this. What's really special too is that when you start to practice this regularly, and this is promise of the book, because this is my lived experience. Yeah. You begin to have such a greater connection to that self energy. Yes. It also starts to feel like you have an inner parent to turn to. Yes. So then in those moments when you are like, maybe even in the aftermath of the trigger, right, or the reaction, or even right before it or in the middle of it, you know where to turn.
26:48And you no longer have to speak as these parts of yourself, but you can speak for them. So I'll be really honest with you. I've been acting out in this part of myself that I'm actively working to heal and befriend and connect to right now. And it's a part of me that's very young and it's a part that believes if I don't do it, nobody else will. And she's got a lot of rage right now. And so she's been acting out a lot all over the place. But within an hour, 20 minutes, she can go to that person, whoever, husband or work partner, and say to that person, this part of me is really activated in this time.
27:25I'm working with this part of myself so much right now. And I'm really wanting to help this part of myself heal. And so it's still coming up a bit because I'm still working through this. and it's been there for 45 years, but it is really starting to soften. I just wanted to speak for the part. I want to speak up for that part. I love that. I think it's interesting too because I'm just thinking about Drew and I'm like, oh, I can see little boy Drew in different stages of his life in some of his triggers. When you know someone so intimately and you also know their upbringing or their family or different things, I can literally see different aspects of like, oh, this leads to this.
28:09This makes sense for this. When you practice this book, Jenna, you're going to have a whole different relationship to your husband. I bet. I bet. You're going to see him. You never want to be like, oh, I see all your parts. Don't tell him that. But you'll see his behaviors as protection mechanisms rather than him being an asshole. And you start to happen everywhere. I mean, that's why the subtitle of this book is this is your chance to change your life. Because we live in these extreme patterns and behaviors. We're driven by them. They're running our lives. They're making us sick. They're upper limiting us.
28:42They're blocking our manifestations. They're blocking our success. They're keeping us stuck in the same cycle, in the same loop over and over and over again. And listen, I'm living that and I'm undoing it. And what happens is through this process, you unburden these parts of yourself. And so when they become safer inside and these parts of your young little children, when they feel safer inside, they can start to take on new roles. They can become more childlike. I've never been more childlike than I am now at 45. I find myself like looking at a menu and being like, what are we going to have for dinner?
29:19I'm so excited. And it's this new essence of childlike energies emerging from me that was cut off in time as a child. Because as children, we were in these extreme experiences. We went into these protection mechanisms, which put us into adult roles of trying to save ourselves. And we were children. We were not meant to be in those adult roles. You know, I only share stuff I'm genuinely obsessed with. And so when I kept seeing Bowling Branch sheets all over Instagram, I was like, okay, are these actually worth the hype? Drew and I have been using their sheets and duvets for over a year now. And honestly, our bedroom feels like a completely different space.
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31:19And just think about it. If you've put a ton of time, effort, and work into your home, someone out there probably would love to experience it while they're traveling. So next time you're planning a trip or want to make some extra income from your spaces, you should definitely host on Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. One of my things that I've been unwiring for the last couple of years is I'm pretty sure I said this like on the record on this podcast of like, I am just incapable of rest. Like I am just someone who is always achieving.
31:55I can't be still. And it's been so interesting because in therapy, I started to connect the dots. And I recognize that like when I was really young, I was super into gymnastics. And during the school year, immediately after school, I would go home, eat dinner, and I'd be at the gym until almost 9 p.m. at night. And then I do it all over again. And so anytime that I had quote downtime, even if it was lunch or recess, I would be doing my homework because I wouldn't have time to do it when I was at the gym. So I became crazy about every minute of time was time to be doing something. And I skipped recess.
32:33I skipped talking to friends on the bus because I was just very diligent at getting my homework done so that I could go to the gym. And it was so interesting to like rewind the time. And I can literally imagine my fifth grade classroom sitting in a beanbag. It was free time. Everyone could do whatever they wanted in the classroom. And there I was doing my homework. And I remember my teacher saying like, you're so studious. You're so, you know, you're so on top of things. And it was a part of me that was praised at the time. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yes. And I've recognized now that like that piece of me needs to know, like, it's okay to be a kid.
33:09And it was all my own doing, right? Because I love gymnastics. My parents would have probably loved if I quit. I was obsessed with it. But it's interesting to see how for so many years as an adult, I truly believed like I am the most productive person. I can give the greatest output. I am incapable of rest. I don't waste time, you know, things like that. And a lot of things that I've gotten into in the recent year of like gardening and beekeeping and all these things that I used to look at, I would have been like, I'm going to go buy my tomatoes from the store and save my time. Now I'm like, oh, this is where the joy lives.
33:43And so I would just challenge people that are listening to this, even some of those things that you've prided yourself on as strengths in your life, they're likely tied to some undercurrent that will tell you more about yourself that is likely linked to your childhood. Would you agree? I'm not the expert here. I mean, without a shadow of a doubt, I would agree. And I might even suggest that the desire for the gymnastics is part of the reason you were, I'm not your therapist or a therapist, but that there's even more underneath that. Yes, you would love gymnastics, but there's a query there, right?
34:19The curiosity of learning more about that desire and that need to keep going, right? And for those folks like you and myself that some of our protection mechanisms manifested in doing and achieving and working, it's very hard sometimes to unpack these as protection mechanisms or parts of ourselves that need our attention because we're so praised for them. And so for many years, I was living with sort of this undiagnosed workaholism because that was taking me down and really destroying me because it was so praised in the world. And so, yeah, it can be sneaky. Some of these protection mechanisms can be very sneaky because they are doing a lot of good, right?
35:04My controller part has written 10 books in 14 years. But the good news is that she doesn't have to be extreme in the writing process now. that part of me that's still present because I don't want to lose that edge. I just want to soften the edges. That's the important message. Yeah. And I do think it is interesting because I think a lot of us as little girls were told certain things, praised for certain things, recognized for certain things. And as adults, we're starting to do the hard work of unpacking, like, is that what I want to be? Or is that serving me any longer? Whether it's being agreeable or being the person who catches everything or, you know, the super reliable person for everyone.
35:48And all of those things have wonderful aspects to them. But I do think that a lot of us are starting to question like what parts of me are true to me. Let's talk about the idea of self a little bit more because I love this. And I think you talk about it as this like infallible inner guidance system. And I feel like society has tried to detach us from that part of ourself. And so talk to us a little bit more of how do we reconnect? How do we recognize? How do we even know who we truly are beyond what the world has told us that we are? So self is likened to the God within us, the spirit within us, the creative force within us, inspiration, freedom, the free feeling of spontaneity inside of us.
36:33It's an energy. It's an essence and an energy of love and connection, curiosity, courage, compassion, all those C qualities. It is our true nature to be in that courageous, committed, creative, connected place. That's our truth. That's our true nature. But these experiences from our childhood burdened us and created protection mechanisms that we've been really living in and out of for so many years. So the self-energy never left us, but it's just been masked. And so really the practice is about recognizing what needs attention so that self can emerge naturally. And the great news is that you don't have to go out and find that inner healer.
37:19The inner healer is there. You just need to slow down enough to check in with the protection mechanism so that it can unwind and shake out a little bit at a time. And the more you go in with that curiosity, compassion, and connection, the more it can shake out and the more self can be revealed. And then rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. The more you do that, the more that self energy emerges. And so self is the energy of that when you or I are on stage, that's self, right? When we're just in that free, you're not looking for the words, it's just there. It's riffing. It's such free flowing energy.
37:56When we're supporting our children with just genuine curiosity and compassion, that's self energy. When we're in the creative flow of a project, that's self energy. Sometimes at the end of a run or your shavasana and you're just feeling completely free and your body's buzzing and you just have so much freedom and clarity, that's self energy. When you just become so clear about what it is that your next step might be, that self-energy. So we have these fleeting moments of self, but the goal of this book is to access more and more of that self-energy through these steps and then let it become the more natural state that we live in.
38:34And here's the big promise that I know your listeners are going to want. The more we access that self-energy, the more magnetic we become. Yes. Because when we're in that calm state and that connected state and that compassionate state and that creative state and that courageous state, clear state, that's when we're super attractors. That's when our energy is free. That's when we're magnetic. That's when we can think it and it will be because we're one, no longer burdened by the protection mechanisms that are in the way of that manifesting power, but we're also in the manifesting power. We're embodying that clear, creative energy that's required for us to attract what we want into our life.
39:22I would challenge listeners right now to sit down and think of the last three to five times that you felt most connected to self and just see if you see any trends, see if you see how long it's been. Because as you were saying that, I feel like a lot of people are, you know, they get glimpses of it and then it's gone. And I would argue that most of us are operating out of a state that is detached. And this leads me to my next question, Gabby, which is, I feel like a lot of us, and I'll speak for myself personally, is it's like we show up as like this compartmentalized version of ourselves, right?
40:02Where only parts of ourselves are welcomed in the room, whether it's, you know, with a mom's group and you don't really want to talk about work because they don't relate to it. And then you're in a different role when you're in motherhood or wife. And I think we kind of learn the roles that we play and the expectations that we think are being set on us, whether it's somebody listening and they go to the nine to five and they have to hide their creative, goofy self or vice versa. And so how do we start bringing our whole selves to the table or even just into our lives in a more deeply integrated way?
40:35Well, I think that all those personas that we place upon our lives, those personalities that we show up with are protection mechanisms. Yes. So I show up to the mom's group like this and what am I protecting? I'm protecting vulnerability or I'm protecting a feeling of wanting to be good enough or whatever that is. I show up for all the pretenses that we've placed upon ourselves and the roles that we play are often protection mechanisms. And so the more we do this inquiry and the more that we attune to these protectors, the more our natural personality emerges. That natural personality is the free-flowing, clear, creative force.
41:17So it's really about dismantling the attachment to the pattern of these personalities that we have. That's actually what's different about IFS. You asked me earlier. IFS has this belief system that we have many personalities inside internal family systems. It's not about your external family. It's about your inner family of parts of you, your controller, your binger, your mom part, your extreme this part, and that the parts that are extreme are the ones that need our attention. but there's no bad parts as dick schwartz says there's no bad parts jenna they're just parts that have found extreme roles and so we just need to help them become less extreme and and let them know when they start to know that there's this inner parent of self inside they start to soften i'm like literally picturing like almost like a game board with like little figurines of like all the versions of ourselves like standing in front of us because i think that that really does help in terms of like just visualizing all the pieces of you and the places that you were changed.
42:28And I think that's really powerful. As we start to wind down, what are you most excited? Like 10 books, 10 books, Gabby. That's absolute insanity. What are you most excited about with this book called Self-Help? Like what is firing you up about it? Why did you write it? Walk me through all of it. I often have said that I write my books for myself, but I actually, for this one, wrote this one for the reader more than anyone, because I'd already experienced the miracle of it by living this practice in my own life. And so the thing that I'm most excited about is that so many people walk around with these patterns and these behaviors, and they're just sort of like, how do I fix this?
43:07They just don't know. Maybe they try something, or they do this one practice, or they try this thing for a minute, but this is actually a sustainable practice that will actually change you. And that's what I'm most excited about. That if the reader is willing, all I need is their willingness. All I need is somebody listening right now being like, yeah, I'm looking at my life and I'm like, is this it? Or I'm looking at my life and I'm like, there has to be a better way. If you've ever said either of those sentences, then the answer is here. And it's not like you have to rip off the bandaid. And it's simple.
43:40I think that a lot of self-help books that I've read in my life may have many practices and many tools and you're sort of navigating, what do I need to do? This is a simple four-step practice. And so for me, I've lived the miracle of the results. I continue to live it every single day. I know that I've come to this planet to be a translator and a demystifier. And I've taken a therapy that the world may not have access to for financial reasons or for desire reasons. Many people don't want to do therapy. Okay, so now you can do this incredible life-changing practice that has healed millions of people's lives, but you can now do it with a four-step self-help tool.
44:18So what I'm most excited about, Jenna, is the actual, the fact that somebody can hold a book in their hands that will actually work. The dream review I have for this book is this is the self-help book that actually worked. That's my dream. I look forward to that review on Amazon. I love that. Okay. As we wind down, give me three things that somebody listening should consider, should try, or should do before they go to bed tonight. What should our listeners be doing in terms of action besides buying your book? Well, if they're listening still and they feel that call, I would say go write a list right now of five, six undesirable patterns, behaviors, or beliefs that are holding you back.
45:07That's number one. And then ask yourself on the same page, am I willing to heal this? And then if the answer is yes, go grab the book. Go grab the book, go listen, go get the audio, go get the print. I mean, Jenna, at this stage in my career, I would just go give it to everybody if I didn't have publishers. Just go grab the book. And if somebody's struggling to afford it, they can go get the self meditation. So there's a self-help meditation and that can be deargabby.com forward slash free meditation. Or go to deargabby.com slash self-help and you can find more of those free meditations. Amazing.
45:47Before we sign off, introduce us to one other part of you that you've revealed through the system. We know the controller. Tell us another part of you that exists. Well, one that I'm working on right now, and you might be like, oh, you write self-help books. Wouldn't you be like really not there? And it's actually the fact that I write self-help books is that I have such clarity about this, is the rage part. The rage part actually benefits as TMJ, as for many years, gastro issues. And it was just this outrage, this feeling of outrage. And it's a little girl inside of me that's like, why isn't anyone helping me?
46:20And I have done so much work to help her and we're getting so close to sense of safety inside. And I love that part of me so much. And I'm working with her every single day to just help her feel her feelings and be heard and seen by me and soften and soften and soften and soften. I love that. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Congratulations on your 10th book. I'm so excited for everyone to get their hands on it. I know that therapy has been so life-changing for me. I'm so excited to dig into this form and to welcome the little people that live in me, the little Jennas that exist. And just thank you for putting this work out into the world.
47:01Tell your therapist that you've read self-help because there's so many IFS-informed therapists out there. So there's an issue that there's so many desire, so many therapists want to learn the model and there's not enough people to teach it. So I do want to spread this message to therapists that there's this tool that they can use if they don't have the access to the training yet and that it's something that their patients can actually really access. I love that. I love that. Thanks, Gabby. Congratulations. I love you. I love you. My dream reader is listening right now. So thank you. That's right.
47:35Today's episode feels really special and it also just feels so life-changing. When I think about the times where I am most connected to self, it is when I am slowed down enough to notice, to pay attention, to acknowledge, to do the quote work that we talked about. And I love that Gabby packaged all of this up into a book. I have just found as an author myself that we put our best work into our books. And so if you want to learn from someone like Gabby, grab a copy of their book. That is their best work that they want to live on forever. I am so thankful for the work of therapy. I am so thankful for our ability to grow and heal and evolve and change as humans.
48:20And I'm so grateful that you tuned in to today's episode of the Gold Digger podcast. I absolutely hope you loved it. And I'd love to hear from you if you think it will change your life. Until next time, Gold Diggers, keep on digging your biggest goals. And thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Gold Digger podcast. Thanks for pulling up a seat for another episode of the Gold Digger podcast. I hope today's episode filled you with inspiration, gave you information that you can turn into action and realigned you with your true north in life and business. If you've enjoyed today's episode, head on over to golddiggerpodcast.com for today's show notes, discount codes for our sponsors, freebies to fuel your results, and so much more.
49:00And if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss a future show. We'll see you next time, Gold Diggers.
From the publisher
Have you ever felt trapped by patterns like self-judgment, people-pleasing, or even outright burnout? If so, today’s conversation is going to be your lifeline.
Gabby Bernstein is a motivational speaker, spiritual leader, and best-selling author. In her brand new book, Self Help: This Is Your Chance to Change Your Life, she introduces us to Internal Family Systems therapy—a revolutionary practice that’s not just for the therapist’s office anymore.
In our conversation, she shares how she turned this powerful tool into a step-by-step process anyone can use to radically shift core beliefs, heal emotional wounds, and connect to what she calls the ultimate inner guidance system: the energy of Self.
I’m so excited to sit down with Gabby to talk about how you can unlock this incredible resource within yourself, tackle the patterns holding you back, and find relief anytime, anywhere. This is more than self-help—it’s self-liberation!
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