Gabby, the day is finally here. I can't believe it. Thanks for coming on the show, my friend. I

feel like we are meant to be good friends, but we've not found the full alignment yet. this is what happens to me a lot when I get on someone's podcast who I love and admire and I'm like, can we start our friendship here?

of people. I mean, it's fine. The last time I saw you in person, it was again, random. I was in a studio recording for the art of being well in New York and you were in literally the room next to me. And I think we both heard each other's voice. I'm like, well, Gabby's in next door. And so we ran over and saw each other for a few minutes, but how is it? Are you in the city full time? What's it like? I

live in the city half 40, 30% of the time, depending on the month. And then I live in the countryside, similar to you, you know, up in the countryside, outside the city, 60, 70% of the time.

Amazing. I think we first met professionally. We had you on Goopfellas, which is like Goop's spin-off podcast back in the day. And I've, from the sidelines, admired your work for a long time. Just always just admire you. I admire your bravery and the voice that you give this space. How is it, I mean, I know writing books can be arduous, to say the least. I mean, it's like giving birth to craft these works art. How has it been? This is your 10th book. I

like that question because I think that every book I've written has been a different type of journey.

Yeah.

Some of my books, one of my books in particular, I have such a fond memory of the journey of writing that book. And it's actually my, my probably will maybe go down in history as my best book or one of my best books. And that's the universe has your back. And I recall the time that I was writing that book and the feelings emotionally and spiritually that were moving through me as I wrote that book. And I remember it was a really difficult time in my life. I had just remembered a trauma from my childhood that had been dissociated for 30, me 30 years. I was 36 at the time. So I had this trauma memory come to me in a dream. And then, you know, at the same time, I had this deadline for this book. And it was one of those periods in my life where somehow I didn't have to travel that much. It was sort of just God's grace that I was not pushed into a lot of travel. And I had this period where I was in this mountain house. I didn't have a child yet. And I was sitting in this white washed little tiny perched up room at the, on the second floor of the house and looked out onto the mountains. And it was just all the floors were white and the ceiling was white. And I put a white chandelier in this tiny little brown desk and this little chair. And I just sat there with my laptop and channeled that book. And I woke up every day with just so much fear because of the trauma I'd been living in. And then I wrote the book to heal myself. And the book is called the universe has your back transformed fear into faith. And it makes me really emotional actually talking about it. And I think about that writing journey and it really brings me to tears right now because I long for that feeling again, even though it was the most difficult time of my life, it was the most spiritually aligned time of my life. And that feeling is a felt sense that I am manifesting now as I move into this new phase of my life. I intend to align with that, that connection and that feeling of what it felt like writing that book so much more in everything I do now. That's my, that's my, my vision for myself right now. Where

did this book self-help, where did it come to you in the same way or the concept? Very different. Very different.

So I think I've written all of my books for myself first, except for self-help. Interesting. Self-help. I lived first and then felt the call and the message, the download. Oh girl, you gotta go take this out into the world. Like you can't let this stay in the therapy office, right? Like this has to be given. This is a gift. This, this is a gift. This is, you know, your translator, go take, this is based on a therapy that has changed my life dramatically called internal family systems therapy, which we'll talk about. It's a therapy based on an inner family of parts of who we are and healing all those parts of ourselves so that we can live an unburdened, free flowing ease, life of ease and life of grace and harmony. And as a result of practicing that therapy and then getting trained in that therapy and then living the miracle of that therapy, I got the download in a clear direction from my inner wisdom and my higher power that it was my job to take my dear friend, Dr. Richard Schwartz's beautiful body of work, IFS, and turn it into self-help.

Amazing.

And so with his permission, and, and a beautiful, I want to, I'll read maybe a little message from his forward, because it's just so deeply moving to me. But with his permission, I've been able to take this very dense, profound therapy that most, you know, millions of people have experienced, but they've only folks that have the privilege of being able to afford a therapist or the bravery or the courage to go to those places in therapy and even access because there aren't enough therapists doing IFS yet, right? So it became clear to me that my mission for this one is to not write this for myself, to write this for the reader and share the gift of this practice with the masses in a way that they can bring it out of the therapist's office and into their own world. And to be super clear off the start with you on this, this isn't IFS. This is a self-help practice that I created based on the principles of IFS. Got it.

All right. So let's set the stage and dig into what IFS is. I think if you offered to read a little bit of the forward, maybe that's a good way of introducing people to this concept. Amazing. I love the cover. It's a powerful design.

Okay. This is a second, like this is the designer's design, but I went into Canva with my own vision of what I wanted it to be. And like with different fonts and stuff, I created this cover and I sent it to a designer. I was like, make this look better. It

all starts with Canva so many times.

I mean, I'm a full-blown Canva artist. So, you know, not

to brag, but yeah, I think we both are. I mean, I like to think of myself as one too. Because

it's all there. And if you have an eye, you can. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Let's go. So

here's just a first paragraph of Dick Schwartz's forward. And once again, Dr. Richard Schwartz, Dick Schwartz, is the founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy, a beloved brother and friend to me, a mentor to me. And the therapy that is demystified in this book is from him. I just finished reading this book and there are tears in my eyes. I'm so grateful for and honored by what Gabby Bernstein has done here. I developed Internal Family Systems, IFS Therapy, the approach she features in this book, over the past four decades, and labored in relative obscurity for three of those decades. One of my dreams during those lean years was that a respected leader with both self-help and spiritual bona fides would bring IFS to the public in a safe way that did justice to the power of the model. That dream has come true with this book. Amazing.

That

message to me is once again, the why this is written for the reader. It's also, I wrote this book and I dedicated this book to Dick because as someone who has, you know, when you experience a gift and you know this because you're a teacher and a healer, when you experience a gift as someone who is a communicator, you almost feel like you have no choice but to share it. Yeah. And my beloved friend and teacher has this incredible gift that he has brought to the world. And I know that myself, among many others who are in the devotion of his work, feel that call to be messengers for

this work. And so this is the way I have chosen to do it. How did you find it? How did you mention first living it and practicing it in your own life first? When did you first hear about this work? There's

a lot of therapists out there that may not be trained in IFS, but are IFS informed. So they've found the model, they've experienced the model for themselves, they write about it, they really believe in it. And because there's, like I said, there's a sort of lack in the amount of people that have been trained because there's not enough trainers. And it's like, this is something where I'm gonna help to really democratize the trainings as well. So that's my hope for helping him. So there's a lot of therapists using it that may not be trained in it. And I had a therapist, a beloved therapist for seven years and started working with her. Yeah. About nine years ago, eight years ago. And she was using IFS model, even though she wasn't a trained IFS therapist, she was using the model with me, but she never really told me what she was doing, which nor would your therapist necessarily be like, this is the style of therapy I'm using, you know? So I didn't really know what it was, but I knew that it was happening, but I knew this with this thing. And it was really hard for me at first using this model because it's, I'll explain it, but really simply put the thesis is that we have these very common habits behaviors and belief systems that are the driving force of our life right so you know for me it was like controlling or believing like if i don't do it nobody else will or i have to push and force to make it happen or you know or just feeling very alone in having to take care of myself and what I'm doing. And recognizing that those protect these, these aspects of ourselves, beliefs, patterns, behaviors are actually protection mechanisms. And when we ask these protection mechanisms, how long have you been around? They're like forever, you know, like since I was a kid or since five years old or whatever. And when we look back and we wonder a little bit more about, you know, who are these protection mechanisms protecting? It becomes clear that they're protecting very young feelings, very, very scary feelings. And so to really simplify this whole model at a very young age, we all experienced some form of trauma, big T or small T being bullied in your classroom or being, you know, left by an alcoholic parent. Like these are both trauma. Nevertheless, some are more extreme than others, but we experience these traumatic events. We build up a belief system that that fear and that terror and that experience is actually my fault, right? I have the shame. I have to hold that shame. And we don't want to feel that impermissible fear, terror, inadequacy, or feelings of being unlovable ever again. And instantly as little people, we build up protection mechanisms, people pleasing because we feel like we can't be seen or controlling because we feel out of control or, or numbing out because it feels too overwhelming to be in the home that we're in or whatever it might be. And we didn't, most, most people did not have Will Cole as a father or Gabby Bernstein as a mother, and they weren't pulled aside and given the gifts of how to process or co-regulate or, you know, or, or be regulated by the parent. So in effect, they're left alone with their feelings and they carry on, we carry on in protection mode. And so the thesis of IFS is to get to know these protector parts and help them feel safe. And in that experience of safety, an internal parent, an inner healer emerges. And that inner healer and that inner parent is what in IFS we call self. And self is the God within us, the spirit within us, the intuition within us. It's a creative force. It's a curious energy. It's a connected energy. It's these C qualities as Dick has described, clarity, compassion, connection, curiosity, courage, confidence, creativity, and commitment. And when we're in that energy and the energy starts to expand inside of us, we intuitively know how to heal and soothe and create safety for these extreme patterns, beliefs, and behaviors that have been running the show. Wow. And it's, it's miraculous.

Yeah. So the format would be a patient client and the therapist, right? So is that how it would look like traditional therapy to person that would be doing IFS? Yeah.

IFS has only really been done in therapeutic settings, maybe some workshopping and stuff, but it's been shown in the one-on dynamic until now, right? I mean, maybe there's instances where people have done this in other ways, but, but I'm not familiar with that. And so really it's been done in a one-on setting where the goal of the therapist is to, to hold that self-energy, right? To be the compassionate, calm, curious presence and to interview these parts rather than interview the person, interview these of the person, right? And go through a series of fleshing out and getting to know and curiosity towards. And then as you start to flesh out these aspects of these parts, more and more parts are revealed and more clarity is revealed. And as you start to just befriend these parts of someone, as they befriend those parts with the guidance of the therapist, more and more self emerges and calmness comes forward and confidence comes forward and, and a settled connection. And as this therapist guided path happens, then the therapist can guide that person to go to the really young exiled part, the part that had the trauma and then retrieve that part and unburden it. Got it. Now, this is the important distinction, though. Well, I am not touching those exiles, and nor should you in this book, right? That's for therapy. That's particularly, I hope, for IFS therapy or trauma-informed therapy.

Got it.

My hope is just to help the reader get to know these protection mechanisms, befriend these protection mechanisms through a four-step process. It's very simple. And in connecting to these protection mechanisms, which are like little children inside of us, create a little sense of safety inside, which then allows these sort of hypervigilant protectors to settle. And as these parts of us start to settle, self-energy emerges. Self-energy is our natural state, right? So we've experienced self, right? Like when you're on the podcast, you were channeling in self right now. I feel it. And I can tell you why. You're curious. You're connected to me. You have clarity, right? You're, you're clear about what you want to ask. There's confidence. There's courage to just go there and jump right in. So you're in self right now. That's, that's my perception. And I can, I can say that because I feel it. So

it's like a flow state. It's

a flow state, baby.