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the power of authenticity

In a recent interview, someone asked me whether I’m proud of who I’ve become—and I answered with zero hesitation: 

I haven’t become anything … I’ve let go of who I thought I should be.

Do you know how empowering it felt to say that and truly mean every word of it?

I’m finally at a place where I’ve released my ideas of who I should be and accepted that my authenticity is my superpower. That goes for every single one of us.

All the world wants from you is your authentic truth.

gabby

The more you get in tune with your authentic self, the more fun you’ll have and the more connected you’ll feel.

In this episode of Dear Gabby, I’m showing you how to be fearlessly authentic in 4 simple steps.

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embrace the power of authenticity

Some of the most pivotal moments in my personal development journey were when I intentionally returned to the power of living in my authentic truth.

In a coaching session to prepare for what was (at the time) my biggest talk, I was working with acclaimed personal coach Cheryl Richardson and meticulously going over all the points I wanted to hit.

She stopped me in my tracks with a powerful reminder: 

You know, Gabby, the key to being a transformational speaker is just to tell your honest story.

That sunk in so deeply. It was simple, but so profound. All I have to do is just tell my truth. 

I now measure my success based on how authentic I am in any moment, whether I’m on stage or in a one-on-one conversation with someone. 

This path to living in authenticity—practicing it every day—is one I cherish. In this episode of Dear Gabby, I’m sharing it with you.

4 steps to reconnect with the power of authenticity

Learning to live in your truth is a journey. It takes intention and effort. Here’s a 4-step exercise to help you practice the power of authenticity.

Step 1

notice

Notice when you feel out of alignment.This could be in a conversation where you hear yourself say something that is not true to who you are. Or it could be that you don’t quite act like yourself in certain settings—maybe it’s at work or when you’re on a date. For many people, it’s how they present themselves on social media. 

Step 2

learn

Learn to recognize how it feels to be disconnected from your truth. What’s your energy like? Do you feel like you’re being heard? Are you uncomfortable or fidgeting? Make a list, so you have an honest inventory of where you’re losing your connection with the power of authenticity. 

Step 3

think

Next, think about where and when you feel safe enough to truly be yourself. Start building your authenticity in those safe spaces, whether it’s when you’re journaling or when you’re with a specific person. Practice that presence. Really embrace what that feels like … and hold onto it. 

Step 4

stop and breathe

Then, the next time you find yourself disconnecting from your authenticity, stop and take a breath. Bring yourself back to that presence you have been working on in your safe spaces. Build a conscious awareness that you can align with at any time, in any area of your life. 

On Dear Gabby, I’ll walk you through this process.

in this episode I’ll share: 
  • Pivotal moments in my journey when I connected with the power of authenticity
  • How to realign with your authentic self so you can fulfill your highest purpose
  • A new approach to measuring success
  • How to release the stress of other people’s expectations and embrace the most powerful aspects of who you are
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disclaimer

This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I am not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from any psychological or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

dear gabby #134 Apr 28, 2023 purpose 32 min

the #1 quality you need to become a major manifestor

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The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

Hi there, Gabby here. This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I’m not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from a psychological or medical condition, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

April is Alcohol Awareness Month, and that’s very meaningful to me. I’ve been sober for 17 and a half years, and my sobriety has given me everything, everything in my life. I wouldn’t be able to be here with you right here, right now, speaking to you on Dear Gabby, giving you guidance if it weren’t for my sober journey.

And throughout my sobriety, I’ve had the privilege of working with many organizations and there’s one that truly, truly touches me and is near to my heart, and that is the McCall Behavioral Health Network. McCall has over 50 years of experience treating substance use and mental health disorders, and I believe deeply in this organization because get this, if you walk in their doors, you are going to get support, period.

This is a time when we really need to show up for the organizations that are doing the great work to really help the cause of supporting people through their recovery. 17.6 million people or one in every 12 adults suffer from alcohol use disorder. More than half of all adults have a family history of problem drinking and alcohol use is on the rise, especially among women.

McCall Behavioral Health Network is a nonprofit organization for individuals of all ages and families across Connecticut. McCall supports everyone’s journey to healing and their wellness is their highest priority, and so if you walk through their doors, you will receive services, period. That’s why I’m asking you today to consider donating.

If you can, please go to deargabby.com/donate. This is a chance for you to be part of the solution. This is a chance for you to save someone’s life. You’ll be helping people transform their lives and giving them hope so that so many people can have the experience of sobriety and the ripple effect of their wellbeing.

So head over to deargabby.com/donate. Thank you.

Hey there. Welcome to Dear Gabby. I’m your host Gabby Bernstein, and if you landed here, it is absolutely no accident. It means that you’re ready to feel good and manifest a life beyond your wildest dreams. Let’s get started.

Welcome back. What a topic we have. It’s such a good one. The truth sets me free. That’s our topic. So good, right? The truth sets me free. I know for myself, that path of being authentic has been something I’ve cherished. It has become my guidepost to knowing whether I’m on track with the woman I wanna be in the world.

I measure my success based on how authentic I am. I know when I get on stage and I’m not in my authentic truth, that I wanna crawl into my skin and run away. I wanna get off that stage. I know when I am in conversation with someone and I’m not being real, I need to pivot and start over. I truly measure the success of the way I am in the world based on how honest and truthful I am and authentic I am, cuz it doesn’t feel good for me anymore to be out of alignment with that authenticity.

And this theme of authenticity has actually been coming up a lot for me. I was asked recently on an interview, someone said to me, are you proud of who you’ve become? And it was in this immediate response that came out of me. I said, I haven’t become anything. I’ve let go of who I thought I should be. I thought that was pretty good.

I haven’t become anything. I’ve just let go of who I thought I should be, and I’ve just shed the beliefs and the pretenses of who I thought I should be and accepted that my authenticity is the sexiest, coolest, most awesome part of me, and that goes for all of us. All the world wants from you is your authentic truth.

I remember early on in my career when I was first starting out giving talks for Hay House, these big, big talks, two, three, 4,000 people. I had the privilege of having a great Hay house author and speaker Cheryl Richardson gave me a coaching session for my speaking before I went out on the Hay House stage and probably was the biggest audience I’d ever spoken to.

So prior to that 3000 person talk or whatever it was, I hadn’t had that kind audience before. So stuff was there and she was present to coach me. I remember telling Cheryl the story I wanted to tell and giving her the beats of what I wanted to hit, and she said, you know, Gabby, the key to being a transformational speaker is to just tell your honest story.

And that just sunk in so deeply for me, it was just the simplicity of just, all I have to do is just tell the truth and it will work. And not just on the stage, but particularly in life. If I’m just walking through life telling my honest story. How cool is that? How awesome is that?

Just walking through life telling my honest story, and that’s really all the world wants from you, is just to be honest, to be authentic, to be you. All the things that you think you need to be, all the pretenses you’ve built up around yourself. No one wants that. No one wants it anyway. For decades, I actually really tried to be someone else.

I thought I tried to be this person. I thought I should be the publicist, the owner of the business, the party girl, the the scenester—the stories I’d built up around myself. and I was looking in that time for so much outside approval. And when you’re trying to be someone else, it’s a sure sign that you are not letting yourself look at who you really are.

And when you’re trying to be someone else, you’re often also trying to get the world to see you in some way. And the funny thing I learned is that the world began to see me when I stopped trying to be anything but me. So that whole time I spent in my early twenties just trying to be the cool girl really all my whole life up until my 25-year-old quarter life crisis. But just trying to be this cool girl, trying to be powerful, trying to be inspiring.

And what I found was that I would hold my breath and I would talk really fast and I was just so energetically disconnected from people. And even in my early days of being a speaker, there’d be moments of authenticity and then there’d just be these other 20 minutes of me trying to be somebody. The moments that I would drop in to that truth were the moments that people would feel their connection to me, or people could recognize themselves in me. And when I was truly healing others was when I was being in that authentic relationship with who I am. And so I had this really great awakening in my early twenties.

I read this book by Maryanne Williamson called A Woman’s Worth, and she wrote in the book, “A Queen is wise. She has earned her serenity not having had it bestowed on her, but having passed her tests, she has suffered and grown more beautiful because of it, she has proved she can hold her kingdom together, she has become its vision. She cares deeply about something bigger than herself. She rules with authentic power.”

I remember like yesterday, sitting in my little studio apartment, 26 years old, reading this passage about the queen and thinking, wow, man, I wanna be that. That’s what I wanna be. I wanna rule with authentic power. I wanna know what that feels like.

And so, I put myself on a journey of just measuring my success based on how real I was, on how authentic I was. And I started to pay close attention to what it felt like to be in alignment with my authentic truth versus what it felt like to be out of alignment. And the more I got in tune with that authenticity, the more fun I had in my life, the more connected I felt.

The more successes I experienced, the more healing came forth for me, the deepening of my relationships. I remember I spent two years in relationship with my now husband, but the first two or three years of that relationship I was trying to be something, just trying to be cool, trying to be easygoing, trying to make him like me.

And then when we broke up for a year, I was just like, oh, I don’t have to try anymore. I’m just gonna be myself. And the real Gabby was just like weird and silly and she cursed a lot and she was just like her. And that’s when my husband fell in love with me. He fell in love with me in the year that we were just friends because when we were just friends, I wasn’t trying anymore.

Isn’t it funny how that happens, guys? So when you’re dating, man, how powerful is this to just drop into you? Be you. And I started to realize as I started to just practice authenticity that. I am the cool girl. I didn’t have to be the cool girl. I am the cool girl and, and that goes for all of you.

You are awesome. You don’t have to try to be it. And my power was already in me and I didn’t have to be inspiring. I just had to feel inspired and trying to be someone you’re not, just weakens your inner power and it deprives the world of your greatness.

So I wanted to bring this as a topic this month to just help us really set that truth up for ourselves and let the truth set us free because there’s so much freedom in knowing that we have just stepped into who we are and there’s so much freedom and just stopping ourselves in our tracks.

Stop trying to be something else. Stop trying to make something look a certain way or sound a certain way, cuz it takes so much energy to pretend to be someone else. So just imagine or contemplate how much less energy you’d have to extend just being you, just letting yourself be you.

And there’s some people that I’ve known in my life that are just like weird and funny and silly and just do strange things. But I think what I like most about them is how weird and funny and silly they are because they’re not trying to edit themselves. They’re just authentically themselves. They’re just being truthful.

[AD BREAK]

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[END AD BREAK]

And so how do you begin to shed who you thought you should be? Well, the first thing that happened for me is I just had to kind of get grossed out with the way that I was misaligned. I had to look at all the patterns and check myself before I wrecked myself. And I had to really look at my life and say, Ugh, Gabby. Like, you suck when you act like that.

And without judgment, but just being the witness of what it was like to be in alignment with my truth versus what it was like to be out of alignment with my truth. And I started to see the difference. So I could say, when I’m out of alignment, I’m speaking really fast.

I’m cursing more. I’m saying like a lot, I’m playing with my hair. I’m not breathing. When I’m in alignment, like in this moment, I don’t know what I’m gonna say next. I don’t know what’s coming, but I just know that I’m connected and I know that as long as I’m being me and being real, something will come out that will be helpful cuz being authentic is being truly helpful.

When we’re real, we help other people recognize that they can be real too. And so I started to just check myself and notice when I was out of alignment and when I was out of alignment, I would just take a deep breath. I would breathe my way back into my authenticity. I would breathe my way and breathing stopped me from talking.

Cuz sometimes when we’re in that place of being out of alignment, we’re just gibber, jabber, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and talking about things that are not in alignment with who we are. And if we notice ourselves in that place, take a deep breath. Now you can say, wait, why am I talking?

And step outside of yourself and just take a beat and your breath will bring you back into your truth. And so I want you to just take some notes, just looking closely, how are you out of your truth? Make a list. Like, I’m out of my truth when I’m on a date or I’m out of my truth when I’m in a job interview or I’m out of my truth when I’m at my office, or I’m out of my truth when I’m with my girlfriends or I’m out of my truth when I’m on social media.

Ooh, that’s a big one, everybody. Are you pretending to be somebody else on social media? Are you, are you, let’s call that shit out, people. Are you, are you trying to be somebody else? What is the false story that you’re telling? Who are you trying to be? What’s the story you’re trying to tell? Are you trying to tell the world that you’re perfect and you’re so healthy and you’re so happy, and everything in your life is so perfect?

I think that everybody on social media has the perfect life. Unless they’re all just liars. I love how at the beginning of the year I said I was gonna stop cursing. Oh, just, but see, cursing is authentically me.

Everybody. The more real you are, the more fun you’ll have. So if you gotta curse, it’ll come through.

What does it feel like to be disconnected from your truth? So let’s ask ourselves these questions. How are you out of your truth? And what is the false story that you’re telling? And what does it feel like to be disconnected from your truth? What does it feel like when you’re disconnected from your truth?

I know for me, when I’m out of alignment with my truth, I literally want to shut down. I feel so disappointed in myself. I feel my energy’s weakened. I feel exhausted and bummed out, and frustrated and sad, and and mad at myself, and, and I feel like I’m not being heard because I’m not. Because when you’re not in your truth, you cannot be heard.

So what is it that we want? We want truth. We wanna feel connected. I love this quote from Alice Walker. She said, the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. So I want you to think about the power that you really have. The power that you really have is your power to be real, your power to be authentic, your power to speak up, rise up, show up in a massively impactful way.

So honor that power. Honor that wisdom, honor that truth that you have within you. Don’t hide it. Honor it and remember that you have it. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. You think that you don’t have the power that you truly have. Your power lies in your capacity to be real.

Your power to influence, your power to inspire, your power to connect, your power, to create bonding relationships, your power to be sexy, your power to have a group of people who long to be around you. Your power to create what you wanna create in the world comes from your authentic truth. It comes from your capacity to tap into that truth.

Don’t forget that you have it. So let’s talk about the ways that you can reconnect with your truth. The first step is to just become conscious of when you’re out of your truth. So the way that I could so easily describe to you when I’m out of my truth, I am dot, dot, dot. I am not breathing. I’m saying like I’m playing with my hair. I’m uncomfortable. I wanna crawl out of my skin. I know what it feels like.

So I want you to make a list of all the ways that you’re out of your alignment, what it feels like, and when it shows up. And we’ve already begun to make this list when you answered how are you out of your truth? So let’s look at that list.

And start to just see very clearly the specific patterns that show up for you. So, maybe the pattern is that you’re out of alignment when you’re around men. If you’re a lady that’s uncomfortable dating, or maybe your pattern is that you’re out of alignment when you are speaking publicly or you’re out of alignment when you’re with your family. What is underneath that fear of being real?

And then the next step is once you start to have this honest inventory of what it is that feels like you’re out of alignment. The next one is to actually just start to get more honest in areas of your life that feel safe. So maybe there’s places where you do feel safe enough to be honest, get more honest.

And one of the things that I love most about my recovery community is the honesty. I mean, I could walk up to someone in my recovery community and say, how are you doing it? And the person could say, I feel like shit. And I was contemplating suicide yesterday and, but I didn’t pick up a drink and now I’m, you know, feeling good cause I did my step work and I talked to my sponsor and I’m getting through the day.

Like someone could literally just say that so straight up to you. And you could barely know that person. You could have just seen them like a few times in your meeting. And there’s just this barrier that’s dropped when people have been humbled. And I think that not everyone has the. I wanna say the privilege of hitting bottom.

Let’s just look at it that way. And not everyone makes their way into a 12-step program. So how can we, as spirit junkies and miracle-minded folks drop into that authenticity in our own lives? And of course, it’s not always appropriate to tell somebody I feel like shit, blah, blah, blah, at the office. But maybe to just be a little bit more real in the areas of our life where we can be that authentic.

Because isn’t it interesting when you ask somebody, how are they? And they always say, I’m fine. I’m fine, I’m fine. Wouldn’t it be great if somebody said, you know, I’m, I’m actually having a pretty hard time, but I’m working on it. And that doesn’t mean that we wanna dump our stuff on people, but just be real.

Just start to get a little bit more honest in the areas of your life where you don’t have that honesty, where it’s maybe safe to feel more honest, that’s a good place to start. Be a little bit more honest in the places that are safe, and that will help you connect with the feeling of authenticity. And so as you start to walk through life and you notice that you’re out of alignment, pay attention there and then start to pay attention when you are in alignment.

So for instance, right now I feel very in alignment because I’m not worried about what’s coming outta my mouth. I don’t know what’s coming next. I’m breathing easily. My jaw is relaxed, I’m sitting comfortably. I’m just having a good time with you.

I might curse again. We’ll see what happens. Whatever happens, happens. I know I’m in alignment. I’m not short of breath. I’m not speaking fast. I’m not trying to make a point. I’m just being the point. I’m just letting it come. So starting to connect with what does it feel like for you when you’re in alignment?

So maybe you’re in alignment when you’re playing music, or maybe you’re in alignment when you’re singing or when you’re with a certain friend of yours, or maybe you’re in alignment when you’re writing. What does it feel like? And start to take inventory and notes of what does it feel like to be in your authentic power, in your authentic truth. And just start to practice that presence, practice that connection.

Tap into it a little bit more, let it linger a little bit longer, feel it, be conscious of it. The more aware you become of what it feels like to be out of alignment versus what it feels like to be in alignment, the more uncomfortable you’ll be when you’re out, and the more grateful you’ll be when you’re in.

So it’s that conscious awareness. When we bring awareness to any area of our life, that’s when real healing begins to occur. The next step is to just always trust that you’re being guided, just knowing that there’s a… This comes up in every podcast, in every audio, knowing that there’s a presence that’s helping you and guiding you.

And when you’re in that authentic presence and that authentic truth, you’ll become a channel to receive more of that guidance. When you’re out of alignment with your truth, you’re in the presence of resistance and you’re blocking that allowance. Just starting to get into that feeling of being in your authentic power creates more space for you to become a vessel to receive more guidance.

You create more guidance, you create more magnificence in the world. You feel like you’re supported and you become this magnet for what you want to experience in life. It’s so simple.

[AD BREAK]

When we wanna make long-lasting change in our life, we have to retrain ourselves, create a new system, a new way of doing things, so that these new behaviors become ingrained in us. This is called habit stacking. And to help ourselves, we create steps that remind us. Like I’ll leave my journal on my bedside table so I never forget to write every single day.

And I do the same with Seed’s DS1 Daily Symbiotic. I’ll leave a glass of water by my sink, so I remember to take it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Seed’s DS1 Daily Symbiotic is a plant-based prebiotic and probiotic that has been clinically studied. Just take two capsules in the morning on an empty stomach.

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Remember, greatness is within your reach. Start a new healthy habit today. Visit seed.com/deargabby and use code Dear Gabby, to redeem 25% off your first month of Seed’s DS1 Daily Symbiotic. That’s seed.com/deargabby and use code Dear Gabby.

[END AD BREAK]

Tealizing also now the next step is to just accept that you are the cool girl or you are the cool guy, that you are magnificent—accepting that. Accepting that that you being real is what’s most awesome about you. Can you accept that? Can you take that in? Your truth is what’s most awesome about you. Your truth is what’s most awesome about you.

And then there’s this last spiritual step here, which is shifting from body identification to spirit identification. When we have this identification of our body and who we think we are and the pretenses that we’ve built up, and the stories of like how good your body looks physically and how great you are as a person and what your credentials are, and what you believe you think you are in the world.

When we’re in that story, that story, that story, that story, ultimately we’re in body identification. When we start to practice the feeling of authenticity, the feeling of alignment, the feeling of allowing. We’re moving into spirit identification. In that spirit identification, we accept that we’re just energy beings.

We’re all beings of energy, and we’ve got these egos that we’ve planted all over ourselves to just say, Hey, world, this is who I am. But when we strip away the false pretenses of those egos and we step into the feeling of authenticity, we start to move into spirit identification.

And when we’re in that space of recognizing we are just spirits among spirits, having a human experience and we’re all equal, and we’re all one. All of the divisiveness just dissolves. All of the separation just releases, and we begin to feel a greater sense of connection, not only to ourselves, but to the world.

So let’s start to take these practices. Become conscious of when you’re out of alignment. Know when you’re in alignment. Get more honest. Connect with the feeling of authenticity. Trust you’re being guided. Realize and accept that you are the cool girl and the cool guy. You guys are just so cool. I mean it. You are so cool. I hope you hear me when I say that to you. You are so awesome. And shifting from body identification to spirit identification, that will happen naturally as you start to feel the feeling of authenticity in your life.

And I just wanna just give you a big call to action here, people. We need you to be more real. We need you to be more authentic. We are living in times where we are being called to rise into our authentic truth. We are being expected to show up in massive, honest ways.

It is our authenticity that will have the power to change the way the world is moving, to change direction. It’s our authenticity that will be heard. We are the media now, people. We have Instagram Live and Facebook Live, and Instagram stories and Snapchat and all the things and influence, and let’s make sure that we’re creating influence with the truth of who we are, not with the false stories. Showing up with the truth of who we are.

The light in one awakens it for all. So let that light that you have within you shine and wake you up and awaken it in all. And the miracle is remembering your true light. So devote your life to what makes you feel real. Start devoting your moments in your life to what makes your heart sing, what makes you feel real.

And don’t wait for a time where you’re free of fear. Feel fear and do it anyway. Just feel it and do it anyway. Step into that authentic truth, cuz your truth, my friends, will light up the world. Take this in. I hope this message guides you, serves you, supports you, and wakes you up to the truth that you are here to step into. Your satnam. Truth Identified.

Truth is your name. Own it, be it, and show up with that highest, most authentic way of being. I look forward to seeing your truth and feeling your truth, connecting with you more. And when you end this audio and you press stop, I want you to just settle into the feeling of what it means to be you, the feeling and the acceptance, and the joy of what it means to be you.

Satnam.

If you made it to the end of this episode, that means you’re truly committed to miracles. I’m really proud of you. If you wanna get more Gabby, tune in every Monday for a new episode.

Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the guidance or special bonus episodes. Your experience at this show means a lot to me, so I really wanna welcome you to leave an honest review and you can follow me on social media at @GabbyBernstein.

And if you wanna get in on the action, sign up for a chance to be Dear Gabby’d live at deargabby.com. See you next week.

Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services.

Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.