free meditation
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exercising the power of choice 

Life is about making choices. Every room we walk into, every interaction we have, we are making a choice. We choose how to react, how to feel and how to proceed. 

Sometimes these choices can be life-altering—such as the choice I made to get clean and sober. 

This episode of Dear Gabby was recorded during a talk I gave at High Watch Recovery Center. The words and earned wisdom I shared have a special significance for people in recovery, but they can be used by anyone, in absolutely any area of life. 

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Think about it like this: Choices are not singular events—they accumulate over time, shaping our lives. They become a muscle we can exercise, growing stronger with each use. The more we exercise this muscle of choice, the stronger it becomes, overpowering our fears and enabling us to face life’s challenges.

choosing to check in, not out

When the mechanisms we once used to manage our stressful lives, such as drugs, alcohol, overworking—or even distractions like gaming—no longer serve us, we need to turn inward. Checking in, rather than checking out, becomes our reprieve. 

The realization that we already possess all the resources we need to heal can be a profound game-changer … or even better, a life-changer.

how to take lots of little right actions

To quote a dear friend who found success in sobriety and life, lots of little right actions can lead to major outcomes. It’s not the grand, sweeping gestures, but the everyday choices we make that truly have the ability to shape our lives. 

in this episode you’ll learn:

  • How to feel more empowered by choice
  • The simple and effective Choose Again Method
  • Ways to release self-judgment and embrace self-compassion
  • How to build decision-making strength like a muscle

By listening to this episode, you’ll be introduced to the simple, empowering mindset shift that moves your life in the direction of your choosing. 

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weekly card reading

I see grace and possibility in all of life’s challenges.

I see grace and possibility in all of life's challenges.

Each challenge we encounter is, in reality, a divine invitation for growth and transformation. Not what you always want to hear, I know! But many obstacles contain unseen gifts, if we give ourselves the grace to let them unfold. This perspective allows us to transform the hardships we encounter into spiritual stepping stones for self-growth. 

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free manifesting meditation to attract your desires

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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 #167 Oct 02, 2023 emotional wellbeing

how I’ve stayed sober for 18 years

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The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

GABBY: 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.

Do you wanna connect with your spirit guides? I think it's a lot easier than you think, my friend. We love spirit guides over here on Dear Gabby. And spirit guides are loving beings that guide us to learn valuable life lessons and return us to that sense of safety inside and guide us throughout our life.

And the more that you communicate with them, the more you can access their infinite wisdom. It's like any friendship. The more you pick up the phone and call that friend, the more they can give you. And so, you can actually pick up the phone, you know, make a big call to those guides today. You can connect with your guides right now by practicing my free spirit guides meditation.

You can download it now at deargabby.com/spiritguides. The link will also be in the show notes. Get ready for that full-blown connection. A connection that can support you forever, that can guide your life, that can be one of the most powerful relationships you'll ever establish.

In minutes, you'll start to tap into their loving presence and connect to their guidance and support. And you might feel just warm or a tingling sensation, or you might see signs and symbols throughout the day. Download my free spirit guide meditation today at deargabby.com/spiritguides to connect with your guides now.

Listen now to communicate with your spiritual support system and access their divine wisdom, love and protection. That's deargabby.com/spiritguides.

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.

GABBY: Today is October 2nd, 2023. I decided on October 2nd of 2005. I was 25 years old to make the commitment to get clean and sober, to say yes to a life of sobriety, to say yes to a new way of living, to a path of recovery, a commitment to heal and a desire to live. And today on the show, I'm so proud to be able to share with you the gifts I have learned from my recovery, the great transformational life changing, life altering shifts that have occurred for me as a result of staying clean and sober one day at a time.

These days I have a lot of opportunities to work with folks who are in recovery, and sometimes it's just two or three days into their recovery. In this episode, I am sharing a live talk that I gave to a group in recovery.

This is a really meaningful and personal episode. My hope for sharing this episode with you is that if you, or anyone in your life who's struggling with addiction that you will feel so elevated and inspired and really be able to claim the choice that you have in any given moment. May this episode serve you greatly.

And I'm celebrating my recovery and the miracle of living a sober life today as I share this episode with you.

GABBY: Hi, I'm Gabby. How's everybody doing today? Yeah, you're in a beautiful place and you have amazing humans holding space for you in this beautiful place. It's pretty nice, yeah?

Sometimes we get enter into these rooms, whether it be 12-step room or a recovery center, and we can be pissed and we can be, you know, and I say we, because I've entered these rooms myself and we can be resentful that we're here, but there's also this other side that's just relieved, just straight-up relieved.

Anyone familiar with that feeling? Yeah. Just, okay, show me what to do. Take it from here, people and the group and the group. I just remember that feeling. I got sober October 2nd, 2005. I was 25 years old when I got clean almost 18 years ago. And I remember I walked into this Big Book meeting. And I just had finally hit bottom with my addiction to cocaine and alcohol, codependency, work addiction.

I hit my big bottom. And I remember walking into the room, a friend of a friend was sober, you know, the story. And I get guided to this 12-step meeting and they're reading it from the Big Book. It was just not the normal meeting you would step into typically. And I didn't understand anything that they were saying.

I didn't understand whatever was coming through the page. But I knew I was home. I knew I had found my people. I knew I had found a community. I knew that I wasn't alone anymore. And I knew that there was a plan in front of me that could support me. And I also knew that I had made a decision because often when we're using, we forget that we have a choice.

Does that make sense to you guys? It's like we, we get so flooded with our addiction. We get so taken over by the desire to just get out of the feelings that we have, that we want to numb out, but we forget that we have a choice to stop. Familiar? Yeah.

So I think back to that room that I walked into that day. And I realized that that room I walked into that day was a choice that I made. It was a choice to get clean. It was a choice to see things differently. It was a choice to be in a forward action towards my recovery.

And the more that I exercised that choice, one day at a time, going to meetings, calling my sponsor, going to meetings, calling my sponsor, staying clean, not picking up, doing some fellowship, hitting a meeting, calling my sponsor, meditating, getting on my knees to pray and consistently staying in the commitment of my recovery.

One day at a time, that choice was exercised. And today I came in here and I was just like, holy s**t, all these people, whether they, maybe somebody brought you in the door, but still you made a choice to wake up this morning and stay clean and sober. And so sometimes it feels so complicated. It feels like, Oh my God, this recovery thing is so complicated.

How am I going to make it last? How am I going to do it? But what if we really just accepted that in any given moment, we have the choice. We have the choice to pick up or we have the choice to turn inward. And thinking about it that simply, it's kind of emotional for me. I can feel kind of emotional, but thinking about that, because sometimes it feels like, Oh my God, I got to do this.

And I got to do this perfectly. And I have to make sure that I'm going to that exact step there. And I have to be doing this exactly the way that they tell me to, or I can't fall back into those old thoughts or feelings. In any moment, you have a choice to lean back in to the desire to be clean and sober.

And so they say in the 12 steps, like the mustard seed of hope. What if we just leaned into that more regularly? What if we made the choice, that daily choice, our priority to exercise that choice, the moment we wake up and open our eyes? Thank you for another day sober. Whether you believe in God, whether you believe in spirit, whether you believe in just a higher self or an intuitive force, just setting that intention daily, designing your day with the choice to stay clean, the choice to show up for your life one day at a time, but really one minute at a time, exercising that choice.

And then you go on with your day and about 30 minutes later, you've spilled coffee on yourself and you're pissed off, and you just want to judge yourself a thousand times. And then you take a beat and you take a breath and you realize, I have a choice.

I can choose right now to just let this go and choose to be in my sober mind right now. And an hour later you go and something super triggers you, and you get really activated. And instead of reacting to that activation, you take a brief pause. Presence comes through that pause. You check inside and you feel what's feeling, what's coming up and you just choose again.

You choose the next right action and you choose the next right action and you consistently exercise choice. Is that empowering to you? Does that feel empowering to you to, to remember, to be reminded that this is a choice you make? So there's going to be times where you might be like, okay, I can take that breath. I can make that choice.

And then there might be times where that feels like a completely unstoppable experience and you're just going to let…that addiction just takes over. But what I want to really, I'm tuning into you because I've got your attention here. I want to offer you the possibility that if you claim that choice, particularly here in this safe container, you own that choice and you exercise that choice one minute at a time, it becomes a muscle.

And it's in you and it's a compassionate part of who you are. It's a really calm presence and it's a connected presence and it's in you. It's just that the addict part of us has just taken on such an extreme role in our life. And we've grown to rely on it so, so, so much.

We rely on it to numb out and we rely on it to not have to face the from our past and we rely on it to just get out of our heads and get out of our minds. But we always have a choice. If we exercise it and exercise it and exercise it, that choice becomes a muscle that becomes stronger than our fear.

It's really f-ing simple, right? Keep it simple, stupid, they say. And the simplicity is something I really want to lean into today. Not to judge ourselves if we haven't been making it simple, but to remind ourselves that we can. That we can really just take these moments one minute at a time and exercise the choice to stay clean through a breath, through a connection to a fellow, through a prayer, through opening up a passage of a book that's heart-opening for us, through a walk outside in nature, through a hug, through something you learned today from me that you bring home with you and just exercising it.

And the way that it's there in those moments when you want to pick up is by all of the moments that led up to that moment, because of all of the moments that led up to that moment, we're exercising choice, choice, choice, remembering choice, leaning into compassion, leaning into that connection, leaning in, leaning in, leaning in.

That muscle is so strong that the next time that trigger happens, there's a fleeting moment of choice that can intervene. You have almost like an inner intervention inside of you.

[AD BREAK]

I talk about this all the time, a lot. It's a topic that is really important to me. And that's sleep. It's such an important part of my overall well being, and I never, ever, ever take it for granted given the fact that I lived with extreme insomnia for about four months of my life when I was struggling with postpartum depression, so sleep is the most important thing to me.

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[END AD BREAK]

GABBY: The thing that's happened for all of us in these rooms, those of us, and I say this with truth, those of us who have had the blessing of hitting our knees and the privilege of becoming sober minded. And I say that because when we have the blessing of hitting our knees and entering into a room like this, and the privilege of being able to get clean and sober, particularly in environments like this, we actually are, we've been given some of the greatest gifts ever.

We've been given the opportunity to live in a life that's far more fascinating, far more grounding, far more centered, far more healthy than the average person out there who's just sort of walking around dizzy. So we're here, we're here right now and we have this opportunity. And in my experience, really recognizing that privilege early on was also a big thing for me because it really kept me wanting more.

And the more that we exercise the choice and more that we lean into the practices and the tools that you're given here, the more you want it. You know, love and that energy of presence and the energy of calm feels really good. I want to exercise it with you here today. I want to sit in that energy with you here today.

I want to guide you in a practice to just be with that presence of yourself. But before we do that, I just want to acknowledge what got us here.

I mean, we've all had experiences from our past, and particularly our childhood, where we did not feel lovable, where we did not feel good enough, where we were traumatized, where we were told we were inadequate, where we experienced shame or blame or criticism, where we had parents that were not well, who were addicted, who were abusive.

We all in this room carry those burdens and those burdens are way too hard to carry for a young person. And so as little people, we picked up these stories of I've got to control the s**t out of my life in order to feel safe, or I have to prove myself to the world in order to feel good enough, or I have to numb out because I can't feel that pain and suffering.

And when all those ways that we managed our lives no longer worked, we picked up the drugs and we picked up the booze and we picked up the sex and the porn and the games and we picked it up because we had to numb it out. And instead of checking in, we checked out and now we're here and we have a different choice we can make.

We could have a choice to check in. We're safe in this space. We're safe here to check inwards. We're safe here to accept that there is a possibility for healing inside of us. And I think the thing that happens for a lot of people when they get sober or they start therapy, or they begin reading self-help books is they can feel really overwhelmed because they're thinking that some big thing outside of themselves has to happen for them to feel like they've made it, right?

Does that resonate with you? All the things outside of us are always going to be a reflection of what's happening on the inside. And so if that safety isn't developed in here, then whatever happens outside won't last, or it won't be enough, or it will disappoint, fail. So here's some great f-ing news, friends.

It's here, what you need to stay clean, to stay sober and to truly heal isn't anywhere else. It's right here. You might be like, Oh, Gabby, like you write self-help books. Like that sounds too easy. No, let's get, let's go there. You've already got within you all the resources that you need to heal. Take that in.

You already have access to all the resources that you need to heal. But we've spent decades shutting the door on that healing device within. We’ve shut it down with our beliefs. We’ve shut it down with our thoughts. We've shut it down with our addictions. We've shut it down with our self-attack, our self-hatred.

We've just shut it down. And here in this space, we can crack it open. There's this beautiful quote from Amma, the Hugging Saint. She says, when the eggshell cracks from the outside, it's broken, but when it cracks from the inside, it's reborn. So what if I asked you to consider your time here as a rebirthing, as a massive opportunity to crack open to a new way of being.

It makes me super emotional. Does anyone feel that when I say it, do you feel the possibility? And if you don't, totally cool, got it. You know, if you don't, that's probably more expected. Does anyone feel like a little calmer just in the conversation? Anyone feel a little bit of connection in the room right now?

Compassion for yourself and others in this room? Feel a little bit more clarity? Anyone have some connectedness to yourself just in this conversation? If you feel any of those qualities, you are recognizing the healing device inside of you, the self energy inside of you, the energy of love and compassion and connection and courage.

The child nature inside of you that is within you now. It's with you right here, right now. You don't have to go out and find it. You don't have to work for it. You just have to turn in to remember it. I'm not here to teach you how to get long-term recovery. I'm here to remind you that long-term recovery is in you.

It's in you. It's available to you. All the love that we didn't get from our parents, all the attachment that wasn't there, all the safety, all the security, it's actually in you. Now that sounds nice. It might feel kind of good. It's very likely it brings up a lot of resistance. It's very likely that some of you in the room are like, no, like I don't know what the f**k you're talking about, Gabby, or I just don't feel that way.

That's cool. Why would you? I just walked in the door and told you that decades of your life, you've had this presence of love in you that could help you and that you've been shutting it down. Why would you believe me? Believe me because I am you, believe me because 18 years ago I sat in a room like this bawling my eyes out, strung out from cocaine, strung out from alcohol. Totally disconnected from life.

But I felt that feeling that I feel right now. I felt that feeling of hope. I felt that feeling of presence. I felt that feeling of grace and I leaned into it and I dove into it and I went for it and I developed it and I kept wanting it and I kept asking for it through prayer.

I kept showing up through meetings. I kept reading about it in my books. I kept leaning into it through my connections. It's available inside of you and the more you develop it. The more you create it. We manifest in our life what we believe. And if you start to believe in the power of the choice you have, and you start to believe in the power of the presence of love within you, then you will manifest more of that, my friends.

But if you keep staying stuck in the belief that you're a piece of s**t, that you're not good enough, that you're an addict that can't get clean, that belief system, my friends, while I want to honor it, I want to respect it. I want to hold space for it in this room. But when we repeat it and we repeat it and we lean into it and we lean into it, we create more of it.

So how do we heal that belief system of self-attack and judgment? We check in with it. We get to know it and we respect it. And I'd like to do that with you right now. Anybody have a friend, a fellow in this group or at home that's in meetings or someone that's trying to get clean in your life that you're friends with obviously are here.

So you might, yeah. And let's say that brother or sister comes to you and they're like, yo, I want to pick up right now and you're feeling really good in your recovery in this moment, let's say. What might you say to them? You would remind them of the choice that they have. And it seems sometimes so effortless to give that, right?

Like if you see your brothers and sisters and you're in a good state, you're like bro, like you have a choice. Mama, you can hit the meeting. Whatever we would might say to each other. How often do we say that to ourself? Never never. When have you ever asked yourself, Why do you feel that way?

Oh, yeah, it's easier to do for others, but the question of why do you feel that way? Turning that question towards ourselves is the opposite of how we live. We live in an inner dialogue of screw you for feeling that way. Why are you feeling that way? Right? What's wrong with you that you would feel that way?

This constant attack, judgment, criticism. I want to teach you today that there's another way to be, that there's another way to reflect inward. That you can be that sober friend to yourself. How are you feeling in this moment right now? Is there a part of resistance that might be up for anybody, fear, concern?

Is anybody open to checking inward and getting to know some of what's happening inside of us? And if at any point you're like, nope, I don't want to do that. Just let my voice soothe you and just relax. Just let this be like a nice, brief, meditative practice. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.

It's total freedom here. So just for a moment, just think about a part of you that you might be resenting, or a part of me just gets outraged when my partner does that, or when I want to pick up, I just hate myself, or I have got this controlling part of myself. Anybody know those parts of themselves that they hate?

Maybe it's just I hate the added part of me. If you're comfortable checking in with that part of you, just follow my guidance. If you're not comfortable with specifically checking in with that part of you, just check in. Just check in with what's inside of you right now in this room.

So this first step is just to choose to check in and we're going to do that together. If you feel comfortable, close your eyes, place your hand on your belly and just take a deep breath in and feeling your diaphragm expanding. And on the exhale, let that go.

Inhale out. Exhale, relax your diaphragm.

Place your other hand on your heart. Take a deep breath in and expand your diaphragm. On the exhale, let it go.

Checking inward, let's just become a little curious. Notice what you're feeling inside of your body.

Notice any sensations, thoughts, feelings, anything that's coming up for you right now.

Just check in with that part of you.

What do you know about it?

How old is that part of you?

What does it want you to know right now?

Any thoughts, sensations?

Breathe into that part of you. Just ask what it wants you to know right now.

Deep breath in and let that go.

Deep breath in and let that go.

[AD BREAK]

Okay, people, listen up, listen up, listen up. I have been an active person all my life. I enjoy working out. I love being fit. But when I turned 40, holy moly, everything changed. And let me just tell you, I lost so much muscle. It's just not that I lost it. I can't even build it. It's so much harder. So I have to really take this seriously.

So when I heard about Kion's Aminos, I needed to find out all about it. So much so that I had a co-founder and CEO, Angelo Keeley, on the show last week. And we broke down how Kion's Aminos will really help with your muscles and longevity. I always knew that I needed a protein, but I didn't know how much more I would need as I got older.

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And you know, I love sugar-free, and that is why I'm so thrilled to have Kion as a sponsor. If you wanna get your support for your body, you wanna feel strong, you wanna feel healthy, you've got to try Kion Aminos, and because you're a listener of the show, they're hooking you up with a deal. To save 20% go to getkion.com/gabby.

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[END AD BREAK]

GABBY: Becoming a little bit more curious just for a moment, just for a moment, a little more curious. What does that addict part of you want you to know? Are there any images, any story lines, just anything else that wants to come through feelings or sensations? Just breathe into it and let it go.

And now, let's just open our heart to a little bit of compassionate and connection right now. And just gently ask this part of you the same way you would ask your sober friend. What do you need right now? How can I help you?

And just listen to what comes through.

Don't question it.

Just again, place your hand on your heart and your hand on your belly and give it some breath. Breathe into that part of you that's speaking up right now. Let that breath go.

Breath extending that calm energy with your breath to that part of you right now.

And notice if your heart is a little bit more open, if you're a little bit more curious, if you have a little bit more calm energy. Take another deep breath in and breathe into that diaphragm and breathe into that heart. And on the exhale, let it go.

Yawn if you need to, just feel into that presence. Inhale out and exhale.

And when you feel ready, just open your eyes to the room and check back in with me and the group.

How do you feel?

Peaceful. How do you feel? Free.

Anyone else? Relaxed. Was anyone surprised by what came through?

Did anyone feel like they connected to the addict part of themselves? Yeah. How old was that part of you?

Six. Anyone else get an age? Five.

Did anybody, was anybody surprised by what came up, came up for them?

Anybody have part of them that came up and it was like, nope, can't go there. Don't want to go there. Check out. Yeah. That would be most expected right now. So remember when I was earlier saying like you have access to the healer inside of you, that voice, that's the healer inside of you. That's the sober friend.

That's the parent you never had. That's the resourced self. And when we calm down, we get curious, we send a little compassionate connection, we can have these spontaneous moments where that self energy comes through and it's like, don't go back. You don't have to go back. There's more good here. And not everybody's going to have that spontaneous moment.

But as you keep exercising choice, it will come through. So let me give you these three steps I took you through. It's a method I call the check-in method. It's based on the principles of internal family systems therapy, which somebody here does. IFS is a really profound therapy for addicts. So I sort of gave you a truncated version of it that it is not too soon to start to play around with.

First step, choose to check in, right? So super triggered, you want to go rage, you want to pick up, whatever that moment is. And if you have enough awareness, it's good place to practice it here because you're not going to pick up, right? So maybe you're super triggered and I want to go rage on somebody or want to go do whatever.

You have that split second where you can say, no, but Gabby said I could choose to check in. Step one, choice. Remember you have the choice and you can choose to check in, focusing your attention inward.

Step two, become curious. All right. What are the feelings, thoughts, and sensations that are happening inside of me right now?

What else do I know about this feeling of me and this part inside of me? Maybe you name it. That's my part that everything's okay. That's my everything's okay part, just get over it. Maybe you say, Oh, that's my addict part. Or you just become curious about what's happening somatically and you just check into your body.

You maybe even say like, well, how old are you? You start talking to this part inside of you like it's a person. We've got a lot of thoughts and little feelings inside of us, right? So we just start to address it, becoming curious. What do I know about you? What do you want me to know? And then the third step is compassionate connection.

So maybe you put your hand on your heart and your hand on your belly and you take a breath and you ask that part inside of you, what do you need right now? How can I help you?

Do this once a day, five times a day, 30 times a day—just do it. You know, when we want to have a relationship with somebody, it's like, you can't just not pick up the phone and call. You can't just expect that person or sponsor to just call you all the time, right? That's not the gig, right?

You're not supposed to have your sponsor call you all the time. It's your role to check in. Yeah, you with me guys? It's your role to check in check in check in. Call your sponsor, check in with the meeting. Check in. But you can also check in. You can also check in with yourself all day long.

And the more you develop that practice of choosing to check in, becoming curious and compassionately connecting by asking how can I help, the more you check in the more you check in the more you check in?

The more you start to hear those spontaneous moments of that energy of that self, that inner sponsor. It's like, yep, stick around for the miracles. And as we develop that connection, it's called self with a capital S. It's a calm and compassionate and courageous and curious, creative, committed, connected part of who we are.

And as we start to talk to it more and not even talk to it, clear space for it and develop it and feel it, the more we trust it. And the more that message that I came in here with, that you have choice in every moment and that the healer you think you need is in you, the more that becomes real, my friends.

There's a beautiful passage from this metaphysical text that I've studied for years and it says there's a way of living in the world that is not here, though it seems to be. You do not change appearance, but you smile more frequently. Your forehead is soft and your eyes are serene. Wouldn't that be nice?

It's available to you. Nothing out there can give it to you. Trust me, what's happening out there ain't so cool. So we got to really learn how to rely on what's happening in here. I'm writing my 10th book right now. And I've written all these books about manifesting and spirituality and everybody's excited about the manifesting books.

You know, I want to manifest, I want to make things happen in my life. But the thing that people forget, that they always get wrong is that the secret to manifesting is to check in. That if we don't actually heal the core belief systems in our internal landscape, that we'll continue to manifest more of what we don't want.

And the big work, the big manifesting work is happening right here, right now in this room. And healing is a collective experience of just collecting miracle moments. Some people in the room said they felt relaxed, a little bit of relief. Maybe you had a fleeting second of curiosity. Celebrate that.

Celebrate the miracle moments. One of my greatest experiences in early recovery was I had this friend and I've shared this story in here, but it's so valuable. I've had this friend named Joel and he had this big sober life. And he had lots of sponsors and his career was banging. He had a nice apartment, great 10 years of sobriety behind him, consistent recovery.

And I said, yo man, what is it that's allowed you to have all this? Like, how did you get here? And he said, lots of little right actions, celebrate those miracle moments. Take these little right actions. Check in, check in, choose to check in, choose to check in, choose to check in, choose to check in.

Add up those miracle moments, building a muscle. It's literally changing the neural pathways in your brain. Right now, your brain's response to a trigger is to pick up and put out the fire of that trigger. And so you can rewire those neural pathways by making new choices. That's why the consistency of calling a sponsor, going to a meeting, staying in the rooms, whatever it is that you choose to do with your consistency.

That's why it works because you're literally reprogramming your brain and you're experiencing new sober awareness. And as you start to develop that sober awareness and that connection inside, you become further and further from that triggered reaction. And you create more space between the trigger and the response.

Everybody tracking that with me? Because it's the space between the trigger and the reaction to it that is the miracle, but it's your choice what you will do in that space. I'm going to say that again. It's the space between the trigger and the reaction to it that is the miracle. And it's your choice what you will do in that space.

You are all innocent. You have done nothing wrong. You had every right to be in the extreme and destructive patterns that you have been in because you've been trying really f-ing hard to protect yourself. No one was there, and you had to put out the fire. And I love you, and I believe in you, and I understand you, and I want to remind you that you have it within you to heal.

And you have people around you that care about you right here in this room. Thank you. Thank you for being with me today.

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.

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