free meditation
hero image spiritual connection

I recently had a conversation with Reverend Jacqui Lewis, who is one of my greatest spiritual teachers and a long-time friend.

During our deep conversation, we explored how our darkest moments can open us up to the light and how love has the power to transform anger into positive action.

This episode encourages everyone to embrace love and use its profound influence to make the world a better place.

Join us for an instant boost of faith and a valuable lesson in spiritual resilience.

In this episode, you will learn:

  • How to nurture the light and resilience within ourselves
  • How to return to love when fear takes over
  • How to spread hope and healing, creating a ripple effect in the world
  • How to tap into the divine love within us through inner healing
listen now

Enhance your practice today with my

FREE MAGNETIC ENERGY MEDITATION

to supercharge your manifesting power

get more gabby

Exclusive early access

Listen to the first chapter of my new book Self Help for free!

By submitting your number, you agree to receive recurring automated promotional marketing text messages from Dear Gabby, Inc. and Gabby Plus, Inc. at the cell number you entered above. Consent is not a condition of any purchase. Reply HELP for help and STOP to cancel. Msg frequency varies. Msg and data rates may apply. You also agree to our Terms & Privacy Policy.

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 #217 Jul 29, 2024 spiritual connection

how to trust in the universe and build unshakeable spiritual resilience

[00:00:00] 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.

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.[00:01:00] 

Welcome back, my friends. Welcome back to Dear Gabby. Today is a special day because one of my heroes is on the show. Someone who actually gave me a spiritual home to begin my live talks early in my speaking career. My audiences started getting bigger and bigger and I needed a bigger space and there was this interfaith church around the corner from my apartment in the East Village and I knew that there was this really amazing minister that worked at that church, that ran that church, that led that church.

And it was a woman called Jackie Lewis, the senior minister and public theologian at Middle Church. And we met, I think we met through Marianne Williamson because Marianne was giving talks there. And I was like, I want to give some talks here too. And Jackie opened her arms to me and gave me. This stage in this extraordinary spiritual [00:02:00] home and middle became my home, became my spiritual space.

It became a place where I would frequently lead talks and hold conversations and grow my spiritual journey as a speaker. And it was An amazing experience to not only be welcomed into that church, but welcomed into the community. And Jackie has dedicated her life to making the world a better place, truly.

She is such a fierce advocate for racial equality, economic justice, LGBTQIA equality. Her energy is so powerful. She's warm, loving, firm. She's super compassionate, super spiritual, and no nonsense. So this is an episode that you are not going to want to miss. In Jackie's weekly newsletters, she sends out, my husband, the only newsletter he reads, not even mine, the main newsletter he likes to read Jackie's newsletter.

And he's not her common, you know, person in her congregation, but he is obsessed with her newsletter. So when you [00:03:00] hear her words, you're going to understand, you're going to know why she's my hero. I highly recommend you enjoy this episode with Jackie. You're going to love it so much.

And do not forget that you can listen to the first chapter of my new book, Self Help. This is your chance to change your life. The book is out on December 31st, but you get a sneak peek. Go to DearGabby.com/firstchapter. This is only going to be available for a little while, so don't miss it.

Head over to Deargabby.com/firstchapter. Let me just take a moment before I even begin because I just want to make sure that I get completely center into the presence of who's in this room right now. I love. Me too. I've missed you. I, I've missed you, but what I said to you is I'm so happy to be back in your orbit.

And you said to me, you never left my orbit. Never. And that's super right on, Jack, because we have a deep bond because for many years, I was living in the East Village. Yeah. And you created a spiritual home for me. And when I was first building my own talks [00:04:00] in New York, my bigger talks, right, so it's like getting out of the Hare Krishna Center into the stage, into the theater, I would come to your spiritual home, Middle Church.

And Middle became a spiritual home for me to be able to do my work. And Was it right before 2020 or right during 2020? It was right before 2020. It seems like a long, long time ago, maybe 2018 ish, somewhere in there. You were, yeah, you were, well, but then there was the fire. It was in the fire was 2020.

That's right. The fire was, we had, all kinds of fires. The COVID pandemic came. Yep. So in March, middle was one of the first churches to shut down. You know how diverse we are. Yep. So we had all kinds of older people, young people, immunocompromised people. We just were like, that's it. And we started making a worship movie every Sunday.

We would pull from our old clips and our old music and add some new stuff. And it was great. And then it was December and the neighbor had a fire. The second one in a year in the same spot [00:05:00] and our big old beautiful building was just like an upside down ship Literally, so all that wood and just torch the sanctuary now.

What do you feel have been the miracles? and the light that has come from that fire. So many things. Do you remember this movie, Things Lost in the Fire? I think it was a Halle Berry movie. Yeah. Of course we lose things in the fire. Yeah. I've been saying the things we found in the fire. Right. First and foremost, we got love notes.

from Paris, from Beijing, China, from Bendigo, Australia. How, why, what? The story went all over the globe and people were writing us saying we're their Notre Dame, that we're their progressive Notre Dame. Just so much love we found in the fire. 700 people joined the church in a year and a half around the fire and the COVID.

They found our worship movies. That's right. Our justice stuff and our good music. Yep. But I think we also [00:06:00] found our resilience and we Our tough cookies. It's been rough. The trauma of that fire. When you're working on rebuilding, and we are. You're in the fire again, like you're in the fire when you walk by the site, you're in the fire again.

But there's some kind of forged in the fire resilience that I think I've discovered in myself and in my people. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you, you have a really major statement that I wanted to actually begin this conversation with. I'm really just checking in with you about what it means to change the atmosphere with how light begets light.

Hope begets hope, but the darkness can give birth to the light. Yes, that's yeah You you know because of your own personal story and journey Oftentimes in a traumatized time and let's admit we're in one. Yep I don't know in my lifetime if there have been this many clusters of suffering and pain, right?

In Congo, Sudan, [00:07:00] Iraq, Israel, Gaza, Detroit, Tex Mex, border zone, and in Washington. And a pandemic. Yeah. And a pandemic, right? And Washington, yeah. So that, so that we are traumatized people. I'm gonna just stick with America for a minute. Watching the world through traumatized eyes, all of that. George Floyd horrible, Ahmad Arbery, you know, all of those deaths that showed us that we were kind of not on our best behavior.

And I think two kinds of things happened. One was there was rage and anger and, um, that is happening now. Our social media is just a hot mess. The things people say that you would never say to somebody's face, the way we're responding to each other and ugliness. But also, the other thing that happened is I think the dark times gave birth to a new kind of light.

Yeah. Collective organizing. All those young people in the streets, all over the world in the streets saying, you know, you know, justice for George Floyd or [00:08:00] getting involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, which then they had to say, it's not just black people, it's like brown people and it's immigrant people and it's trans people, it's women.

So there's been kind of a ripple. of a call, I think, to justice and to love each other. That's what I mean by darkness giving birth to light. Our friend Valerie Kaur would say, Is this the darkness of the tomb or the darkness of the womb? As time has gone on, she says, Yes, it's both. And that's what I think.

It's horrible, the hardness. I don't believe in a deity that causes hardness so we can grow up. But the dark time has made us look at our neighbors and say, you know what? I'm not going to be okay if you're not okay. Yeah. Lots of people are understanding the Ubuntu philosophy. I am who I am because you are who you are.

And I am actually you do complete me, you know, and actually I am your keeper. So that kind of birthing, the kind of embryonic. I'm going to work with a birth metaphor, but that young hope that, [00:09:00] that, that emerging light that then that's giving hope to more light. So what happens, there's a success in a campaign.

Oh, yay. You know, people win the right to vote. Yes. We have dreamers doing a certain kind of work. Yes. The young people say I can, I can see say, the light grows because It amplifies itself. The hope grows because someone says, actually, on my block, we all were able to organize a campaign to take care of our kiddos during COVID.

Right. Actually, we were able to all get together in the zoom and raise imagination. My friend Amanda would say, actually, we were able to march. Anyway, actually, we were able to use our social media platforms to make a difference. Yeah. That hope. Yes. And that hope. And it's pulling more hope in. Right. And it's interesting because it comes back to what you said.

You look, you, the light that came from the fire, the light that came from the fire was this community's resilience. Exactly. And so we only can know our resilience when we're [00:10:00] faced with what we have to touch into. Absolutely. And I think that as, traumatizing and horrific as these years have been and they continue to double down on the trauma.

It's not funny. It's not funny at all. But I think that, that with that, we've had this opportunity for awakening. And I felt that really personally, and I see it obviously with my community, and I'm sure you do too. But personally, I feel that there's moments when In the past, I might have been sweating the small stuff or hung up on something or just looking at the world through this lens that was somewhat superficial.

And something really has shifted me, particularly in the last four or five months, Jack, where I'm like, Oh, no, I've got time for that. That's my favorite expression. Ain't nobody got time. Ain't nobody got time for that. And then there's also this feeling of like, like even today I was saying something about someone to my makeup artist and I was just like, oh, that woman wasn't very [00:11:00] nice to me when I was asking for help, right?

I was just like, bitching. And then I was like, I'm gonna send her some love right now. Like, I do not have the capacity to hold back. Drama. Negativity. Violent thoughts. Right. Because. I got work to do. And it's not just you and me, right? It's not just the preacher here in the room or the motivational speaker and author.

It's not us. It's not because we've chosen this path. It's every one of us. And so can you speak to how you would engage your community and this community in our responsibility individually to be resilient and then to show up with that resilience? Yeah. You know, I want to say something though about your laughter.

Like we both laughed an awkward laugh, but I do think that. This dark, this hard time has also birthed humor. I think you know what I mean, but there's a way in which the ridiculousness of some of the stuff is just you have to laugh or you'll [00:12:00] cry. So I think humor is in our kit for how we make it through, how we be reading it.

I think I want to save this an answer to your question though. Everybody, every, every soul is on the planet to make the planet better. Everybody, every soul is on the planet to create community of love and care and flourishing and togetherness and belonging like that we all want it. I agree. We all want it and we know we need it.

And there's a way in which maybe when we're not in an emergency, Gabby, it's like Gabby will do that and Jackie will do that and Valerie will do that and William and Barbara will do that and we'll watch and we'll say. That's awesome. But we're in an emergency, and I think in an emergency, people know, like, when, when, when Sandy came.

Yep. You know, in country, who, everybody bailed each other out, right? We were here in New York when Sandy happened. Yes, we were. Right? We were flooded. We were flooded, and couldn't use our bathrooms on the, where you lived. Yep. Not for a while. Nothing worked. The, [00:13:00] the bodega got out the water and put out the electric and you could charge your stuff and you could, everybody took care of each other.

And here's a sandwich with young adults climbing up into the high rises in alphabet city, taking food to old folks. I mean, in an emergency, everybody knows 9 11 is on deck. Absolutely. I mean, it's making me cry. But I think about those times when New York comes together, I mean, this is America, but like in a city that's so compact, you can just like feel the, the, just.

All separation melts in those moments. We are New York beautiful. We really are. And I think in pockets all around the globe, we can see that happening. And if we look at it and celebrate it, like it's called appreciative inquiry, right? If you say, look, look, I see right there in that neighborhood, people doing beautiful things together, a block party, an event to celebrate the life of a child that died.

You know, all of those things are the way we teach each other how to be fully human, to be fully human. And from my faith tradition, I [00:14:00] would say with a spark of divine is to know your superpowers. Yeah, and the superpower we have most.

So my friends, it is hot summer season, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. And I am sweating, I'm exercising my butt off, I'm going my sauna, I'm sweating, sweating, sweating to the oldies. And so with all that sweat comes the necessity to hydrate. And that's why I am so thrilled to have Element as our sponsor on the show.

This is a product that I just love because when we don't have enough. electrolytes, we can run the risk of electrolyte deficiency or imbalance and that can cause headaches and cramps and fatigue and brain fog and weakness. And so I just start my workout. I got my element. It's a zero sugar electrolyte drink and it's just born out of research.

It's for optimal health. I love it. The element is formulated for me. for anyone [00:15:00] on a mission to restore their health through hydration. And it's really cool because Element is used in so many professional and Olympic athletes. So I feel like I'm definitely pumping up my game with my Element. And it's also perfect for us moms or those of us who love to sweat it out because exercising or sitting in the sauna, which is me, can really dehydrate you.

So whatever it is that you're doing with your exercise, with your sweat, even if you're just out and about with your kids, make sure you're hydrating. Get your free element sample pack with any purchase at drinkelmnt.com/Gabby. That's drinkelmnt.com/Gabby. Also try the element sparkling, a bold 16 ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water.

So good. My friends, my friends, my friends, imagine completely transforming your wardrobe with some really beautiful luxury pieces without. Breaking the bank. Well, Quince is absolutely the brand to make that possible. Quince makes women's clothes that are totally affordable, and they [00:16:00] offer an absolutely stunning collection of essentials that are priced at 50 to 80 percent less than similar brands.

So I had my eye on this very specific brand that was like these cashmere sweaters. I was like, Oh my God, I want it. They were ridiculously priced, like stupidly price. I could not wrap my head around it. I go on to quints and no joke people. I literally see the exact same beautiful style with the same quality.

And it is 80 percent less than what I saw online. I'm not kidding you. They have 100 percent Magnolian cashmere sweaters that are so bomb and they're only 50. That's literally 50 people. They also have amazing home goods. There's a cashmere blanket that I got that again was 80 percent less than the one I wanted when I saw it at this really high end store.

You could have the luxury items that you want for so much less, and you can just enjoy it, have it, indulge in it, and just go for it, my friend. So indulge [00:17:00] in affordable luxury. Go to quince.com/deargabby for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince.com/deargabby to get free shipping and 365 day returns.

To be superhuman, the superpower we have most is love. And the spark of divine. Now let's just, I just want to come back to that. So the spark of divine means that yes, we're human. Just let me feed this back how I would interpret it and just get that meatiness from you. Because we're having this human experience, but we have God.

Absolutely. God is in us. Inside us. God is in each of us individually and uniquely and collectively. Absolutely. Is that how you would perceive it? Absolutely, that's right. And you know, I'm a Christian. Mm hmm. And I put my fingers up on purpose. Yes. Because I would say I follow Jesus. Yes. Christian has sometimes become kind of really problematic to claim, but our [00:18:00] church, you know, is universalist.

Everybody's welcome. I'm a Jew who follows Jesus. I know. Well, we're talking about Jesus and a mission of love. Rabbi Jesus was the most loving person on the planet. Rabbi Jesus. And don't forget that, everybody. Right, exactly. How outrageous is it that the church has sometimes been anti Semitic in the name of Jesus?

Right. Here's the Jew being anti Semitic. Crazy town. I think it's a miracle. That happens when Rabbi Jesus is on the earth. Whether we think he's son of God, or child of God, or immaculately conceived, and all that kind of stuff, this is a God human partnership. It is absolutely a divine human partnership.

This rabbi calls God his abuun. Let me say that again. ab, the Hebrew word for father is Abba, and most of us learned that Jesus would've been calling like Abba, saying PR my father Abba. But actually the Aramaic word is AB wound, A-B-W-O-O-N, Abba [00:19:00] plus Wound, which is womb. This is a parent. Yeah. This, this rabbi relates to the deity, to the holy as with parental love.

Right. With, with the, with the, with the reverence and the awe and the need and the joy and the hope and the disappointment that one has with your parents. That's right. This, this is a human, human divine partnership. When the, when the parental figure is divine and you are human and together you're moving Earth feeding people, making sure they have clothes, you know, having, having a health care program that predates Obamacare and you don't need a card for, like, we're going to get healed, we're going to get well, we're going to get okay together.

And I think that's what the partnership with the divine is about, taking care of the planet, taking care of the people. taking care of our posse, loving ourselves. And we have to start that partnership with the divine. We always have. It's like I've been been trained recently in the last two years in internal family systems therapy.

And so when we talk about the divine, [00:20:00] I'll call it self, right? We have that That God nature that love nature is in us. It is who we are. And just as a course of miracles would say, we don't need to teach you the meaning of love. We just need to release the blocks to the presence of love within you. I love that so much.

And that truth is the whole thing. We've all got it. We've had these collective traumas. The, Pretenses that we've built against love have been dismantled because sometimes in those breakdowns and those shakedowns, love can be revealed. Absolutely. But it's not that we have to go get it. It's in us. It's in us.

It's in us. And so, so listening to this podcast right now, someone is activating that love presence within themselves. They're releasing and dismantling those blocks against it. And so I just, I feel this like, really holy call for every human to be in their own way, waking up to what is that God presence within them and how would they be bringing it forth.

And how the world would be different, Gabby, if that were true. Oh [00:21:00] honey, I mean, we would be a whole other way. We might be out of work. I don't know. But we, we would be happily out of work, happily out of work. And you and I would just be having some tea somewhere. Exactly. But truly, this amazing definition of love that I found when I was in seminary, my professor, Jim Loder, love is the non possessive delight in the unique particularity of the other.

The non possessive delight in the unique particularity of the other. Beautiful. Right? And when Rabbi Jesus is saying, love God, love neighbor, love self, love God, love your neighbor as you love yourself, that teaching is, you actually aren't going to love anybody until you love yourself. So I would say, love is the non critical, fully accepting delight in the other.

That I sometimes think is me. That's right. Right? I'm shooting on myself. I'm shamed of myself. I didn't, I couldn't, I wouldn't. The parts of us that society says [00:22:00] doesn't count, isn't beautiful, isn't glorious. That goes so deep inside developing children. And they don't love themselves. If we could talk about breaking down barriers.

Break down the parenting. Yep. That causes children to doubt their beauty. Who am I to say I'm not beautiful? Our friend Marianne. To teach young parents, the most important gift to give your child is for them to look in your eyes as their mirror and be like, you are all the things my love. You can do anything you want.

You can be anything you want. And the child interjects that mirror, that gaze and goes, yeah, I am not perfect, but I am. Awesome. Yes. That is a revolutionary kind of self love, not aggrandizement, not narcissism, but just, I see this and I can delight in it. Yes. And then if I can delight in the strangest, most difficult parts of myself, that's rehearsal for delighting in my neighbor.

Well, you just nailed it [00:23:00] because, so we've got this beautiful conversation about how we all have that God within us and we all have that God within us. that presence of compassion and connection and that grandness within us. It's like we are capable of stepping in far more than we've ever even possibly imagined, but we build up these belief systems as children.

These belief systems get repurposed. We project them out. onto others. We don't want to feel them. And I see it with my five year old, right? He was a three year old in a class of the six year old in a Montessori program. And the, the bigger kid was bullying him at three years old. And so what did he learn at three years old?

Big kids are cool. Little kids are not cool. Okay. Right. So I see in him that story at such a really ripe age of, you know, I need to be like the big kids. I don't want to be like the little kids. And so the question isn't so much about what's going to happen to us, but it's how do we hold the. for that transformation when we're in that youthful place?

Or how do we hold the space for that transformation for the youthful [00:24:00] places within us as adults? that need our healing and attention now. How do we love on, in my book, Fierce Love, how do we love on the little person inside us? That's it. That's our job. The whole thing. Our job is to love on that three year old.

That's right. To love on that five year old who got called the N word in kindergarten. That's right. That's my story. To love on the Or the girl who got called the K word your situation. The girl who was like the most flat chested 21 year old on the planet. Right. That was also my story. Right. All those ways.

Where no matter our gender, no matter our sexuality, no matter our religion, sadly, as much as humans are capable of love. We're also, when we're living out of fear, able to be mean to each other and to stick into each other our own fear. You said it. Project our stuff onto someone, they take it in. Look at the transaction, right?

They take in their They don't want to feel it. They project it out. And they get it back. And suddenly you're in this transference of Judgment cycle. Absolutely. That leads to That was [00:25:00] the thing I saw with my son. It's, I kept seeing him be pretty not nice to like any kid that was like a little bit more vulnerable or a kid that was younger and just being mean, like mean.

And so you want to go into that place of like, why is my kid mean? Or you can't do that. Or, and then that's just reinforcing the bad kid. Right. And so I started to really dig into my work as it related to my child. And I was looking at it and I said, Oh my God, he learned that the big kids are meant to be mean to the little kids.

Yes. is a horrific feeling inside of him. Yeah. He seeks out the vulnerable children, little or vulnerable, and is mean to them, projecting out onto them the feelings he doesn't want to feel within himself, but also to see that he's not alone in those feelings. Exactly. Exactly. And all that you just did right there is very, very sophisticated psychology, right?

And this, a psychologist would say, Your son took in the object that he was not good enough, that he was not strong enough because he was little. That gets inside him. He sticks it back into another [00:26:00] child so he can get rid of it. Right? Project out what we don't want to deal with it. Yeah. And that's happening not just with three years olds, but with 40 year olds.

It's happening with 80 year olds, 90 year olds. It's happening. It's happening. I mean, it is the root cause of war. That's exactly right. Totally. And it gets back to the top of our talk, Gabby, where we could say hope amplifies hope, or we could say hope also seeks an object that's like itself. That's right.

And that's where we get to how you draw it. I'm hopeful. I'm looking for hope. I'm looking for hope in the community to reinforce my hope and it magnifies my hope. When we share our stories. That's a really beautiful way I think, of sticking into each other, giving to each other, recognizing beautiful story each other, other in ourselves.

Yeah, I see you, right? Yeah. This Ubuntu thing. I am who I am because you are who you are. When the Zulu people, that's where it comes from. They greet each other, they say, I see you. Yeah. And the other one says, I exist. [00:27:00] Yeah. So this, I'm talking about the way we recognize what is good and beautiful and loving, and also recognize what is sad and broken and the shards of that.

To give each other space to feel that is to give each other space for that to change. Yeah.

I just want to take a quick break from the show to remind you of the very exciting news, which is that my 10th book, Self Help, this is your chance to change your life. It's going to change so many lives. It's coming out on December 31st. The book is ready and available for pre order. And just for the next few days, I'm giving away the first chapter of the audiobook.

So all you have to do is go over to deargabby.com/firstchapter. That's deargabby.com/firstchapter. And that's it. You can listen to the first chapter of the book. I cannot wait for you to enjoy this. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Go there now. Go get it free. deargabby.com/firstchapter[00:28:00]

You just actually gave me something to boil this down and simplify this because that is my gift and that is what I do here is to really look at it from this perspective. So we've got Someone might be listening and be like, okay, well, Gabby and Jackie have done a lot of spiritual work. They've devoted their lives and their careers and their, their, their future for the rest of our lives will be 99 years old doing this work.

And so that's easy for them to have that connection to God and to feel that connection to others and to have that. And we've done so much personal growth and development, but for someone who's just new to this and they're just sort of like, well, I like the idea that that, that there's God within me, but I just hate my mother in law or I am so angry at the politicians or I'm so outraged.

The thing that just sort of struck me was that by leaning even slightly into the part of us, that self within us, the God within us, that has even the slightest connection to compassion, or [00:29:00] the slightest connection to hope, or the slightest, even just calmness listening to this conversation, and to just give a little focus towards that energy, even slightly, that that begins to Light begets light, right?

Hope begets hope. That starts to open up. Because here's the truth. Anyone listening still to this end of this audio right now, they're here because they recognize the God within us as themselves. Yes. That's, that's, that's it. Seeking that, right? Exactly. They recognize it in themselves. I love what you're saying, Gabby.

And, and this kind of, it amplifies itself, right? We, we're back to our birthing energy. So you're in the mirror. Brushing your teeth, person who's listening, I hope you're doing that daily, and you're flossing. In my book, Fierce Love, I have a schedule of questions to ask yourself or affirmations to say to yourself.

I didn't used to be the affirmation girl, but I am now. You're brushing your teeth, and you could say. I'm, I'm [00:30:00] hurting a little bit today around that conversation yesterday, or my husband's so and so, or the disappointment at work. Just own that. I think that's really important. Not to repress it, just to own it.

And then lean into, and I'm still liked. I'm still liked. Two things can be true. I'm still loved. I'm furious with my mother in law. But I'm still love to remind us that we are built for love by love like we are love made flesh We are love made flesh love made flesh. Just love with skin around us. Yeah, so you just read that movie those Aliens that came and they had skin on Raquel Welch's daughter was in it, I don't do alien movies, Jess.

This was, this was, this was, you're, okay, I do. Anyway. I have like a really bizarre movie list. Please don't look at my Netflix. Okay, carry on. They peeled off their skin and they were like. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I think if we peel off our skin, we're loved. 100%. And so look for [00:31:00] it. Look in your eyes. Look for the reminder.

And you're reminding yourself is what you're saying. That you're loved. Yeah. That you are loved, that you are liked. I'm blown away by this affirmation. It's so simple. I'm angry with. The politician, but I'm still, I'm still love. Wait, let's take that home with us. Everyone listening to everywhere you go. I am mad at my mother love.

I'm still love. I am so pissed about this, but I'm somebody just like bumped into me on the subway and even were like a little rude. I'm still love. So how do you get back to that? How do we return? to love, return to love. That's exactly right. And you know, I think even just this morning when I was kind of bitching about this, this woman that kind of blew me off at work one time, like seven years ago.

Right. And I'm talking about her to my makeup artist, but very quickly I said, you know, let me just send her some love. And so that, I mean, it's the same thing. Truly. I, I was, I like to talk about this as like a comeback rate. It's like, you're not going to be in light all the time. Although you. are light all the time, you're going to detour into fear as the course of course, you're always in a detour into fear because that's just and less and less and less the more [00:32:00] you develop that love connection.

And but we detour into fear. And so it's really not about whether or not we detour into fear. It's about how quickly we come back. And so here's a brand new tool. So radical. I am feeling that, but I am also still love. You just are. Yeah. Literally, I believe the only thing that can chase away hate is love.

That's it. That's Dr. King. The only thing that can kill the darkness is light. And since we have both, you know, in the kind of non dual way that Father Richard Ward would say, like, we are both of these things, we're all these things everywhere all at once at the same time. We just focus. Like if we, If we looked in the mirror and said, I see a spark of love, you're just thinking it will make you smile a little or just push down the impulse of fear and trauma.

Right. And I might even say [00:33:00] what I liked about that is even not even, it's not even pushing down the impulse because by recognizing the impulse, it's just saying, Okay. Here it is. Here it is. Because it seems to be like, if we're like, oh, let's push down the impulse. It's like, well, well, that's, that's suppressing the truth, right?

Like I'm traumatized right now. I'm, I'm feeling angry right now. I am outraged by whatever I am outraged by right now. This is true. Like I am outraged by reproductive health in this country. Outrage. Outrage. But I'm still love. You're still love. Absolutely love. And I, and that rage also can co, look, we, we, this is the last thing I think we should close on.

It's like, we have outrage. Like, how can we sit back and pretend like, you know, a embryo is, is something that somebody has to pay for, for the rest of their life. You know, it's like, and to stop, you know, I'm a, I have a child that came out of IUI and another child that I carried for five and a half months that was an IVF child.

Like this is horrific to think that people would be held back from their children or forced to carry a baby or. Forced to travel to get a abortion that could kill them. Forced to keep a dying baby in their [00:34:00] body. By the way, Jack, that was my story. I would have died if I kept carrying that child. And I'm in New York state.

I was two weeks away from legally being able to have an abortion. And so this is just horrific. It's disgusting. And so I feel that rage. Yeah. That rage is valuable. It's valuable in that. I'm going to invest everything I can into Planned Parenthood. I'm going to have a vocal and have a voice here and speak up.

But the question really becomes when the rage takes over and love isn't present, how powerful can it really be? Yeah. I love that and I, I like our, we're not talking about pressing it down or suppressing it. I think we're saying you're going to feel all the things you feel, but I think I'm trying to say love modifies the feeling.

At some point, love, the outrage has messages for us. We are angry because we care. We are angry because we love. We are grieving because we love, right? But the, but I think love modifies our impulse. [00:35:00] hurt each other. That's right. That's right. I think love modifies our impulse to strike out one another.

Right. I hope that love can be a catalyzer for conversation instead of violence. So Dick Schwartz, the founder of IFS, he calls this self led leadership. That's right. And so we can lead from that rage. And Hey, you know, it's going to fall flat. You know, those activists out there, they're just screaming and yelling and God bless them.

There's energy there behind it. Right. But when there isn't an integration of that self energy or of that God in that faith, then it's going to fall flat. It's not enough. It's not enough. It's going to get, it's going to, it's going to activate. It's not going to empower. The anger has messages. The anger is important and it's real.

We're both saying that. It's real. But enough. A movement based on anger is not going to move. Yes. Not for long. Not forever. That's right. Not as far as we need to go. A movement built on rage might get us in the news for a minute, but a movement built on love [00:36:00] is what's going to heal the world. Mm. And we've got to have that.

And love, not nammy pammy, not codependent love songs, no, fierce, redemptive, just love. Yes. Yes. Yes. that we all have inside us. Yes. We know how to do it. Yes. That's why we take care of each other in the storms. That's right. That's why we take food to the sick people. Yeah. That's why we cry when someone else is crying.

Yep. Because we all have that compassionate, loving heart in there that sometimes is calcified. Yeah. But we can just like, strip off the stuff and get back to it. And I think it's a simple, it's a simple moment. listening to us here, re listening to this tomorrow, coming back and just being reminded of who you really are, and looking in the mirror and exactly as you said, my God, just so beautiful, looking in the mirror and just saying, I am still love.

I am still love. I still got it. That's right. Still got it. We're bringing you back. This is just the first of many conversations. I'm so glad to see you. Yeah. Let's do it again. Um, you're a sister. I want to spend [00:37:00] as much time as I can with you. And it's one of those moments where you come back, you're like, wait, COVID happened, but then we're not still in COVID.

You know what I mean? Like, we gotta spend some time together and we'll be doing a lot more together. I'm so excited, y'all. Cause. Gabby's one of my mentors. I'm older than she is, but she is a mentor to me around so many things, like how to speak in the world and do the thing. We've come a long way growing up together.

You know, Jack, I just, I just have to. Go on the record saying that you in this lifetime for me will go As one of the more cherished humans i've had the privilege of walking this life with And even though we haven't hung out a lot and we're only going to hang out a lot more You're a soul that I am proud to be close to and i'm just so proud to know you and everything that you create and the work that you do and the love that you bring i'm just really emotional to say this because I just Your devotion is so real and I, I love you.

I love you too. And you know, it is emotional to, you know, there's a lot of creation myths that say people get [00:38:00] separated and then they find each other again. And I always feel when we connect that we have found each other again, but we reclaim each other. I am so proud. I hope it's OK to say because I'm a little older.

I'm so proud of the way you have. Found your voice and use your voice in such impactful and powerful ways to help people to find a path to their best selves so we can all be better together. I'm so grateful to you and your work. And I love you too. I love you. Well, we're on mission together. Yeah, we are.
Let's do this thing. We can do it. Now you're messing up my makeup. I love you. Thank you. I love you. Thank you so much.

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 want to 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 of this show means a lot to me, so I really want to welcome you to leave an [00:39:00] honest review.

And you can follow me on social media at Gabby Bernstein. And if you want to 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.