Gabrielle Bernstein: Mastering the Super Attractor
Gabrielle Bernstein is a motivational speaker, a life coach, and a spiritual activist who, in less than a decade, has pretty much cornered the market as the go-to spiritual guru to the next generation. She is the author of several New York Times best-selling books, including May Cause Miracles, Spirit Junky, The Universe Has Your Back and Judgment Detox, and her latest work, Super Attractor – Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams.
An Interview with Gabrielle Bernstein – Mastering the Super Attractor
To listen to the full interview of Gabrielle Bernstein by Sandie Sedgbeer on What Is Going OM on OMTimes Radio, click the player below:
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Gabrielle, as a child, you were highly intuitive. You believed in angels and fairies; your Mum was a devotee of Gurumayi [the head of the Siddha Yoga lineage.] You grew up visiting Ashrams and meditating. You read Wayne Dyer in High School. Spirituality has always been a part of your life and, yet, you also say that the first 25 years of your life, you were in a negative mindset, always looking for something outside of yourself to make you happy. What happened during that period of your life to get you to the point where you battled with addictions from alcohol and drugs to food and relationships?
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: Well, I actually didn’t realize what it was that was the driving force behind that addictive behavior until later in my life. So, in my early 20’s, I was definitely looking to anesthetize some unresolved discomforts, and I was using drugs and alcohol to do that. I got sober when I was 25 because I had a strong spiritual foundation and I knew that there was more for me. At that point, I became a spiritual teacher, and I started writing books and giving talks, and I’ve been doing that now for 14 years. It was only in 2016 when I realized what was the driving force behind my addiction, panic, and in some cases workaholism, or chronic anxiety. That was all based on some memory of childhood trauma that I recalled when I was 36 years old in 2016. The recognition of that gave me an understanding of the ways I had been living before that.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Do you think that your paradoxical behavior – that you had this spiritual foundation and, yet, were indulging in behavior which you knew wasn’t really good for that unconscious knowledge drove you?
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: Yes, absolutely. I think that when you dissociate from a trauma, you can feel very flight or fight and not know why. We all look for different reasons to numb out, to anesthetize pain because you don’t want to feel it, but you don’t know why it’s even there. It’s a very confusing time for people.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: So, you had this epiphany at the age of 25, and you understood that you didn’t want to live like this anymore, but having an epiphany and turning your life around doesn’t happen overnight. It’s said that the first step is the hardest. What was your first step? And your second and third? What did you actually do to start turning things around?
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: When I got sober, the first step was to admit my powerlessness, to see and accept why I was struggling and honor that. Then I allowed myself to be humble, to be guided, and to follow a group program.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: At what point did you realize that you wanted to share your experience and what you learned with other people?
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: Very quickly into my recovery. I was talking about it publicly, and within six months started putting on talks, sharing my experience and the methods and spiritual lessons that I was learning, but differently, more modern, young way. I was 25, so it was coming out of me in a different lexicon.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: How did your friends respond? Did they think you were evangelizing?
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: No. The friends I’d made and the people who came to my talks believed what I was saying because I believed in it.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: In the first chapter of your new book Super Attractor, you tell a story about a coach who told you that she feels like a fraud because she has a lot of fear and still obsesses about the small stuff. You responded to that by confessing that here you were, writing your seventh spiritual book, and you’re still a head case. You are open about your failings and the moments when you don’t make it to the level you would like to be at. Are you a natural sharer, or is this something you do because you think that sharing your failings helps others cope better with their own?
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: Both. I’m naturally a sharer, and it feels more comfortable to me to be authentic. I wouldn’t be able to stand there and say ‘Well, one day, you’ll get there.” I wouldn’t be able to pretend that I was anything but the exact woman that I am in the moment, but at the same time, I think it is also extremely beneficial for a reader or audience member to see that they’re not alone. So, I have been very open and vocal about the struggles I’ve had so that people don’t feel that shame. I believe when you see somebody speaking openly about shameful topics when they stand in their recovery from that shame, they give others permission to release their shame too.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: It’s clear from the success of your books that after decades of being dismissed as new-age psychobabble, or just plain old woo-woo, spirituality has finally gone mainstream. Don’t take this the wrong way, but the principles, concepts, and ideas that you teach are not new.
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: They’re not new at all.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Consciousness is rising on the planet. People are waking up. There are many new, young spiritual teachers in the arena, and I should think a lot of them have had their eye on the vacated crowns of Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer. What do you think it is about your work, your approach, that people resonate with so much?
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: I know that it’s because I’ve been forthcoming, authentic, vulnerable, and I have only taught from the place that I am. I would never teach from a place of full recovery, and then, you know, each stage of my own personal growth and development has been the platform that I would teach from. So, whenever I am teaching, it is coming out of where I am. I’m grounded in what I’m teaching. I’m living what I’m teaching. I’m practicing what I’m teaching and have a lot to stand behind, so I’m not trying to be anything I’m not.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: Do you think part of your success was that you happened to be in the right place at the right time just as the consciousness on the planet was rising and a new generation was ready for something deeper and more meaningful than old-time religion? Or do you see it as more purposeful than that? That you had some spiritual contract or something?
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: This has nothing to do with the right place or the right time. This is what my spirit came in this lifetime to do, and everything that has happened in my life was exactly what it was meant to be so that I could do the work that I do and be the person that I am. This had nothing to do with ‘Oh, she was there at the right time,’ you know, and that wouldn’t have worked anyway. If I were just like “hit the right moment” it wouldn’t have been sustainable. I wouldn’t still be talking to you now.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: It’s refreshing to hear someone of your age, who’s talking to a younger audience, that this was purposeful. “This is what I came back to do because there are many people who have been in this arena for a long time who haven’t been able to say those words openly.
GABRIELLE BERNSTEIN: Yes. You know, I think that everyone that teaches, teaches from their own beliefs and their own faith, and my faith is that my spiritual commitment in this lifetime is to help people release shame. To help people open to a spiritual connection and to be a guide in a way that will touch people on a heartfelt level so that they can feel inspired and moved to grow. And I don’t have any doubt that that was what I came here to do.
SANDIE SEDGBEER: In Super Attractor you write that there are five principles to follow when beginning one’s spiritual journey. What are they? The first one is about the Universe, always saying yes.
Continue to Page 2 of the Interview with Gabrielle Bernstein: Mastering the Super Attractor
