About Gabby Bernstein:
Featured in the New York Times Sunday Styles section as “a new role model”, speaker, and author Gabrielle Bernstein is making her mark. Expanding the lexicon for the next generation spiritual seekers, Gabrielle is a #1 bestselling author of the books Add More ~ing to Your Life – A hip guide to happiness and Spirit Junkie – A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles. In February 2022 she launched her new book Happy Days – The Guided Path from Trauma to Profound Freedom and Inner Peace. Gabby is also the founder of the social networking site HerFuture.com for women to inspire, empower and connect.
“The very second we choose a loving thought, our emotions shift and our energy changes. This is realignment with the Universe.”
-Gabby Bernstein
As a motivational speaker, Gabby has spent 15 years sharing her story on stages across the globe. Companies like Google, Pinterest and Goldman Sachs have invited her to share her methods with thousands of employees. Gabby also co-hosted the Guinness World Records’ largest guided meditation with Deepak Chopra and was named as one of Oprah’s “SuperSoul 100” – a dynamic group of trailblazers whose vision and life’s work are bringing a higher level of consciousness to the world.
In today’s blog we’d like to share some methods taken from an event hosted by Guidely’s very own Amir Glogau, alongside Gabby Bernstein called Happy Days.
The methods included are: heart-hold, Voo chant & Peace Begins with Me. These were taught to us by Gabby during the event to lower our anxiety levels and were encouraged to include them in our day-to-day lives.
Let’s Dive In:
Welcome everybody, I want you to know, you’re in the right place, everybody, you’re in the right place.
I want to talk about some of the ways that our nervous system responds to unresolved trauma, whether it be trauma with a big T or trauma with a small t. Maybe you haven’t even identified it as trauma, but you just are living with chronic anxiety. So while this (Happy Days) is a whole book on the guided path from trauma to profound freedom and inner peace, tonight, I want to talk about anxiety. Because when we have unresolved experiences from our childhood, which we all do, we have a disruption to our nervous system, we have a disconnect from our physical body in many cases.
In this moment, allow yourself to get grounded in a more centered and relaxed way. This is by no means addressing the root cause of the condition, which I believe is necessary and can come through books like Happy Days, or therapeutic support.
But what I do believe is that these methods can start to help you regulate your own energy and your nervous system so that you can feel more steady as you do the deeper work.
And that’s my intention tonight, to give you some of the methods that have been my first responders when I’ve suffered and struggled with extreme anxiety, the experience of PTSD going through very, very life threatening anxiety with postpartum anxiety and depression. And so I know that these methods work, I’ve lived them I’ve and I’m so privileged to be able to share them with you right now.
Checking In:
So, the first thing I want to acknowledge is that we need to start by honoring our anxiety.
I want you to just take a moment to close your eyes and just notice what you notice inside your body. And let’s check in with the anxiety, from a scale of 0 to 10? Where is your anxiety right now? 10 being the highest.
Just notice what you notice on the inside. Does it have a color or shape? Does it have an image that comes along with it? Any words that come with it? Where does it live in your body? Is it tight? Is it in your stomach? What do you know about it? How long has it been around?
What else do you know about it? Does it have anything it wants you to know?
Take a moment to check in completely to the space in your body where that anxiety lives.
And if it’s possible, extend a little bit of connection to that part of you.
That anxious part of you, it’s not who you are, it’s a part of who you are.
And just let that part of you know that tonight you’re wanting to become a little bit more curious about it. Want to honor it and respect it. And just let it know that you’re going to be a little curious tonight, with a lot of love and compassion and connection, we’re going to just become curious, offering a lot of calm energy to the anxiety.
Take a deep breath and breathe in the willingness to offer that calm energy to your anxiety now.
When you’re ready, just take another deep breath. And open your eyes with a little bit more connection to the anxiety, giving it the attention and the respect that it deserves.
We so often want to just push it down and push past it, ignore it, fight against it. But just for now, let’s just spend a little time with it.
Give it a little bit of love, give it a little bit of connection. Because that part of us is working really hard to protect us from deeper feelings. Let’s just give it a break tonight.
1. Heart Hold:
Which leads me into the next step, a powerful step to ground yourself in the moment right here, right now, placing your hand on your heart and your other hand on your belly.
This is a heart hold. This hold is on its own miraculous because it can allow you to send a message of relaxation, safety and connection throughout your body. So just place one hand on your heart, and your other hand on your belly. Close your eyes again, and in this heart hold, let’s extend even more love to the anxiety, just letting it know that we have so much compassion for this anxiety tonight. That we’re connecting to it, we’re committed to connect to it. And take a moment to just breathe.
You can keep your hand in this heart-hold. If it feels really powerful for you, I think that it would be a nice thing to consistently do as I add on the next technique.
2. Voo Chant:
The next method is called a voo chant. And I love this practice because when we chant we actually create vibrational resonance in our body. And what the voo chant does actually sends this message to the vagus nerve that stimulates and supports your entire nervous system. Allowing the vagus nerve to relax the entire nervous system. And so by stimulating the vagus nerve, your gut can relax, your body can relax, your energy starts to settle. And you can feel every muscle in your body start to relax and release. The voo chant is practiced like this. You take a deep breath in and on the inhale, just let your diaphragm extend. If you still have that heart hold going and your hand is still on your belly, take a deep breath in and hold that breath for just one moment of pause. And on the exhale let’s all chant voo together, keep it going till the breath is complete. Hold that breath and pause for another moment. Now take another deep inhale in extending your diaphragm breathing in fully and completely. At the end of the inhale, just take one moment to pause. And then again in that loop on the exhale, extend that voo one more time. One more deep inhale. And at the top of that inhale, let’s take another pause. On that exhale, let’s do one last voo.
Pause, take a deep breath in. And let that breath go.
So let’s check in with your anxiety for a moment. On a scale of zero to 10, where are you now? Where are you at? Where were you? And where are you now? Sometimes when we even just bring attention to our anxiety, we can have it get activated. Let’s just take a moment to heart hold again, just hold your heart.
3. Tapping:
When you feel ready, let’s move on to the next lesson, which is a beautiful practice called Emotional Freedom Technique, which is tapping on that anxiety. So for a few moments, let’s do a round of tapping. What tapping is, is we tap on these different energy meridians while we talk about the anxiety. And then we do some rounds around the anxiety.
Starting the round at the eyebrows, moving to the side of the eyes/temples, then the under eyes, moving to under the nose/above your upper lip, then the chin, collarbone, underarm, and finishing on the top of the head.
This is much like acupuncture, and therapy in collaboration.
Sending these beautiful messages to these different acupressure points while allowing your window of tolerance to expand so that you can release any attachment to anxiety or whatever the issue is that you’re tapping on.
So just follow me we’re gonna tap on the karate chop point.
We’re gonna do just a one minute tapping practice here. Noticing where your anxiety is, what number it’s at right now, take note and we’re going to tap so just follow me tapping on that side of your hand in the karate chop point.
Repeat after me out loud:
I deeply and completely love and accept myself
two more times. Even though I have this anxiety
repeat that after me I deeply and completely love and accept myself
keep repeating as all after me as I speak even though I have this anxiety
I deeply and completely love and accept myself
Start by tapping on the eyebrow and repeat after me- “I can already see my anxiety is going down”. Move to tap on the side of the eye. “I’m already feeling some relief”, tapping under the eye. Moving to tapping under the nose. Breathe, now tapping on your chin and saying, “I welcome more relief.” Tapping on your collarbone. Under the arm, continuing to breathe. Then tapping on top of the head. Repeat the tapping Saying: “Even though I have this anxiety”
Moving to tapping on the eyebrow. “I can take a deep breath right here right now”. Move to tapping the side of the eye, “I can take a deep breath with Gabby right now.”
Tapping under the eye, “I can take a deep breath with Gabby right now”, tapping under the nose, “and I can welcome even more relief”. Tapping on the chin, “I can feel my body tingling”
Tapping on the collarbone, repeating after me, “I can feel myself coming back into my body.” Tapping on the under-arms kind of where the bra line is, repeat after me, “I feel myself getting back into my body”, tapping on top of the head, “I’m getting grounded in my body now”.
Take a deep breath in, and let that go…
When you’re ready, open up your awareness to your body, take a deep breath and check in now. Where are you? From a scale of zero 10 to 0. Where were you before? Where are you now?
Peace Begins with Me:
Before we wrap up, another stress relief tool you can use that can also work for children is, you place your thumb to your pointer and your thumb to your middle finger and your thumb to your ring finger and your thumb to your pinky finger. And you practice this method of a mantra and a mudra. Peace begins with ME. thumb to the thumb to the pointer with peace. thumb to the middle finger begins thumb to the ring finger with thumb to the pinky me. Peace begins with ME. Peace begins with ME. Peace begins with ME. Practice that all day long.
All these methods are taught inside Happy Days. And I have a lot of other free resources and I just hope to support you in any way that I can. I hope you enjoyed these techniques!
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Learn more about Gabby Bernstein on her website here.
