Hey, Pursuit family! Now I am honestly thrilled to share today’s guest with you because she is somebody that I deeply admire. Her name is Gabby Bernstein. Last year, I actually wasn’t too familiar with Gabby’s work, but in an effort to meet more people and go to some inspiring events, I heard about her book tour in Los Angeles and I decided to go. I hadn’t even read her book but I just decided to go. The event consisted of, first, a heartfelt speech from Gabby which was amazing, and then after that, a Q&A with Gabby and the audience members. For someone who wasn’t totally familiar with her before that, I became an instant fan. I was a believer because Gabby is as wise and soulful as she is empowering and honest. During the Q&A, people would ask just heart wrenching questions about some of the worst tragedies and traumas that you could imagine experiencing in life. Somehow, Gabby immediately whipped out a response that was helpful, genuine and eloquent. I remember thinking over and over again every time somebody would ask a question, “What is Gabby going to say to that because that sounds really tough?” Gabby would come out with this beautiful response every single time. Since that night, I’ve adored Gabby and her work. It is a true honor to share today’s conversation with you.

Now if you’re unfamiliar with Gabby Bernstein, she’s the number one New York Times bestselling author of “The Universe Has Your Back”. She was featured in Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday as a next generation thought leader, and she co-hosted the Guinness World Records’ largest guided meditation with Deepak Chopra, who was our guest in episode 15, if you remember him. Now in this interview, we talk about concepts from her latest book called “Judgment Detox”. If you’ve ever wanted to understand why you judge other people and yourself, this episode is for you. Today, you’ll learn where your judgments come from, how to heal them and who you can become when you stop believing your judgments. Let’s dive in.

Melyssa Griffin: Hey Gabby. Welcome to the show.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Thanks for having me.

Melyssa Griffin: So excited to chat with you. You recently wrote an entire book about judgment called “Judgment Detox”, so I have a lot of questions I want to ask you about that. Before we get into that, I’d love to know how do you define judgment.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Judgment is a separation from oneness, the separation from love. In the book, I talk about how the truth of who we are, is a loving, kind, compassionate being. When we judge, we separate from that truth of who we are.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. I love that definition. Why now did you decide to write this book on this topic?

Gabrielle Bernstein: I actually decided two years ago, so it was pretty timely. I wrote a book called “The Universe Has Your Back”, and in the ninth chapter of that book, the topic was getting closer to oneness, deepening our connection to oneness. In that chapter, I talked about healing our relationship to judgment to deepen that connection and raise our consciousness. When I finished writing that chapter, I dropped my hands on the computer and I just said to myself, “Oh jeez, this is a book. This is an entire book. I’m going to commit to that.” So I started the next book right away because I knew it had to get out. It was right in the middle of the 2016 election. We were seeing the world in the most divisive way I’ve ever seen. I’m sure it’s always been outwardly divisive. Across all boundaries, there was just no – and everyone was in it, like even people who maybe typically praise themselves for being non-judgmental were just completely out of control. And so, I wrote the book during that year. Here we are. I think it’s coming out at the perfect time; the time when we really need it most.

Melyssa Griffin: I agree. Yeah, it’s almost like that time where we started that horrible process of just the major divisiveness that we saw, and now we’re getting to this point we’re like we can’t live like this forever, we need a different way of connecting with people who think different things, or even just connecting to ourselves when we’re in those moments of not loving ourselves.

Gabrielle Bernstein: I think that we’re also in a lot of pain. I think people are really suffering right now. They don’t realize where the root of their suffering lies. I’ll say we. We don’t pay attention to where the root of our suffering lies. Our suffering really lies in the disconnect, in feelings of separation, the feelings of less than and better than, and all of the ways that we disconnect from that place of genuine compassion, which is our truth. And so, that makes us feel an unconscious sense of guilt, and it perpetuates this feeling of detachment and loneliness and disease.

Melyssa Griffin: Absolutely. Yeah. I love that you brought up your previous book, “The Universe Has Your Back”. I went to your book tour event in Los Angeles last year, and at the end of the event after you spoke, we had the opportunity to ask questions. There was a woman I remember, who asked a question about – she was talking about her medical issues that she’s had for years. She held up this list of all of these medications, I think it was like over 30 or 40 that she was taking on a daily basis, and kind of talking about how this was holding her back in her life. I love what you did. I don’t even remember what she asked. I just remember how fearful and sad she was about this experience. You said, “Give me that list.” You took the list out of her hands and you tore it up on stage. You told her that this list doesn’t define you, it’s not who you are. You are who you choose to be. I found that moment just so beautiful and empowering. I see similar advice in what you’re talking about in “Judgment Detox”, that we look at our judgments and we think that’s just who I am, like that’s who I am, I’ve always been this way. I’m just controlling or I’m just upset about these certain things. What you’re saying is that, it’s not who you are. It’s what you believe, but you can choose to believe something different.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Absolutely. Rip up your list of judgments.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. I love that so much. I want to ask you, who do we become when we don’t have those judgments anymore, when we choose to believe something different?

Gabrielle Bernstein: I love that question because when I started writing this book, I really asked myself who do I want to be. So I want to be the person who stays silent in the midst of unnecessary gossip. I want to be the person who disengages when the conversation goes to a negative space. I want to be the person who brings positive energy wherever I go. I wrote that because I really got clear on that before I wrote the book, because I had to write the book for myself, just as much as I wrote it for my readers. So I needed to write from a place of knowing really what I was solving for. That question is an important question to ask yourselves, particularly now in the new year, it’s really who do I want to be.

Melyssa Griffin: I love that. I think that’s beautiful. When we get rid of our judgments, when we’re able to be who we want to be, what’s at that core of who we are? What kind of person can we become?

Gabrielle Bernstein: We can become far more compassionate. We can become far more patient. We can become kinder and much more powerful, because when we start to live from a place of non-judgment or less judgement, we have more energy. And then when we dwell in that more empowered energy, that energy begins to attract towards us more of what we want.

Melyssa Griffin: So true.

Gabrielle Bernstein: All of us have goals and objectives and things that we want to achieve in this lifetime. It’s much faster to achieve that if you’re dwelling in an energy that’s higher vibe.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, I totally agree. I think I was listening to Abraham Hicks and she gave a really good analogy, where it was like you can’t get what’s operating at 98.6 if your vibration or your frequency is 102.7. You can’t have where you’re not in alignment with. I think that’s so true for what you’re teaching too. So the way that I see judgment, and something that you shared in the book, is that it’s often about our projection of our own unhealed wounds, our own trauma, our own judgments of ourselves that we’re projecting onto other people. So how do we begin to heal those wounds that we might be using as our judgments?

Gabrielle Bernstein: In the second step of the book, I have a step called honor the wounds. The goal of this step is to help get to the root cause conditions and belief systems that live beneath the addictive pattern of judgment. So we can’t heal a pattern just by saying affirmation or praying for it to go away. I believe we have to go to the root cause and heal the energetic disturbance that lives beneath it. In this chapter, I use a process called emotional freedom technique, which is otherwise known as tapping. The beautiful thing about tapping is that it gets us into an energy where we can actually heal the energetic disturbance that lives beneath the pattern that we’re acting out with. You don’t have to recall a traumatic event or memory. You can just tap on the minor annoyances or the aspects of the judgment, or in this case, the self-judgment, the judgment towards someone else or the shame. Those are the three things I have the reader tap on. By practicing tapping, you can start to really uncover what are the wounds that live beneath the judgment, and heal them, genuinely heal them quickly.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. So I did tapping once, but could you give a little tutorial on how somebody could go about tapping or getting involved with that practice?

Gabrielle Bernstein: Well, why don’t we do it? So, is there someone that you’ve been judging?

Melyssa Griffin: Yes. The holidays just ended, a lot of family time, so I had some judgments definitely come out of me.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Okay. You may not want to say who it is on the podcast, but we can call it “this person”, yeah?

Melyssa Griffin: Sure. Sure.

Gabrielle Bernstein: From a scale of 0 to 10, how much do you feel you’re in judgment?

Melyssa Griffin: Right now, probably a six.

Gabrielle Bernstein: A six, okay. Is there anything else in your life that’s more heightened than the six or is that the highest you’ve got?

Melyssa Griffin: Let’s call that a seven. Maybe I’m like being too optimistic about it.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Okay, so you’re at a seven. What’s the most pressing issue? Like I’m judging them because… or you can simply say, “I can’t stop judging them”, or is there something specific?

Melyssa Griffin: I think I’m judging them because they are very controlling, that they always want to shape other people into what they think is perfection.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Okay, so I feel controlled?

Melyssa Griffin: I feel controlled.

Gabrielle Bernstein: All right. Okay. How does that feel? Is that going higher than the seven now?

Melyssa Griffin: A little bit, yeah.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Okay. It must be real. What we do is we come up with the most pressing issue, the MPI. In the case of the book, I talk about I’m judging this person or the most pressing issue would be I judge myself or I’m ashamed of this. In the case with you, we can say I feel controlled.

Melyssa Griffin: It might even be – the core might even be I feel like I’m not enough.

Gabrielle Bernstein: I feel like I’m not enough, okay. So let’s just start tapping right here. Tapping on this karate chop point. Everybody watching can tap along as well. The thing that happens when you tap along, you can repeat after me, and whoever’s listening can repeat after me as well because they can borrow the benefits of our time tapping. So where do you think you are? Seven, eight – I’m not good enough?

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, probably a seven.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Seven, okay. So even though – and just repeat after me. This is the set up statement. Even though I feel like I’m not good enough… and you can repeat after me.

Melyssa Griffin: Even though I feel like I’m not good enough…

Gabrielle Bernstein: …I deeply, completely love and accept myself.

Melyssa Griffin: …I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Even though I feel like I’m not good enough…

Melyssa Griffin: Even though I feel like I’m not good enough…

Gabrielle Bernstein: …I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Melyssa Griffin: …I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Even though I feel like I’m not good enough…

Melyssa Griffin: Even though I feel like I’m not good enough…

Gabrielle Bernstein: …I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Melyssa Griffin: …I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Gabrielle Bernstein: They tried to control (just tapping on that eyebrow point right there).

Melyssa Griffin: They tried to control me.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Side of the eye. I don’t like to be controlled.

Melyssa Griffin: I don’t like to be controlled.

Hey, this is post recording Melyssa popping in, to let you know that we continued this technique for several minutes. It was a beautiful experience, but unfortunately, it doesn’t translate well to a podcast audio. So if you visit melyssagriffin.com/gabby, then I’ve posted a video of myself and Gabby doing this technique, so that you can actually see the different pressure points that we’re tapping on and gain the full experience so that you can replicate it at home.

Gabrielle Bernstein: 0 to 10, where are you right now?

Melyssa Griffin: I’d say I’m probably a three to be honest.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Nice. If we had more time, I would keep going with you. I’d stop and start, but that’s not what we’re going to do today. Yeah, having that moment of just relief is what we’re looking for here.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. I appreciate that. I feel like what I got out of doing that tapping or EFT is a lot of what you were saying too, and just thinking like this is just something that’s coming out of an old wound that I have. This is not the reality of who this person is or this isn’t the reality of who I have to be in this situation. This is just what it is, but I can still choose to love myself and them despite anything. Right?

Gabrielle Bernstein: Right. That’s because we’re projecting out what we don’t want to feel within.

Melyssa Griffin: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I love that. When we’re tapping, so if anybody is listening and they didn’t get to see that, when we’re tapping on different body parts on my body, under my arm, my eyebrow, above my lip, what are these different areas that you’re tapping?

Why do we tap there?

Gabrielle Bernstein: All these different energy points, they’re energy meridians that send messages to the brain, that let the amygdala, the fight/flight part of our brain release the fight/flight; hey, it’s safe to let go. So by talking about the emotional disturbance and tapping on these different meridians, we let go of the energetic disturbance.

Melyssa Griffin: That’s so interesting. Very cool. Thank you for sharing that with us. So you talk about six methods for recovering from judgment in the book. I know we just did tapping. Which ones do you find yourself – if there’s one or two that you find yourself turning to the most when you feel like you need more peace?

Gabrielle Bernstein: The first step is one that I use all day long, which is to witness your judgment without judgment. So what I’ll do is, I will, throughout the day, notice myself judging and I’ll ask myself four questions. These are the questions that are in the book. What or who am I judging? How does it make me feel? Why do I feel justified in my judgment? What experience from my past has triggered this judgment?

Melyssa Griffin: I love those. I love those. And then when you ask yourself those questions, does it take you from a space of “I’m judging this person because they’re awful” to “wow, it’s really just something that I experienced a long time ago and I can choose to find peace in this moment”?

Gabrielle Bernstein: Yeah. It takes me into a place of seeing my part in it, which is imperative if you’re going to begin the process of healing it.

Melyssa Griffin: I like that, taking ownership of how you feel rather than just projecting those things on to other people.

Gabrielle Bernstein: That’s right.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, I like that. I feel like a lot of people, and I have I’m sure said this too, say that judgment is fun in the moment. It’s fun to gossip. It’s fun to judge people. Then later, you get this like hangover feeling almost, where you feel ashamed and you feel guilty that you’ve been judging people. So why is that? Why is it fun in the moment and then later on you just feel terrible?

Gabrielle Bernstein: You get a brief high from it, and that high is – it’s not real because ultimately it quickly turns into guilt, quickly turns into feelings of guilt. Because underneath that high is actually the true essence of who we are, which is loving, kind and compassionate. When we separate from that compassion is I said earlier, we feel disconnected from the truth of who we are. So we get high off of it first and then we feel guilty, and then when we feel that guilt, we probably judge even more to avoid feeling that guilt.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. So it’s just this blanket that covers up all of our feelings. It’s almost like an addiction.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Yeah. In the book, I talk about how judgment is an addiction. The same way we would use drugs or alcohol or love or sex to avoid feeling those painful feelings, judgment is probably far more addictive than any of them.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. It’s almost like it’s more addictive because people think that it’s just a normal part of being a human.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Right, because it’s not killing you or it’s not creating problems in your life. When you start to do that audit of your judgments, you can see in some ways how it started to create problems in your life.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. What I’ve noticed a lot from what you’ve been saying is that a lot of the judgments that we have, always come back to our own self-love, our own judgments of our self. Do you feel like that’s the biggest place that we need to start, is just how we judge ourselves versus how we judge other people?

Gabrielle Bernstein: It’s the same. It’s the same. Why we are judging other people, it’s because we’re judging ourselves.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, and we just don’t realize why we’re being triggered by them, is actually something from ourselves.

Gabrielle Bernstein: Yeah, the only reason we would judge someone else is because we’re not feeling good within ourselves.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. Yeah, absolutely. So in that vein, our judgments, what do you feel like they’re trying to tell us? What are they trying to say to us when we feel…?

Gabrielle Bernstein: … they’re revealing our triggers. Yeah, they’re revealing those triggers. They’re revealing the wounds. They’re revealing the disowned parts of our shadow that need to be brought to the light.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. When we find those things that trigger us or that, like you said, the disowning parts of our shadow and bringing them to the light, I love that – when we find those things, what’s the next step into self-love or getting rid of those judgments or feeling more at peace?

Gabrielle Bernstein: The third step is to put love on the altar. There’s a great story I tell in the book about how I was really in a deep, deep judgment about a business decision that I made really quickly. I was so mad at myself for doing it that I projected that judgment onto everyone else; the people that represented me, my husband, the people that worked for me, the people that I did the deal with – like everybody. It was just like everybody else’s fault. I was the one who made the decision. So I spent six, seven months just telling everyone about this problem; my therapist, bitching about it to my husband – just being so upset about it. And then I started to realize that this isn’t working. I’m writing a book on judgment and I just can’t stop judging. And so, I started to pray about it and I started to pray for a relief. One night, I was in Vancouver at an event, doing an event the next day. I had been staying up very late because I was obsessing about this thing. I just was feeling no relief. It just kept coming up and coming up and coming up. I felt so upset and just pissed off. I had four hours left to sleep. And so, I said a prayer, another prayer. I was like, “I need a miracle here. Please help me.”

In that moment, I heard my inner guidance system say to me, “Turn on the TV.” I was like, “Why would I turn on the TV?” Turn on the TV. Turn on the television and on the television was the televangelist, Joel Osteen. Joel was preaching in front of thousands of people. I love this guy. He’s amazing. He was like, “Do you ever feel like you’re obsessing about something you can’t control?” I’m like, “Yes, Joel!…” I’m like screaming at the TV. He’s like, “Do you feel like every day you’re putting something on the altar that you don’t want to see?” I was like yes. He said, “The only way to change that pattern is to start putting love on the altar instead.” So that became the chapter, “Put Love on the Altar”. And so, this is all about prayer. Consciously in the moment when you see yourself in that judgment, saying the prayer, “I choose to see this differently. Thank you for helping me heal this. I choose peace instead of this. I choose to judge nothing that occurs.” Just saying a prayer in place of the judgment. That prayer is the medium for miracles.

Melyssa Griffin: Is that what you mean by love on the altar, is saying a prayer that’s like filled with love rather than saying a judgment that’s filled with hate?

Gabrielle Bernstein: Replacing the judgement with a loving thought. So the prayer becomes what we put on the altar instead of the judgment.

 

Melyssa Griffin: I love that. Is there a certain prayer that you tend to go to or use when you’re feeling like you’re judging?

Gabrielle Bernstein: Lately, I’ve been using the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Melyssa Griffin: I love that. My grandma used to use that one a lot. I think she had it hung in her house somewhere. So in the book, you talk about how it’s unrealistic to get rid of our judgments completely, and that instead, the goal isn’t to just eradicate judgment, it’s to stop believing the judgments that we have. Can you share a little bit more about what you mean by that?

Gabrielle Bernstein: You’re going to go through this book and you won’t never judge again. I mean that’s just not necessarily likely. You won’t believe in it anymore because you’ll have so much practice in really dissecting the pattern and looking at what’s underneath it, and changing the perception, and using meditation to move through it, and forgiveness to allow it to dissolve. It’s like being a sober alcoholic. I’ve been sober 12 years. If I picked up a drink today, I wouldn’t even be able to enjoy it because I would just know way too much. It’s the same. I hope that you just get so almost disgusted with the behavior that you no longer believe in it.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. It’s almost like you’ve lived with it for so long that you can’t eradicate something from your identity completely. It’s more of like you said, just changing your perspective on it so that when it pops up or you feel triggered, you know what to do or what not to believe anymore. I like that. So I have one final question for you Gabby, that I love to ask all of my guests on this show, is what do you feel like people should do to live more meaningful and fulfilled lives?

Gabrielle Bernstein: Heal your judgment. Mic drop.

Melyssa Griffin: Yes. Love it. Yes. What’s there to gain when we heal our judgments?

Gabrielle Bernstein: There’s so much to gain. Your manifesting power just magnifies because you’re in a higher vibration. So you just attract so much more. You attract more health, more wealth, more love, more connection. You feel more connected. You feel great about yourself because you’re not the… in the room judging anymore. You’re in silence – avoiding the drama. You feel like you have more energy and more time for what you want to create.

Melyssa Griffin: I love that. I love that. That’s beautiful. Thank you so much Gabby. Please go out and buy “Judgment Detox”. It is a beautiful book and I’ve read it myself. I love Gabby, and just everything that she writes comes from a very loving and wise place. So she’s got a lot of great wisdom to share. Where can people find you, Gabby?

Gabrielle Bernstein: Well, if you’re going to get the book, you can head over to gabbybernstein.com/bookgift, because I did a two hour manifesting workshop that they can get when they order the book. So the workshop is awesome. It’s worth the $14 book, at least I think so. So grab the book and head over to gabbybernstein.com/bookgift and you can get the workshop with me.

Melyssa Griffin: All right. Perfect. We’ll link that down below so everyone can go grab that right now. Thank you so much Gabby. Have a beautiful rest of your day.

Gabrielle Bernstein: You too honey. Thank you.