Why Rejection Can Feel Like Terror: Gabby Bernstein on Anxious Attachment, Love Addiction, and Checking In
Matthew Hussey
Matthew Hussey opens this conversation with one question. When someone pulls away, why does that person suddenly become the most important person in the world to us? Gabby Bernstein, who describes themselves as "a recovering codependent" with an anxious attachment style, answers from the framework of Internal Family Systems (IFS). In that view, the overwhelming reaction comes from a young, wounded part of the self that equates losing a connection with danger. The solution Bernstein offers is to turn inward toward that part rather than chase the other person.
Disappointment versus a childhood trigger
Bernstein locates the reaction in "a young exiled part of us that was abandoned." This is a part that did not get the attention or support it needed from a caregiver early in life. When a relationship wobbles, that part is activated. Its protection mechanism is to "fawn, cling, make it happen, stay in the relationship," because losing the connection feels, in Bernstein's words, "like death."
Hussey pushes back with a common objection. Many people don't feel their reaction traces back to anything. They simply had an amazing date, felt a rare connection, and had their hopes dashed. Is that still about something older?
Bernstein draws a distinction. Ordinary disappointment is part of life. You got excited, felt a bond, maybe had sex and "all the oxytocin," and then it didn't work out. That hurts, "that's just life." The other category belongs to people with a core wound of not having had love or secure attachment, who feel inadequate, unlovable, or unsafe. What they seek in a bond is safety. So when the relationship ends or becomes uncertain, Bernstein says, "it's full terror inside," and they will do whatever it takes to get it back.
The signs that it has gone past disappointment
Asked how to tell the difference, Bernstein starts with internal signs. The first is rumination: waking up obsessing, being unable to get through the day, unable to eat a meal or be present with friends, thinking only about how to get the person back, and not feeling complete until a text comes through. Bernstein says this is drawn from personal experience: "I can speak so authentically to this issue... in complete terror truly."
There are behavioral signs too: incessant texting, constantly talking to friends about the person, or "doing strange things to try to get them back." Bernstein frames all of it as an addictive pattern. It is the search for a relationship to complete an unhealed part. The underlying belief, Bernstein stresses, is not only "I'm not good enough" but "I'm not safe" without the relationship.
How fast it activates, and why it hides as romance
Hussey notes that this can happen after a single great date. Bernstein agrees that it can be activated "that quickly." Someone with an anxious attachment style may be visualizing walking down the aisle on the first date, mentally "packing their bags and ready to move in." When one relationship ends, they pick up the next.
Hussey observes that relationship addiction is easy to overlook. It doesn't usually destroy your body, create obvious wreckage, or land you in jail, so it is harder to recognize than drug addiction or alcoholism. You can pass it off as "I'm a romantic." It also gets reinforced because you really can feel an extraordinary connection with someone very quickly.
A seven-day romance in Paris
Hussey describes a woman he coached who lived in Paris. A tourist came to town and they had a seven-day whirlwind romance. Neither talked about what it was going to be. She was too afraid to raise it, and he didn't mention it. As Hussey put it, she was looking for a relationship and he was looking for an experience. He left. Months later she was still distraught and couldn't stop thinking about him. She kept replaying what it could have been and how he could have acted that way if he hadn't meant it. She wouldn't have described this as anxiety seeking safety. She would have said they had an amazing thing: they acted like a couple and walked down the street holding hands. Hussey asks what to say to people whose minds are stuck insisting, "you don't understand, we had something."
Undoing the loop: it isn't your adult self
Bernstein's answer is that the loop is run by a young part, not by the adult self. A week of disappointment is normal. If the rumination is still going three months later, that is a young part looking for an external relationship to make it feel complete, safe, and adequate. It is trying to protect you from feelings of being unlovable or unsafe, and in that moment it is in terror.
For that reason, Bernstein says, telling yourself to get over it and move on doesn't work: "these parts are young and they can't just move on." The work is to get into relationship with the part, becoming curious about it, compassionate toward it, and connected to it.
The four-step self-help check-in
Hussey asks what someone should do right now if they are watching the video and can't stop thinking about whether a person will text. Bernstein describes a four-step practice, which they later call the "self-help check-in":
- Choose to check in. Instead of "checking out" by texting repeatedly, calling every friend, or ruminating, focus your attention inward.
- Curiosity. Notice where the hijacked part lives in your body. Ask what you know about it, how old it is, and whether any thoughts, feelings, or sensations are attached to it.
- Compassion and connection. Ask the part, "What do you need?" Listen, then breathe into the place where it lives and give it some presence.
- Check for the "C qualities" of self. Am I a little calmer, more confident, courageous, clear, connected, creative, or compassionate toward this part?
Bernstein says that if "even a molecule" of one of these qualities shows up, self-energy, "that wisdom inside," is helping, and healing has started. The practice is to "rinse and repeat."
What the parts tend to say
Hussey asks for examples of answers people get. Bernstein says that when asked how old it is, the part often answers that it's young, and when asked how long it has been around, "forever." Asking for images or sensations may bring up specific memories, such as a father leaving when you were two. The first attempt may feel blocked or guarded. Bernstein also offers to provide the exercise as a guided meditation.
Bernstein explains why this matters. People have been overriding that frightened young part with the relationship itself, through fawning, clinging, and needing the partner to make them feel complete. That clinging is a protector. When the protector is disturbed, you get triggered. When asked what it needs, the part often says it needs to rest, play, dance, or cry and let it out. Hussey adds that the part often needs to know it isn't alone. Bernstein agrees that "that's the whole practice." The calm or connection that appears tells the part that help is here, that it is "your higher self with a capital S." As the part comes to trust that relationship, it becomes less triggered.
"You are the one you've been waiting for"
Hussey sums this up as no longer looking for a savior from the outside. Bernstein quotes their mentor Dick Schwartz, founder of IFS: "you are the one you've been waiting for." Bernstein describes IFS as built on the premise that we have "an inner family of young little parts running around freaking out all the time."
Hussey calls this the antidote to a common situation. We nominate someone, whether after one great date or a great year, as our savior who will make our fears and anxieties go away. When that person seems to be leaving, "it feels like we're just naked in the dark again."
"But I genuinely want to find love"
Hussey raises the objection he hears most. Finding love is a major life goal, and people don't want to be alone, even with a compassionate self. Their panic when someone pulls away comes from fear of never meeting anyone or running out of time to have a family, and some of those goals have a real clock on them.
Bernstein answers "with full conviction." If people make the relationship between the part and self-energy their highest priority, building a real inner knowing that a healing presence exists inside them, "then the relationship will be there." Bernstein describes this inner work as creating "a frequency" of safety, confidence, courage, creativity, and calm, and says that magnetic energy is what attracts. Staying out of alignment with that healing, Bernstein says, means repeating the same pattern decades later: "It's black and white."
Asked whether there is someone for everyone, Bernstein says that healing core wounds makes us "a magnet for all of the things that we desire." It may not happen in the way, timing, or with the person we expected, but "we create and attract what we believe."
Changing who you're drawn to
Hussey suggests the healed version of us will probably be attracted to different people, and Bernstein agrees. He adds a caveat: no one is immune to someone pulling away, no matter how confident they are. But he believes one of two things will be true. Either you'll attract and be attracted to people less likely to pull away, or when someone does pull away, they'll become less interesting to you, not more.
Bernstein agrees with both points. When you heal an anxious attachment style, you're "no longer a match for the old vibration," meaning the person who might drop everything overnight and leave. If you catch a whiff of that old behavior, you won't be interested. Bernstein goes further and says you may stop seeing it at all, because "it's not going to be available for you anymore."
Status, looks, and chemistry
Hussey asks about people repeatedly drawn to "shiny" qualities like charisma, wealth, success, status, or popularity, as a way of feeling worthy. Bernstein says they are trying to feel good about themselves by treating the partner as a reflection of who they are. This can happen in friendships too. Bernstein sees it as another form of trying to feel complete through someone else: "whatever our core wounds are, we'll look for the match to fill that wound." As the wound heals, we're more likely to find "healed humans." Bernstein adds a point about couples. If both partners act out their wounded parts but both do the work, they can find wholeness together. If only one does the work, it won't work.
Hussey presses on looks. What about people who say they simply find a certain type hot, and that they rarely feel chemistry except with highly attractive people? Bernstein says chemistry is necessary. It may be energetic, appearance-based, or intellectual, and "it's okay to be unapologetic about what turns you on." The problem arises when rigid requirements, like someone having to look exactly a certain way or have an exact status, block opportunities.
Hussey adds that fixation on "the story" of what we need can make us miss someone who doesn't look as expected but with whom we have surprising chemistry when we're present. That person's impressive qualities may come in a quieter, more nuanced form, "a silent rock star." Bernstein calls this "don't miss the miracle." A list of what you want is fine, but if it's too rigid, specifying someone who is 6'5" with a particular amount of money, you may overlook the person you were meant to be with "because he's 5 foot 11."
Fear of rejection
What about people whose response to rejection isn't "ouch, that hurt" but an emotional tailspin? Bernstein says this is no different from being triggered when a relationship ends. It is another protection mechanism from a young part. Its origin might be a parent who left, never feeling loved, not getting needed care, or being rejected at a young age with no one there to help process it, which left the child in terror. When rejection or the possibility of it gets activated, people may "run for the hills," fall apart, or "turn to the drink and the drug" to anesthetize the fear.
Asked what such parts typically say they need, Bernstein says the answers are "always different" and "always surprising," because they're different little children with different needs. A part still blended with the person might say "I just need to keep it together" or "I need the love." Underneath, Bernstein says, "they all just need love," and the first love they need is our own self-love.
What self-love looks like in practice: Bernstein's own example
Hussey asks what extending love to a part looks like concretely. Bernstein shares something current: they are "very actively" working with a young part that was activated by "some family of origin stuff." Bernstein refers to this part as "her," noting that others' parts may have no gender or a different gender.
Instead of pushing past it, Bernstein is in dialogue with her and even speaks for her. One night, very anxious, Bernstein went into the kitchen and their husband asked what was wrong. Rather than saying "I'm fine" or getting angry at him, Bernstein said their young part was "super triggered" because of family issues and they were working through it. Bernstein speaks the same way in couples therapy, telling the therapist and husband that the part is having a hard time and they're being patient with her. Bernstein calls this "an extraordinary act of love and self love." It means acknowledging the part without overriding, dismissing, or denying it.
Bernstein's "adult resource self" also takes action on the part's behalf. That meant booking a therapy session and, that very day, calling an old 12-step sponsor named Erica to ask her to be their sponsor again. Bernstein became emotional describing Erica's response, that she was "overjoyed" and would be there whenever needed, and said that without paying attention to the part, they wouldn't have made that call. Hussey describes this as having the part's back and being its voice in the world. Without that, he says, these parts express themselves in "childlike ways," acting out at work, in relationships, or when a stranger doesn't smile the right way.
When you can't find where it came from
Some people say they had a good childhood and can't point to why rejection matters so much to them. Bernstein says, "You don't need to know." The four-step check-in is designed to give information and build relationship with the part, not to force anyone to dig up old wounds or trauma. "This is a self-help practice. It's not one-on-one therapy." People should let up only what feels safe. If they feel blocked, dissociated from a memory, or don't want to go there, "don't."
If someone has no idea how old the part is, Bernstein says that's fine. Just check in with the feeling and your breath pattern, stay curious, and still ask what it needs. The more you practice, the more self-energy you access, and with it, the more self-trust you have.
Love addiction: unmanageability and powerlessness
Hussey asks how someone can tell love addiction from simply wanting a partner. "Love was my first drug," Bernstein says, and offers the two criteria from addiction: has your life become unmanageable, and are you powerless over the relationship?
Bernstein's examples of unmanageability are checking your phone "a thousand times" during a family dinner, staying on a dating app until 3 a.m. and being unable to get up, and ditching friends mid-dinner because the person called. Powerlessness looks like being unable to function without the partner, or showing up instantly whenever they call, "no matter how negative they are to you." Bernstein sums up the addiction as an energy that is "super attached, super fear-based and powerless."
"I'm running out of time to have kids"
Hussey asks about anxiety rooted in what feels like a rational concern about fertility. Bernstein says that if this belief isn't a core wound needing deep inner work, the task is to "reprocess that thought because our thoughts create things." Bernstein cites another mentor, Wayne Dyer: "you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." If you're stuck in the story of being too late, too old, or not good enough, Bernstein says, "you're going to create that." Bernstein suggests reaching for "the next best feeling thought" and looking for evidence of what you want. As an example, Bernstein says their mother met her husband on Match.com in her late 50s, in a second marriage.
On the practical side, Bernstein says to freeze your eggs right away if you can afford to and still have eggs to freeze. If not, Bernstein, identifying as "a spiritual teacher," says they believe "our souls choose us and they choose how they want to come in." That might be through a donor egg, a surrogate, or adoption. "If you feel the call to be a parent, then you will be."
Single parenthood and donor eggs
Hussey, nearly nine months into parenthood, says he now has some sense of how hard single parenting would be. He asks what Bernstein says to people, many of them women he works with, who can't imagine a life without being a parent but fear what doing it alone would entail. Bernstein says they have many friends who have done it successfully. It wasn't easy. They needed extra support from family, friends, and siblings, and it is expensive. "These are all truths. But if that's a desire, it can be fulfilled." For those who can't afford donor sperm or IVF, Bernstein says to "pray for God to show you where your baby is and how it can come to you."
Hussey describes a woman he worked with who had gone through many unsuccessful rounds of IVF. She could afford to continue but wondered whether she should give up. Bernstein's response is to "buy an egg." Many of Bernstein's friends have used donor eggs, "and their children are their children." One of Bernstein's closest friends tried repeatedly to conceive, and at 46 used a donor egg with her husband's sperm. Bernstein says the child is "her dream child" and that the friend is grateful every day that her own eggs didn't work, "because this is her child."
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What is happening when someone pulls away and we feel ourselves get triggered, and all of a sudden this person just becomes the most important person in the world to us?
Well, first of all, I am a recovering codependent and anxious attachment style. So I am very, very clear about that behavior. I've lived that experience decades ago, but I've lived it. It is a part of us that's super activated, a young exiled part of us that was abandoned, didn't feel like we were getting the attention that we deserve, didn't have the support from the caregiver that we really needed at that delicate young time. And that's the part that's triggered. But then the protection mechanism is: go fawn, cling, make it happen, stay in the relationship, don't lose that connection, because if you lose that connection, in your mind it's like death.
Are there different versions of this for different people? For some people, they won't even know, or they won't have this sense that this traces back to something from before. Or they're just like, "No, no, no. I really like this person. I've had an amazing date with this person. This was the first great connection I've felt in a long time. So where this comes from for me is I just had such high hopes for this, and all of a sudden those hopes are dashed." So for them, their brain is telling them, "No, no, no. It really is this person that I feel like I had an amazing connection with." Does it still go back to something else?
I think there's a big difference between disappointment and a childhood trigger. The disappointment is we have experiences where we got really psyched about something. We thought it was going in the right direction. We felt that bond. Maybe you had sex and had all the oxytocin. Whatever was going on, there was bonding hormones, and then it deads. It doesn't work out, and you're super disappointed. That's just life.
Then there's the folks that have that core wound of not having the love, not having the attachment, feeling inadequate, unlovable, not safe because they didn't have it. And so what are they seeking in that bond, in that connection, is safety. So when that relationship ends or is wobbly, it's full terror. It's a full terror inside. And so then they will do whatever it takes to make that relationship come back.
What are the signs, when you're looking from the outside, that someone has gone beyond being disappointed that someone is pulling away and instead has been fully triggered by them pulling away?
Whether it's something that they outwardly do or something that happens on the inside, but absolute ruminating thoughts. Just ruminating thoughts, constant waking up, just all day long, obsessive thoughts. You can't get through the day. You can't eat a meal. You can't be present with your friends. All you can think about is, "How do I get that back?" Or, "Why aren't they calling?" Or just not feeling complete until that text comes through.
I lived this. I can speak so authentically to this issue, in complete terror, truly, and it's just all-consuming. Of course, behavioral things as well, right? So incessant texting or constantly talking to friends about it and just obsessing over it, or maybe even doing strange things to try to get them back. But the behavior is an addictive pattern, and it's looking for that relationship to complete an unhealed part.
Can you tell us more about what it's trying to achieve?
So in this state, in the case of the codependent who needs the relationship to feel complete, their core wound has this belief system that if I'm not in that relationship, I'm not safe. Not just I'm not good enough. I'm not safe.
Even if—because of course this can happen with people who have just had one great date with someone, right? It can be activated.
It can be activated that quickly. It can be activated that quickly. And that person who has that anxious attachment style, they're visualizing in their head on that first date walking down the aisle. They're packing their bags and ready to move in. That's that anxious attachment style. They're ready. They need that relationship. When one relationship ends, they pick up the next one. It's that addictive.
That relationship addiction is something that I think often people can overlook because it's not necessarily destroying your body or creating so much wreckage around you or sending you off to jail. Maybe it can at times, but it's harder to see that as an addiction than it would be to see drug addiction or alcoholism or something like that.
Yeah. I mean, you can pass it off as, "I'm a romantic."
You could have lots of different excuses for it.
Yeah. And you can have what feels like an extraordinary connection with someone very quickly. So I had a woman recently that I coached who was living in Paris. A guy came into town, a tourist. They met, had this whirlwind romance for seven days. He left. They never talked about what it was going to be. She was too afraid to bring it up. He didn't mention it. They had very different intentions, clearly, for what this was. And as I described it, she was looking for a relationship. He was looking for an experience.
Yeah, that's right.
And he left. And months later, she was really distraught and heartbroken and could not get her mind off of this guy. Now, in her mind, she had obviously been through this incredible journey of what this could have been and what it should have been and why wasn't it, and how could he have behaved that way if he didn't mean for it to be something more? But it really tore her up, and she wouldn't have labeled that as, "This is my anxiety looking for safety." She would have looked at it as, "We had an amazing thing."
Yeah.
For those seven days that showed so much promise, and we acted like a couple, and we walked down the street holding hands. And so what do you say to people whose brain gets stuck on, "No, no, no. But you don't understand. We had something"?
And that's the looping rumination that they go through. The way to undo the loop is to check in with the part of you that's in the loop. So the part of you that's in the loop isn't your adult self. It's a young part of you. It's a young wounded part of you that's looking for that love to feel complete, to feel safe, to feel good enough, to feel adequate. This is the part that three months later is still ruminating.
It's fine. Of course, a week later you're disappointed, you're upset, but if this is going on and on and on, that's a young part. And so this is about getting into relationship with the part and about checking inside and becoming curious and compassionate and connected to that young part of you that is looking for safety in an external relationship. It's a part that's trying to protect you from the feelings of being incomplete, feelings of being unlovable or unsafe. So it's looking for that relationship, looking for that relationship. It's in terror in that moment. And so the work isn't to just try to convince yourself, "Get over it, move on." No, these parts are young, and they can't just move on.
So what is the answer to that moment where you feel fully hijacked? A person is there. They're in that state. They're watching this video now: "I cannot stop thinking about this person. I cannot get them off my mind. It is every waking moment I'm just thinking about whether they're going to text me, whether it's going to pick up again."
I want to help that person right now. I can help them right now. They're watching. They press play. They're hijacked. There is a moment right now where they can check inside and focus their attention inward and notice that part of themselves that's hijacked, and become curious about it and just ask some questions and notice: Where does it live in my body, and what do I know about it? How old is it? Are there any thoughts or feelings or sensations that might be attached to it?
And once they have a little bit of a connection to that part, they can become compassionate and ask, "What do you need?" And listen, listen to the part, and then breathe into that space where it's living inside and just give it some presence and check in and see: How do you feel? Do you feel a little bit more connected to it? Do you feel more curious? Do you want to know some more about it? Do you feel calmer? Do you feel clearer? Do you feel a little bit more courage? And if even a molecule of that calmness or connection or creativity or compassion, even if a molecule is there, Self is helping them. That Self energy, that wisdom inside, is helping them.
And so it's rinse and repeat. These are four steps. Choose to check in. So instead of checking out and texting, texting, texting, or psycho calling or calling every friend or ruminating, that's checking out. You check in instead. And so you focus your attention inside. That's the first step. Curiosity is the second step. Becoming curious: Where does it live inside? What do I know about it? What does it want to tell me? And then compassion and connection. It's just asking, "What do you need?" And then the final step is check for those C qualities of Self. So you check: Am I calm? Am I a little bit more confident, a little bit more courageous, a little bit more clear, connected? Do I have some creative energy? Do I have compassion towards this part of me? Any one of those C qualities, if they show up, you've started healing.
Could you almost model out, either from someone you've worked with or a typical example, what some of those answers might look like to those questions?
Yes, absolutely. So some of the answers, once you ask these parts, "How old are you?" They're like, "Oh, I'm young," right? "How long have you been around?" "Forever," right? If you ask for thoughts or images or sensations, you'll get images of your dad leaving when you were two or whatever, these moments in time. Maybe the first time around you might be a little blocked and guarded, but if you really let yourself go through that journey, you can experience the simplicity of that subtle. We can give it to them as a meditation either at the end, or I can give you an audio of it.
And it's just getting yourself in connection and relationship with that young part of yourself, because you've been overriding that young fearful part with the relationship, with the fawning and clinging, with the needing, with the trying to feel complete with that partner. That's a protection mechanism. And as soon as that protector part is disturbed, you get super triggered. And so instead, checking in with that young part is the practice. And then when you ask, "What do you need?" it'll often say, "I need to rest," or, "I need to play," or, "I need to just dance," or, "I need to just cry." Needs to let it out.
And often that part needs to know that they're not alone, that we have them. That's the whole practice. So once they feel that calmness or that connection, it's sending a message to that part: "Hey, Self-help is here. Help is here. It's Self. It's your higher Self with a capital S. It's here." And once you start to get into relationship, that Self-to-part relationship, where that young part inside starts to trust that there's Self-help, that there's Self there, then it can feel less and less triggered.
Because you're not looking for that savior from the outside.
Yes. And I'll quote my mentor, Dick Schwartz, who founded IFS, and he said, "You are the one you've been waiting for." And this internal family systems is based on the premise that we have an inner family of young little parts running around freaking out all the time.
That idea of "You're the one you've been waiting for" is so powerful and so beautiful, and that is the antidote to so many of these situations where we have nominated this person who we've either had one great date with or a great year with in the role of our savior, of the person who's going to just take care of things, take care of us, make all of our fears and anxieties go away. And so when it feels like they're going away, it feels like we're just naked in the dark again.
What do you say to people who say, "I struggle with that because one of my great life goals is to find love. This is something I've always wanted. I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone"?
Yeah.
Even if it's alone with a very compassionate Self, I still want to meet someone. And therefore, when I'm in my dating life and I get another disappointment and someone pulls away, that's where almost the freak-out comes for me, is that I'm worried I'm never going to meet anyone, or I'm going to run out of time to have a family, or all of these big goals that people have, some of which have a real clock on them. What could you say to those people who feel like they get triggered for those reasons when someone pulls away?
I can say with full conviction that if they make their highest priority the relationship with that part to the Self energy, and create and establish a real inner knowing that there is a presence inside of you that can help you heal, then the relationship will be there. Then you getting into relationship with you creates a frequency inside of safety. It creates a frequency of confidence and courage and creative energy and calmness and that exact magnetic energy. That is what attracts. As long as you stay out of alignment with that healing, you will keep repeating the same pattern over and over and be however many decades later in the same situation. It's black and white.
So for people who achieve that level of safety and comfort within themselves, you firmly believe there's just somebody for everybody?
I believe that when we heal the core wounds inside of ourselves, we become a magnet for all of the things that we desire. I really believe that. It may not always be the way we expected or when we expected or who we expected, but we create and attract what we believe. If we can update these little people inside of us to believe their own worthiness, to believe their value, to believe their confidence and their creativity, then their entire life will change. But if we don't, then we will absolutely stay in the same patterns.
That version of us is going to be attracted to something different, most likely, than we've been attracted to in the past.
Definitely. Definitely.
And the part of the pattern we can find ourselves in is we're attracting people who pull away. Look, none of us are immune to finding ourselves in a situation where someone can pull away. We could be the most confident.
None of us. Married, we could have—anything can happen. Doesn't matter.
Yeah. But one of two things is true. I do believe this. You'll either
Be attracted to and attract a different kind of person who's less likely to pull away.
Or when someone does pull away, they will immediately become less interesting to you, not more interesting to you.
Absolutely. Yes. So number one, when you heal and you change your point of attraction, you're not a match for the old vibration. So if you're healing that anxious attachment style, you're no longer going to be a match for the person who's going to just say bye overnight, just drop the bag and say go. That's not going to be a match for you anymore. You're now going to start to be more of a match for the opposite.
Also, to your point, if you start to sniff that old behavior, you're not even interested. It's not even on your radar. But I think even more than that, you're just not going to see it. It's not going to be available for you anymore.
In the context of everything you're saying, how does what you're saying relate to situations where maybe people are continuously drawn to people who have certain shiny qualities? They're charismatic or they're wealthy or they're successful or they have a certain amount of status or cachet, popularity in their community, or whatever it may be. There's something outwardly impressive, and they're focusing on those things and attaining someone who has those things as a means of feeling worthy.
Yeah, I think you just said it. They're trying to attract that type of partner to feel good about themselves, thinking that the person that they're in connection and relationship to is a reflection of who they are. That could happen not just in romantic relationships, but even in friendships, right? You could be looking for friends who have lots of status or whatever it might be. That seeking for that person to define you is another form of trying to feel complete with another person.
I believe that whatever our core wounds are, we'll look for the match to fill that wound. But what happens when we start to heal the wound? We will be more likely to find healed humans because we're no longer trying to attract someone that's a match for trying to complete us.
So the other thing can happen in relationship as well. Let's say you're both together in a relationship and you're both acting out your own wounded parts, but you're both doing the work. You can find that wholeness together. If one's doing the work, the other one's not, then they're going to be over here and it's not going to work. So it's just a matter of connection and what are you doing?
But specifically to answer the question around those of us that might be seeking someone that has a certain status, a certain amount of money, a certain amount of gravitas, it's looking for some sense of value in being in relationship to somebody else. That can be true of looks too, right?
Yeah.
What do you say to people who say, "I'm not looking for this person because it makes me feel worthy. I'm looking for this person because I think they're hot. I think they're super attractive. I'm attracted to attractive people or successful people or sexy people." A very common thing I hear from people is, "Yeah, but I don't feel chemistry with many people. I rarely feel that chemistry." And, okay, when I do, it's with this hot, attractive individual. So how can I help that?
I think that chemistry is necessary. And for some folks it may just be energetic. Some folks it might be appearance-based, or some folks it might be intellectual. It's all forms of chemistry. I think that it's okay to be unapologetic about what turns you on. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But if there's something that's sort of in the way, if you're like, "I can't find anybody because they have to look exactly this way or they have to be this exact status," or whatever it might be, then you're actually blocking an opportunity.
Yeah, I agree with that. And I also think that when we're so fixated on the story that we need these things in a certain form, we miss the fact that someone can come along who doesn't look how we thought they'd look, and actually when we are present with them, we have a really surprising amount of chemistry.
Yeah.
Or their impressive qualities come in a more nuanced form.
Definitely.
Or a quieter form than some of the things we've been talking about, and you realize, "Wow, this is like a silent rock star, and I hadn't given credit to these kinds of people before."
That's right.
So, but you can't—
Don't miss the miracle.
You can't find that if you're not quiet enough inside to be present with who's in front of you.
Yes. And that brings us to people have their list of, "Who do I want to attract into my life?" And the list is fine, but if it's too rigid and it's not sort of loose and let go, then you could be trying to attract someone who's 6'5" and they've got this much money in the bank and all these specific things, and the guy that you really were meant to be with is right around the corner and you don't even see him because he's 5'11" or whatever. So you're just missing the miracle.
What do you say to people who are so afraid of rejection that when they look at their past and the way they go into dating, they would describe their response to rejection not as, "Ouch, that hurt," but as, "I'm genuinely triggered into an emotional tailspin"?
Yeah. I don't think it's any different than the person who is emotionally triggered when the person leaves or the relationship ends. They're all parts. They're all young little people. That's just another form of a protection mechanism.
And it's there for a different but similar reason, right? It's there because, again, maybe a parent left, maybe they never felt loved, maybe they didn't get the care that they needed. There's a lot of different reasons why. Or maybe they were rejected at a young age in some way, and that feeling of rejection at that very ripe young age, with no one there to care for them and help them process that, left them in terror. And so anytime rejection or the possibility of it gets activated, they're going to run for the hills or they're going to fall apart or they're going to turn to the drink and the drug or whatever they're going to do to anesthetize that fear.
When you turn to that part and you say, "What do you need?" what are some of the common things that you hear in response to that? For people trying to picture themselves doing that exercise, to give an example, what might be a thing that part says in that particular situation?
It's always different, Matthew. It's always surprising. It's always different and it's always surprising because it's lots of different little children and they all have different needs. But what do they need? They may still be so blended with the part that they're like, "I just need to keep it together. I need the love." But really what they all need, all these young parts of us, they just need love. They all just need love. And the first energy of love that they really need is our own self-love.
So if that's the case, what does the practical articulation of that love look like?
Mhm.
For people listening who go, "So do I say something to myself? Is it something I do for myself?" If I can intuit it or listen to that part and it says some version of, "I need love," what can we do?
I'm working right now very actively with a young part of myself that's very activated because of some family of origin stuff that got kicked up. And so I'm really aware and mindful of that part and conscious of it. And so one thing I'm doing as a way of extending love to her—and I call it her, but some people, their parts may not have a gender. They may be the opposite gender. Doesn't matter. I'm not going to gender people's parts, but mine are girls.
And I feel this young little girl inside, and instead of trying to just push past it or live life or just move on, I'm in communication with her. I'm having dialogue with her. I'm even speaking for her and representing her. So, for example, the other night I was really triggered. She was really triggered, and I went down to the kitchen. I was very anxious. My husband's like, "What's wrong?" And instead of just being like, "I'm fine. I'm fine," or just blow him off or get mad at him, I was like, "My young part is super triggered right now, and I'm just going to speak for her and just let you know that I'm just going through this stuff with my family, and I'm just working through it."
And in couples therapy, I would speak like that as well and say, "Okay, I just want everybody—therapist, my husband—I want to speak for the part. She's having a hard time right now, and I'm just being patient with her and trying to help her out."
That is an extraordinary act of love and self-love because it's saying, "Okay, I recognize that there's a triggered, activated young part of me. I'm not going to override her. I'm not going to push past it. I'm not going to dismiss it or deny it. I'm just going to acknowledge it's present. We got to get to therapy." I just got a new 12-step sponsor today. I called my old sponsor because this little girl is activated, right? So I can help her. My adult resource self can get her the help that she needs.
And that comes in the form of me self-help checking in. And it comes in the form of my self-energy, my adult resource energy, getting that therapy session booked and calling my old 12-step sponsor and saying, "Hey, I've been thinking about you, and I really want you to be my sponsor again." And she was so overjoyed, and it makes me really emotional. She was just like, "Yeah, I'm going to be there for you whenever you need me." And that is just everything to me that I can. And if I wasn't paying attention to her, I wouldn't have called Erica. No, I wouldn't have called her.
It's beautiful, that idea of, "I get to have her back, and I get to be her advocate. I get to be the expression of her voice in the world," because those parts of us don't have a voice unless we give them a... We are the material—
That's activation of their world. Their voices are screaming out in really childlike ways, right? So they're super activated at work, and they're super activated in the relationship, and they're super activated on the street when somebody doesn't smile at them the right way. They're acting out.
For those people who go back in search of what this part is and where it originated, and they're just like, "I can't. I don't know." Some people might be like, "I had a good childhood. I had a good family. I was loved. I don't know why I give so much of a about rejection. I don't know why I care so much what people think. I don't know. I can't point to—"
You don't need to know. You don't need to know. If you do those four steps, the four-step check-in, it's called the self-help check-in because it's accessing these qualities of self-energy to bring those qualities to the part. So curiosity, compassion, calmness. So the first step, choose to check in. Second step, curiosity. Third step, compassion. And the fourth step, check for the self. Check for those C qualities.
These four steps, they are designed to just give you information and to get you into relationship, but they're not designed to force you to start to try to uncover old wounds or trauma moments. It may come up, but this is a self-help practice. It's not one-on-one therapy. So you really let come up whatever is safe to come up. But if it doesn't feel safe or if you feel blocked or you're dissociated from a memory or you just don't want to go there, don't.
And if someone is like, you say to that part, "How old are you?" or "How long have you been there?" If someone's like, "I don't even know," that's fine.
You could just check in with the feeling inside. What's the feeling? What's my breath pattern? Just be curious.
And then you still can go to that question of, "What do you need?"
Yeah. And the more you do this, the more is revealed because the more you do it, the more self-energy you begin to access. And the more self-energy you begin to access, the more self-trust you have.
Let's talk about love addiction. How does someone know that they are a love addict versus someone who just really wants to find a mate?
Love was my first drug, so I know a lot about it. I think that the definition of addiction is, is it unmanageable? Has your life become unmanageable? And are you powerless over, in the case of alcohol or drugs, the substance, but are you powerless over the relationship?
And so unmanageability looks like you can't get through a family dinner without texting, checking your phone a thousand times to see if they text you back. Or unmanageability looks like you stay up until 3:00 in the morning on the app trying to find that partner and you can't get up the next morning. Unmanageability looks like you ditch all your friends just because that person called, and so you're like, "Hey, I'm leaving dinner because I got to go to this guy." That's unmanageability. Powerlessness looks like you literally cannot function without the partner.
Mhm.
Powerlessness looks like they call and you're instantly there. No matter how negative they are to you in your life, you just keep going back. So the addiction is always going to represent some form of energy that is super attached, super fear-based and powerless.
What do you say to people who feel that their anxiety comes from a genuine rational sense that, "I am running out of time for my big life goal of having kids"?
I would say if it's a belief that's not a core wound that doesn't require a huge amount of deep dive inside, I would say really do everything that you can to begin to reprocess that thought because our thoughts create things. As my other mentor, Dr. Wayne Dyer, says, "You change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." As soon as you start to reprogram that belief to something that you do believe in but is different, then you'll begin to change your point of attraction.
So if you're in that story of, "It's too late, I'm too old, I'm not good enough, they're not going to be there," or whatever that story is, you're going to create that, period, full stop, end of story. The second that you start to pivot and you start to reach for the next best feeling thought, "Oh, well, I know that Gabby's mom..." I can tell you a story right now to that person. My mom was in her late 50s when she met her husband on Match.com, a second marriage, right? These stories happen all the time. Look for evidence of what it is that you desire, and you will begin to believe that you can have that too. But when you're consistently looking for evidence of what you don't want, you're going to create it.
Are you an advocate for people who are reaching an age where their fertility is no longer going to support having a child in, let's say, five years or four years?
Freeze your eggs right away if you can. Hopefully you can. Hopefully you can afford to. Hopefully you still have eggs to freeze. And if you can't, guess what? Your baby has another plan for coming in, in a different way. I am a spiritual teacher. I truly believe that our souls choose us, and they choose how they want to come in. They might want to come in through a different egg. They might want to come in through a surrogate. They might want to come in as an adopted child. They want to come to us, but they may not come in the form that we think. If you feel the call to be a parent, then you will be. And there's many ways.
This is off subject from what we were going to talk about today, but I'm just curious on your answer to this. For people who feel like they are just destined to be a parent, they can't imagine not being a parent in their life, and I work with many, many people like this, who just cannot imagine a life where
They are never a parent. And obviously I work with a lot of women who can't imagine a life where they're never a mother. Are you a big proponent of women doing it by themselves as a single parent if that is a priority for them?
Absolutely.
What do you say to people who are afraid of what that entails? Because, for the first time in my life, coming to month nine of parenthood, I have some sense of how difficult that would be.
Yeah.
But we make certain choices in life based on our priorities. You're also a parent. What do you say to those people who are afraid of what it will entail and how hard it will be, but they also can't envision a life where they're not that?
So, I have a lot of friends actually who have done that, and very successfully. It's just extraordinary. Was it easy? No.
What did they need? Do they need extra support from family, from friends, from siblings that might be really active? Yeah, they did. And hopefully, if this is a desire you have, hopefully you have people in your life that can support you. Is it expensive? Yes. These are all true things. These are all truths. But if that's a desire, it can be fulfilled. And I've seen it time and time again.
Now there's the person out there, I can hear them, and they're like, "I can't afford to buy sperm," or "I can't"—there's lots of scenarios—or "I can't do IVF." I would just say pray for God to show you where your baby is and how it can come to you.
I had a woman recently who had been through many rounds of IVF. It hadn't worked. She had the money to continue, but she didn't know if, at a certain point, she was not accepting that her body was not able to have a child in that way. And the question she had for me was, "Should I give up or should I keep trying?"
If she's watching, I would say buy an egg. There's donor eggs. Many of my friends have done that, and their children are their children.
Yeah.
One of my very closest friends has a little boy. Same scenario: she tried and tried and tried, and her body wasn't going to do it. She was 46 years old. She bought a donor egg and made a baby with her husband's sperm. And this child is her dream child. She would never have it any other way, any other way. She's so grateful every single day that her eggs did not perform because this is her child.
This has been an amazing conversation. Where can people find you and what you do?
What I'm most excited about right now is this fun thing I'm doing on YouTube. I'm doing a show, my podcast called Dear Gabby, but I've got these new episodes called Dear Guides where I sit with other psychic mediums and together we channel on topics that are personal development topics, and we call in spirit while we're in the podcast dialogue. It's really cool.
So, if you're interested in spiritual principles and personal development, obviously, then that would be a cool show for people to check out.
What's the show called?
Well, the channel's Gabrielle Bernstein, but it's called Dear Guides.
And it's on that channel. Okay. Amazing.
Yeah.
Gabby, thanks. So appreciate you being here.
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