In honor of The Universe Has Your Back being released in paperback, I’ve updated this post with more resources.
My book The Universe Has Your Back is now out in paperback in the U.S. and Canada, and it includes the introduction to my next book, Super Attractor!
The Universe Has Your Back has served over a half a million readers, and I’m so excited that it will now reach even more people.
My interview with Lewis Howes on how to heal fear
In this post I’m sharing one of my most vulnerable and honest interviews. While I was on my book tour in late 2016, I stopped by my friend Lewis Howes’s studio for an interview on his School of Greatness podcast. I talked with Lewis about the core message of the book: turning fear into faith.
In our conversation I talk openly about what I experienced while writing The Universe Has Your Back and how the book healed me from trauma and fear.
Enjoy my interview with Lewis. (You can also stream or download the audio on iTunes, Stitcher, etc. This is episode 391.) Below the video is a partial, edited transcript of our conversation focused on healing fear.
An edited transcript of my interview with Lewis Howes
Trauma and recovery
Lewis: You’ve already written a couple of bestsellers. Why did you want to write another book about fear?
Gabby: I used to think that I wrote my books for my readers. This time, I believe I wrote this book for myself. I wrote it during the worst year of my life. During that year, I didn’t realize it, but I was hitting a major bottom, a bigger bottom than when I got sober 11 years ago.
How did you hit rock bottom more than being an addict?
There were hidden parts of my shadow that needed to come forward and memories I didn’t know. I spent a year cracking into that place of remembering what I needed to unearth so that I could be free.
I wrote this book while I was going through that bottom. So in the midst of breaking down and picking myself up, I had to write. I had a publishing deal, a word count, a deadline.
The process of writing the book healed me. When you’re called and committed to writing a book on love and the Universe and connection to a higher power, there’s no other choice but to be in the daily remembrance of what is real to you.
That was my experience of writing this book. While I was going through the toughest time, it also was the remedy.
What was it you were holding on to or rejecting or afraid of?
I had been going through what I now know was the process of cracking into a traumatic memory, and ultimately, that memory was the reason I was a drug addict in the first place 11 years ago.
It was something that I’d shut away for 30 years. While I was writing this book, a lot of the ways that I controlled my life and kept things in order so that I wouldn’t have to remember that trauma started to be taken from me.
My husband left his job to come work with me. It created this feeling of, “Oh my God. I’ve got to let go of the rope.” Wanting to have a baby, I realized, “Wow, I’ve really got to let go of control there.”
These monumental shifts in my life created this breaking point for me. And so month after month I was cracking open to something I didn’t know, and it was horrifying.
The month that I submitted this book was when the memory came in. So in the editing process, I used the book through this very raw, scary, horrific time. The book healed me again.
What came up for you then? Are you allowed to share?
Of course. The memory was one of childhood sexual abuse. And I didn’t have any recollection of it at all. Over the years, many psychics and mediums had said to me, “What happened to you when you were 6 years old, Gabby?”
I had been asked that many, many times in my life. “There’s trauma, there’s fear from 6 years old,” they’d say. And I would be like, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What the hell are you talking about?” Because I had no idea.
And if anyone out there has had the remembrance of trauma, it’s horrifying because you go back into the memory. You go back into the time, and your whole body constricts.
Thankfully, I was in therapy when I remembered it, and thankfully I have this world that we live and work in that is filled with the greatest trauma therapists, Emotional Freedom Technique practitioners, EMDR people, Somatic Experiencing experts and all the people that can serve me.
The practice that helped me overcome work addiction
This is the first time I’ve been around you that I’ve actually seen you calm.
It’s the first time I am calm.
When I was in this early recovery from trauma, I noticed I was struggling to get out of bed in the morning.
I’d wake up in the morning, feel really depressed and walk up to my office. I’d sit down to the computer and start working. I realized this was my way of numbing out. And so while I had put down the drink and the drug and had been clean for 11 years, I was…
You were on the go constantly.
My drive, my work, create, create, create, while it was funneled into something that was serving the world greatly… it was killing me. I was addicted to work, which is something no one talks about.
In fact, we’re praised for it. People say, “Oh, you work so hard. You do everything. You do so much.” And you’re proud of your accomplishments, sure, but at what cost? Your relationships, your physical presence, your capacity to be with someone, connected in some way.
You’re still pretty driven.
Well, it’s amazing. I haven’t lost any drive, but I have let go of the control, and I let people help me. I let my husband step in and run my business in the most beautiful way, and I just got out of the way.
I had this affirmation that I was using throughout the year when I was falling apart. The affirmation was something that I wanted. I wasn’t there yet, but I wanted it. And so I would say out loud in the mirror or walking around, “Everything is happening around me and I am truly taken care of.”
I had one area of my life where I felt like that affirmation was true. I have an event planner named Anette, and even at the time when I wasn’t letting people help me, I let her help me. I would think about what it felt like with Anette, because it was the one reference that I had.
I would use the affirmation, feeling the feeling of what it felt like to do an event with Anette. And then four or five months into my trauma healing, all of a sudden I was looking at my life and I realized my affirmation had manifested. Everything is happening around me and I am truly taken care of.
Transforming fear to faith
What’s the first step to overcoming fear or transforming fear?
Witness it. Be the nonjudgmental witness of it. Look at it and say, “Something’s got to give.” If you don’t show up for what’s up, it will keep coming up. So witness your resistance. Fear is the resistance to what you desire.
In the absence of resistance, you become a magnet for what you desire. When you let go of that fear, that’s when you start to become a Super Attractor. That’s when you start to let what is truly of service for you into your life, when you let true happiness into your life.
And even if you don’t have the tools yet, when you look at the fear and you’re like, “Oh, I see this fear. I see this resistance. I see how it’s blocking my life, and I choose to see it differently,” you’re led to the guidance you need.
You crack open your consciousness to find solutions rather than find problems. When you’re not looking at the fear, you’re just living in the fear and believing in the problem. But when you witness the fear and you’re willing to see it differently, you start living in the solution.
So it’s acknowledging that you’re experiencing the fear […] not beating yourself up, saying, “I’m such a loser.”
No, be proud of yourself for looking at it. Look at the fear without any more judgment. Then start using an affirmation or a prayer such as, “I’m willing to see this differently. Show me what to do.”
That’s when you’re going to be led to the book, the author, the yoga teacher or therapist or whatever it is that you need to transcend that fear. That’s when a book like yours falls off the shelf.
I believe that the Universe works through people, so when you say yes to healing, the healing is presented to you in very profound ways that you could never imagine, and it comes through because you open up your awareness for it.
That’s powerful. Is there anything you have yet to heal?
I’m still healing this trauma stuff. I’m in such early recovery, and while I’m out of the weeds, I’ve got stuff to deal with — with people, with my physical body, with my sexual energy. It’s brutal.
I’m not going to be the victim. I’m going to be the survivor and someone who’s going to thrive as a result of this knowing, and heal people through knowing. But it’s work.
I had dinner with my friend Sheila Kelley last night, the founder of S Factor. She and I were talking, and it’s like here I am sitting next to this woman who’s embodying this physical, sexual freedom that I really long for, and she’s like, “I’m going to help you.” And there was so much resistance. I was like, “I can’t go there. No, that’s too scary.”
And then I thought, “Wait. This is what I’ve been praying for. I’ve been praying for some healing, and it’s right in front of me offering to be my mentor and guide through this. I have to say yes.”
That’s the next step in healing fear: If you ask for guidance, and then guidance shows up, you’d better say yes to it. Trust in the guidance you receive and know that the Universe is supporting you. You’re not alone.
What would you say are your three truths?
- There is an ever-present energy of love that is supporting you and around you.
- Compassion will remind you of who you are and will help you forgive whatever it is that you thought you knew.
- And the final one is very simple: Choose love. Because that’s what this whole gig is about.
Resources for trauma and abuse
If you have experienced trauma and/or abuse, I encourage you to find help on your healing path, to the best of your ability. Here are some resources:
- EMDR International Association. You can find an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapist and learn about how EMDR helps heal trauma.
- Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute. You can find an SE practitioner and learn more about Somatic Experiencing therapy.
- RAINN. The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) has a free, 24/7 hotline where you can find support and help, as well as in-person centers.
- The National Domestic Violence Hotline. Call 1-800-799-7233 or TTY 1-800-787-3224, or click the link above. Confidential help is available 24/7.
- I share more resources for mental health in this blog post on anxiety.
- Find resources for healing addiction in this blog post.
Start your journey of transforming fear into faith
Are you ready to experience miraculous transformation? Order your copy of my #1 New York Times bestseller, The Universe Has Your Back!
In the United States and Canada, the new paperback edition includes the introduction to my next book, Super Attractor (coming out in September 2019).
As you can tell from this interview with Lewis Howes, The Universe Has Your Back is a deeply meaningful book for me. It healed me when I was in a dark place.
The stories, lessons, meditations and prayers I teach in this book will:
- Guide you to release the blocks to happiness, security and clear direction.
- Help you let go of the need to control so you can relax into a sense of certainty and freedom.
- Crack you open to a spiritual relationship of your own understanding so you always know that the Universe has your back.
Order The Universe Has Your Back and as a bonus you’ll get my 2-hour Art of Manifesting online workshop free!
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