Gabby Bernstein doesn’t seek out spiritual wisdom. It seems to find her. Take the newest practice in her repertoire: Kundalini yoga.
“It came to me at a time when I was praying for a deepening of my spiritual space, for a way to move out stagnant energy, and for. a way to feel my practice more in my body and not so much in my mind,” explains the New York Times best-selling author of The Universe Has Your Back and other titles.
“At one point, I was invited to a private yoga dinner,” she recalls. “Now, I didn’t like yoga, but I like dinner, so I went!
“I walked into the room and saw this 70-year-old teacher who was just beaming light,” she says. “I had no idea that I was in a Kundalini class, but within minutes I burst into tears and said to myself, I found my yoga.”
The next day she signed up for a 200-hour yoga-teacher training program and committed to becoming a teacher of Kundalini.
“I felt struck by lightning by this training. I love the mantra. I love chanting,” Bernstein says. “It changed my life, my work, my energy, and it’s changed many lives because I started talking about it and I think it opened the door to Kundalini for a lot of other people who may not have found it otherwise.”
Sharing a holistic approach to spiritual health with other seekers is what the 39-year-old motivational speaker has been doing since 2015, when she released her memoir, Spirit Junkie. In her forthcoming book, Super Attractor: Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams, she continues sharing the story of her life and offering guidance to those looking for happiness in all the wrong places.
Q&A
Experience Life | What was the spark that led you to write your new book?
Gabby Bernstein | The joke I tell is that I actually write books for myself, knowing that working through things myself will probably benefit readers, too.
I’ve done a lot of personal-growth work, and I was feeling ready to take all the hard heavy lifting that I’ve done and begin claiming this better-feeling experience. I wanted to use it to cultivate and co-create the world I want to see and be part of.
My goal was to write a positive book that empowers people to take responsibility for their experiences and change their attitude and belief systems so that they can start to have a more positive perspective and attract more of what they want into their lives. This is what I mean by super attractor.
EL | What are some things that limit our super-attractor power?
GB | There are many ways we lose it. For starters, we forget that we have it and instead get consumed with the belief systems of lack and judgment, which are the opposite of what our super-attractor power needs to be cultivated.
Fear is another huge force in keeping us from attracting what we want — we tend to rely on it as a false sense of safety. We worry about the future, for instance, because we think that will keep us safe when, ultimately, all that worry is actually creating more of what we don’t want.
EL | What are some ways we can reclaim that energy?
GB | You can realign with what I call the 3-Step Choose Again Method. The first step is to witness that you’re disconnected from your super-attractor power. You want to ask, “How am I blocking myself right now?” You might find that your energy and thoughts are often out of step with your joy, for example.
The second step is to forgive the thought, which is a beautiful practice of saying, “I choose to see this differently, I forgive myself, and I forgive this thought.” This takes the power away from the thought. You can also have gratitude toward the thought or feeling for relaying to you what you don’t want.
The final step is to ask, “What’s the next best thing I could feel and think right now?” This part is about choosing again.
Remember that you’re looking for the next-best feeling, not the ultimate solution. Choose a thought or feeling that feels possible and realistic.
For example, if you are struggling financially, saying you’re going to get out of debt in a week is likely to create more misalignment. Instead, set a realistic goal as the first step toward getting out of debt, such as paying off one credit card at a time.
EL | You’ve been involved in the spiritual-wellness community for a while now. How has it changed?
GB | When I started out as a spiritual teacher and self-help-book author, there were fantastic teachers like Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, and Marianne Williamson, who all became dear friends and mentors to me. But there really wasn’t a voice for the next generation, and my mission and commitment were to claim that space.
Over the past 14 years, I’ve seen a surge in interest in wellness and spirituality. I can only see that as an incredible blessing. I think it’s a much better trend than the bullying, consumerism, and judging that we see too often on social media.
EL | How has your own work evolved?
GB | I’m super proud and grateful to have been at the forefront of this new movement for seekers — it’s mind-blowing to see how far it’s come. Over the years, what it’s meant is that I’ve been able to become more unapologetic about my spiritual faith.
It’s really reflected in this book, where I write about angels and deceased family members as guides for the first time. I went to these places because I know the world is ready for it and I don’t have to shy away from what I believe to be true about what it means to live a spiritual life and to be a spirit having a human experience. It’s kind of cool to push the metaphysical envelope further than before.
Also, in the beginning I wrote books and gave talks. But in the last five years, when I saw a profound need for a real perceptual shift to occur in the world, I knew my greatest contribution wasn’t going to be made by talking from a stage or writing. So I committed to not just being a mentor to people who wanted personal-growth experiences, but also to teaching teachers and helping people help people.
That’s what led me to create the Spirit Junkie Masterclass, which is all about training spiritually minded folks how to get their own messages out to the world in a way that’s honest and authentic. It’s intended to help them inspire others by doing what inspired them. I think we can change the world with a kind of enlightened ripple effect.
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