A Helping Hand for Healing
Some books stay with you long after you have finished them. I’ve been surprised by how deeply I was, and continue to be, affected by Happy Days: The Guided Path from Trauma to Profound Freedom and Inner Peace, by the New York times best-selling author and spiritual teacher, Gabrielle Bernstein. Diving deep into Gabby’s latest book has given me powerful new tools that line up perfectly with the insights my father, Mendek Rubin, shared in Quest for Eternal Sunshine. So, before linking to my author interview with Gabby in Spirituality & Health magazine, I’m eager to share an overview of a few of the lessons and practices that “stuck” and have been the most helpful for me personally.
Create a vision for the life you want
In Happy Days, Gabby explains that having a vision for a better life is about deciding how we want to feel in our lives, rather than about what we want to achieve. “Try for a moment to suspend your disbelief and give yourself full permission to dream of how you want to feel in your life,” Gabby instructs. “Answer this question quickly in a journal: ‘How do I want to feel?’ Don’t think, just let your pen flow, capturing all the feelings you want to experience.”
Gabby emphasizes that it’s essential not to have our vision be reliant on someone or something outside of ourselves. “It isn’t about a certain amount of money in the bank, a special love partner, or a credential …Committing to how you want to feel, and accepting that it cannot come from an outside force, is the secret to manifesting the great changes you are here to make.”
Gabby shared that her personal vision statement was about wanting to wake up every morning without anxiety, excited to live another day. When I sat with this question, what immediately emerged was, “I want to feel relaxed.” Remarkably, simply holding this vision has been making so many entrenched beliefs and behaviors that keep me rushing, pushing myself, and feeling stressed reveal themselves for the first time. It’s also been helping me have a lot more somatic awareness of the tension I hold in my body, which encourages me to release it before it escalates.
Reflecting on my dad’s healing journey, I see that remaining focused on his vision of dropping suffering and finding joy is what propelled him towards the “eternal sunshine” he ultimately reconnected with. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend creating your own personal vision statement!
Stop running from your “impermissible” feelings
Happy Days frequently addresses how perpetually running from difficult feelings keeps us stuck in old patterns that may have served us in the past, but are detrimental to our emotional and physical health in present time. When we start embracing all of our emotions, we can process them, learn what they need to teach us, and begin to heal and build resilience.
“Many people grew up with parents who repeatedly said, ‘You’re fine; let’s move on’ or shushed you when you cried,” Gabby explains. “Even these simple remarks can create the belief that it isn’t safe to feel discomfort. Many parents haven’t worked through their own emotional distress and, therefore, cannot hold space to experience a child’s emotions. When a child’s emotions are repressed, they can form a belief that it is not safe to express anger, rage, sadness, or other forms of distress.”
I deeply relate to this experience. Growing up as the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, I believed that it was my duty to always be happy and to never add to my parent’s suffering. I got so good at ignoring all of my “negative” emotions, that when Gabby shared a practice she does daily called “Rage on the Page”—twenty minutes of stream-of-consciousness journaling with the intention of bringing suppressed rage, fear, sadness, judgment, or any other difficult emotions to the surface—I immediately disregarded it as not pertaining to me. Rage? Me? No!
Myra’s grandson, Feliciano, playing with acting out big emotions
But since I had an upcoming interview with Gabby, I thought I should give the practice a try, and the results shocked me. Emotions surfaced with such force and volume, I felt like I was a volcano exploding. So it’s not surprisingly that Gabby advises people to be gentle with the process, diving into repressed feelings slowly, and stopping before they feel overwhelming.
Thanks to this practice, I’ve become more aware of how I habitually tamp down my “impermissible” feelings, as well as how much effort that takes and how many problems it causes. Doing this practice intermittently—often verbally while I’m alone in the car, or taking a solo walk when no one else is around—has helped me become more honest about my inner life. Now, I’m less likely to hide my reactions from myself or others, or attempt to only feel what I believe to be safe, appropriate, or justifiable emotions.
Gabby credits “Rage on the Page” for healing many of her chronic health problems by giving her an outlet to release her unconscious negative emotions before they become physical conditions. I, too, believe in this inseparable mind-body connection, so now when I’m struggling with a headache or back pain, I stop to ask myself what unprocessed emotions my body is asking me to feel.
This practice has also helped me appreciate how essential “letting out anger” was for my father on his healing journey. “It was cathartic for me to acknowledge my pent-up fury, express it through screaming, kicking, and stomping, and then let it go,” my father wrote. “Giving out anger helped me come to terms with the horrors I’d lived through and make room for more positive emotions.”
Honor your suffering
Throughout Happy Days, Gabby guides readers to look more closely at how our difficult childhood experiences are the driving force behind much of the way we live as adults. “When we are children, the world presents us with experiences that separate us from our worthiness and we build up thoughts that we’re not good enough, we’re different, or we’re unsafe,” Gabby writes. “When these fear-based thoughts are not fully processed, they become a storyline that we repeat over and over until it becomes a belief.”
From a spiritual perspective, Gabby says that the painful experiences we had as children fractured our energetic connection to the love within us. “Each minor (or major) fracture, such as being bullied or feeling unsafe, separated us further and further from the source of love. In some cases of Trauma with a big T, the fractures can be so severe that the child grows up living in a constant state of fear.”
Again, this type of inner child work was at the heart of my father’s healing journey. Being willing to go back in time to face his childhood traumas—as well as learning how to turn towards, rather than away, from “little Mendek”—was what allowed him to develop unconditional love and acceptance for himself, which he viewed as his most important breakthrough. “The years I had denied the child within me were like a wasteland where nothing blossomed,” he wrote.
Myra (far right) with her parents and sister, circa 1964
Happy Days helped me realize that I have more painful memories than I’d remembered from my childhood, and all of them are worthy of excavation and exploration. I’ve appreciated the many practices Gabby shares to soothe the wounded child within, as well as quick simple practices to calm the nervous system (my favorite is chanting a deep “VOOOOOOO”).
In this journey of healing, growing, and rediscovering our innate peace, joy, and power, I appreciate Gabby’s helping hand, and greatly enjoyed meeting her in person over Zoom. We had a wonderful conversation that I hope you will enjoy!
Happy Days Ahead: Q&A With Gabrielle Bernstein
From Spirituality & Health magazine
Sharing deep pain and the path through it in a relatable way is a rare gift. Author and spiritual teacher Gabrielle Bernstein has done this in Happy Days: The Guided Path from Trauma to Profound Freedom and Inner Peace. This exceptionally personal and powerful book focuses on how Gabby healed from childhood sexual abuse. It was a trauma relegated to her unconscious until memories began to surface six years ago, when she was 36.
“My hope is that my vulnerability will give you the chance to look more closely at yours,” she writes in the book’s introduction. “I hope to give you permission to face feelings you’ve buried deep, and give you guidance on how to heal from them. My prayer is that this book sets you free.”
Gabby calls trauma recovery “unlearning fear and remembering love.” She intentionally speaks to her readers as if she’s right by their side, giving clear, detailed directions and plenty of encouragement. She writes, “While I may feel like a distant author whom you may never meet, please don’t underestimate the energy exchange happening here. Each word in this book is infused with my intention to help you know that you’re not alone.”
After listening to Gabby’s narration of Happy Days and trying many of the practices she outlines in the book, I had the pleasure of interviewing her over Zoom and asking my most pressing questions.
