Bestselling author Gabrielle Bernstein’s new book, “May Cause Miracles: A 40-Day Guidebook of Subtle Shifts for Radical Change and Unlimited Happiness,” offers readers a guide to create a miracle mindset. In the March 2013 cover story, she goes into detail about the book, its principles, which are based on “A Course in Miracles,” and how to retrain the mind from a thought system based on fear to one based on love.

In the Q&A below, Elevated Existence asked her to share a few quick tips our readers can use to navigate the path from fear to love.

EE: The foundation of your work is checking in with our intuition or “ing” to help guide us on our path. How can people begin to utilize this guidance on a day-to-day basis?

Bernstein: Once you connect to your intuition, it’s really just a matter of saying ‘yes’ to it. That is really the best way to use it – just say ‘yes.’ Once you start to know what your intuition sounds like, feels like and how you are connected to it, and what kinds of messages you receive, then the only thing you need to do with it is to take action with it.

The worst is when you tap into your intuition, but then you don’t listen to it. That happens a lot. People second guess it or deny it. It’s a practice to become really faithful to that voice, and the more you practice the principles of “A Course in Miracles,” or any spiritual text to guide you, the more you learn to trust that voice, and the more you know when it’s there. You get to the point that you just can’t deny it anymore.

EE: Many people are running negative patterns in their minds and they are not aware of it. Then they question why they are not manifesting or not happy. What is the first step to shift out of the pattern of fear to one of love?

Bernstein: It’s really a matter of becoming the witness to what is going on, and then having the willingness to change it. It’s the practice of becoming the witness, becoming willing, and then releasing. The first step is to write it down. ‘I thought this. It made me feel this. It made me experience this.’ Write it out because then you are witnessing it.

Then you say a prayer and set your intention. The intention is simply saying, ‘I am willing to see this differently.’ Then continue that affirmation whenever you see fear coming up, and pay attention to what comes up as a result. What opportunities come up for you? What resources come up for you? Then act on them.

EE: What tip or practices can they use to keep them on the path?

Bernstein: Every single day continue to pray for the willingness to change. I still do it every day. ‘I’m willing to see whatever I need to see differently. I’m willing to see love instead of fear. Show me what to do. What miracles would you have me perform today?’ Just keep that openness and that willingness at the forefront, and just be an open door that says, ‘Where do I go?’ That is one of the most valuable things we can do.

For more from Bernstein, see our March 2013 issue! 

In her book “May Cause Miracles,” Gabby Bernstein opens chapter 4 with the following quote: “You practice loving God by loving another human.” – Olivia Harrison

She explained in this week’s live seminar, relationships are one of the hardest areas for many people to apply the principles of “A Course in Miracles.” It’s a lifelong practice, and we will all catch ourselves slipping into judgment from time to time.

“This is about tapping into the more loving place that we frequently detour from when it comes to relationships,” she told the audience. “It’s not about being perfect, or not being in judgment. It’s about realizing it [when we are] and being willing to reinterpret our non-loving response. I’m not asking you to be Buddha. I’m asking you to be witnesses and surrender to your inner guidance to change it.”

When we are in judgment, we are not only attacking another person, we are also attacking ourselves, said Bernstein. While the ego wants to separate us from others, the goal of relationships is create oneness.

“We need to look at our intentions in our relationships. Are we trying to get something from them? What do we want to get from other people? Sometimes these intentions create the reality. Without even saying a word, your thoughts create energy and your energy creates a vibe, and your vibe gets picked up by others,” she explained

It’s also important to look at the pretenses we put on other people and the stories we create around them. We often make others seem more special or less special then ourselves, and this happens often in romantic love.

“The special love relationship is the trippiest of all special relationships, because the ego convinces us that this one special person will save us,” Bernstein says in the book. “The ego substitutes the divine love within us with the special love relationship we’ve seen in movies or magazines. The special love relationship is based on the premise that something outside of us can fill up or compensate for what seems to be lacking inside.”

But we have the choice to surrender our perceptions to our inner guidance system. We can witness the stories we have created around these relationships and then surrender them, she told the audience.

“It’s about being honest. We are not saints, and I’m not asking us to be saints. I’m asking for us to be honest, and with that honesty comes healing, and with this healing comes new patterns and new behaviors … then comes new relationships or new viewpoints of our relationships. Love dissolves all boundaries,” she explained.

Lack of forgiveness holds us back in relationships, and Bernstein offers the affirmation: “I can see peace instead of this,” to interrupt our judging and attacking thoughts of others – whether its friends, family members or a romantic partner.

“In relationships, people bring up exactly what you need to have healed. Be it a partner or family member, when they trigger something, it is divine. The day we get triggered and we can say, “I wonder if I can see this differently. I can see peace instead of this,’ – that is a miracle,” she said.

We have the power to decide how we will react to others, and people will reflect back to us our intentions, Bernstein noted. We need to look how we are participating or being a match to the behavior or others.

“People will always bring stuff up because we are always learning and growing,” she said. “We just want to reinterpret it.”

Read our coverage of “May Cause Miracles Live Seminar Week 3.”

Read our coverage of “May Cause Miracles Live Seminar Week 2.”

Read our coverage of “May Cause Miracles Live Seminar Week 1.”

For more on Bernstein, her books and her work, visit www.gabby.tv.

 

In week 2 of the “May Cause Miracles” live seminar, bestselling author Gabrielle Bernstein led the group in a meditation to start off the discussion. Based on Kundalini yoga, she explained this method was a good “inner conflict resolver,” and nice to balance out the prana or energy of the body.

“When you are in conflict in your mind, in conflict with yourself, or created stories about yourself that don’t serve you, your energy is in conflict and off balance,” she shared. “Also, your life is then in conflict and in an unbalanced state.”

Meditation helps us to create balance and bring us back to a state of peaceful energy, and week 2 of the 40-day journey found in the book is focused our examining our perception of ourselves. She asked the audience to place their palms facing the torso at the level just above the breast – fingers together and thumbs facing up – and to shut their eyes or keep them slightly open.

“Breath in – 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – where the stomach extends, and then breath out to the same count where the stomach contracts,” she instructed. “Then hold your breath for a count of 15, and start breathing in again for another round. If you can’t hold your breath for 15, do it as long as you can, and then start breathing in again.”

The audience did a few rounds of this, and Bernstein advised taking this meditation into our practice this week to help with self-soothing and resolving inner conflict.

Changing Self-Perception
The second week of “May Cause Miracles,” looks at the way we attack ourselves with our thoughts and intentions, and how our self-perception can create illusions about the world we live in. Everything around us is a reflection of our own belief systems. In order to change the story we tell ourselves, we need to look at the story and recognize what we have been perpetuating, Bernstein explained.

“For me, from age zero to 25, the story was, ‘I need to be heard. I’m not good enough. I’m incomplete without a romantic partner. I’m not good enough unless I’m an entrepreneur and really successful. I don’t need any help.’ In this I was selfish, and it led me to drug addiction. But that story also cracked me open because I was able to look at it and recognize it, and realize I could choose a new story,” she said.

In the book is a prayer from “A Course in Miracles,” which she read out loud:

I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience and
I decide upon the good I would achieve.
And everything that happens to me
I ask for, and receive as I have asked.

“Can you see how you participated in your life’s experiences?” she asked the audience. “We say, ‘it’s his fault,’ or ‘it’s my mom’s fault.’ Get over that. It’s not about anyone else this week. Yes, people put stuff on us, but it’s because we choose to let them – we choose to engage. We have to take responsibility.”

Even if something happened to us as a child, we have the choice today to continue to live the story or to rewrite it, Bernstein told the audience. “Be a loving elder sister or brother to that inner child and choose to rewrite the story,” she said.

The affirmation for the first day of the week is, “I am responsible for what I see.” This invites us to see how we have been unkind to ourselves, and to uncover the negative story we created about our life and ourselves. It’s about recognizing how we have been abusing ourselves without judgment. Since this week can be heavy for some, Bernstein encourages readers to incorporate acts of self-care throughout the process.

“Acts of self-care were not my priority for a long time. It was about producing, creating and getting the message out, and as a result I was cutting off so many opportunities,” she shared. “It’s very easy for us to get into achieve mode and forget about self-care. Clean up your diet, take a bath with essential oil and sea salt, dance by yourself in your apartment, eat slower – there are so many ways to be kind to yourself that don’t cost anything.”

Gratitude and Forgiveness
By Day 11 of the 40-day practice, we are invited to welcome in gratitude with the affirmation, “I am grateful for this moment.” If we can’t find anything to be grateful about, we can simply be grateful for the work we are doing with the course, said Bernstein.

“Every day I wake up, and I’m grateful for my spiritual practice,” she noted. “When you get really deep into it, you realize that nothing else matters.”

On Day 11, she introduces an affirmation that she encourages everyone to use from this day on when they find themselves thinking fear-based or negative thoughts. The affirmation is “I forgive myself for having this thought. I choose love instead.”

This shifts us into a new focus, and retrains our mind to choose love instead of fear. Slowly we begin to change our feelings about ourselves and about the world around us – and this is reflected in what we see and experience.

“Our feelings about ourselves are reflected back to us,” Bernstein noted. “If I support myself, and think the universe supports me, oh my God the support is unbelievable,” Bernstein said. “The dollar sign or the love is way bigger than you can expect. That comes with a lot of self-love and a serious spiritual practice. It’s not because you have done something special – it’s that you are vibrating with the cosmos.”

This is what meditation and yoga does for us – it helps us tap into that energy, she noted. But we need to be a match for it, and we need to vibrate with the cosmos so we can help the rest of the world.

Read our coverage of “May Cause Miracles Live Seminar: Week 1.”

For more on Bernstein, her books and her work, visit www.gabby.tv.

Following the successful launch of her now New York Times bestselling book, “May Cause Miracles: A 40-Day Guidebook of subtle shifts for Radical Change and Unlimited Happiness,” Gabrielle Bernstein is teaching a six-week course – each week dedicated to a new section of the book.

Gathering at the Integral Yoga Institute in New York City, more than 150 people came to hear about Week 1: Becoming Miracle-Minded – and another 200 joined in via teleconference and live streaming online.

“This is a guidebook of subtle sifts, and the operative word is subtle – we are not here to just blow your minds overnight,” she said to the audience. “This is about showing up for a journey, about making a life commitment – a moment to moment commitment – to choose better thoughts, choose a higher perspective and test drive new ideas.”

It’s in the subtle moments when we will feel our energy shift, feel a connection, or maybe just feel less angry and resentful, that the miracle occurs,” Bernstein explained to the audience. When we add these moments up, we begin to experience a miraculous life.

The new book is based on the principles of “A Course in Miracles,” and the goal is to shift our focus from ego to spirit, or fear to love. Each week builds upon the previous one, and moves through self-love and self-forgiveness, to applying these principles to body image, relationships and finances.

“Each week has repetitive principles and that was done on purpose. The repetition is so these principles become your reality and become your intuitive reaction,” Bernstein said, explaining each week includes first witnessing our thoughts, choices and behavior, then being willing to see things differently, and applying both gratitude and forgiveness.

“The book is an undercover guide to getting you into the practice of talking to the universe, or God, spirit, the angels, energy, or whatever language you use,” she said.

Witnessing, Willingness and New Choices
The first week of the book is what Bernstein called the “nuts and bolts,” or the foundation of the 40-day process. It introduces the concepts of witnessing, willingness and choosing differently.

“Day one of every week is going to be a specific principle, and you will begin the practice of witnessing,” she said. “I guide you to witness what you are fearful of, and you start to recognize the choices you have made. Feeling happiness or anger – these are choices we make.”

For example, it’s our choice to focus on our lack of money or to focus on abundance, and every thought we have can take us toward fear or toward love – but it’s up to us, she said.

“The point is to be willing to look at the fear. This step is crucial. It’s like the alcoholic that gets sober. If you are not willing to witness your behavior, you are not going to be able to get clean,” she told the audience.

Day two takes readers from witnessing to willingness – simply being willing to see things differently. “You may think, ‘I have no idea how I’m going to get over this ex-boyfriend,’ or ‘I don’t know how I’m going to make the money,’ but with willingness, you are already halfway there,” said Bernstein.

Each day also introduces a new affirmation that readers can take with them to practice throughout the day. Bernstein recommends programming the affirmation into our telephones or computer calendars, with alerts that come up throughout the day as reminders to stop and focus on the practice. After reading a “morning reflection” passage each day, there is a new affirmation. In the evening there is usually a short exercise and/ or meditation to end the day.

Day three moves readers out of the willingness and into actually choosing to see things differently. It’s about beginning to choose a loving perspective and say “no” to fear.  An affirmation we can use in any situation on a daily basis is, “I choose to see this differently,” Bernstein shared.

“The ego may say, ‘how dare you perceive that this situation can be better,’ but take it right back to, ‘I witness my fears come in,’ and ‘I’m willing to see it differently,’ and then ‘I choose to see if differently,’” she explained. “The words ‘I choose,’ are a gentle reminder that you have the power to choose differently.”

Day five is about opening up to the possibility of forgiveness, and week one starts with forgiving ourselves for choosing fear in the past – and then making a commitment to choose love instead.

“Forgiveness erases all the crap,” she said. “It just clears it out, undoes the negativity and restarts you — and the first person we need to work on is ourselves. “Be open to putting yourself at the top of your list, because we are really hard on ourselves. We go to these dark places, and it’s a default, but when we have these principles, it’s like going to the gym – we create new muscles. You don’t have to get everything in one night. Take it one day at a time, and you will raise your self-worth.”

Day six guides readers to awaken to the miracle mindset of love, using the affirmation “I believe in miracles.” This is about stepping outside of our comfort zone and accepting a new way of living, and it’s about becoming aware of all the ways we are blocking love by focusing on our fear.

By Day seven, Bernstein guides us to reflect on the work done in the past week, and to end the day by reading the next chapter, which in this case is “Week 2: A New Self-Perception.”

“Look at your notes from the week prior, put stars next to what you did, circle the affirmations that really helped you, and look at what you have been going through,” she said. “Witness your amazing shifts, and then prepare for the week to come. Maybe even write down an intention for the new week.”

Additionally, in doing this work, Bernstein recommends setting up a meditation space where the morning and evening passages can be read, and the exercises can be done. This can be a meditation space already in existence, creating a new one, or even keeping our journal and the book beside the bed and doing the work first thing in the morning and the last thing before going to sleep.

“Don’t look at the news the moment you get up in the morning,” she added. “Try not to do it until you get to work. Be kind, gently and caring to yourself. Though this process can be beautiful and transformational, it is a mental cleanse, and it can be heavy.”

Next week, Bernstein will discuss Week 2, which will allow us to surrender our fearful thoughts and choices to a higher power, or what she calls the “inner guide” or “ing” to assist us in the healing process.

Read our coverage of “May Cause Miracles Live Seminar: Week 2.”

For more on Bernstein, her books and her work, visit www.gabby.tv.