Gabby Bernstein Reveals the Surprising Way She Released Her Trauma

Ever feel like no matter how much therapy you do, your body just won’t get the memo? Like you can talk about the stress, but the tight jaw, the racing heart, the 2 a.m. anxiety loop—they’re still running the show? That’s exactly what a recent episode of Dear Gabby tackles head-on.

Host Gabby Bernstein sits down with trauma expert Dr. Peter Levine for a raw (and hopeful conversation) about why traditional therapy sometimes isn’t enough. Even better: He guides Bernstein through a live somatic trick that stops stress in its tracks. 

What is trauma, anyway?

Most people think trauma is just “the big stuff”—think car accidents, abuse, major life events. But Levine has a much simpler way of looking at it: “Trauma is the inability to be present.”

In practice, that means the nervous system gets stuck in a loop where part of you is always somewhere else—replaying the past, worrying about the future, or just generally feeling like you’re watching your life from the outside. Levine has spent decades proving that this “stuckness” doesn’t just live in your thoughts. It literally gets stored in your body. “It does happen also in the brain, but primarily it happens in the body,” he explains.

Think about when you were little and someone yelled—your shoulders probably shot up to your ears. That was your body protecting you. But if that happened a lot, those shoulders might have forgotten how to come back down. “Our shoulders start becoming chronically braced. And so now the shoulders are telling the brain you’re about to get hit,” Levine explains. Fast forward a couple of decades, and suddenly you’re 30-something, scrolling Instagram at your desk, and your body is still braced for impact from something that happened years ago. 

The surprising way to heal

If trauma lives in the body, healing has to start there too. That’s where Somatic Experiencing comes in—Levine’s legendary method that gently teaches the nervous system how to feel safe again.

But it works differently than regular talk therapy. “In Somatic Experiencing, we don’t go right for the trauma,” Levine explains. “We really go for something that has a rather opposite or a completely different experience.”

Instead of rehashing painful memories, you might start with something simple, like a time you felt safe or loved. Maybe it’s holding your dog, sitting by a fireplace, or that perfect hug when you needed it most. You let your body remember what that felt like—the warmth, the ease, the sense that everything was okay.

Once your nervous system remembers what safety feels like, you can gently touch on the harder stuff. But you always have that safe ground to come back to. The whole idea is to help your body remember safety before you deal with the hard stuff. Makes sense when you think about it—you can’t learn to swim when you’re drowning. But sometimes the body needs a little help remembering how to let go. That’s where specific somatic techniques come in—gentle physical exercises that help release whatever’s gotten stuck.

The somatic trick that stops stress in its tracks

When Bernstein mentions her TMJ and jaw tension, Levine offers to guide her through a live demonstration. What unfolds shows how quickly the body can let go when it feels safe. 

He calls it “the vu and the jaw and the growl exercise.” It starts with a deep breath and a long “voo” sound. “Let the sound and the breath all the way out,” Levine instructs. Then comes the jaw work—opening slowly until there’s resistance, then adding a low growl to help release the tension. “I don’t really push past the resistance. I let the jaw close a little bit, and then open a little bit more the next time,” he explains.

What Bernstein experiences is immediate and real. “I noticed some fear,” she says, “and a tinge of catharsis.” When emotions surface, Levine doesn’t rush to fix them. Instead, he asks what her tears want to say: “They’re so scared. I’m so scared…And alone.” Then something shifts. “I have to say that I feel great relief in my jaw right now. [I] feel like it’s just moving…Just free and…I’m more grounded in my seat,” she reveals. 

How to try this yourself

Ten minutes with Levine changed how Bernstein’s body felt. Here’s what that means for you: Pay attention to when your body gets tense during the day. Instead of powering through or mentally commanding yourself to “just relax,” pause and ask your body,  “What do you need right here?”

Your body might surprise you with its answers. Maybe those tight shoulders want to scrunch all the way up to your ears and then slowly melt down. Maybe you need to take three deep breaths with sound (like Levine’s “voo” technique). Maybe that anxious part of you just needs you to say “I see you, I get that you’re scared” instead of telling it to stay quiet.

For Bernstein, learning to work with her body this way has been transformative. “It is incredible to have this new experience of the world that is actually the ability to be present,” she shares. Not constantly bracing for the next thing to go wrong, not getting lost in old stories—just being right here, right now.

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